Initial commit of ebook 78424 filesHEAD main

author: www-data <www-data@mail.pglaf.org> 2026-04-11 13:48:40 -0700
committer: www-data <www-data@mail.pglaf.org> 2026-04-11 13:48:40 -0700
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+    <meta charset="UTF-8">
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+      The art of narration | Project Gutenberg
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+<body>
+<div style='text-align:center'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78424 ***</div>
+
+
+
+
+<div class="transnote">
+<p>TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE</p>
+
+<p>Some minor changes to the text are noted at the end of the book.</p>
+
+<p class="customcover">New original cover art included with this eBook is
+granted to the public domain.</p>
+</div>
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+
+<h1>
+THE ART OF NARRATION<br></h1>
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p class="center">
+<span class="fs80">THIS IS</span><br>
+<cite>A COMPANION VOLUME</cite><br>
+<span class="fs60">TO</span><br>
+THE ART OF DESCRIPTION<br>
+<span class="smcap">By Marjorie H. Nicolson</span><br>
+<span class="fs80">Goucher College</span></p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<div class="chapter">
+<p class="center">
+<span class="fs200">THE ART OF<br>
+NARRATION</span><br>
+<br>
+<em>By</em><br>
+MARY ELLEN CHASE<br>
+<cite>and</cite><br>
+FRANCES K. DEL PLAINE<br>
+<br>
+<span class="fs60">THE UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA</span><br>
+<br>
+<br>
+F. S. Crofts &amp; Co.<br>
+New York<br>
+1928<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+COPYRIGHT, 1926, F. S. CROFTS &amp; CO., INC.<br>
+<br>
+<span class="fs80"><cite>First printing, May, 1926</cite><br>
+<cite>Second printing, May, 1928</cite></span><br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<span class="fs60">MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA<br>
+BY VAIL-BALLOU PRESS, INC., BINGHAMTON, NEW YORK.</span><br>
+</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_v">[Pg v]</span></p>
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="PREFACE">PREFACE</h2>
+</div>
+
+
+<p>For many years the teaching of narrative writing in
+American colleges was dominated by the popularity of the
+short-story. The reason for this lay in the high development
+of that form and in its wide dissemination in popular
+magazines. In many cases, material not strictly suited to
+the short-story was either rejected entirely or distorted to
+fit the highly specialized requirements of that form.
+Within the last ten years a change has become apparent.
+The war produced a marked rise of interest in straightforward
+narratives of personal experiences. Such books
+as <em>The First Hundred Thousand</em> needed no plot structure
+to attract public attention. At the same time, interest in
+the lives of non-combatants in the war zones, as well as in
+the experiences of soldiers in the trenches gave to letters
+and diaries a greater popularity than they had enjoyed for
+a generation. Since the war, biography and autobiography
+have been greeted with warmest enthusiasm, and
+historical fiction of various kinds has taken a prominent
+place in public esteem.</p>
+
+<p>In the meantime, college courses in narrative have been
+hampered by the lack of a text book affording readily accessible
+models of narratives other than short-stories.
+The present volume does not pretend to afford a complete
+survey of the field of narration; it is designed to furnish
+models and some helpful suggestions for the study of
+twelve types of narratives, all of which are within the
+range of the interest of college students. The selections<span class="pagenum" id="Page_vi">[Pg vi]</span>
+included are, in most cases, those we have found useful
+in our own classes in Sophomore Composition.</p>
+
+<p>The compilation of a book of selections leaves the editors
+indebted to many people whom they are powerless
+to repay. Acknowledgment of permissions to use material
+has been made in the body of the text, and we are sincerely
+grateful to those authors and publishers whose kindness
+has made our work both possible and pleasant. We
+have profited greatly by suggestions and criticisms from
+practically every member of the staff of Sophomore Composition
+at the University of Minnesota. Furthermore
+we owe especial thanks to Mr. Joseph M. Thomas of the
+University of Minnesota, for his kind encouragement and
+generous assistance; to Miss Marjorie Nicolson, of Goucher
+College, for her timely advice and counsel; and to those
+students in Narrative Writing who consciously and unconsciously
+have cooperated with us, and whose enthusiasm
+and responsiveness in the class room have been
+our constant inspiration in this work.</p>
+
+<p class="right">
+<span style="margin-right: 5.5em;">M. E. C.</span><br>
+<span style="margin-right: 5.5em;">F. <span class="allsmcap">DEL.</span> P.<br>
+</span></p>
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_vii">[Pg vii]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="FOREWORD">FOREWORD</h2>
+</div>
+
+
+<p>This volume is a companion to Miss Nicolson’s <cite>The
+Art of Description</cite>. They constitute the beginning of a
+series which, when completed, will furnish new illustrative
+material for the various types of writing. The purpose
+in planning such a series was first, of course, to
+provide specimens for analysis and for use as models that
+would be unhackneyed both to teacher and students. Second,
+there was the desire to put before the students examples
+of current if not contemporary practice in so far
+as it was possible to secure permission to reprint them.
+But most important of all was the intent to stimulate the
+imagination of both teacher and student by including
+many different kinds of writing which have been neglected
+in the more conventional volumes of illustrative material.</p>
+
+<p>The editors of this volume have been most happy in
+their choice of material to carry out these three purposes.
+Out of the large number of selections reprinted there are
+only three, from Macaulay, Froude, and Parkman, which
+may be considered as classics; and these three are all illustrative
+of “Historical Narrative.” Of the more modern
+there is only one, John Corbin’s <cite>A Day in an Oxford College</cite>,
+which I recall as having appeared in a similar volume.
+A glance at the names of the authors in the Table of Contents
+will suffice to show to what extent the work of contemporary
+writers has been used. It is, I hope, not improper
+for me to call the attention of those who have had
+no experience in the editing of books of this kind to the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_viii">[Pg viii]</span>
+increasing difficulty—and expense—of securing permission
+to reprint copyrighted material. The work of the
+editors of this volume has been more than doubled by
+their inability to reprint a large part of what they had
+originally chosen. Under these circumstances they are to
+be congratulated on their achievement.</p>
+
+<p>But most of all it is the catholicity of their conception of
+“narrative writing,” the variety of types of narrative that
+they have analyzed and illustrated which is to me the outstanding
+merit of their work. For a good many years I
+have had a steadily growing feeling that altogether too
+much time and energy in our schools and colleges have
+been devoted to teaching students the art of story-telling.
+This feeling has grown into what may be called by some
+a pedagogical obsession. There can of course be no possible
+objection to developing whatever talent students may
+have for the writing of stories. The point of the criticism
+is that this should be considered the only talent worth
+cultivating. That one who can write short stories may be
+able to write more simple forms of narrative may perhaps
+be granted. The converse of the proposition is, however,
+far from axiomatic. Have those who fail to write even
+acceptably mediocre stories thereby demonstrated their
+inability to write other types of narrative? Certainly this
+volume will give an opportunity to test and to develop
+other talents and to cultivate a versatility that an exclusive
+interest in the short-story is likely to forfeit.</p>
+
+<p>When one has worked long and harmoniously with colleagues
+who are gifted with imagination and generous with
+happy suggestions, it is difficult to say to what extent
+ideas which now seem his own may not be due to the invention
+of others. For a long time I have been insisting
+that students should at least be reminded that all narrative<span class="pagenum" id="Page_ix">[Pg ix]</span>
+is not included under the category of the mechanized
+short-story of the correspondence schools. I have
+even published an experimental chapter in a text book
+calling the attention of teachers and students to various
+forms of narrative of fact that might be worth their cultivation.
+Perhaps that idea may have originally come
+from the editors of this book. Certainly Miss Chase and
+Mrs. del Plaine have gone far beyond this by enlarging
+also the scope of imaginative writing. There is in this
+volume something to appeal to anyone who has a gift for
+any form of narrative, except drama.</p>
+
+<p>One great merit of this book is due not so much to its
+admirable plan as to the excellence of illustrative material
+that has been chosen. The majority of young people are
+likely to be absorbed in stories because they have a belief
+that other kinds of writing are likely to be non-entertaining
+or even dull. Here is a collection of narratives
+that ought to disabuse them of any such prejudice.
+Whatever other merits these selections may have—and
+they are neither inconspicuous nor inconsiderable—their
+outstanding quality is interestingness. One reads them
+with almost the voluptuous absorption which according
+to Stevenson is the essential of romance. And this is as it
+should be.</p>
+
+<p class="right">
+<span class="smcap">J. M. Thomas</span><br>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Minneapolis, Minn.</p>
+</div>
+<p>
+March 8, 1926
+</p>
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_xi">[Pg xi]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CONTENTS">CONTENTS</h2>
+</div>
+
+<table class="autotable">
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl"></td>
+<td class="tdl"></td>
+<td class="tdr">PAGE</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl smcap">Preface</td>
+<td class="tdl"></td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_v">v</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl smcap">Foreword</td>
+<td class="tdl"></td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_vii">vii</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdcx" colspan="3">CHAPTER I</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl smcap" colspan="2">Expository Narrative</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_1">1</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdlx"><cite>David Starr Jordan</cite></td>
+<td class="tdr">The Story of a Salmon</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_3">3</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdlx"><cite>William Stearns Davis</cite></td>
+<td class="tdr">A Medieval Wedding</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_11">11</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdlx"><cite>John Corbin</cite></td>
+<td class="tdr">A Day in an Oxford College</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_20">20</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdlx"><cite>Eileen Power</cite></td>
+<td class="tdr">The Peasant Bodo</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_28">28</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdlx" colspan="2">Selected Bibliography of Expository Narrative</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_47">47</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdcx" colspan="3">CHAPTER II</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl smcap" colspan="2">Incidents</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_48">48</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdlx" colspan="2"><cite>Incidents from the Life of Lord Frederick Hamilton</cite></td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_49">49</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdlx"><cite>Marguerite Audoux</cite></td>
+<td class="tdr">The Fiancée</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_52">52</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdlx"><cite>Mark Twain</cite></td>
+<td class="tdr">Jim Wolf and the Cats</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_56">56</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdlx"><cite>Stewart Edward White</cite></td>
+<td class="tdr">The Hunting Trip</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_59">59</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdlx" colspan="2">Selected Bibliography of Incidents</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_70">70</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdcx" colspan="3">CHAPTER III</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl smcap" colspan="2">Historical Narrative</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_71">71</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdlx"><cite>Thomas Babington Macaulay</cite></td>
+<td class="tdr">The Black Hole of Calcutta</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_73">73</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdlx"><cite>James Anthony Froude</cite></td>
+<td class="tdr">The Marriage of Henry and Anne Boleyn</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_78">78</a><span class="pagenum" id="Page_xii">[Pg xii]</span></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdlx"><cite>Francis Parkman</cite></td>
+<td class="tdr">The Hardihood of La Salle</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_83">83</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdlx" colspan="2">Selected Bibliography of Historical Narrative</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_92">92</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdcx" colspan="3">CHAPTER IV</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl smcap" colspan="2">Historical Fiction</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_94">94</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdlx"><cite>James Branch Cabell</cite></td>
+<td class="tdr">The Story of the Fox-Brush</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_96">96</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdlx" colspan="2">Selected Bibliography of Historical Fiction</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_117">117</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdcx" colspan="3">CHAPTER V</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl smcap" colspan="2">Tales and Legends</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_118">118</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdlx"><cite>Selma Lagerlöf</cite></td>
+<td class="tdr">In Nazareth</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_122">122</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdlx"><cite>William Canton</cite></td>
+<td class="tdr">The Song of the Minster</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_127">127</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdlx"><cite>Anatole France</cite></td>
+<td class="tdr">Juggler to Our-Lady</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_132">132</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdlx"><cite>James Stevens</cite></td>
+<td class="tdr">Paul Bunyon</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_139">139</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdlx"><cite>Selma Lagerlöf</cite></td>
+<td class="tdr">The Legend of the Christmas Rose</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_156">156</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdlx" colspan="2">Selected Bibliography of Legends and Tales</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_175">175</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdcx" colspan="3">CHAPTER VI</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl smcap" colspan="2">Fairy Tales, Allegories, Parables and Fables</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_176">176</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdlx"><cite>Eleanor Farjeon</cite></td>
+<td class="tdr">The King’s Barn</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_179">179</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdlx"><cite>Oscar Wilde</cite></td>
+<td class="tdr">The Happy Prince</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_211">211</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdlx"><cite>Olive Schreiner</cite></td>
+<td class="tdr">Truth</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_222">222</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdlx"><cite>The Contributor’s Club</cite>,</td>
+<td class="tdr">“The Atlantic Monthly”<br>A Parable for Philanthropists</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_235">235</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdlx"><cite>Robert Louis Stevenson</cite></td>
+<td class="tdr">The Tadpole and the Frog</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_239">239</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdlx" colspan="2">Selected Bibliography of Fairy Tales, Allegories, Parables and Fables</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_239">239</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdcx" colspan="3">CHAPTER VII</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl smcap" colspan="2">Biographical Narrative</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_241">241</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdlx"><cite>Llewelyn Powys</cite></td>
+<td class="tdr">Beau Nash</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_243">243</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdlx"><cite>Lytton Strachey</cite></td>
+<td class="tdr">Lady Hester Stanhope</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_248">248</a><span class="pagenum" id="Page_xiii">[Pg xiii]</span></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdlx"><cite>Stephen Chalmers</cite></td>
+<td class="tdr">The Beloved Physician</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_258">258</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdlx" colspan="2">Selected Bibliography of Biographical Narrative</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_279">279</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdcx" colspan="3">CHAPTER VIII</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl smcap" colspan="2">Reminiscent Narrative</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_280">280</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdlx"><cite>Ludwig Lewisohn</cite></td>
+<td class="tdr">My Fate</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_283">283</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdlx"><cite>Laura Spencer Portor</cite></td>
+<td class="tdr">The Photograph</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_287">287</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdlx"><cite>Lord Frederick Hamilton</cite></td>
+<td class="tdr">My Childhood</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_293">293</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdlx"><cite>Henry W. Nevinson</cite></td>
+<td class="tdr">Shrewsbury School</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_300">300</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdlx"><cite>Kenneth Grahame</cite></td>
+<td class="tdr">The Burglars</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_310">310</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdlx"><cite>Juliet Soskice</cite></td>
+<td class="tdr">The Kitchen</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_318">318</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdlx" colspan="2">Selected Bibliography of Reminiscent Narrative</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_327">327</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdcx" colspan="3">CHAPTER IX</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl smcap" colspan="2">Narratives of Adventure</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_328">328</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdlx"><cite>R. B. Townshend</cite></td>
+<td class="tdr">Wild Justice</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_331">331</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdlx"><cite>Herbert Quick</cite></td>
+<td class="tdr">The Blizzard</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_352">352</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdlx"><cite>J. H. Rosny</cite></td>
+<td class="tdr">The Attack of the Tiger</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_364">364</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdlx"><cite>Pierre Loti</cite></td>
+<td class="tdr">The Storm</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_372">372</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdlx" colspan="2">Selected Bibliography of Narratives of Adventure</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_379">379</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdcx" colspan="3">CHAPTER X</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+
+<td class="tdl smcap" colspan="2">Narratives of Travel</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_381">381</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdlx"><cite>Julian Street</cite></td>
+<td class="tdr">The Departure</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_384">384</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdlx"><cite>Christopher Morley</cite></td>
+<td class="tdr">Up the Wissahickon</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_390">390</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdlx"><cite>Robert Louis Stevenson</cite></td>
+<td class="tdr">Travels with a Donkey</td>
+<td class="tdr"></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr" colspan="2">Our Lady of the Snows—Father Apollinaris</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_394">394</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdlx"></td>
+<td class="tdr">The Monks</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_399">399</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdlx" colspan="2">Selected Bibliography of Narratives of Travel</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_406">406</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdcx" colspan="3">CHAPTER XI</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl smcap" colspan="2">Sketches</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_407">407</a><span class="pagenum" id="Page_xiv">[Pg xiv]</span></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdlx"><cite>Robert Louis Stevenson</cite></td>
+<td class="tdr">The Lantern Bearers</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_408">408</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdlx"><cite>Felix Timmermans</cite></td>
+<td class="tdr">Kermis Morning</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_414">414</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdlx"><cite>Grace E. Polk</cite></td>
+<td class="tdr">The Forger</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_422">422</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdlx"><cite>John Galsworthy</cite></td>
+<td class="tdr">Quality</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_427">427</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdlx" colspan="2">Selected Bibliography of Sketches</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_435">435</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdcx" colspan="3">CHAPTER XII</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl smcap" colspan="2">Stories</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_436">436</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdlx"><cite>H. C. Bunner</cite></td>
+<td class="tdr">A Sisterly Scheme</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_439">439</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdlx"><cite>Francis Buzzell</cite></td>
+<td class="tdr">Lonely Places</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_450">450</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdlx"><cite>Guy de Maupassant</cite></td>
+<td class="tdr">Two Friends</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_467">467</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdlx"><cite>Willa Cather</cite></td>
+<td class="tdr">The Sculptor’s Funeral</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_475">475</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdlx" colspan="2">Selected Bibliography of Short Stories</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_494">494</a></td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</span></p>
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="THE_ART_OF_NARRATION">THE ART OF NARRATION</h2>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_I">CHAPTER I</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="center"><em>Expository Narrative</em></p>
+
+
+<p>Expository narrative tells a story not primarily for
+the sake of the story, but for the sake of the information
+conveyed to the reader. It is really narration turned to
+serve the purposes of exposition. It is particularly useful
+in explaining a process, the work of any particular trade
+or profession, or the details of existence in any time or
+place. The chronological order carries the reader along
+without difficulty, and the fact that the account deals
+with a specific example makes it more interesting than a
+generalized explanation could be.</p>
+
+<p>In using this method, it is necessary to choose a subject
+in which the succession of events is of genuine importance.
+Explanation of a condition or situation does
+not have movement enough, and a process which is
+largely hidden from sight or which is too complicated to
+be readily followed lacks the necessary story element.
+It is best, therefore, to choose a subject in which one
+may discern a clear march of events, preferably with an
+unmistakable beginning and end, such as the first step
+in the treatment of raw material and the completion of
+the finished article, or, in another case, the morning
+and the evening of a single day. Having chosen such a
+subject, fix upon one occasion which is both typical and
+interesting, and begin at the beginning of the story, leaving
+necessary explanations to be brought in later. A
+particularly interesting incident may be related as happening<span class="pagenum" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</span>
+on this imaginary occasion, or the thread of the
+narrative may break off to permit a slight digression, as
+in “A Day in an Oxford College” when the anecdote of
+the two brothers is inserted, not as having happened
+on the particular day whose events are being recounted,
+but as being true of the time of day which the narrative
+has reached.</p>
+
+<p>The great advantage of expository narrative is that
+it is usually the most readable form in which to present
+the material for which it is suitable. Dr. David Starr
+Jordan’s story of the individual salmon, though quite as
+scientific as the generalized explanations in biology textbooks,
+is much more attractive to the average reader.
+Such stories as “A Medieval Wedding” and “The Peasant
+Bodo” escape the dullness of most histories, and bring
+before us these medieval people in their habits as they
+lived. “A Day in an Oxford College” is both interesting
+and clear in its explanation of a mode of life which is so
+different from that in an American college that American
+students find it hard to comprehend.</p>
+
+<p>In his very interesting little book, “America at
+Work,” Mr. Joseph Husband uses expository narrative
+to show the romance and fascination of such work-a-day
+tasks as running a locomotive, making telephone connections,
+and even manufacturing coffins.</p>
+
+<p>In writing expository narrative, the beginner may find
+the following suggestions helpful:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>1. Choose a subject which has a good deal of action
+inherent in it.</p>
+
+<p>2. Present details which are not too technical for the
+lay reader, and use whatever description is necessary to
+make them clear.</p>
+
+<p>3. Look for the human interest in the story—how the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</span>
+process serves people, or how people are affected by the
+environment you are presenting.</p>
+
+<p class="right">
+F. del P.<br>
+</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<p class="center"><span class="smcap">The Story of a Salmon</span></p>
+
+<p class="center">DAVID STARR JORDAN</p>
+
+<p>In the realm of the Northwest Wind, on the boundary-line
+between the dark fir-forest and the sunny plains,
+there stands a mountain, a great white cone two miles
+and a half in perpendicular height. On its lower mile the
+dense fir-woods cover it with never-changing green; on
+its next half-mile a lighter green of grass and bushes gives
+place in winter to white; and on its uppermost mile the
+snows of the great ice age still linger in unspotted purity.
+The people of Washington Territory say that their
+mountain is the great “King-pin of the Universe,” which
+shows that even in its own country Mount Tacoma is not
+without honor.</p>
+
+<p>Flowing down from the southwest slope of Mount
+Tacoma is a cold, clear river, fed by the melting snows of
+the mountain. Madly it hastens down over white cascades
+and beds of shining sands, through birch-woods
+and belts of dark firs, to mingle its waters at last with
+those of the great Columbia. This river is the Cowlitz;
+and on its bottom, not many years ago, there lay half
+buried in the sand a number of little orange-colored
+globules, each about as large as a pea. These were not
+much in themselves, but great in their possibilities. In
+the waters above them little suckers and chubs and
+prickly sculpins strained their mouths to draw these
+globules from the sand, and vicious-looking crawfish
+picked them up with their blundering hands and examined<span class="pagenum" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</span>
+them with their telescopic eyes. But one, at
+least, of the globules escaped their curiosity, else this
+story would not be worth telling. The sun shone down on
+it through the clear water, and the ripples of the Cowlitz
+said over it their incantations, and in it at last awoke a
+living being. It was a fish,—a curious little fellow, not
+half an inch long, with great, staring eyes, which made
+almost half his length, and with a body so transparent
+that he could not cast a shadow. He was a little salmon,
+a very little salmon; but the water was good, and there
+were flies and worms and little living creatures in abundance
+for him to eat, and he soon became a larger salmon.
+Then there were many more little salmon with him, some
+larger and some smaller, and they all had a merry time.</p>
+
+<p>Those who had been born soonest and had grown
+largest used to chase the others around and bite off their
+tails, or, still better, take them by the heads and swallow
+them whole; for, said they, “even young salmon are good
+eating.” “Heads I win, tails you lose,” was their motto.
+Thus, what was once two small salmon became united
+into a single larger one, and the process of “addition,
+division, and silence” still went on.</p>
+
+<p>By-and-by, when all the salmon were too large to be
+swallowed, they began to grow restless. They saw that
+the water rushing by seemed to be in a great hurry to get
+somewhere, and it was somehow suggested that its hurry
+was caused by something good to eat at the other end
+of its course. Then they all started down the stream,
+salmon-fashion,—which fashion is to get into the current,
+head up-stream, and thus to drift backward as the
+river sweeps along.</p>
+
+<p>Down the Cowlitz River the salmon went for a day
+and a night, finding much to interest them which we
+need not know. At last they began to grow hungry;<span class="pagenum" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</span>
+and coming near the shore, they saw an angle-worm of
+rare size and beauty floating in an eddy of the stream.
+Quick as thought one of them opened his mouth, which
+was well filled with teeth of different sizes, and put it
+around the angle-worm. Quicker still he felt a sharp
+pain in his gills, followed by a smothering sensation, and
+in an instant his comrades saw him rise straight into
+the air. This was nothing new to them; for they often
+leaped out of the water in their games of hide-and-seek,
+but only to come down again with a loud splash not far
+from where they went out. But this one never came
+back, and the others went on their course wondering.</p>
+
+<p>At last they came to where the Cowlitz and the Columbia
+join, and they were almost lost for a time; for they
+could find no shores, and the bottom and the top of
+the water were so far apart. Here they saw other and
+far larger salmon in the deepest part of the current, turning
+neither to the right nor to the left, but swimming
+right on up-stream just as rapidly as they could. And
+these great salmon would not stop for them, and would
+not lie and float with the current. They had no time
+to talk, even in the simple sign-language by which fishes
+express their ideas, and no time to eat. They had important
+work before them, and the time was short.
+So they went on up the river, keeping their great purposes
+to themselves; and our little salmon and his friends
+from the Cowlitz drifted down the stream.</p>
+
+<p>By-and-by the water began to change. It grew denser,
+and no longer flowed rapidly along; and twice a day it
+used to turn about and flow the other way. Then the
+shores disappeared, and the water began to have a different
+and peculiar flavor,—a flavor which seemed to the
+salmon much richer and more inspiring than the glacier-water
+of their native Cowlitz. There were many curious<span class="pagenum" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</span>
+things to see,—crabs with hard shells and savage faces,
+but so good when crushed and swallowed! Then there
+were luscious squid swimming about; and, to a salmon,
+squid are like ripe peaches and cream. There were great
+companies of delicate sardines and herring, green and
+silvery, and it was such fun to chase and capture them!
+Those who eat sardines packed in oil by greasy fingers,
+and herrings dried in the smoke, can have little idea
+how satisfying it is to have a meal of them, plump and
+sleek and silvery, fresh from the sea.</p>
+
+<p>Thus the salmon chased the herrings about, and had a
+merry time. Then they were chased about in turn by
+great sea-lions,—swimming monsters with huge half-human
+faces, long thin whiskers, and blundering ways.
+The sea-lions liked to bite out the throat of a salmon,
+with its precious stomach full of luscious sardines, and
+then to leave the rest of the fish to shift for itself. And
+the seals and the herrings scattered the salmon about,
+till at last the hero of our story found himself quite
+alone, with none of his own kind near him. But that
+did not trouble him much, and he went on his own way,
+getting his dinner when he was hungry, which was all the
+time, and then eating a little between meals for his
+stomach’s sake.</p>
+
+<p>So it went on for three long years; and at the end of
+this time our little fish had grown to be a great, fine
+salmon of twenty-two pounds’ weight, shining like a
+new tin pan, and with rows of the loveliest round black
+spots on his head and back and tail. One day, as he was
+swimming about, idly chasing a big sculpin with a head
+so thorny that he never was swallowed by anybody, all of
+a sudden the salmon noticed a change in the water
+around him.</p>
+
+<p>Spring had come again, and the south-lying snowdrifts<span class="pagenum" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</span>
+on the Cascade Mountains once more felt that the
+“earth was wheeling sunwards.” The cold snow waters
+ran down from the mountains and into the Columbia
+River, and made a freshet on the river. The high water
+went far out into the sea, and out in the sea our salmon
+felt it on his gills. He remembered how the cold water
+used to feel in the Cowlitz when he was a little fish.
+In a blundering, fishy fashion he thought about it; he
+wondered whether the little eddy looked as it used to
+look, and whether caddis-worms and young mosquitoes
+were really as sweet and tender as he used to think they
+were. Then he thought some others things; but as the
+salmon’s mind is located in the optic lobes of his brain,
+and ours is in a different place, we cannot be quite certain
+what his thoughts really were.</p>
+
+<p>What our salmon did, we know. He did what every
+grown salmon in the ocean does when he feels the glacier-water
+once more upon his gills. He became a changed
+being. He spurned the blandishment of soft-shelled
+crabs. The pleasures of the table and of the chase,
+heretofore his only delights, lost their charms for him.
+He turned his course straight toward the direction whence
+the cold water came, and for the rest of his life never
+tasted a mouthful of food. He moved on toward the
+river-mouth, at first playfully, as though he were not
+really certain whether he meant anything after all.
+Afterward, when he struck the full current of the Columbia,
+he plunged straightforward with an unflinching
+determination that had in it something of the heroic.
+When he had passed the rough water at the bar, he was
+not alone. His old neighbors of the Cowlitz, and many
+more from the Clackamas and the Spokan and Des
+Chutes and Kootanie,—a great army of salmon,—were
+with him. In front were thousands pressing on, and behind<span class="pagenum" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</span>
+them were thousands more, all moved by a common
+impulse which urged them up the Columbia.</p>
+
+<p>They were all swimming bravely along where the current
+was deepest, when suddenly the foremost felt something
+tickling like a cobweb about their noses and under
+their chins. They changed their course a little to brush
+it off, and it touched their fins as well. Then they tried
+to slip down with the current, and thus leave it behind.
+But, no! the thing, whatever it was, although its touch
+was soft, refused to let go, and held them like a fetter.
+The more they struggled, the tighter became its grasp,
+and the whole foremost rank of the salmon felt it together;
+for it was a great gill-net, a quarter of a mile
+long, stretched squarely across the mouth of the river.</p>
+
+<p>By-and-by men came in boats, and hauled up the gill-net
+and the helpless salmon that had become entangled
+in it. They threw the fishes into a pile in the bottom
+of the boat, and the others saw them no more.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>All this time our salmon is going up the river, eluding
+one net as by a miracle, and soon having need of more
+miracles to escape the rest; passing by Astoria on a
+fortunate day,—which was Sunday, the day on which
+no man may fish if he expects to sell what he catches,—till
+finally he came to where nets were few, and, at last,
+to where they ceased altogether. But there he found that
+scarcely any of his many companions were with him; for
+the nets cease when there are no more salmon to be
+caught in them. So he went on, day and night, where the
+water was deepest, stopping not to feed or loiter on the
+way, till at last he came to a wild gorge, where the great
+river became an angry torrent, rushing wildly over a huge
+staircase of rocks. But our hero did not falter; and summoning<span class="pagenum" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</span>
+all his forces, he plunged into the Cascades.
+The current caught him and dashed him against the rocks.
+A whole row of silvery scales came off and glistened in
+the water like sparks of fire, and a place on his side became
+black and red, which, for a salmon, is the same as
+being black and blue for other people. His comrades
+tried to go up with him; and one lost his eye, one his
+tail, and one had his lower jaw pushed back into his head
+like the joint of a telescope. Again he tried to surmount
+the Cascades; and at last he succeeded, and an Indian
+on the rocks above was waiting to receive him. But the
+Indian with his spear was less skilful than he was wont
+to be, and our hero escaped, losing only a part of one of
+his fins; and with him came one other, and henceforth
+these two pursued their journey together.</p>
+
+<p>Now a gradual change took place in the looks of our
+salmon. In the sea he was plump and round and silvery,
+with delicate teeth in a symmetrical mouth. Now his
+silvery color disappeared, his skin grew slimy, and the
+scales sank into it; his back grew black, and his sides
+turned red,—not a healthy red, but a sort of hectic flush.
+He grew poor; and his back, formerly as straight as need
+be, now developed an unpleasant hump at the shoulders.
+His eyes—like those of all enthusiasts who forsake eating
+and sleeping for some loftier aim—became dark and
+sunken. His symmetrical jaws grew longer and longer,
+and meeting each other, as the nose of an old man meets
+his chin, each had to turn aside to let the other pass. His
+beautiful teeth grew longer and longer, and projected
+from his mouth, giving him a savage and wolfish appearance,
+quite at variance with his real disposition. For all
+the desires and ambitions of his nature had become centered
+into one. We may not know what this one was, but
+we know that it was a strong one; for it had led him<span class="pagenum" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</span>
+on and on,—past the nets and horrors of Astoria; past
+the dangerous Cascades; past the spears of Indians;
+through the terrible flume of the Dalles, where the mighty
+river is compressed between huge rocks into a channel
+narrower than a village street; on past the meadows of
+Umatilla and the wheat-fields of Walla Walla; on to
+where the great Snake River and the Columbia join;
+on up the Snake River and its eastern branch, till at
+last he reached the foot of the Bitter Root Mountain in
+the Territory of Idaho, nearly a thousand miles from
+the ocean which he had left in April. With him still
+was the other salmon which had come with him
+through the Cascades, handsomer and smaller than he,
+and, like him, growing poor and ragged and tired.</p>
+
+<p>At last, one October afternoon, our finny travellers
+came together to a little clear brook, with a bottom of fine
+gravel, over which the water was but a few inches deep.
+Our fish painfully worked his way to it; for his tail was
+all frayed out, his muscles were sore, and his skin covered
+with unsightly blotches. But his sunken eyes saw a
+ripple in the stream, and under it a bed of little pebbles
+and sand. So there in the sand he scooped out with his
+tail a smooth round place, and his companion came and
+filled it with orange-colored eggs. Then our salmon
+came back again; and softly covering the eggs, the work
+of their lives was done, and, in the old salmon fashion,
+they drifted tail foremost down the stream.</p>
+
+<p>They drifted on together for a night and a day, but
+they never came to the sea. For the salmon has but one
+life to live, and it ascends the river but once. The rest
+lies with its children. And when the April sunshine fell
+on the globules in the gravel, these were awakened into
+life. With the early autumn rains, the little fishes were
+large enough to begin their wanderings. They dropped<span class="pagenum" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</span>
+down the current in the old salmon fashion. And thus
+they came into the great river and drifted away to the
+sea.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="right">From <cite>Science Sketches</cite> by David Starr Jordan.
+<br>
+By the kind permission of the author and of
+<br>
+A. C. McClurg &amp; Co., Publishers.</p>
+</div>
+
+<br>
+<p class="center">
+<span class="smcap">A Medieval Wedding</span>
+<br>
+<br>
+WILLIAM STEARNS DAVIS</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>Conon has negotiated a most satisfactory marriage.
+He will give his sister to Sire Olivier, the eldest son of
+the Count of Perseigne. The Perseignes are a great
+Burgundian family with many castles, and counts think
+themselves a little higher in the social scale than do
+barons, but St. Aliquis is also a powerful fief, and its
+alliance will be useful to Perseigne when he has his expected
+war with the Vidame of Dijon. Conon will give
+the young couple his outlying Burgundian Castle (not
+of great value to himself) and the alliance will enable
+him to talk roundly to his uncivil neighbors. A most
+excellent match; another sign that St. Aliquis has an
+extremely sage seigneur!</p>
+
+<p>Alienor is now nearly seventeen and has been thinking
+about a wedding since before she was fifteen. Her nurses
+have long since reviewed all the eligible cavaliers for her.
+Her great dread has been lest she have to wed some old
+and very stupid man—as befell her cousin Mabila, who
+had been sent away tearful and pouting to Picardy, the
+bride of a three-times widower. Who can measure her
+relief when Conon declared he would not give her to old
+St. Saturnin? It was all very well for the jongleurs to
+sing, “An old man who loves a young maiden is not<span class="pagenum" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</span>
+merely old, but a fool!” The thing has happened so
+often!</p>
+
+<p>Her ideal is to have a “damoiseau (squire or young
+knight) just with his first beard”—one who is brave,
+valiant, and is, of course, courteous and handsome. She
+had once hoped that Conon would give a great tourney
+and award her to the conqueror; but this desire faded
+when she learned that the victor in the last tourney was
+ugly and brutal. She has been on very brotherly terms
+with William, Conon’s first squire, but William is still too
+young, and it is not always honorable for a squire to
+push intrigues in the house of his lord. Thus she is in
+a very open state of mind when her brother says to her
+one day: “Fair sister, I have arranged your marriage
+with Olivier of Perseigne. He is a gallant cavalier.
+Any maiden might rejoice to have him. Consider well
+what I say because (here he adds a phrase which he
+hopes will not be taken too literally) I would not have
+you wed him against your wish.”</p>
+
+<p>If Alienor has anything against Olivier, if her antipathy
+were violent and based on reason, Conon, as a genuinely
+affectionate brother, might give it weight; but in fact,
+though she has met Olivier only a few times at a tourney,
+at the Christmas fête at the Duke of Quelqueparte’s court,
+and once when he stopped at the castle, she has not the
+least objection. He has certainly large blue eyes, blonde
+hair, a large nose, and a merry laugh. He is reported to
+be kind to his servants, generous to a fault, and not
+overgiven to drinking or brawling. At the tourney he
+broke three lances fairly against a more experienced
+knight. His family is excellent and her brother’s desires
+are obvious. She will not have to live too far from
+St. Aliquis. What more could be said? After a few
+hours of decent reflection she informs Adela that she will<span class="pagenum" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</span>
+comply with Conon’s wishes. After that the castle takes
+on a joyous activity.</p>
+
+<p>Before the wedding had come the betrothal. It was a
+solemn ceremony, blessed by the Church. Sire Olivier
+visited the castle with a great following of relatives and
+met the shy and blushing Alienor. In the chapel, after
+suitable prayers by Father Gregoire, the pair had awkwardly
+enough exchanged their promises! “I will take
+you for my wife.” “And I for my husband.” After
+this there would have been great scandal had either side
+turned back. The Church affirms energetically, however,
+that betrothal is <cite>not</cite> marriage. Otherwise the
+affianced pair might have considered themselves somewhat
+wedded on trial, only to repudiate their obligations
+later. Also, not merely the young couple, but their
+parents or guardians, had to be present and add their
+consent; and, of course, all the pledges were sworn to
+over the holiest relics available.</p>
+
+<p>Olivier, during all this happy time, has lodged at the
+castle of a friendly vassal of St. Aliquis, and he rides
+over frequently to visit his betrothed. He is excellently
+bred and knows everything expected of a prospective
+bridegroom of good family. The alliance has been largely
+negotiated by his parents, but he has been consulted,
+understands that Alienor is witty and beautiful, and he
+is wholly aware of the worldly advantages of being
+Conon’s brother-in-law. At meals he and his beloved are
+allowed to sit together and above all to eat out of the
+same porringer, when he delicately leaves to his intended
+all the best morsels. He consults a competent jongleur,
+and with his aid produces suitable verses praising his
+fiancée’s beauty. He gives her a gold ring with both his
+own name and hers engraved thereon. In return, besides
+a sleeve and a stocking to hang on his lances (gifts<span class="pagenum" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</span>
+which she has already sent in mere friendship to other
+cavaliers), she bestows a lock of her hair set around a
+gold ring; likewise a larger lock which he may twine
+around his helmet. The happy pair are permitted to take
+long walks together, and to promenade up and down the
+garden, with Olivier holding his lady in the politest manner
+by one finger—the accepted method of showing intimacy.</p>
+
+<p>We have said that Conon is resolved to knight his
+brother at the same time he gives his sister in marriage.
+This involves holding a tourney and many other proceedings
+really unnecessary for a wedding; but, of course, it
+will attract a much greater number of guests and advertise
+the prosperity of the baron of St. Aliquis to all
+northwestern France. The knighting and tourney will
+come after the bridal, however, and it is easier to explain
+the two things separately. We omit the gathering of
+the wedding guests—the coming of distant counts, barons,
+and sires; the erection around St. Aliquis of a real village
+of brilliant tents and pavilions; the ceremonious greetings;
+the frenzied efforts of the castle folk to make all
+ready; the inevitable despair, not once, but many times,
+of Adela, who directs everything. At last it is the morning
+of <em>the</em> day, in midsummer. No rain and, blessed be
+St. Martin, not too much heat. Alienor is surrounded by
+a dozen women, old and young, arraying her for her
+wedding.</p>
+
+<p>There is no regular bridal costume. Alienor does not
+dress much differently from what she does on Easter or
+at some other major festival. Her two great braids of hair
+are weighted down over her breasts with an extra intertwining
+with gold thread. Her pelisson is completely
+fringed with magnificent ermine, the gift of the Countess
+of Perseigne, and the garment itself is made of two<span class="pagenum" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</span>
+cloths sewed together, the inner of fine wool, the outer of
+beautiful bendal of reddish violet. The whole is laced
+tightly until Alienor can hardly breathe. Above this
+garment floats the elegant bliaut, of green silk with long
+sleeves, many folds, and a long train. There is more silk
+embroidery and elaborate flouncing. Fairest of all is
+the girdle, made of many pieces of gold and each set
+with a good-luck stone—agate to guard against fever,
+sardonyx to protect against malaria, and many similar.
+In the clasp are great sapphires which Baron Garnier
+originally “acquired” from a town merchant shortly before
+he hanged him. Finally, there is the mantle—again
+of silk intricately embroidered and dyed with a royal
+purple.</p>
+
+<p>Alienor’s pointed shoes are of vermillion leather from
+Cordova, with still more of gold-thread embroidery.
+While one female minister is clasping these, her chief
+pucelle is putting on a small saffron-colored veil, circular,
+and held down by a golden circlet—a genuine
+crown; beautifully engraved and set with emeralds. Inevitably
+the whole process of dressing is prolonged.
+Alienor is too excited to feel hot or pinched, but her attendants
+find her very exacting. They bless the Virgin,
+however, that she is not as some noble brides, who fly
+into a passion if every hair in their eyebrows is not
+separately adjusted.</p>
+
+<p>Meantime, in a secluded part of the castle, the groom
+has been wrestling with a similar problem, assisted by
+his two squires, although requiring less of time and agony.
+His legs are covered with fine brown silk stockings from
+Bruges; but it is effeminate to wear a silk shirt—one of
+fine white linen will answer. His pelisson is like his
+bride’s, although less tightly laced—of cloth and silk,
+trimmed with rich fur; and the outer color is pale red,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</span>
+inevitably with much gold embroidery around the neck
+and sleeves. His bliaut does not come below his knees,
+but it is of blue sendal silk; his mantle is also edged with
+fur and of the same color as his pelisson. Simple as it
+is, it must hang exactly right. Everybody will ask, “Did
+the groom wear his mantle like a great baron?” The
+squires take a long time adjusting it. Olivier’s shoes are
+of very fine leather. On his crisply curled hair they set
+a golden chaplet set with flashing gems—very much like
+that worn by his bride.</p>
+
+<p>Hardly are the happy twain ready before the wedding
+procession forms in the bailey. So large a company could
+never crowd into the castle chapel. It will go across the
+bridge over the Claire to the parish church by the village—a
+Gothic structure sufficiently pretentious to suit the
+occasion. The Perseignes reckon a bishop among their
+cousins, and he is on hand to officiate.</p>
+
+<p>So the procession forms. Ahead go a whole platoon
+of jongleurs puffing their cheeks for their flutes, twanging
+their harps, or rasping their viols. The Feudal Age delights
+in music, and does not mind if sometimes melody is
+exchanged merely for a joyous noise. Alienor comes
+next. She is on a black mule with extra long ears and a
+finely curried shining coat. His harness is of gold and
+his trappings of scarlet samite. She has been swung into
+the saddle by her eldest brother (“Alas! that her father,
+who should do this, is dead!” murmur all the women),
+and he as her guardian leads the mule. Olivier rides a
+tall white palfrey with a saddle of blue leather. His
+mother, Adela, and all the St. Aliquis and Perseignes female
+relatives follow on other mules, led by gayly dressed
+squires. Then come all the noble guests, the Duke of
+Quelqueparte at their head. No wonder there is no work
+being done in all the villages for miles around, and that<span class="pagenum" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</span>
+all the villeins are lining the road, doffing caps, and cheering
+as the dazzling cortege sweeps past.</p>
+
+<p>The details at the church we pass over. Among other
+features to be noted is the fact that the bride is swung
+down from her mule upon a great truss of straw, that the
+bishop meets them at the sacred portal, and that outside
+the actual building Olivier and Alienor exchange those
+vows which form the essential part of the marriage ceremony.
+After that Conon’s chief provost recites in loud
+voice all the estates, horses, fine garments, and servitors
+which the bride brings as her dowry. This customary
+publication may avert bitter disputes later. Next the
+happy pair scatter newly coined silver deniers among the
+swarm of ill-favored mendicants permitted to elbow and
+scramble among the more pretentious guests.</p>
+
+<p>Finally, the church is thrown open. The great nave
+opens mysterious and dark, but galaxies of candles are
+burning and the lofty stained-glass windows gleam like
+jewels. Olivier and Alienor occupy seats of honor in
+the choir, while the bishop says the very solemn mass of
+the Trinity and pronounces a special blessing over them.
+“Let this woman,” intones the prelate, “be amiable as
+Rachel, wise as Rebecca, faithful as Sarah. Let her be
+sober through truth, venerable through modesty, and
+wise through the teaching of Heaven.”</p>
+
+<p>So at last the mass ends. The “Agnus Dei” is chanted.
+The bridegroom advances to the altar and receives from
+the bishop the kiss of peace. Then he turns, and right
+at the foot of the great crucifix embraces his wife and
+transmits the kiss to her. This act completes the ceremony.
+Away the whole company go from the church.
+They have been condemned to silence for nearly two
+hours, and are glad now to chatter like magpies. When
+back at St. Aliquis they find the great hall has been<span class="pagenum" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</span>
+swept, garnished, and decorated as never before. The
+walls of the hall are hung with the pictured tapestries of
+beautiful pieces of red and green silk. Your feet crush
+fresh roses and lilies scattered on the floor. Alienor almost
+bursts with delight at the number of high-born
+cavaliers and dames who press up to kiss and congratulate.
+All the remainder of her life she will match weddings
+with her friends: “I had so many counts and barons at
+my wedding.” “But I had so many!”</p>
+
+<p>All these guests, however, expect to receive presents—bliauts,
+mantles, goblets, and other things, each suitable
+to the recipient. It is well that Conon has saved many
+livres in his strong box. The presenting of the gifts by
+the host is quite a ceremony; each article has to be accompanied
+by a well-turned speech. By the time this
+reception to the bride and groom is over, the trumpets
+sound furiously. They tell that the feast is ready in the
+fragrant garden under the trees. There is a fine tent
+of blue silk for the bridal party and the more exalted
+guests. All the others must sit on long tables open to
+the glad sunshine.</p>
+
+<p>What Messire Conon’s guests have to eat and drink is
+so serious a topic that we must tell thereof separately.
+We speak here merely concerning the festivities of the
+wedding. Olivier and Alienor are served by two barons
+as squires of state. The groom drinks from a great goblet,
+then sends it to his wife, who ceremoniously finishes
+the draught. In the bridal tent there is a reasonable
+amount of decorum, but elsewhere (Blessed martyrs!)
+what noise and tumult! All the villeins appear to be
+there, and burghers have even wandered up from Pontdebois.
+It will never do to have men say, “The bride was
+charming, but her brother stinted his hospitality.”
+Enough food and drink is gorged and guzzled to stave off<span class="pagenum" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</span>
+a famine next winter. The jongleurs keep quiet during
+the first part of the feast; later they earn their dinner by
+singing of the loves of Jourdain and Orabel or of Berte,
+who was the faithful wife of Girard of Roussillon through
+all of her lord’s adversity. At many of the tables the
+jesting and horseplay become unspeakably ribald. After
+the wine circulates two petty nobles quarrel; one strikes
+the other with a drinking cup, but the sergeants pull
+them apart before they can whip out swords.</p>
+
+<p>After three hours of this some guests are sleeping
+stertorously under the trees; but those nobles who have
+kept their wits go to another large tent, and, despite their
+heavy meal, dance with vigor. The bride and groom
+are expected to dance together, and everybody is prepared
+to admire the beauty of one and the grace and
+strength of the other. As evening advances a priest
+appears. He solemnly blesses the nuptial couch strewn
+with roses, while the new couple piously kneel. The
+couch is then “censed” like an altar, and the women guests
+join in the bizarre usages of “putting the bride to bed.”</p>
+
+<p>The morning after the marriage the newly wedded pair
+attend mass in the castle chapel. Here they are <a id="tn_19">expected</a>
+to make privately all kinds of vows of good conduct,
+and Alienor especially promises always to obey her
+husband, and call him dutifully, “mon sire” and “mon
+baron.”</p>
+
+<p>The festivities will last two weeks longer, and conclude
+with the dubbing of knights and the tournament, whereof
+more presently. After that Olivier and his wife will depart
+for their Burgundian castle without anything like
+a honeymoon to strange parts....</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class="right">
+From <em>Life on a Medieval Barony</em> by William
+<br>
+Stearns Davis. By kind permission of the author
+<br>
+and of Harper &amp; Brothers, Publishers.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</span></p>
+<br>
+<p class="center">
+<span class="smcap">A Day in an Oxford College</span>
+<br>
+JOHN CORBIN</p>
+
+<p>When a freshman is once established in college, his
+life falls into a pleasantly varied routine. The day is
+ushered in by the scout, who bustles into the bedroom,
+throws aside the curtain, pours out the bath, and shouts,
+“Half past seven, sir,” in a tone that makes it impossible
+to forget that chapel—or if one chooses, roll-call—comes
+at eight. Unless one keeps his six chapels or “rollers”
+a week, he is promptly “hauled” before the dean, who
+perhaps “gates” him. To be gated is to be forbidden to
+pass the college gate after dark, and fined a shilling for
+each night of confinement. To an American all this
+brings recollections of the paternal roof, where tardiness
+at breakfast meant, perhaps, the loss of dessert, and
+bedtime an hour earlier. I remember once, when out of
+training, deliberately cutting chapel to see with what
+mien the good dean performed his nursery duties. His
+calm was unruffled, his dignity unsullied. I soon came
+to find that the rules about rising were bowed to and indeed
+respected by all concerned, even while they were
+broken. They are distinctly more lax than those the
+fellows have been accustomed to in the public schools,
+and they are conceded to be for the best welfare of the
+college.</p>
+
+<p>Breakfast comes soon after chapel, or roll-call. If a
+man has “kept a dirty roller,” that is, has reported in
+pyjamas, ulster, and boots, and has turned in again, the
+scout puts the breakfast before the fire on a trestle built
+of shovel, poker, and tongs, where it remains edible until
+noon. If a man has a breakfast party on, the scout
+makes sure that he is stirring in season, and, hurrying<span class="pagenum" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</span>
+through the other rooms on the staircase, is presently on
+hand for as long as he may be wanted. The usual Oxford
+breakfast is a single course, which not infrequently consists
+of some one of the excellent English pork products,
+with an egg or kidneys. There may be two courses, in
+which case the first is of the no less excellent fresh fish.
+There are no vegetables. The breakfast is ended with
+toast and jam or marmalade. When one has fellows in
+to breakfast,—and the Oxford custom of rooming alone
+instead of chumming makes such hospitality frequent,—his
+usual meal is increased by a course, say, of chicken.
+In any case it leads to a morning cigarette, for tobacco
+aids digestion, and helps fill the hour or so after meals
+which an Englishman gives to relaxation.</p>
+
+<p>At ten o’clock the breakfast may be interrupted for
+a moment by the exit of some one bent on attending a
+lecture, though one apologizes for such an act as if it
+were scarcely good form. An appointment with one’s
+tutor is a more legitimate excuse for leaving; but even
+this is always an occasion for an apology, in behalf of
+the tutor of course, for one is certainly not himself
+responsible. If a quorum is left, they manage to sit
+comfortably by the fire, smoking and chatting in spite of
+lectures and tutors, until by mutual consent they scatter
+to glance at the <em>Times</em> and the <cite>Sportsman</cite> in the common-room,
+or even to get in a bit of reading.</p>
+
+<p>Luncheon often consists of bread and cheese and jam
+from the buttery, with perhaps a half pint of bitter beer;
+but it may, like the breakfast, come from the college
+kitchen. In any case it is very light, for almost immediately
+after it everybody scatters to field and track
+and river for the exercise that the English climate makes
+necessary and the sport that the English temperament
+demands.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</span></p>
+
+<p>By four o’clock every one is back in college tubbed and
+dressed for tea, which a man serves himself in his rooms
+to as many fellows as he has been able to gather in on
+field or river. If he is eager to hear of the games he has
+not been able to witness, he goes to the junior common-room
+or to his club, where he is sure to find a dozen or so
+of kindred spirits representing every sport of importance.
+In this way he hears the minutest details of the games of
+the day from the players themselves; and before nightfall—such
+is the influence of tea—those bits of gossip which
+in America are known chiefly among members of a team
+have ramified the college. Thus the function of the
+“bleachers” on an American field is performed with a
+vengeance by the easy-chairs before a common-room fire;
+and a man had better be kicked off the team by an
+American captain than have his shortcomings served up
+with common-room tea.</p>
+
+<p>The two hours between tea and dinner may be, and
+usually are, spent in reading.</p>
+
+<p>At seven o’clock the college bell rings, and in two
+minutes the fellows have thrown on their gowns and are
+seated at table, where the scouts are in readiness to
+serve them. As a rule a man may sit wherever he
+chooses; this is one of the admirable arrangements for
+breaking up such cliques as inevitably form in a college.
+But in point of fact a man usually ends by sitting in some
+certain quarter of the hall, where from day to day he
+finds much the same set of fellows. Thus all the advantages
+of friendly intercourse are attained without any
+real exclusiveness. This may seem a small point; but an
+hour a day becomes an item in four years, especially if
+it is the hour when men are most disposed to be companionable.</p>
+
+<p>In the evening, when the season permits, the fellows<span class="pagenum" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</span>
+sit out of doors after dinner, smoking and playing bowls.
+There is no place in which the spring comes more sweetly
+than in an Oxford garden. The high walls are at once
+a trap for the first warm rays of the sun and a barrier
+against the winds of March. The daffodils and crocuses
+spring up with joy as the gardener bids; and the apple
+and cherry trees coddle against the warm north walls,
+spreading out their early buds gratefully to the mild
+English sun. For long, quiet hours after dinner they
+flaunt their beauty to the fellows smoking, and breathe
+their sweetness to the fellows playing bowls. “No man,”
+exclaims the American visitor, “could live four years in
+those gardens of delight and not be made gentler and
+nobler!” Perhaps! though not altogether in the way the
+visitor imagines. When the flush of summer is on, the
+loiterers loll on the lawn full length; and as they watch
+the insects crawl among the grass they make bets on
+them, just as the gravest and most reverend seniors have
+been known to do in America.</p>
+
+<p>In the windows overlooking the quadrangle are boxes
+of brilliant flowers, above which the smoke of a pipe
+comes curling out. At Harvard some fellows have geraniums
+in their windows, but only the very rich; and when
+they began the custom an ancient graduate wrote one of
+those communications to the <cite>Crimson</cite>, saying that if men
+put unmanly boxes of flowers in the window, how can
+they expect to beat Yale? Flower boxes, no sand. At
+Oxford they manage things so that anybody may have
+flower boxes; and their associations are by no means
+unmanly. This is the way they do it. In the early summer
+a gardener’s wagon from the country draws up by
+the college gate, and the driver cries, “Flowers! Flowers
+for a pair of old bags, sir.” <em>Bags</em> is of course the fitting
+term for English trousers—which don’t fit; and I<span class="pagenum" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</span>
+should like to inform that ancient graduate that the
+window boxes of Oxford suggest the very badge of manhood.</p>
+
+<p>As long as the English twilight lingers, the men will sit
+and talk and sing to the mandolin; and I have heard the
+fellows sitting and talking all night, not turning in until
+the porter appeared to take their names at roll-call. On
+the eve of May day it is quite the custom to sit out, for
+at dawn one may go to see the pretty ceremony of
+heralding the May on Magdalen Tower. The Magdalen
+choir boys—the sweetest songsters in all Oxford—mount
+to the top of that most beautiful of Gothic towers, and,
+standing among the pinnacles,—pinnacles afire with the
+spirituality of the Middles Ages, that warms all the
+senses with purity and beauty,—those boys, I say, on
+that tower and among those pinnacles, open their mouths
+and sing a Latin song to greet the May. Meantime, the
+fellows who have come out to listen in the street below
+make catcalls and blow fish horns. The song above is the
+survival of a Romish, perhaps a Druidical, custom; the
+racket below is the survival of a Puritan protest. That
+is Oxford in symbol! Its dignity and mellowness are not
+so much a matter of flowering gardens and crumbling
+walls as of the traditions of the centuries in which the
+whole life of the place has deep sources; and the noblest
+of its institutions are fringed with survivals that run riot
+in the grotesque.</p>
+
+<p>If a man intends to spend the evening out of college,
+he has to make a dash before nine o’clock; for love or
+for money the porter may not let an inmate out after
+nine. One man I knew was able to escape by guile. He
+had a brother in Trinity whom he very much resembled,
+and whenever he wanted to go out, he would tilt his
+mortarboard forward, wrap his gown high about his<span class="pagenum" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</span>
+neck, as it is usually worn of an evening, and bidding
+the porter a polite good-night, say, “Charge me to my
+brother, Hancock, if you please.” The charge is the inconsiderable
+sum of one penny, and is the penalty of
+having a late guest. Having profited by my experience
+with the similar charge for keeping my name on the
+college books, I never asked its why and wherefore.
+Both are no doubt survivals of some medieval custom,
+the authority of which no college employee—or don, for
+the matter of that—would question. Such matters interest
+the Oxford man quite as little as the question how
+he comes by a tonsil or a vermiform appendix. They are
+there, and he makes the best of them.</p>
+
+<p>If a fellow leaves college for an evening, it is for a
+foregathering at some other college, or to go to the theatre.
+As a rule he wears a cloth cap. A “billy-cock” or
+“bowler,” as the pot hat is called, is as thoroughly
+frowned on now in English colleges as it was with us a
+dozen years ago. As for the mortarboard and gown,
+undergraduate opinion rather requires that they be left
+behind. This is largely, no doubt, because they are required
+by law to be worn. So far as the undergraduates
+are concerned, every operative statute of the university,
+with the exception of those relating to matriculation and
+graduation, refers to conduct in the streets after nightfall,
+and almost without exception they are honored in the
+breach. This is out of disregard for the Vice-Chancellor
+of the university, who is familiarly called the Vice, because
+he serves as a warning to others for the practice
+of virtue. The Vice makes his power felt in characteristically
+dark and tortuous ways. His factors are two
+proctors, college dons in daytime, but skulkers after nightfall,
+each of whom has his bulldogs, that is, scouts, employed
+literally to spy upon the students. If these catch<span class="pagenum" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</span>
+you without cap or gown, they cause you to be proctorized
+or “progged,” as it is called, which involves a matter
+of five shillings or so. As a rule there is little danger
+of progging, but my first term fell in evil days. For some
+reason or other the chest of the university showed a deficit
+of sundry pounds, shillings, and pence; and as it
+had long ceased to need or receive regular bequests,—the
+finance of the institution being in the hands of the
+colleges,—a crisis was at hand. A more serious problem
+had doubtless never arisen since the great question was
+solved of keeping undergraduates’ names on the books.
+The expedient of the Vice-Chancellor was to summon the
+proctors, and bid them charge their bulldogs to prog all
+freshmen caught at night without cap and gown. The
+deficit in the university chest was made up at five shillings
+a head.</p>
+
+<p>One of the Vice-Chancellor’s rules is that no undergraduate
+shall enter an Oxford “pub.” Now the only
+restaurant in town, Queen’s, is run in conjunction with
+a pub, and was once the favorite resort of all who were
+bent on breaking the monotony of an English Sunday.
+The Vice-Chancellor resolved to destroy this den of
+Sabbath breaking, and the undergraduates resolved no
+less firmly to defend their stronghold. The result was a
+hand-to-hand fight with the bulldogs, which ended so
+triumphantly for the undergraduates that a dozen or more
+of them were sent down. In the articles of the peace
+that followed, it was stipulated, I was told, that so long
+as the restaurant was closed Sunday afternoons and
+nights, it should never suffer from the visit of proctor or
+bulldog. As a result, Queen’s is a great scene of undergraduate
+foregatherings. The dinners are good enough
+and reasonably cheap; and as most excellent champagne
+is to be had at twelve shillings the bottle, the diners are<span class="pagenum" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</span>
+not unlikely to get back to college a trifle buffy, in the
+Oxford phrase.</p>
+
+<p>By an interesting survival of medieval custom, the
+Vice-Chancellor has supreme power over the morals of
+the town, and any citizen who transgresses his laws is
+visited with summary punishment. For a tradesman or
+publican to assist in breaking university rules means outlawry
+and ruin, and for certain offenses a citizen may be
+punished by imprisonment. Over the Oxford theatre the
+Vice-Chancellor’s power is absolute. In my time he was
+much more solicitous that the undergraduate be kept
+from knowledge of the omnipresent woman with a past
+than that dramatic art should flourish, and forbade the
+town to more than one excellent play of the modern school
+of comedy that had been seen and discussed in London
+by the younger sisters of the undergraduates. The
+woman with a present is virtually absent.</p>
+
+<p>Time was when no Oxford play was quite successful
+unless the undergraduates assisted at its first night,
+though in a way very different from that which the term
+denotes in France. The assistance was of the kind so
+generously rendered in New York and Boston on the
+evening of an athletic contest. Even to-day, just for
+tradition’s sake, the undergraduates sometimes make a
+row. A lot of B. N. C. men, as the clanny sons of
+Brazenose College call themselves, may insist that an
+opera stop while the troupe listen to one of their own
+excellent vocal performances; and I once saw a great
+sprinter, not unknown to Yale men, rise from his seat,
+face the audience, and, pointing with his thumb over his
+shoulder at the soubrette, announce impressively, “Do
+you know, I rather <em>like</em> that girl!” The show is usually
+over just before eleven, and then occurs an amusing, if
+unseemly, scramble to get back to college before the hour<span class="pagenum" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</span>
+strikes. A man who stays out after ten is fined threepence,
+after eleven the fine is sixpence. When all is said,
+why shouldn’t one sprint for threepence?</p>
+
+<p>If you stay out of college after midnight, the dean
+makes a star chamber offense of it, fines you a “quid”
+or two, and like as not sends you down. This sounds a
+trifle worse than it is; for if you must be away, your absence
+can usually be arranged for. If you find yourself
+in the streets after twelve, you may rap on some friend’s
+bedroom window and tell him of your plight through
+the iron grating. He will then spend the first half of
+the night in your bed and wash his hands in your bowl.
+With such evidence as this to support him, the scout is
+not apt, if sufficiently retained, to report a suspected
+absence. I have even known fellows to make their arrangements
+in advance and spend the night in town; but
+the ruse has its dangers, and the penalty is to be sent
+down for good and all.</p>
+
+<p>It is owing to such regulations as these that life in the
+English college has the name of being cloistral. Just
+how cloistral it is in spirit no one can know who has not
+taken part in a rag in the quad; and this is impossible to
+an outsider, for at midnight all visitors are required to
+leave, under a heavy penalty to their host.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class="right">
+From <cite>An American at Oxford</cite>, by John Corbin.
+<br>
+By permission of and by arrangement with
+<br>
+Houghton Mifflin Company, the authorized publishers.</p>
+</div>
+<br>
+<p class="center">
+<span class="smcap">The Peasant Bodo</span>
+<br>
+EILEEN POWER</p>
+
+<p>That, in a few words, is the way in which the monks
+of St. Germain and the other Frankish landowners of the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</span>
+time of Charlemagne managed their estates. Let us try,
+now, to look at those estates from a more human point of
+view and see what life was like to a farmer who lived
+upon them. The abbey possessed a little estate called
+Villaris, near Paris, in the place now occupied by the
+park of Saint Cloud. When we turn up the pages in
+the estate book dealing with Villaris, we find that there
+was a man called Bodo living there. He had a wife
+called Ermentrude and three children called Wido and
+Gerbert and Hildegard; and he owned a little farm of
+arable and meadow land, with a few vines. And we
+know very nearly as much about Bodo’s work as we know
+about that of a small-holder in France today. Let me try
+and imagine a day in his life. On a fine spring morning
+towards the end of Charlemagne’s reign Bodo gets up
+early, because it is his day to go and work on the monks’
+farm, and he does not dare to be late, for fear of the
+steward. To be sure, he has probably given the steward
+a present of eggs and vegetables the week before, to keep
+him in good temper; but the monks will not allow their
+stewards to take big bribes (as is sometimes done on
+other estates), and Bodo knows that he will not be allowed
+to go late to work. It is his day to plough, so he takes
+his big ox with him and little Wido to run by its side
+with a goad, and he joins his friends from some of the
+farms near by, who are going to work at the big house
+too. They all assemble, some with horses and oxen, some
+with mattocks and hoes and spades and axes and scythes,
+and go off in gangs to work upon the fields and meadows
+and woods of the seigniorial manse, according as the
+steward orders them. The manse next door to Bodo is
+held by a group of families; Frambert and Ermoin and
+Ragenold, with their wives and children. Bodo bids
+them good morning as he passes. Frambert is going to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</span>
+make a fence round the wood, to prevent the rabbits
+from coming out and eating the young crops; Ermoin
+has been told off to cart a great load of firewood up to the
+house; and Ragenold is mending a hole in the roof of a
+barn. Bodo goes whistling off in the cold with his oxen
+and his little boy; and it is no use to follow him farther,
+because he ploughs all day and eats his meal under a
+tree with the other ploughmen, and it is very monotonous.</p>
+
+<p>Let us go back and see what Bodo’s wife, Ermentrude,
+is doing. She is busy too; it is the day on which the
+chicken-rent is due—a fat pullet and five eggs in all.
+She leaves her second son, aged nine, to look after the
+baby Hildegard and calls on one of the neighbours, who
+has to go up to the big house too. The neighbour is a
+serf and she has to take the steward a piece of woollen
+cloth, which will be sent away to St. Germain to make
+a habit for a monk. Her husband is working all day in
+the lord’s vineyards, for on this estate the serfs generally
+tend the vines, while the freemen do most of the ploughing.
+Ermentrude and the serf’s wife go together up to
+the house. There all is busy. In the men’s workshop
+are several clever workmen—a shoemaker, a carpenter,
+a blacksmith, and two silversmiths; there are not more,
+because the best artisans on the estates of St. Germain
+live by the walls of the abbey, so that they can work for
+the monks on the spot and save the labour of carriage.
+But there were always some craftsmen on every estate,
+either attached as serfs to the big house, or living on
+manses of their own, and good landowners tried to have
+as many clever craftsmen as possible. Charlemagne ordered
+his stewards each to have in his district “good workmen,
+namely, blacksmiths, goldsmiths, silversmiths, shoemakers,
+turners, carpenters, swordsmakers, fishermen,
+foilers, soapmakers, men who knew how to make beer,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</span>
+cider, perry and all other kinds of beverages, bakers to
+make pasty for our table, netmakers who know how to
+make nets for hunting, fishing and fowling, and others
+too many to be named.” And some of these workmen
+are to be found working for the monks in the estate of
+Villaris.</p>
+
+<p>But Ermentrude does not stop at the men’s workshop.
+She finds the steward, bobs her curtsy to him, and gives
+up her fowl and eggs, and then she hurries off to the
+women’s part of the house, to gossip with the serfs there.
+The Franks used at this time to keep the women of their
+household in separate quarters, where they did the work
+which was considered suitable for women, very much as
+the Greeks of antiquity used to do. If a Frankish noble
+had lived at the big house, his wife would have looked
+after their work, but as no one lived in the stone house
+at Villaris, the steward had to oversee the women. Their
+quarter consisted of a little group of houses, with a workroom,
+the whole surrounded by a thick hedge with a strong
+bolted gate, like a harem, so that no one could come in
+without leave. Their workrooms were comfortable places,
+warmed by stoves, and there Ermentrude (who, being a
+woman, was allowed to go in) found about a dozen servile
+women spinning and dyeing cloth and sewing garments.
+Every week the harrassed steward brought them the raw
+materials for their work and took away what they made.
+Charlemagne gives his stewards several instructions about
+the women attached to his manses, and we may be sure
+that the monks of St. Germain did the same on their
+model estates. “For our women’s work,” says Charlemagne,
+“they are to give at the proper time the materials,
+that is linen, wool, woad, vermilion, madder, wool
+combs, teasels, soap, grease, vessels, and other objects
+which are necessary. And let our women’s quarters be<span class="pagenum" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</span>
+well looked after, furnished with houses and rooms with
+stoves and cellars, and let them be surrounded by good
+hedge, and let the doors be strong, so that the women can
+do our work properly.” Ermentrude, however, has to
+hurry away after her gossip, and so must we. She goes
+back to her own farm and sets to work in the little vineyard;
+then after an hour or two goes back to get the
+children’s meal and to spend the rest of the day in weaving
+warm woollen clothes for them. All her friends are
+either working in the fields on their husband’s farms or
+else looking after the poultry, or the vegetables, or sewing
+at home; for the women have to work just as hard as
+the men on a country farm. In Charlemagne’s time (for
+instance) they did nearly all the sheep shearing. Then
+at last Bodo comes back for his supper, and as soon as
+the sun goes down they go to bed; for their hand-made
+candle gives only a flicker of light, and they both have to
+be up early in the morning. De Quincey once pointed
+out, in his inimitable manner, how the ancients everywhere
+went to bed, “like good boys, from seven to nine
+o’clock.” “Man went to bed early in those ages simply
+because his worthy mother earth could not afford him
+candles. She, good old lady ... would certainly have
+shuddered to hear of any of her nations asking for candles.
+‘Candles, indeed!’ she would have said; ‘who ever heard
+of such a thing? and with so much excellent daylight
+running to waste, as I have provided <i lang="la">gratis</i>! What will
+the wretches want next?’” Something of the same situation
+prevailed even in Bodo’s time.</p>
+
+<p>This, then, is how Bodo and Ermentrude usually passed
+their working day. But, it may be complained, this is
+all very well. We know about the estates on which these
+peasants lived and about the rents which they had to
+pay, and the services which they had to do. But how did<span class="pagenum" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</span>
+they feel and think and amuse themselves when they
+were not working? Rents and services are only outside
+things; an estate book only describes routine. It would
+be idle to try to picture the life of a university from a
+study of its lecture list, and it is equally idle to try to
+describe the life of Bodo from the estate book of his
+masters. It is no good taking your meals in the kitchen
+if you never talk to the servants. This is true, and to
+arrive at Bodo’s thoughts and feelings and holiday amusements
+we must bid good-bye to Abbot Irminon’s estate
+book, and peer into some very dark corners indeed; for
+though by the aid of Chaucer and Langland and a few
+Cour Rollis it is possible to know a great deal about the
+feelings of a peasant six centuries later, material is scarce
+in the ninth century, and it is all the more necessary to
+remember the secret of the invisible ink.</p>
+
+<p>Bodo certainly <em>had</em> plenty of feelings, and very strong
+ones. When he got up in the frost on a cold morning to
+drive the plough over the abbot’s acres, when his own
+were calling out for work, he often shivered and shook
+the rime from his beard, and wished that the big house
+and all its land were at the bottom of the sea (which, as
+a matter of fact, he had never seen and could not imagine).
+Or else he wished he were the abbot’s huntsman,
+hunting in the forest; or a monk of St. Germain, singing
+sweetly in the abbey church; or a merchant, taking bales
+of cloaks and girdles along the high road to Paris; anything,
+in fact, but a poor ploughman ploughing other
+people’s land. An Anglo-Saxon writer has imagined a
+dialogue with him:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>“Well, ploughman, how do you do your work?” “Oh, sir,
+I work very hard. I go out in the dawning, driving the oxen
+to the field and I yoke them to the plough. Be the winter never
+so stark, I dare not stay at home for fear of my lord; but every
+day I must plough a full acre or more, after having yoked the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</span>
+oxen and fastened the share and coulter to the plough!” “Have
+you any mate?” “I have a boy, who drives the oxen with a
+goad, who is now hoarse from cold and shouting.” (Poor little
+Wido.) “Well, well, it is very hard work?” “Yes, indeed it
+is very hard work.”</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Nevertheless, hard as the work was, Bodo sang lustily
+to cheer himself and Wido; for is it not related that once,
+when a clerk was singing the “Allelulia” in the emperor’s
+presence, Charles turned to one of the bishops, saying,
+“My clerk is singing very well,” whereat the rude bishop
+replied, “Any clown in our countryside drones as well as
+that to his oxen at their ploughing”? It is certain too
+that Bodo agreed with the names which the great Charles
+gave to the months of the year in his own Frankish
+tongue; for he called January “Winter-month,” February
+“Mud-month,” April “Easter-month,” May “Joy-month,”
+June “Plough-month,” July “Hay-month,” August
+“Harvest-month,” September “Wind-month,” October
+“Vintage-month,” November “Autumn-month,” and December
+“Holy-month.”</p>
+
+<p>And Bodo was a superstitious creature. The Franks
+had been Christian now for many years, but Christian
+though they were, the peasants clung to old beliefs and
+superstitions. On the estates of the holy monks of St.
+Germain you would have found the country people saying
+charms which were hoary with age, parts of the lay sung
+by the Frankish ploughman over his bewitched land long
+before he marched southwards into the Roman Empire,
+or parts of the spell which the bee-master performed
+when he swarmed his bees on the shores of the Baltic Sea.
+Christianity has colored these charms, but it has not effaced
+their heathen origin; and because the tilling of the
+soil is the oldest and most unchanging of human occupations,
+old beliefs and superstitions cling to it and the old<span class="pagenum" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</span>
+gods stalk up and down the brown furrows, when they
+have long vanished from houses and roads. So on Abbot
+Irminon’s estate the peasant-farmers muttered charms
+over their sick cattle (and over their sick children too)
+and said incantations over the fields to make them fertile.
+If you had followed behind Bodo when he broke his first
+furrow you would have probably seen him take out of
+his jerkin a little cake, baked for him by Ermentrude
+out of different kinds of meal, and you would have seen
+him stoop and lay it under the furrow and sing:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Earth, Earth, Earth! O Earth, our mother!</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">May the All-Wielder, Ever-Lord grant thee</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Acres a-waxing, upwards a-growing,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Pregnant with corn and plenteous in strength;</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Hosts of grain shafts and of glittering plants!</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Of broad barley the blossoms,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">And of white wheat ears waxing,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Of the whole land the harvest ...</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">
+
+<hr class="tb"></div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Acre, full-fed, bring forth fodder for men!</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Blossoming brightly, blessed become!</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">And the God who wrought with earth grant us gift of growing</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">That each of all the corns may come unto our need.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>Then he would drive his plough through the acre.</p>
+
+<p>The Church wisely did not interfere with these old
+rites. It taught Bodo to pray to the Ever-Lord instead
+of to Father Heaven, and to the Virgin Mary instead of to
+Mother Earth, and with these changes let the old spell
+he had learned from his ancestors serve him still. It
+taught him, for instance, to call on Christ and Mary in
+his charm for bees. When Ermentrude heard her bees
+swarming, she stood outside her cottage and said this
+little charm over them:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Christ, there is a swarm of bees outside,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Fly hither, my little cattle,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">In blest peace, in God’s protection,</div><span class="pagenum" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</span>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Come home safe and sound.</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Sit down, sit down, bee,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">St. Mary commanded thee.</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Thou shalt not have leave,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Thou shalt not fly to the wood.</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Thou shalt not escape me,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Nor go away from me.</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Sit very still,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Wait God’s will!</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>And if Bodo on his way home saw one of his bees caught
+in a brier bush, he immediately stood still and wished—as
+some people wish to-day when they go under a ladder.
+It was the Church, too, which taught Bodo to add “So
+be it, Lord,” to the end of his charm against pain. Now,
+his ancestors for generations behind him had believed
+that if you had a stitch in your side, or a bad pain anywhere,
+it came from a worm in the marrow of your bones,
+which was eating you up, and that the only way to get
+rid of that worm was to put a knife, or an arrow-head, or
+some other piece of metal to the sore place, and then
+wheedle the worm out on to the blade by saying a charm.
+And this was the charm which Bodo’s heathen ancestors
+had always said and which Bodo went on saying when
+little Wido had a pain: “Come out, worm, with nine
+little worms, out from the marrow into the bone, from
+the bone into the flesh, from the flesh into the skin, from
+the skin into this arrow.” And then (in obedience to
+the Church) he added “So be it, Lord.” But sometimes
+it was not possible to read a Christian meaning into
+Bodo’s doings. Sometimes he paid visits to some man
+who was thought to have a wizard’s powers, or superstitiously
+reverenced some twisted tree, about which there
+hung old stories never quite forgotten. Then the Church
+was stern. When he went to confession the priest would
+ask him: “Have you consulted magicians and enchanters,
+have you made vows to trees and fountains,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</span>
+have you drunk any magic philtre?” And he would
+have to confess what he did last time his cow was sick.
+But the Church was kind as well as stern. “When serfs
+come to you,” we find one bishop telling his priests, “you
+must not give them as many fasts to perform as rich
+men. Put upon them only half the penance.” The
+Church knew well enough that Bodo could not drive his
+plough all day upon an empty stomach. The hunting,
+drinking, feasting Frankish nobles could afford to lose a
+meal.</p>
+
+<p>It was from this stern and yet kind Church that Bodo
+got his holidays. For the Church made the pious emperor
+decree that on Sundays and saints’ days no servile
+or other works should be done. Charlemagne’s son repeated
+his decree in 827. It runs thus:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>We ordain according to the law of God and to the command
+of our father of blessed memory in his edicts, that no servile
+works shall be done on Sundays, neither shall men perform their
+rustic labours, tending vines, ploughing fields, reaping corn and
+mowing hay, setting up hedges or fencing woods, cutting trees,
+or working in quarries or building houses; nor shall they work
+in the gardens, nor come to the law courts, nor follow the chase.
+But three carrying-services it is lawful to do on Sunday, to wit
+carrying for the army, carrying food, or carrying (if need be)
+the body of a lord to its grave. Item, women shall not do their
+textile works, not cut out clothes, nor stitch them together with
+the needle, nor card wool, nor beat hemp, nor wash clothes in
+public, nor shear sheep: so that there may be rest on the Lord’s
+day. But let them come together from all sides to Mass in the
+Church and praise God for all the good things He did for us
+on that day!</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Unfortunately, however, Bodo and Ermentrude and their
+friends were not content to go quietly to church on saints’
+days and quietly home again. They used to spend their
+holidays in dancing and singing and buffoonery, as country
+folk have always done until our own gloomier, more
+self-conscious age. They were very merry and not at<span class="pagenum" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</span>
+all refined, and the place they always chose for their
+dances was the churchyard; and unluckily the songs they
+sang as they danced in a ring were old pagan songs of
+their forefathers, left over from old Mayday festivities,
+which they could not forget, or ribald love-songs which
+the Church disliked. Over and over again we find the
+Church councils complaining that the peasants (and
+sometimes the priests too) were singing “wicked songs
+with a chorus of dancing women,” or holding “ballads
+and dancing and evil and wanton songs and such-like
+lures of the devil”; over and over again the bishops forbade
+these songs and dances; but in vain. In every
+country in Europe, right through the Middle Ages to the
+time of the Reformation, and after it, country folk continued
+to sing and dance in the churchyard. Two hundred
+years after Charlemagne’s death there grew up the
+legend of the dancers of Kölbigk, who danced on Christmas
+Eve in the churchyard, in spite of the warning of
+the priest, and all got rooted to the spot for a year, till
+the Archbishop of Cologne released them. Some men
+say they were not rooted standing to the spot, but that
+they had to go on dancing for the whole year; and that
+before they were released they had danced themselves
+waist-deep into the ground. People used to repeat the
+little Latin verse which they were singing:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent4">Equitabat Bovo per silvam frondosam</div>
+    <div class="verse indent4">Ducebat sibi Merswindem formosam.</div>
+    <div class="verse indent8">Quid stamus? Cur non imus?</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Through the leafy forest, Bovo went a-riding</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">And his pretty Merswind trotted on beside him—</div>
+    <div class="verse indent4">Why are we standing still? Why can’t we go away?</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>Another later story still is told about a priest in Worcestershire,
+who was kept awake all night by the people dancing
+in his churchyard and singing a song with the refrain<span class="pagenum" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</span>
+“Sweetheart have pity,” so that he could not get it out
+of his head, and the next morning at Mass, instead of
+saying “Dominus vobiscum,” he said “Sweetheart have
+pity,” and there was a dreadful scandal which got into a
+chronicle.</p>
+
+<p>Sometimes our Bodo did not dance himself, but listened
+to the songs of wandering minstrels. The priests did
+not at all approve of these minstrels, who (they said)
+would certainly go to hell for singing profane secular
+songs, all about the great deeds of heathen heroes of the
+Frankish race, instead of Christian hymns. But Bodo
+loved them, and so did Bodo’s betters; the Church councils
+had sometimes even to rebuke abbots and abbesses
+for listening to their songs. And the worst of it was that
+the great emperor himself, the good Charlemagne, loved
+them too. He would always listen to a minstrel, and his
+biographer, Einhard tells us that “He wrote out the barbarous
+and ancient songs, in which the acts of the kings
+and their wars were sung, and committed them to memory”;
+and one at least of those old sagas, which he liked
+men to write down, has been preserved on the cover of
+a Latin manuscript, where a monk scribbled it in his spare
+time. His son, Louis the Pious, was very different; he
+rejected the national poems, which he had learnt in his
+youth, and would not have them read or recited or taught;
+he would not allow minstrels to have justice in the law
+courts, and he forbade idle dances and songs and tales
+in public places on Sundays; but then he also dragged
+down his father’s kingdom into disgrace and ruin. The
+minstrels repaid Charlemagne for his kindness to them.
+They gave him everlasting fame; for all through the
+Middle Ages the legend of Charlemagne grew, and he
+shares with our King Arthur the honour of being the hero
+of one of the greatest romance-cycles of the Middle Ages.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</span>
+Every different century clad him anew in its own dress
+and sang new lays about him. What the monkish
+chronicles in their cells could never do for Charlemagne,
+these despised and accursed minstrels did for him; they
+gave him what is perhaps more desirable and more lasting
+than a place in history—they gave him a place in
+legend. It is not every emperor who rules in those
+realms of gold of which Keats spoke, as well as in the
+kingdoms of the world; and in the realms of gold Charlemagne
+reigns with King Arthur, and his peers joust with
+the Knights of the Round Table. Bodo, at any rate,
+benefited by Charles’s love of minstrels, and it is probable
+that he heard in the lifetime of the emperor himself the
+first beginnings of those legends which afterwards clung
+to the name of Charlemagne. One can imagine him
+round-eyed in the churchyard, listening to fabulous
+stories of Charles’s Iron March to Pavia, such as a gossiping
+old monk of St. Gall afterwards wrote down in his
+chronicle.</p>
+
+<p>It is likely enough that such legends were the nearest
+Bodo ever came to seeing the emperor, of whom even the
+poor serfs who never followed him to court or camp were
+proud. But Charles was a great traveller; like all the
+monarchs of the early Middle Ages he spent the time,
+when he was not warring, in trekking round his kingdom,
+staying at one of his estates, until he and his household
+had literally eaten their way through it, and then passing
+on to another. And sometimes he varied the procedure
+by paying a visit to the estates of his bishops or nobles,
+who entertained him royally. It may be that one day
+he came on a visit to Bodo’s masters and stopped at the
+big house on his way to Paris, and then Bodo saw him
+plain; for Charlemagne would come riding along the road
+in his jerkin of otter skin, and his plain blue cloak (Einhard<span class="pagenum" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</span>
+tells us that he hated grand clothes and on ordinary
+days dressed like the common people); and after him
+would come his three sons and his bodyguard, and then
+his five daughters. Einhard has also told us that</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>He had such care of the upbringing of his sons and daughters
+that he never dined without them when he was at home and
+never travelled without them. His sons rode along with him
+and his daughters followed in the rear. Some of his guards,
+chosen for this very purpose, watched the end of the line of
+march where his daughters travelled. They were very beautiful
+and much beloved by their father, and, therefore, it is strange
+that he would give them in marriage to no one, either among
+his own people or of a foreign state. But up to his death he
+kept them all at home saying he could not forgo their society.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Then, with luck, Bodo, quaking at the knees, might
+even behold a portent new to his experience, the emperor’s
+elephant. Haroun El Raschid, the great Sultan
+of the “Arabian Nights” had sent it to Charles, and it
+accompanied him on all his progresses. Its name was
+“Abu-Lubabah,” which is an Arabic word and means
+“the father of intelligence,”<a id="FNanchor_1" href="#Footnote_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> and it died a hero’s death
+on an expedition against the Danes in 810. It is certain
+that ever afterwards Ermentrude quelled little Gerbert,
+when he was naughty, with the threat, “Abu-Lubabah
+will come with his long nose and carry you off.” But
+Wido, being aged eight and a bread-winner, professed to
+have felt no fear on being confronted with the elephant;
+but admitted when pressed, that he greatly preferred
+Haroun El Raschid’s other present to the emperor, the
+friend dog, who answered to the name of “Becerillo.”</p>
+
+<p>It would be a busy time for Bodo when all these great
+folk came, for everything would have to be cleaned before
+their arrival, the pastry cooks and sausage-makers<span class="pagenum" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</span>
+summoned and a great feast prepared; and though the
+household serfs did most of the work, it is probable that
+he had to help. The gossipy old monk of St. Gall has
+given us some amusing pictures of the excitement when
+Charles suddenly paid a visit to his subjects:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>There was a certain bishopric which lay full in Charles’s
+path when he journeyed, and which indeed he could hardly avoid:
+and the bishop of this place, always anxious to give satisfaction,
+put everything that he had at Charles’s disposal. But once the
+Emperor came quite unexpectedly and the bishop in great anxiety
+had to fly hither and thither like a swallow, and had not only
+the palaces and houses but also the courts and squares swept
+and cleaned: and then, tired and irritated, came to meet him.
+The most pious Charles noticed this, and after examining all
+the various details, he said to the bishop: “My kind host, you
+always have everything splendidly cleaned for my arrival.”
+Then the bishop, as if divinely inspired, bowed his head and
+grasped the king’s never-conquered hand, and hiding his irritation,
+kissed it and said: “It is but right, my lord, that wherever
+you come, all things should be thoroughly cleansed.” Then
+Charles, of all kings the wisest, understanding the state of
+affairs said to him: “If I empty I can also fill.” And he added:
+“You may have that estate which lies close to your bishopric,
+and all your successors may have it until the end of time.” In
+the same journey, too, he came to a bishop who lived in a place
+through which he must needs pass. Now on that day, being
+the sixth day of the week, he was not willing to eat the flesh
+of beast or bird; and the bishop, being by reason of the nature of
+the place unable to procure fish upon the sudden, ordered some
+excellent cheese, rich and creamy to be placed before him. And
+the most self-restrained Charles, with the readiness which he
+showed everywhere and on all occasions, spared the blushes of
+the bishop and required no better fare; but taking up his knife
+cut off the skin, which he thought unsavory and fell to on the
+white of the cheese. Thereupon the bishop, who was standing
+near like a servant, drew closer and said: “Why do you do that,
+lord emperor? You are throwing away the very best part.”
+Then Charles, who deceived no one, and did not believe that
+anyone would deceive him, on the persuasion of the bishop put
+a piece of the skin in his mouth, and slowly eat it and swallowed
+it like butter. Then approving of the advice of the bishop, he
+said: “Very true, my good host,” and he added: “Be sure to
+send me every year to Aix two cartloads of just such cheeses.”<span class="pagenum" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</span>
+And the bishop was alarmed at the impossibility of the task and,
+fearful of losing both his rank and his office, he rejoined: “My
+lord, I can procure the cheeses, but I cannot tell which are of
+this quality and which of another. Much I fear lest I fall under
+your censure.” Then Charles, from whose penetration and skill
+nothing could escape, however new or strange it might be, spoke
+thus to the bishop, who from childhood had known such cheeses
+and yet could not test them: “Cut them in two,” he said, “then
+fasten together with a skewer those that you find to be of the
+right quality and keep them in your cellar for a time and then
+send them to me. The rest you may keep for yourself and
+your clergy and your family.” This was done for two years, and
+the king ordered the present of cheeses to be taken in without
+remark: then in the third year the bishop brought in person his
+laboriously collected cheeses. But the most just Charles pitied
+his labour and anxiety and added to the bishopric an excellent
+estate whence he and his successors might provide themselves with
+corn and wine.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>We may feel sorry for the poor flustered bishop collecting
+his two cartloads of cheeses; but it is possible that our
+real sympathy ought to go to Bodo, who probably had
+to pay an extra rent in cheeses to satisfy the emperor’s
+taste, and got no excellent estate to recompense him.</p>
+
+<p>A visit from the emperor, however, would be a rare
+event in his life, to be talked about for years and told
+to his grandchildren. But there was one other event,
+which happened annually, and which was certainly looked
+for with excitement by Bodo and his friends. For once
+a year the king’s itinerant justices, the <cite>Missi Dominici</cite>,
+came round to hold their court and to see if the local
+counts had been doing justice. Two of them would come,
+a bishop and a count, and they would perhaps stay a
+night at the big house as guests of the abbot, and the
+next day they would go to Paris, and there they would
+sit and do justice in the open square before the church,
+and from all the district round great men and small,
+nobles and freemen and <em>coloni</em>, would bring their grievances
+and demand redress. Bodo would go too, if anyone<span class="pagenum" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</span>
+had injured or robbed him, and would make his complaint
+to the judges. But if he were canny he would not
+go to them empty handed, trusting to justice alone.
+Charlemagne was very strict, but unless the <em>missi</em> were
+exceptionally honest and pious they would not be averse
+to taking bribes. Theodulf, Bishop of Orleans, who was
+one of the Emperor’s <em>missi</em>, has left us a most entertaining
+Latin poem, in which he describes the attempts of
+the clergy and laymen, who flocked to his court, to buy
+justice. Every one according to his means brought a
+present; the rich offered money, precious stones, fine
+materials, and Eastern carpets, arms, horses, antique
+vases of gold or silver chiselled with representations of
+the labours of Hercules. The poor brought skins of Cordova
+leather, tanned and untanned, excellent pieces of
+cloth and linen (poor Ermentrude must have worked
+hard for the month before the justices came!), boxes, and
+wax. “With this battering-ram,” cries the shocked
+Bishop Theodulf, “they hope to break down the wall of
+my soul. But they would not have thought that they
+could shake <em>me</em>, if they had not so shaken other judges
+before.” And indeed, if his picture be true, the royal
+justices must have been followed about by a regular
+caravan of carts and horses to carry their presents. Even
+Theodulf has to admit that, in order not to hurt people’s
+feelings, he was obliged to accept certain unconsidered
+trifles in the shape of eggs and bread and wine and
+chickens and little birds, “whose bodies” (he says, smacking
+his lips) “are small, but very good to eat.” One
+seems to detect the anxious face of Bodo behind those
+eggs and little birds.</p>
+
+<p>Another treat Bodo had which happened once a year;
+for regularly on the ninth of October there began the
+great fair of St. Denys, which went on for a whole month,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</span>
+outside the gate of Paris. Then for a week before the
+fair little booths and sheds sprang up, with open fronts
+in which the merchants could display their wares, and
+the Abbey of St. Denys, which had the right to take a toll
+of all the merchants who came to sell, saw to it that the
+fair was well enclosed with fences, and that all came in
+by the gates and paid their money, for wily merchants
+were sometimes known to burrow under fences or climb
+over them so as to avoid the toll. Then the streets of
+Paris were crowded with merchants bringing their goods,
+packed in carts and upon horses and oxen; and on the
+opening day all regular trade in Paris stopped for a
+month, and every Parisian shopkeeper was in a booth
+somewhere in the fair, exchanging the corn and wine and
+honey of the district for rarer goods from foreign parts.
+Bodo’s abbey probably had a stall in the fair and sold
+some of those pieces of cloth woven by the serfs in the
+women’s quarter, or cheeses and salted meat prepared on
+the estates, or wine paid in rent by Bodo and his fellow-farmers.
+Bodo would certainly take a holiday and go to
+the fair. In fact, the steward would probably have great
+difficulty in keeping his men at work during the month;
+Charlemagne had to give a special order to his stewards
+that they should “be careful that our men do properly the
+work which it is lawful to exact from them, and that they
+do not waste their time in running about to markets and
+fairs.” Bodo and Ermentrude and the three children, all
+attired in their best, did not consider it waste of time to
+go to the fair even twice or three times. They pretended
+that they wanted to buy salt to salt down their winter
+meat, or some vermilion dye to colour a frock for the
+baby. What they really wanted was to wander along
+the little rows of booths and look at all the strange things
+assembled there; for merchants came to St. Denys to sell<span class="pagenum" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</span>
+their rich goods from the distant East to Bodo’s betters,
+and wealthy Frankish nobles bargained there for purple
+and silken robes with orange borders, stamped leather
+jerkins, peacock’s feathers, and the scarlet plumage of
+flamingos (which they called “phœnix skins”), scents and
+pearls and spices, almonds and raisins, and monkeys for
+their wives to play with. Sometimes these merchants
+were Venetians, but more often they were Syrians or
+crafty Jews; and Bodo and his fellows laughed loudly
+over the story of how a Jewish merchant had tricked
+a certain bishop, who craved for all the latest novelties,
+by stuffing a mouse with spices and offering it for sale
+to him, saying that “he had brought this most precious
+never-before-seen animal from Judea,” and refusing to
+take less than a whole measure of silver for it. In exchange
+for their luxuries these merchants took away with
+them Frisian cloth, which was greatly esteemed, and corn
+and hunting dogs, and sometimes a piece of fine goldsmith’s
+work, made in a monastic workshop. And Bodo
+would hear a hundred dialects and tongues, for men of
+Saxony and Frisia, Spain and Provence, Rouen and Lombardy,
+and perhaps an Englishman or two, jostled each
+other in the little streets; and from time to time there
+came also an Irish scholar with a manuscript to sell, and
+the strange, sweet songs of Ireland on his lips:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">A hedge of trees surrounds me,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">A blackbird’s lay sings to me;</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Above my lined booklet</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">The trilling birds chant to me.</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">In a grey mantle from the top of bushes</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">The cuckoo sings:</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Verily—may the Lord shield me!—</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Well do I write under the greenwood.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>Then there were always jugglers and tumblers, and men
+with performing bears, and minstrels to wheedle Bodo’s<span class="pagenum" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</span>
+few pence out of his pocket. And it would be a very
+tired and happy family that trundled home in the cart
+to bed. For it is not, after all, so dull in the kitchen,
+and when we have quite finished with the emperor,
+“Charlemagne and all his peerage,” it is really worth
+while to spend a few moments with Bodo in his little
+manse. History is largely made up of Bodos.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="right">Eileen Power, <cite>Medieval People</cite>. By permission<br>
+of and by arrangement with Houghton Mifflin<br>
+Company, the authorized publishers.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY OF EXPOSITORY NARRATIVE</p>
+
+<p>The editors have found these additional selections very useful
+in teaching expository narrative:</p>
+
+<p>Davis, William Stearns. <cite>A Day in Old Athens</cite>, particularly
+Chapter II, <cite>The First Sights in Athens</cite> and Chapter XIX, <cite>Country
+Life around Athens</cite>. Allyn and Bacon.</p>
+
+<p>Husband, Joseph. <cite>America at Work.</cite> Houghton Mifflin Company.</p>
+
+<p>Husband, Joseph. <cite>A Year in a Coal Mine.</cite> Houghton Mifflin
+Company.</p>
+
+<p>Mills, Enos. <cite>The Story of a Thousand Year Old Pine.</cite> Houghton
+Mifflin Company.</p>
+
+<p>Pound, Arthur. <cite>The Iron Man.</cite> Atlantic Monthly Press.</p>
+
+<p>White, Stewart Edward. <cite>How to Go About It</cite> from <cite>The Mountains</cite>.
+Doubleday, Page &amp; Company.</p>
+</div>
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_II">CHAPTER II</h2>
+</div>
+<p class="center"><cite>Incidents</cite></p>
+
+
+<p>Incident is at once the earliest and the commonest material
+for narration which we encounter in our own experience.
+An average life furnishes only a few great
+adventures, impressive climaxes, and epoch-making events,
+but every day is filled with a multiplicity of incidents,
+gay, pathetic, or illuminating, which actually furnish most
+of our material for conversation, for letters, and for memories.
+It has been said that the ability to write good
+narration is likely to be measured by the ability to recognize
+and relate incidents well, and it will be readily
+observed that most of the effectiveness of great climaxes
+is due to the value of the incidents which lead up to them.</p>
+
+<p>Essentially, an incident is an unimportant happening,
+usually unforeseen and not prepared for, an event which
+leaves behind it little or no appreciable result. Obviously
+every life and every day is full of such events, but the
+task of the writer is to recognize the elements of humor,
+pathos, tragedy, or human interest which serve to make
+certain incidents worthy to be remembered and retold.
+The unseeing person goes home at the end of the day
+without a single entertaining story to relate, while the
+man who worked beside him may delight the whole dinner
+table with half a dozen incidents which entirely failed
+to impress his unobservant friend.</p>
+
+<p>The incidents given in this section might easily have
+been lost had they not fallen under the observation of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</span>
+good story tellers, yet each of them deserved to be preserved
+to entertain the reader with the same touch of interest
+that the writer found in the experience. Each of
+them presents a phase of human character, and pleases the
+reader by humor, pathos, or some lesson in the livableness
+of life.</p>
+
+<p>The following suggestions may aid the beginner:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>1. Examine your memory for experiences which stand
+out clearly although they neither were nor are of great
+importance.</p>
+
+<p>2. Decide what events are associated with the most interesting
+people you know; often some incident has had
+a large part in forming your impression of these people;
+and sometimes incidents take on interest because of the
+people who figure in them.</p>
+
+<p>3. Begin as late in the story as you possibly can, using
+little or no introductory explanation.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="right">
+F. del P.<br>
+</p>
+
+<p class="center">
+<span class="smcap">Incidents from the Life of Lord Frederick Hamilton</span></p>
+
+<p>I must plead guilty to two episodes where my sole desire
+was to avoid disappointment to others, and to prevent
+the reality falling short of the expectation. One was in
+India. Barrackpore, the Viceroy of India’s official country
+house, is justly celebrated for its beautiful gardens.
+In these gardens every description of tropical tree, shrub
+and flower grows luxuriantly. In a far-off corner there
+is a splendid group of fan-bananas, otherwise known as
+the “Traveller’s Palm.” Owing to the habit of growth
+of this tree, every drop of rain or dew that falls on its
+broad, fan-shaped crown of leaves is caught, and runs
+down the grooved stalks of the plant into receptacles that<span class="pagenum" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</span>
+cunning Nature has fashioned just where the stalk meets
+the trunk. Even in the driest weather, these little natural
+tanks will, if gashed with a knife, yield nearly a tumblerful
+of pure sweet water, whence the popular name for
+the tree. A certain dull M.P., on his travels, had come
+down to Barrackpore for Sunday, and inquired eagerly
+whether there were any Travellers’ Trees either in the
+park or the gardens there, as he had heard of them, but
+had never yet seen one. We assured him that in the
+cool of the evening we would show him quite a thicket of
+Travellers’ Trees. It occurred to the Viceroy’s son and
+myself that it would be a pity should the globe-trotting
+M.P.’s expectations not be realized, after the long spell of
+drought we had had. So the two of us went off and carefully
+filled up the natural reservoirs of some six fan-bananas
+with fresh spring-water till they were brimful.
+Suddenly we had a simultaneous inspiration, and returning
+to the house we fetched two bottles of light claret,
+which we poured carefully into the natural cisterns of
+two more trees, which we marked. Late in the afternoon
+we conducted the M.P. to the grove of Travellers’ Trees,
+handed him a glass, and made him gash the stem of one
+of them with his pen knife. Thanks to our preparation
+it gushed water like one of the Trafalgar Square fountains,
+and the touring legislator was able to satisfy himself
+that it was good drinking-water. He had previously
+been making some inquiries about so-called “Palm-wine,”
+which is merely the fermented juice of the toddy-palm.
+We told him that some Travellers’ Palms produced this
+wine, and with a slight exercise of ingenuity we induced
+him to tap one of the trees we had doctored with claret.
+Naturally, a crimson liquid spouted into his glass in
+response to the thrust of his pen-knife, and after tasting it
+two or three times, he reluctantly admitted that its flavour<span class="pagenum" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</span>
+was not unlike that of red wine. It ought to have been,
+considering that we had poured an entire bottle of good
+sound claret into that tree. The ex-M.P. possibly reflects
+now on the difficulties with which any attempts to
+introduce “Pussyfoot” legislation into India would be confronted
+in a land where some trees produce red wine
+spontaneously.</p>
+
+<p>On another occasion I was going by sea from Calcutta
+to Ceylon. On board the steamer there were a number
+of Americans, principally ladies, connected, I think, with
+some missionary undertaking. When we got within about
+a hundred miles of Ceylon, these American ladies all began
+repeating to each other the verse of the well-known
+hymn:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">“What though the spicy breezes</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Blow soft o’er Ceylon’s isle,”</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>over and over again, until I loathed Bishop Heber for
+having written the lines. They even asked the captain
+how far out to sea the spicy breezes would be perceptible.
+I suddenly got an idea, and, going below, I obtained from
+the steward half a dozen nutmegs and a handful of cinnamon.
+I grated the nutmegs and pounded the cinnamon
+up, and then, with one hand full of each, I went on
+deck, and walked slowly up and down in front of the
+American tourists. Soon I heard an ecstatic cry, “My
+dear, I distinctly smelt spice then!” Another turn, and
+another jubilant exclamation: “It’s quite true about the
+spicy breezes. I got a delicious whiff just then. Who
+would have thought that they would have carried so far
+out to sea!” A sceptical elderly gentleman was summoned
+from below, and he, after a while, was reluctantly
+forced to avow that he, too, had noticed the spicy fragrance.
+No wonder! when I had about a quarter of a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</span>
+pound of grated nutmeg in one hand, and as much
+pounded cinnamon in the other. Now these people will
+go on declaring to the end of their lives that they smelt
+the spicy odours of Ceylon, a full hundred miles out at
+sea, just as the travelling M.P. will assert that a tree in
+India produces a very good imitation of red wine. It is
+a nice point determining how far one is morally responsible
+one-self for the unconscious falsehoods into which
+these people have been betrayed. I should like to have
+had the advice of Mrs. Fairchild, of the <em>Fairchild Family</em>
+upon this delicate question. I feel convinced that that
+estimable lady, with her inexhaustible repertory of supplications,
+would instantly have recited by heart “a
+prayer against the temptation to lead others into uttering
+untruths unconsciously,” which would have met the situation
+adequately, for not once in the book, when appealed
+to, did she fail to produce a lengthy and elaborately
+worded petition, adapted to the most unexpected emergencies,
+and I feel confident that her moral armoury
+would have included a prayer against tendencies to “leg-pulling.”</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="right">From <cite>The Days Before Yesterday</cite> by Lord<br>
+Frederick Hamilton. Copyright 1920, George<br>
+H. Doran Company, Publishers.</p>
+</div>
+
+<br>
+<p class="center"><span class="smcap">The Fiancée</span></p>
+
+<p class="center">MARGUERITE AUDOUX</p>
+
+<p>I was going back to Paris after a few days’ holiday.
+When I got to the station the train was crowded. I
+peeped into every carriage, hoping to find a place. There
+was one in the last carriage, but two big baskets, out of
+which ducks and hens were peeping, filled the seat. After<span class="pagenum" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</span>
+a long moment’s hesitation, I decided to get in. I apologized
+for disturbing the passengers, but a man in a blouse
+said:</p>
+
+<p>“Wait a moment, mademoiselle; I’ll take the baskets
+down.”</p>
+
+<p>And while I held the basket of fruit which he had on
+his knees, he slipped the baskets with the ducks and hens
+under the seat. The ducks did not like it, and told us so.
+The hens dropped their heads as if they had been insulted,
+and the peasant’s wife talked to them, calling them by
+their names.</p>
+
+<p>When I was seated, and the ducks were quiet, the passenger
+opposite me asked the peasant whether he was
+taking the birds to market.</p>
+
+<p>“No, sir,” said the man. “I am taking them to my
+son, who is going to be married the day after to-morrow.”</p>
+
+<p>His face was beaming, and he looked around as if he
+wanted everybody to know how happy he was. An old
+woman who was hunched up in the corner among three
+pillows, and who filled double the space she should occupy,
+began grumbling about peasants who took up such a lot of
+room in the train.</p>
+
+<p>The train started, and the passenger who had asked
+about the birds was opening his newspaper, when the
+peasant said to him:</p>
+
+<p>“My boy is in Paris. He is working in a shop, and
+he is going to marry a young lady who is in a shop,
+too.”</p>
+
+<p>The passenger let his open paper drop to his knees.
+He held it with one hand and, leaning forward a little,
+asked:</p>
+
+<p>“Is the fiancée pretty?”</p>
+
+<p>“We do not know,” said the man. “We haven’t seen
+her yet.”</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</span></p>
+
+<p>“Really?” said the passenger. “And if she were ugly,
+and you did not like her?”</p>
+
+<p>“That is one of the things that can always happen,”
+answered the countryman. “But I think we shall like
+her, because our boy is too fond of us to take an ugly
+wife.”</p>
+
+<p>“Besides,” said the little woman next me, “if she pleases
+our Philip, she will please us, too.”</p>
+
+<p>She turned to me, and her gentle eyes were full of
+smiles. She had a little, round, fresh face, and I could
+not believe that she was the mother of a son who was old
+enough to marry. She wanted to know whether I was
+going to Paris too, and when I said yes, the passenger
+opposite began to joke.</p>
+
+<p>“I should like to bet,” he said, “that this young lady is
+the fiancée. She has come to meet her father—and
+mother-in-law, without telling them who she is.”</p>
+
+<p>Everybody looked at me, and I got very red. The
+countryman and his wife said, together:</p>
+
+<p>“We should be very pleased if it were true.”</p>
+
+<p>I told them that it was not true, but the passenger reminded
+them that I had walked up and down twice as if
+I were looking for somebody, and that I had been a long
+time making up my mind to get into that carriage.</p>
+
+<p>All the other passengers laughed, and I explained as
+well as I could that this was the only place I had found.</p>
+
+<p>“Never mind,” said the countrywoman. “I shall be
+very happy if our daughter-in-law is like you.”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes,” said her husband. “I hope she will look like
+you.”</p>
+
+<p>The passenger kept up his joke; he glanced at me
+maliciously and said to the peasants:</p>
+
+<p>“When you get to Paris you will see that I am not
+wrong. Your son will say to you, ‘Here is my fiancée.’”</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</span></p>
+
+<p>A little while afterward the countrywoman turned toward
+me, fumbled in her basket, and pulled out a cake,
+saying that she had made it herself that morning. I
+didn’t know how to refuse her, but I said I had a bad
+cold and a touch of fever, and the cake went back into
+the basket. Then she offered me a bunch of grapes,
+which I was obliged to accept. And I had the greatest
+difficulty in preventing her husband from going to get
+me something hot to drink when the train stopped.</p>
+
+<p>As I looked at these good people, who were so anxious
+to love the wife their son had chosen, I felt sorry that I
+was not to be their daughter-in-law. I knew how sweet
+their affection would have been to me. I had never
+known my parents, and had always lived among
+strangers.</p>
+
+<p>Every now and again I caught them staring at me.</p>
+
+<p>When we arrived at the station in Paris I helped them
+lift their baskets down, and showed them the way out.
+I moved a little away from them as I saw a tall young
+man rush at them and hug them. He kissed them over
+and over again, one after the other. They smiled and
+looked very happy. They did not hear the porters shouting
+as they bumped into them with the luggage.</p>
+
+<p>I followed them to the gate. The son had passed one
+arm through the handle of the basket with the hens,
+and thrown the other round his mother’s waist. Like his
+father, he had happy eyes and a broad smile.</p>
+
+<p>Outside it was nearly dark. I turned up the collar of
+my coat, and I remained a few steps behind the happy
+old couple, while their son went to look for a cab. The
+countryman stroked the head of a big hen with spots of
+all colors, and said to his wife:</p>
+
+<p>“If we had known that she was not our daughter-in-law,
+we might have given her the spotted one.”</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</span></p>
+
+<p>His wife stroked the spotted hen, too, and said: “Yes,
+if we had known.”</p>
+
+<p>She made a movement toward the crowd of people who
+were coming out of the station, and, looking into the distance,
+said:</p>
+
+<p>“She is going off with all those people.”</p>
+
+<p>The son came back with a cab. He put his father and
+mother into it and got up onto the box by the driver.
+He sat sideways so as not to lose sight of them. He
+looked strong and gentle, and I thought, “His fiancée is
+a happy girl.”</p>
+
+<p>When the cab had disappeared I went slowly out into
+the streets. I could not make up my mind to go back to
+my lonely little room. I was twenty years old, and nobody
+had ever spoken of love to me.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="right">Marguerite Audoux. From <cite>Everybody’s Magazine</cite>,<br>
+with the kind permission of the editors and<br>
+of the author.</p>
+</div>
+
+<br>
+<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Jim Wolf and the Cats</span></p>
+
+<p class="center">MARK TWAIN</p>
+
+<p>It was back in those far-distant days—1848 or ’49—that
+Jim Wolf came to us. He was from a hamlet thirty
+or forty miles back in the country, and he brought all his
+native sweetnesses and gentlenesses and simplicities with
+him. He was approaching seventeen, a grave and slender
+lad, trustful, honest, honorable, a creature to love and cling
+to. And he was incredibly bashful. He was with us a
+good while, but he could never conquer that peculiarity;
+he could not be at ease in the presence of any woman, not
+even in my good and gentle mother’s; and as to speaking
+to any girl, it was wholly impossible. He sat perfectly<span class="pagenum" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</span>
+still, one day—there were ladies chatting in the room—while
+a wasp up his leg stabbed him cruelly a dozen
+times; and all the sign he gave was a slight wince for
+each stab and the tear of torture in his eye. He was too
+bashful to move.</p>
+
+<p>It is to this kind that untoward things happen. My
+sister gave a “candy-pull” on a winter’s night. I was too
+young to be of the company, and Jim was too diffident.
+I was sent up to bed early, and Jim followed of his own
+motion. His room was in the new part of the house and
+his window looked out on the roof of the L annex. That
+roof was six inches deep in snow, and the snow had an
+ice crust upon it which was as slick as glass. Out of the
+comb of the roof projected a short chimney, a common
+resort for sentimental cats on moonlight nights—and this
+was a moonlight night. Down at the eaves, below the
+chimney, a canopy of dead vines spread away to some
+posts, making a cozy shelter, and after an hour or two
+the rollicking crowd of young ladies and gentlemen
+grouped themselves in its shade, with their saucers of
+liquid and piping-hot candy disposed about them on the
+frozen ground to cool. There was joyous chaffing and
+joking and laughter—peal upon peal of it.</p>
+
+<p>About this time a couple of old, disreputable tomcats
+got up on the chimney and started a heated argument
+about something; also about this time I gave up trying to
+get to sleep and went visiting to Jim’s room. He was
+awake and fuming about the cats and their intolerable
+yowling. I asked him, mockingly, why he didn’t climb
+out and drive them away. He was nettled, and said over-boldly
+that for two cents he <em>would</em>.</p>
+
+<p>It was a rash remark and was probably repented of before
+it was fairly out of his mouth. But it was too late—he
+was committed. I knew him; and I knew he would<span class="pagenum" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</span>
+rather break his neck than back down, if I egged him on
+judiciously.</p>
+
+<p>“O, of course you would! Who’s doubting it?”</p>
+
+<p>It galled him, and he burst out, with sharp irritation,
+“Maybe <em>you</em> doubt it!”</p>
+
+<p>“I? Oh no! I shouldn’t think of such a thing. You
+are always doing wonderful things, with your mouth.”</p>
+
+<p>He was in a passion now. He snatched on his yarn
+socks and began to raise the window, saying in a voice
+quivering with anger:</p>
+
+<p>“<em>You</em> think I dasn’t—you do! Think what you blame
+please. I don’t care what you think. I’ll show you!”</p>
+
+<p>The window made him rage; it wouldn’t stay up.</p>
+
+<p>I said, “Never mind, I’ll hold it.”</p>
+
+<p>Indeed, I would have done anything to help. I was
+only a boy and was already in a radiant heaven of anticipation.
+He climbed carefully out, clung to the window
+sill until his feet were safely placed, then began to pick
+his perilous way on all-fours along the glassy comb, a foot
+and a hand on each side of it. I believe I enjoy it now as
+much as I did then: yet it is nearly fifty years ago. The
+frosty breeze flapped his short shirt about his lean legs;
+the crystal roof shone like polished marble in the intense
+glory of the moon; the unconscious cats sat erect upon the
+chimney, alertly watching each other, lashing their tails
+and pouring out their hollow grievances; and slowly and
+cautiously Jim crept on, flapping as he went, the gay and
+frolicsome young creatures under the vine canopy unaware,
+and outraging these solemnities with their misplaced
+laughter. Every time Jim slipped I had a hope;
+but always on he crept and disappointed it. At last he
+was within reaching distance. He paused, raised himself
+carefully up, measured his distance deliberately, then
+made a frantic grab at the nearest cat—and missed it.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</span>
+Of course he lost his balance. His heels flew up, he struck
+on his back, and like a rocket he darted down the roof
+feet first, crashed through the dead vines, and landed in
+a sitting position in fourteen saucers of red-hot candy, in
+the midst of all that party—and dressed as <em>he</em> was—this
+lad who <a id="tn_59">could</a> not look a girl in the face with his clothes
+on. There was a wild scramble and a storm of shrieks,
+and Jim fled up the stairs, dripping broken crockery all
+the way.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="right">From Mark Twain’s <cite>Autobiography</cite>. By permission<br>
+of Harper &amp; Brothers, Publishers.</p>
+</div>
+
+<br>
+<p class="center"><span class="smcap">The Hunting Trip</span></p>
+
+<p class="center">STEWART EDWARD WHITE</p>
+
+<p>They ran down to the Club House the following Saturday
+afternoon; the local stopping for a brief moment to
+drop them by the edge of a river without a building in
+sight. Cousin Jim unlocked a padlocked boat, and they
+rowed down stream two miles to a small shanty perched
+on the bank above high water. It was gray dark
+when they arrived, and an edged wind was searching
+deliberately across the marshes seeking whom it might
+shiver. A faint lucent streak in the west was reflected
+here and there on little pools among the marsh grasses
+and cat-tails. All the world was flat, except for three cold
+and naked trees against the sky.</p>
+
+<p>Cousin Jim unlocked the shanty, fumbled about and
+produced a light.</p>
+
+<p>“Here we are!” he cried cheerfully, “snug as a bug in a
+rug!” He clattered open a small iron stove and began to
+fuss with kindlings.</p>
+
+<p>Freeman looked about him with distaste. He had been<span class="pagenum" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</span>
+kicking himself ever since his rash acceptance. The
+affair had not one redeeming feature: he doubted
+whether he had even made the desired impression on
+Mattie. It was cold, it looked dirty, there were no
+feline comforts whatever; and Freeman could see no
+point in going out on that exposed bleak march for the
+sake of shooting at a few silly ducks! However, he was
+in for it, and he had to go through with it. He had no
+thought, however, of making the best of it. He much
+preferred to look upon himself as an injured martyr deprived
+of the essential comforts for inadequate reasons.
+The indulgence of this point of view manifested itself externally
+in silence. But as Freeman had never been what
+you would call chatty with Cousin Jim, nobody but an
+expert would have detected anything unusual.</p>
+
+<p>Cousin Jim apparently was no expert. He seemed full
+of spirits and anticipation, and chattered away about
+directions of the wind and northern flights and different
+“holes” very cheerfully as he fussed about the iron
+stove. In a short time he announced supper; and Freeman
+discovered he was supposed to consider ham and
+eggs and thick slices of bread and butter and a cup of
+strong coffee an adequate meal! Cousin Jim had cooked
+a dozen eggs and seemed mildly solicitous that Freeman
+did not eat his six.</p>
+
+<p>“You’ll need to stoke up,” he urged. “It’s going to be
+colder than Billy-be-damned in the morning. I really
+ought to have brought some pie,” he added.</p>
+
+<p>After supper Cousin Jim occupied the time very happily—for
+himself—in getting out and stowing in a boat
+innumerable wooden ducks, and examining the strings
+and weights attached to them; in arranging shotgun shells
+in a tin box; in rummaging out from untidy corners various
+brush knives, shell extractors, paddles, punt poles,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</span>
+and the like. Concerning each of these items he discoursed
+at length and cheerfully. Finally, he dug up
+some disreputable old canvas coats and rubber boots.
+Cousin Jim was supplying the whole outfit, necessarily,
+including the guns.</p>
+
+<p>“There!” he announced at last, turning a beaming face
+to his unresponsive guest. “All set! Now we’d better
+turn in.”</p>
+
+<p>Freeman stepped outside. The marsh was flat and
+black now; the wind searched through his thin clothing,
+through his shrinking flesh to his very bones. He came
+back shivering.</p>
+
+<p>“Wind’s north,” remarked Cousin Jim, “it’s liable to
+turn cold by morning. That’ll bring ’em in!”</p>
+
+<p>The final affront of the occasion was when Freeman
+found that he was to sleep between blankets without
+sheets. He had never done such a thing in his life:
+furthermore, he had never heard of such a thing. He
+doubted if it could be done. Every fastidious instinct
+shrank from the harsh contact. He reflected resentfully
+that he would not be able to sleep a wink. He hated
+the whole silly business. He began almost to hate
+Cousin Jim; he was so exuberantly cheerful.</p>
+
+
+<p>III</p>
+
+<p>He was quite sure he hated Cousin Jim when the latter
+haled him forth the following morning. Nobody had
+ever before in the world’s history been up at such an
+hour—unless he had stayed up all night. The north wind
+seemed to have fulfilled its promise. It was cold—or
+worse. Freeman had revised his hatred of the sheetless
+blankets: they had become friends. How he dreaded
+leaving this warm nest! Why you could see your breath!<span class="pagenum" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</span>
+What an ass he had been to leave his comfortable quarters
+at home to undertake this crazy expedition. Sport!</p>
+
+<p>Ham and eggs and thick bread and butter and coffee
+for breakfast. Freeman, unaccustomed to eating at this
+hour, could hardly choke any of it down. Cousin Jim
+made sandwiches, also of thick bread and butter and
+ham and eggs, and wrapped them in newspapers. He
+had not much to say but he was busy and cheerful and
+whistled. Freeman hated anybody to be cheerful so
+early in the morning.</p>
+
+<p>They put on thick garments and stepped out into the
+darkness. Lord, it was cold! The sweaters and canvas
+coats turned the wind, but the keen air nipped Freeman’s
+ears and fingers, and made the inside of his nose feel
+positively raw. He took his place in the boat and
+humped over in a dumb sort of endurance. Cousin Jim,
+quite superfluously, warned him not to talk. He had no
+desire to talk. If he had anything at all to say it was
+to curse himself for getting into this uncomfortable fix.</p>
+
+<p>Cousin Jim paddled for a time; then turned sharp to
+the right. After a moment he laid aside the paddle and
+took up a long pole with which he began to push strongly.
+Freeman could see nothing. He wondered how Cousin
+Jim knew when to turn, and by what knowledge or instinct
+he had so accurately hit the narrow channel
+through which they were now making their way.</p>
+
+<p>This wonder was the first break in his self-absorption.
+The next was also a wonder; as to the fact that he was
+standing it after all. It was too early for any sane man
+to be up, it was bitterly cold, his position in the cranky
+duck boat was cramped and one of his feet had gone to
+sleep: but it had not yet proved fatal. A very faint
+pride stirred within him. These Arctic fellows became
+understandable. Probably no one in the world’s history<span class="pagenum" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</span>
+had ever been so cold and miserable. But as long as he
+was in for it and had to go through with it—and he
+was going through with it—he found it commendable that
+he was doing so well. He was glad now he had inhibited
+a vigorous wail the general awfulness of the situation
+had tempted him to utter.</p>
+
+<p>Freeman had firmly made up his mind that he was
+going to endure the experience; but never again! The
+entire day was going to be devoted to endurance. Nevertheless,
+here was one thing that had broken in to share
+his consciousness. Soon came another.</p>
+
+<p>In the east a faint light had been slowly growing. It
+had not seemed to affect the darkness, yet in some manner
+indeterminate gray objects grew into visibility. The
+reed-grown banks of the channel through which they were
+poling began to be dimly perceptible: there was a glint
+on the water of tiny ponds to right and left: an horizon
+was defined. This half-light increased. The ponds and
+waterways became almost plain. One found himself in
+a world of multiplying details. And from all about came
+splashings, quackings, the roar of rising wings, the overhead
+whistle of departing wings. It seemed incredible
+that one could not see their owners, they were so loud
+and so near, and the light was by contrast with the draining
+night so strong. Freeman, in spite of his determination
+to be miserable, felt the stirrings of a faint excitement.</p>
+
+<p>The boat turned into a pond. Cousin Jim dropped
+overboard one by one his wooden ducks, then rushed the
+craft into the reeds. He busied himself with the latter
+for a moment; upturned a box to sit on.</p>
+
+<p>“Load your gun,” he instructed Freeman in a low voice.
+“We’re just about in time.”</p>
+
+<p>There ensued a period of waiting while the light grew.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</span>
+In that period Freeman’s miseries returned on him. His
+watch told him it was six o’clock: his body told him it
+was even colder than he had thought; his anticipation
+showed him an interminable vista of minutes to be passed
+one by one. He was entirely encased within his own
+shell.</p>
+
+<p>Something sudden dragged him out. He had a startling
+impression of the whistling rush of something swift
+in the air, of a bulk rising, of two shattering impacts.
+The fact was a flock of ducks had come in to the decoys;
+Cousin Jim had got to his feet; and had shot twice. Now
+as he was opening the breech of his gun he spoke in his
+ordinary voice.</p>
+
+<p>“Why didn’t you shoot?” he was asking.</p>
+
+<p>Freeman could not very well tell the whole truth and
+say he had not shot because he had been suffering so
+cruelly. So he muttered a half-truth about not having
+seen them. But the incident caused him again to look
+outside himself.</p>
+
+<p>He saw that the daylight had flooded the world: that
+the marsh stretched away interminably brown; that the
+sky was gray streaked with slate: that the little pond
+was ruffled by skurrying cats-paws and that the wooden
+ducks were bobbing solemnly at the ends of their lines.
+Then Cousin Jim produced a queer instrument of wood
+and nickle, a little bigger than a cigar, and began to talk
+duck on it. Freeman could see nothing, but from somewhere
+came a whistle of wings, which died away. After
+a moment Cousin Jim stopped talking duck and turned
+his face to Freeman.</p>
+
+<p>“Mallards,” he said. “They’re wise old birds. You
+must have moved your head when they were circling
+right above us. You’ve got to hold absolutely rigid until
+they turn in over the decoys.”</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</span></p>
+
+<p>He spoke kindly and cheerfully; but Freeman felt a
+touch of reproach. Shortly Cousin Jim resumed talking
+duck. Freeman stared at the decoys through the interstices
+of the reeds. Suddenly from nowhere another flock
+materialized. They were low above the marsh, headed
+straight for the blind, their wings set. The direction of
+flight was so squarely toward the shooters that Freeman
+perceived with satisfaction that no calculation would be
+required for the shot: he could just hold right at them,
+like shooting at a paper on a fence. He had handled a
+shotgun a very little, but he was not a hunter.</p>
+
+<p>“Let ’em have it!” muttered Cousin Jim.</p>
+
+<p>Freeman arose to his feet, prepared to pulverize the
+two leaders. The instant the two men showed, the entire
+flight translated the momentum of their horizontal approach
+into a climb straight up. It is what an aeroplane
+does when it <em>zooms</em>. In addition every duck added his
+own duck power to the effort. They “towered,” as
+sportsmen have it; and until you have seen it you can
+never imagine how fast and how far a duck can tower
+while you are winking an eye. Instead of being able
+to shoot as he would at stationary targets, Freeman was
+flustered by wildly scattering and escaping elusiveness.
+He banged away lustily, and of course missed both
+barrels.</p>
+
+<p>“Get any?” queried Cousin Jim, blowing the black
+powder smoke from his gun.</p>
+
+<p>“No: missed,” replied Freeman shortly. He had heard
+two lovely splashes from Cousin’s Jim side of the flock.</p>
+
+<p>“Too bad: better luck next time,” said the latter.</p>
+
+<p>Now, as has been said, Freeman was no sort of a shot:
+he had never had the practice to become so. But no
+youth ever likes to admit himself a duffer at anything.
+Freeman began to glow with a dull resentful anger at the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</span>
+situation; and with the anger began to grow a determination.
+He would show them!</p>
+
+<p>However, three more flocks came in, and Freeman
+showed nobody anything. Twice he missed, and once he
+forgot to cock his gun! Those were the days before
+hammerless pieces, of course. He tugged away at the
+trigger until he felt black in the face. It was very
+mortifying to a sensitive soul. Cousin Jim seemed to
+make nothing of these catastrophes; killed his ducks with
+cheerful regularity; and seemed to be having a good time.
+Freeman became actually bitter. The whole thing was
+too silly for words.</p>
+
+<p>A fourth flock came in, and <em>four</em> splashes followed
+the roar of the guns. Freeman had killed a pair!</p>
+
+<p>“Good shot,” commented Cousin Jim. “Landed them
+nicely.” Something happened inside Freeman; something
+analogous to hot sun on a misty meadow, or a wind
+on a fog-bound sea. He had killed two ducks: and he
+thought he knew just how he had killed them. You
+threw your aim at the body, and then swung your muzzle
+up and pulled trigger just as the head disappeared from
+view. He discovered in himself an intense eagerness for
+the next lot to come in, so he could try again. The blood
+was singing through his body. No longer did he feel
+cold or disgruntled. Also he wanted to be chatty; which
+shows that those two ducks had stirred Freeman up considerably.
+Minnie would not have known her darling
+brother had she been able at that moment to see his
+inner self accurately depicted in outward semblance. The
+latter manifestation would have been that of a blithe and
+skiptious person who would have worn his hat on one
+side of his head.</p>
+
+<p>More ducks came in from time to time, and Freeman
+had a chance to test his theories. It is only in romantic<span class="pagenum" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</span>
+fiction that the hero wins the football match or licks the
+champion or cops off the million in Wall Street without
+knowing a thing about football, boxing, or finance. The
+idea was perfect; but ducks seemed to have no notion
+of regularity or standardization. They never acted the
+same way twice running. Still, out of a good many
+shots he did scratch down a few. One of the great compensations
+in life is the fact that the glow from a successful
+shot lasts a poor marksman longer than it does a
+good one. And a casual remark of Cousin Jim’s supplied
+the one missing ingredient. After the fifth duck
+had fallen to Freeman’s lavish burnt offering of black
+powder he said:</p>
+
+<p>“Pity you haven’t your own gun. There’s nothing
+that throws a man off worse than shooting a strange gun,
+is there?” He seemed to speak as one expert to another.</p>
+
+<p>Freeman’s imagination, turned agile by the necessity of
+making this extraordinary slaughter quite theoretically
+perfect, seized upon the thought. Of course: couldn’t
+expect him to do himself justice with a strange gun! In
+fact, considering that he was shooting a strange gun, he
+was doing rather remarkably well! It is to be doubted
+if there were many other duck shots, shooting a strange
+gun, who could equal this! This aforementioned imagination
+merely neglected as unimportant the fact that any
+gun whatever would be strange to Freeman.</p>
+
+<p>The flight slackened. There were long intervals when
+there were no birds in the sky. Cousin Jim remarked
+that it was too dinged warm for the best shooting. Two
+hours before Freeman would probably have meditated
+killing Cousin Jim for making that remark.</p>
+
+<p>“Yes,” he said now, wisely, “and it looked last night
+as though that north wind would bring a cold snap.”</p>
+
+<p>“Well, we’ll smoke and keep our weather eye open;<span class="pagenum" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</span>
+and there’ll be the afternoon flight, anyway,” was
+Cousin Jim’s decision. “It’s sort of pretty out here on
+the marsh, anyway.”</p>
+
+<p>They sat and smoked and ate relishingly the sandwiches
+made of thick bread and butter and ham and eggs.
+Freeman assented to the proposition that grub certainly
+tasted good out here. No one would have known Freeman.
+In the contagion of Cousin Jim’s extreme youth he
+had become quite a boy about it all. He followed up
+Cousin Jim’s remark about the marsh being pretty by
+discovering all sorts of compositions in the landscape.
+He pointed them out. This was a new one on Cousin
+Jim. Freeman became absorbed in making him see the
+various little pictures that could be composed by isolating
+certain bits from the whole. The isolating had to be
+done with an eye for the distribution of masses. Cousin
+Jim was vastly interested and could not get over his
+astonishment.</p>
+
+<p>“I’ve been coming down to this marsh off and on for
+near twenty-five years,” said he, “and I’ve always thought
+it was pretty—it is sort of wide and wild and lonesome—but
+I never thought it had so many little pictures in it!”</p>
+
+<p>“And colour,” supplemented Freeman. He somehow
+was as pleased as punch over having impressed Cousin
+Jim, whose opinion yesterday had been negligible.
+“What’s its colour?”</p>
+
+<p>“Why, brown.”</p>
+
+<p>“Turn your head upside down and look.”</p>
+
+<p>Cousin Jim gravely inverted.</p>
+
+<p>“Well, I’ll be jiggered!” he cried.</p>
+
+<p>“All kinds of colours, aren’t there? Lilac, and purple,
+and pearl, and pink—all sorts.”</p>
+
+<p>“It’s like magic,” said Cousin Jim. “How do you explain
+that?”</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</span></p>
+
+<p>“Oh, it’s just that when you look at it upside down you
+eliminate the form of things and see only the colour.
+Your attention is not divided.”</p>
+
+<p>“<em>Swish!</em>—<em>swish!</em> A flock of swift teal had darted
+down and flashed away again. Cousin Jim laughed.</p>
+
+<p>“We better get on the job,” said he.</p>
+
+<p>They stayed out until the early dusk, returning only
+just in time to catch the local train back. In the smoking
+car Freeman was no longer silent. In fact, he talked
+a blue streak; and his conversation was of the shots he
+had made and why, and the shots he had not made and
+why not. Of course a fellow shooting a strange gun——</p>
+
+
+<p>IV</p>
+
+<p>Freeman had promised Cousin Jim, and himself, that
+he would go duck hunting again—and had meant it.
+This was in the first glow, but the first glow died. The
+discomforts gradually came to be uppermost in his mind.
+He began to look back on the excellence of his endurance
+with a little wonder and considerable pride. But he
+shrank from its repetition. There was no doubt that he
+had enjoyed the experience, but unless fairly forced into
+it by circumstances he would never voluntarily pay so
+much in feline comfort for that kind of enjoyment. The
+unaccustomed struggle made it not worth while. He had
+always overindulged his body, and now he could not
+fight it. Never did he abandon the fiction that he wanted
+to go duck hunting again, but was prevented by untoward
+circumstances from accepting the invitations; and
+always he clung tenaciously to the prideful pose of one
+who hunted ducks on incredibly cold mornings and made
+nothing of it. But he did not go again.</p>
+
+<p>Cousin Jim was sorry for this. Whenever Freeman’s<span class="pagenum" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</span>
+name came up for discussion Cousin Jim thenceforward
+took pains to say that he was not so bad after all, if he
+would only give himself a chance. Even when the occasion
+was in the nature of a praise meeting for Freeman,
+Cousin Jim made this remark; which Freeman’s friends
+resented as uncalled for. Nevertheless, somehow,
+Cousin Jim seemed to consider Freeman’s mere existence
+required some sort of defense or explanation, and he was
+always glad to offer it.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>From <cite>The Glory Hole</cite> by Stewart Edward
+White. Copyright by Doubleday, Page &amp; Company.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<p>SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY OF INCIDENTS</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>The editors have found these additional selections very useful
+in teaching the writing of incidents:</p>
+
+<p>Byrne, Donn. <cite>Messer Marco Polo</cite>, Chapter I. The Century
+Company.</p>
+
+<p>Goldsmith, Oliver. <cite>The Vicar of Wakefield</cite>, Chapter XIV, <cite>Fresh
+Mortifications</cite>.</p>
+
+<p>Hémon, Louis. <cite>Maria Chapdelaine</cite>, Chapter IX, <cite>One Thousand
+Aves</cite>. The Macmillan Company.</p>
+
+<p>Hudson, W. H. <cite>Far Away and Long Ago</cite>, Chapter III, <cite>The Death
+of an Old Dog</cite>. E. P. Dutton &amp; Company.</p>
+
+<p>Wiggin, Kate Douglas. <cite>A Child’s Journey with Dickens</cite> in <cite>My
+Garden of Memory</cite>. Houghton Mifflin Company.</p>
+</div>
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_III">CHAPTER III</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="center"><cite>Historical Narrative</cite></p>
+
+
+<p>Macaulay in the introduction to his essay on Hallam
+deplores the fact that the writers of history of his day,
+exact and accurate though they may be, “present no
+scene to the imagination.” “To make the past present, to
+bring the distant near, to place us in the society of a great
+man or on the eminence which overlooks the scene of a
+mighty battle, to invest with the reality of human flesh
+and blood beings whom we are too much inclined to
+consider as personified qualities in an allegory, to call up
+our ancestors before us with all their peculiarities of
+language, manners and garb, to show us over their
+houses, to seat us at their tables, to rummage their old-fashioned
+wardrobes, to explain the uses of their ponderous
+furniture”—these, he writes, are “parts of the duty
+which properly belongs to the historian.” And such an
+historian Macaulay assuredly was; indeed, he was so
+entirely true to his idea and ideal of history that his
+portrayal of English life and events for only fifteen years
+fills five volumes of closely printed pages.</p>
+
+<p>Yet it is to Macaulay that the writer of historical
+narrative must turn both for precept and for example.
+<em>To present a scene to the imagination</em> must be his motive
+and aim, and he will do well to look to Macaulay as to a
+master in this interesting field of narrative writing.</p>
+
+<p>His subjects may come, as did those of Macaulay, from
+anywhere and everywhere. He may choose to depict an<span class="pagenum" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</span>
+incident of warfare, such as the story of the Black Hole
+of Calcutta from the essay on Lord Clive, or the account
+of a journey, such as Francis Parkman’s narration of the
+winter journey of La Salle. For either of these subjects
+American history is filled with suggestions. One has but
+to think of familiar names from General Braddock to
+Custer, from Ponce de Leon and De Soto to Lewis and
+Clark to become convinced of the richness of material
+within our own borders. More interesting than wars and
+explorations, however, may be narratives of pioneer life
+in the Middle West, or accounts of the trials and executions
+of such persons as Joan of Arc, Mary, Queen of
+Scots, Edith Cavell, Charles I, or incidents in the life of
+some historical personage written with a view to character
+portrayal. Truly the sources for historical narrative
+are limitless.</p>
+
+<p>A study of the succeeding selections will show you that
+the following characteristics are evident in the best historical
+narratives:</p>
+
+<p>1. A wealth of vivid detail by which Macaulay’s ideal
+of <em>presenting the scene to the imagination</em> is realized.</p>
+
+<p>This is especially well shown in Froude’s story of the
+marriage of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn.</p>
+
+<p>2. A careful adaptation of the style to the subject at
+hand.</p>
+
+<p>This is illustrated by the Black Hole of Calcutta incident
+from Macaulay’s essay on Lord Clive. Even a
+careless student must note the rapidity of movement, the
+brevity of many of the sentences, the quick succession of
+clauses as the action mounts. Another excellent example
+of this characteristic is the description of the buffalo hunt
+in Parkman’s chapter on Indian Conquerors.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</span></p>
+
+<p>3. An appreciation of the value of pictorial and suggestive
+words.</p>
+
+<p>Although all the selections given illustrate this quality,
+none, perhaps, is so helpful in this respect as the first.</p>
+
+<p>A single sentence, picked almost at random from Chapter
+III of Macaulay’s <cite>History of England</cite>, illustrates
+perfectly the possible forcefulness of historical narrative
+as over against the bare statement of bare fact. In a
+description of the English navy in 1685, Macaulay is
+contrasting the life of the officers with that of the common
+sailors. He says:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>They dressed as if for a gala at Versailles, ate off plate,
+drank the richest wines, and kept harems on board, while hunger
+and scurvy raged among the crews, and while corpses were
+daily flung out of the port-holes.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>And yet there are those who will contend that he might
+as well have said:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>They lived royally, while many of the sailors sickened and
+died.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="right">
+M. E. C.<br>
+</p>
+
+<br>
+<p class="center"><span class="smcap">The Black Hole of Calcutta</span></p>
+
+<p class="center">THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY</p>
+
+<p>The great province of Bengal, together with Orissa and
+Bahar, had long been governed by a viceroy, whom the
+English called Aliverdy Khan, and who, like the other
+viceroys of the Mogul, had become virtually independent.
+He died in 1756, and the sovereignty descended to his
+grandson, a youth under twenty years of age, who bore
+the name of Surajah Dowlah. Oriental despots are perhaps
+the worst class of human beings; and this unhappy<span class="pagenum" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</span>
+boy was one of the worst specimens of his class. His
+understanding was naturally feeble, and his temper
+naturally unamiable. His education had been such as
+would have enervated even a vigorous intellect, and perverted
+even a generous disposition. He was unreasonable,
+because nobody ever dared to reason with him, and selfish,
+because he had never been made to feel himself
+dependent on the goodwill of others. Early debauchery
+had unnerved his body and his mind. He indulged immoderately
+in the use of ardent spirits, which inflamed
+his weak brain almost to madness. His chosen companions
+were flatterers sprung from the dregs of the people,
+and recommended by nothing but buffoonery and servility.
+It is said that he had arrived at the last stage of
+human depravity, when cruelty becomes pleasing for its
+own sake, when the sight of pain as pain, where no advantage
+is to be gained, no offence punished, no danger
+averted, is an agreeable excitement. It had early been
+his amusement to torture beasts and birds; and, when he
+grew up, he enjoyed with still keener relish the misery of
+his fellow-creatures.</p>
+
+<p>From a child Surajah Dowlah had hated the English.
+It was his whim to do so; and his whims were never opposed.
+He had also formed a very exaggerated notion of
+the wealth which might be obtained by plundering them;
+and his feeble and uncultivated mind was incapable of
+perceiving that the riches of Calcutta, had they been even
+greater than he imagined, would not compensate him for
+what he must lose, if the European trade, of which Bengal
+was a chief seat, should be driven by his violence to some
+other quarter. Pretexts for a quarrel were readily found.
+The English, in expectation of a war with France, had
+begun to fortify their settlement without special permission
+from the Nabob. A rich native, whom he longed<span class="pagenum" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</span>
+to plunder, had taken refuge at Calcutta, and had not
+been delivered up. On such grounds as these Surajah
+Dowlah marched with a great army against Fort
+William.</p>
+
+<p>The servants of the Company at Madras had been
+forced by Dupleix to become statesmen and soldiers.
+Those in Bengal were still mere traders, and were terrified
+and bewildered by the approaching danger. The
+governor, who had heard much of Surajah Dowlah’s
+cruelty, was frightened out of his wits, jumped into a
+boat, and took refuge in the nearest ship. The military
+commandant thought that he could not do better than
+follow so good an example. The fort was taken after a
+feeble resistance; and great numbers of the English fell
+into the hands of the conquerors. The Nabob seated
+himself with regal pomp in the principal hall of the
+factory, and ordered Mr. Holwell, the first in rank among
+the prisoners, to be brought before him. His Highness
+talked about the insolence of the English, and grumbled
+at the smallness of the treasure which he had found, but
+promised to spare their lives, and retired to rest.</p>
+
+<p>Then was committed that great crime, memorable for
+its singular atrocity, memorable for the tremendous
+retribution by which it was followed. The English captives
+were left to the mercy of the guards, and the guards
+determined to secure them for the night in the prison of
+the garrison, a chamber known by the fearful name of the
+Black Hole. Even for a single European malefactor, that
+dungeon would, in such a climate, have been too close and
+narrow. The space was only twenty feet square. The
+air-holes were small and obstructed. It was the summer
+solstice, the season when the fierce heat of Bengal can
+scarcely be rendered tolerable to natives of England by
+lofty halls and by the constant waving of fans. The<span class="pagenum" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</span>
+number of prisoners was one hundred and forty-six.
+When they were ordered to enter the cell, they imagined
+that the soldiers were joking; and, being in high spirits on
+account of the promise of the Nabob to spare their lives,
+they laughed and jested at the absurdity of the notion.
+They soon discovered their mistake. They expostulated;
+they entreated; but in vain. The guards threatened to
+cut down all who hesitated. The captives were driven
+into the cell at the point of the sword, and the door was
+instantly shut and locked upon them.</p>
+
+<p>Nothing in history or fiction, not even the story which
+Ugolino told in the sea of everlasting ice, after he had
+wiped his bloody lips on the scalp of his murderer, approaches
+the horrors which were recounted by the few
+survivors of that night. They cried for mercy. They
+strove to burst the door. Holwell, who, even in that extremity,
+retained some presence of mind, offered large
+bribes to the gaolers. But the answer was that nothing
+could be done without the Nabob’s orders, that the Nabob
+was asleep, and that he would be angry if anybody woke
+him. Then the prisoners went mad with despair. They
+trampled each other down, fought for the places at the
+windows, fought for the pittance of water with which the
+cruel mercy of the murderers mocked their agonies, raved,
+prayed, blasphemed, implored the guards to fire among
+them. The gaolers in the meantime held lights to the
+bars, and shouted with laughter at the frantic struggles
+of their victims. At length the tumult died away in
+low gaspings and moanings. The day broke. The
+Nabob had slept off his debauch, and permitted the door
+to be opened. But it was some time before the soldiers
+could make a lane for the survivors by piling up on each
+side the heaps of corpses on which the burning climate
+had already begun to do its loathsome work. When at<span class="pagenum" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</span>
+length a passage was made, twenty-three ghastly figures,
+such as their own mothers would not have known, staggered
+one by one out of the charnel-house. A pit was
+instantly dug. The dead bodies, a hundred and twenty-three
+in number, were flung into it promiscuously and
+covered up.</p>
+
+<p>But these things—which, after the lapse of more than
+eighty years, cannot be told or read without horror—awakened
+neither remorse nor pity in the bosom of the
+savage Nabob. He inflicted no punishment on the murderers.
+He showed no tenderness to the survivors.
+Some of them, indeed, from whom nothing was to be got,
+were suffered to depart; but those from whom it was
+thought that anything could be extorted were treated with
+execrable cruelty. Holwell, unable to walk, was carried
+before the tyrant, who reproached him, threatened him,
+and sent him up the country in irons, together with some
+other gentlemen who were suspected of knowing more
+than they chose to tell about the treasures of the Company.
+These persons, still bowed down by the sufferings
+of that great agony, were lodged in miserable sheds, and
+fed only with grain and water, till at length the intercessions
+of the female relations of the Nabob procured their
+release. One Englishwoman had survived that night.
+She was placed in the harem of the Prince at Moorshedabad.</p>
+
+<p>Surajah Dowlah, in the meantime, sent letters to his
+nominal sovereign at Delhi, describing the late conquest
+in the most pompous language. He placed a garrison in
+Fort William, forbade Englishmen to dwell in the
+neighbourhood, and directed that, in memory of his great
+actions, Calcutta should thenceforward be called Alinagore,
+that is to say, the Port of God.</p>
+
+<p class="right">
+Thomas Babington Macaulay, <cite>Lord Clive</cite>.<br>
+</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</span></p>
+
+<br>
+<p class="center"><span class="smcap">The Marriage of Henry and Anne Boleyn</span></p>
+
+<p class="center">JAMES ANTHONY FROUDE</p>
+
+<p>On the morning of the 31st of May, the families of the
+London citizens were stirring early in all houses. From
+Temple Bar to the Tower, the streets were fresh strewed
+with gravel, the footpaths were railed off along the whole
+distance, and occupied on one side by the guilds, their
+workmen, and apprentices, on the other by the city constables
+and officials in their gaudy uniforms, “with their
+staves in hand for to cause the people to keep good room
+and order.” Cornhill and Gracechurch-street had dressed
+their fronts in scarlet and crimson, in arras and tapestry,
+and the rich carpet-work from Persia and the East.
+Cheapside, to outshine her rivals, was draped even more
+splendidly in cloth of gold, and tissue, and velvet. The
+sheriffs were pacing up and down on their great Flemish
+horses, hung with liveries, and all the windows were
+thronged with ladies crowding to see the procession pass.
+At length the Tower guns opened, the grim gates rolled
+back, and under the archway in the bright May sunshine,
+the long column began slowly to defile. Two states
+only permitted their representatives to grace the scene
+with their presence—Venice and France. It was, perhaps,
+to make the most of this isolated countenance, that
+the French ambassador’s train formed the van of the
+cavalcade. Twelve French knights came riding foremost
+in surcoats of blue velvet with sleeves of yellow
+silk, their horses trapped in blue, with white crosses
+powdered on their hangings. After them followed a
+troop of English gentlemen, two and two, and then the
+Knights of the Bath, “in gowns of violet, with hoods
+purified with miniver like doctors.” Next, perhaps at a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</span>
+little interval, the abbots passed on, mitred in their
+robes; the barons followed in crimson velvet, the bishops
+then, and then the earls and marquises, the dresses of
+each order increasing in elaborate gorgeousness. All
+these rode on in pairs. Then came alone Audeley, lord-chancellor,
+and behind him the Venetian ambassador and
+the Archbishop of York; the Archbishop of Canterbury,
+and Du Bellay, Bishop of Bayonne and of Paris, not now
+with bugle and hunting-frock, but solemn with stole and
+crozier. Next, the lord mayor, with the city mace in
+hand, and Garter in his coat of arms; and then Lord
+William Howard—Belted Will Howard, of the Scottish
+Border, Marshal of England. The officers of the queen’s
+household succeeded the marshal in scarlet and gold,
+and the van of the procession was closed by the Duke
+of Suffolk, as high constable, with his silver wand.
+It is no easy matter to picture to ourselves the blazing
+trail of splendour which in such a pageant must have
+drawn along the London streets,—those streets which now
+we know so black and smoke-grimed, themselves then
+radiant with masses of colour, gold, and crimson, and
+violet. Yet there it was, and there the sun could shine
+upon it, and tens of thousands of eyes were gazing on the
+scene out of the crowded lattices.</p>
+
+<p>Glorious as the spectacle was, perhaps, however, it
+passed unheeded. Those eyes were watching all for another
+object, which now drew near. In an open space
+behind the constable there was seen approaching “a white
+chariot,” drawn by two palfreys in white damask which
+swept the ground, a golden canopy borne above it making
+music with silver bells: and in the chariot sat the observed
+of all observers, the beautiful occasion of all this
+glittering homage; fortune’s plaything of the hour, the
+Queen of England—queen at last—borne along upon the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</span>
+waves of this sea of glory, breathing the perfumed incense
+of greatness which she had risked her fair name,
+her delicacy, her honour, her self-respect, to win; and
+she had won it.</p>
+
+<p>There she sate, dressed in white tissue robes, her fair
+hair flowing loose over her shoulders, and her temples
+circled with a light coronet of gold and diamonds—most
+beautiful—loveliest—most favoured perhaps, as she
+seemed at that hour, of all England’s daughters. Alas!
+“within the hollow round” of that coronet—</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Kept death his court, and there the antick sate,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Scoffing her state and grinning at her pomp.</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Allowing her a little breath, a little scene</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">To monarchize, be feared, and kill with looks,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Infusing her with self and vain conceit,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">As if the flesh which walled about her life</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Were brass impregnable; and humoured thus,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Bored through her castle walls; and farewell, Queen.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>Fatal gift of greatness! so dangerous ever! so more than
+dangerous in those tremendous times when the fountains
+are broken loose of the great deeps of thought; and nations
+are in the throes of revolution;—when ancient order
+and law and tradition are splitting in the social earthquake;
+and as the opposing forces wrestle to and fro,
+those unhappy ones who stand out above the crowd
+become the symbols of the struggle, and fall the victims of
+its alternating fortunes. And what if into an unsteady
+heart and brain, intoxicated with splendour, the outward
+chaos should find its way, converting the poor silly soul
+into an image of the same confusion,—if conscience
+should be deposed from her high place, and the Pandora
+box be broken loose of passions and sensualities and
+follies; and at length there be nothing left of all which
+man or woman ought to value, save hope of God’s forgiveness.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</span></p>
+
+<p>Three short years have yet to pass, and again, on a
+summer morning, Queen Anne Boleyn will leave the
+Tower of London—not radiant then with beauty on a gay
+errand of coronation, but a poor wandering ghost, on a
+sad tragic errand, from which she will never more return,
+passing away out of an earth where she may stay no
+longer, into a Presence where, nevertheless, we know that
+all is well—for all of us—and therefore for her.</p>
+
+<p>But let us not cloud her shortlived sunshine with the
+shadow of the future. She went on in her loveliness, the
+peeresses following in their carriages, with the royal
+guard in their rear. In Fenchurch-street she was met by
+the children of the city schools; and at the corner of
+Gracechurch-street a masterpiece had been prepared of
+the pseudo-classic art, then so fashionable, by the
+merchants of the Styll-yard. A Mount Parnassus had
+been constructed, and a Helicon fountain upon it playing
+into a basin with four jets of Rhenish wine. On the top
+of the mountain sat Apollo with Calliope at his feet, and
+on either side the remaining Muses, holding lutes or
+harps, and singing each of them some “posy” or epigram
+in praise of the queen, which was presented, after it had
+been sung, written in letters of gold.</p>
+
+<p>From Gracechurch-street the procession passed to
+Leadenhall, where there was a spectacle in better taste,
+of the old English catholic kind, quaint perhaps and
+forced, but truly and even beautifully emblematic.
+There was again a “little mountain,” which was hung
+with red and white roses; a gold ring was placed on the
+summit, on which, as the queen appeared, a white falcon
+was made to “descend as out of the sky”—“and then incontinent
+came down an angel with great melody, and
+set a close crown of gold upon the falcon’s head; and in
+the same pageant sat Saint Anne with all her issue beneath<span class="pagenum" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</span>
+her; and Mary Cleophas with her four children,
+of the which children one made a goodly oration to the
+queen, of the fruitfulness of Saint Anne, trusting that like
+fruit should come of her.”</p>
+
+<p>With such “pretty conceits,” at that time the honest
+tokens of an English welcome, the new queen was received
+by the citizens of London. These scenes must be
+multiplied by the number of the streets, where some fresh
+fancy met her at every turn. To preserve the festivities
+from flagging, every fountain and conduit within the walls
+ran all day with wine; the bells of every steeple were
+ringing; children lay in wait with songs, and ladies with
+posies, in which all the resources of fantastic extravagance
+were exhausted; and thus in an unbroken triumph—and
+to outward appearance received with the warmest affection—she
+passed under Temple Bar, down the Strand by
+Charing Cross to Westminster Hall. The king was not
+with her throughout the day; nor did he intend to be with
+her in any part of the ceremony. She was to reign without
+a rival, the undisputed sovereign of the hour.</p>
+
+<p>Saturday being passed in showing herself to the people,
+she retired for the night to “the king’s manour house at
+Westminster,” where she slept. On the following morning,
+between eight and nine o’clock, she returned to the
+hall, where the lord mayor, the city council, and the peers
+were again assembled, and took her place on the high
+dais at the top of the stairs under the cloth of state; while
+the bishops, the abbots, and the monks of the abbey
+formed in the area. A railed way had been laid with
+carpets across Palace Yard and the Sanctuary to the
+abbey gates, and when all was ready, preceded by the
+peers in their robes of parliament, the Knights of the
+Garter in the dress of the order, she swept out under her
+canopy, the bishops and the monks “solemnly singing.”<span class="pagenum" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</span>
+The train was borne by the old Duchess of Norfolk, her
+aunt, the Bishops of London and Winchester on either
+side “bearing up the lappets of her robe.” The Earl of
+Oxford carried the crown on its cushion immediately before
+her. She was dressed in purple velvet furred with
+ermine, her hair escaping loose, as she usually wore it,
+under a wreath of diamonds.</p>
+
+<p>On entering the abbey, she was led to the coronation
+chair, where she sat while the train fell into their places,
+and the preliminaries of the ceremonial were despatched.
+Then she was conducted up to the high altar, and anointed
+Queen of England, and she received from the hands of
+Cranmer, fresh come in haste from Dunstable, with the
+last words of his sentence upon Catherine scarcely silent
+upon his lips, the golden sceptre, and St. Edward’s crown.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="right">James Anthony Froude, <cite>The History of England</cite>.</p>
+</div>
+
+<br>
+<p class="center"><span class="smcap">The Hardihood of La Salle</span></p>
+
+<p class="center">FRANCIS PARKMAN</p>
+
+<p>La Salle well knew what was before him, and nothing
+but necessity spurred him to this desperate journey. He
+says that he could trust nobody else to go in his stead,
+and that, unless the articles lost in the “Griffin” were
+replaced without delay, the expedition would be retarded
+a full year, and he and his associates consumed by its expenses.
+“Therefore,” he writes to one of them, “though
+the thaws of approaching spring greatly increased the
+difficulty of the way, interrupted as it was everywhere
+by marshes and rivers, to say nothing of the length of
+the journey, which is about five hundred leagues in a
+direct line, and the danger of meeting Indians of four or<span class="pagenum" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</span>
+five different nations, through whose country we were to
+pass, as well as an Iroquois army, which we knew was
+coming that way; though we must suffer all the time from
+hunger; sleep on the open ground, and often without
+food; watch by night and march by day, loaded with baggage,
+such as blanket, clothing, kettle, hatchet, gun,
+powder, lead, and skins to make moccasins; sometimes
+pushing through thickets, sometimes climbing rocks covered
+with ice and snow, sometimes wading whole days
+through marshes where the water was waist-deep or even
+more, at a season when the snow was not entirely melted,—though
+I knew all this, it did not prevent me from
+resolving to go on foot to Fort Frontenac, to learn for
+myself what had become of my vessel, and bring back
+the things we needed.”</p>
+
+<p>The winter had been a severe one; and when, an hour
+after leaving the fort, he and his companions reached the
+still water of Peoria Lake, they found it sheeted with ice
+from shore to shore. They carried their canoes up the
+bank, made two rude sledges, placed the light vessels upon
+them, and dragged them to the upper end of the lake,
+where they encamped. In the morning, they found the
+river still covered with ice, too weak to bear them and
+too strong to permit them to break a way for the canoes.
+They spent the whole day in carrying them through the
+woods, toiling knee-deep in saturated snow. Rain fell
+in floods, and they took shelter at night in a deserted
+Indian hut.</p>
+
+<p>In the morning, the third of March, they dragged their
+canoes half a league farther; then launched them, and,
+breaking the ice with clubs and hatchets, forced their way
+slowly up the stream. Again their progress was barred,
+and again they took to the woods, toiling onward till a
+tempest of moist, half-liquid snow forced them to bivouac<span class="pagenum" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</span>
+for the night. A sharp frost followed, and in the morning
+the white waste around them was glazed with a dazzling
+crust. Now, for the first time, they could use their
+snow-shoes. Bending to their work, dragging their
+canoes, which glided smoothly over the polished surface,
+they journeyed on hour after hour and league after league,
+till they reached at length the great town of the Illinois,
+still void of its inhabitants.</p>
+
+<p>It was a desolate and lonely scene: the river gliding
+dark and cold between its banks of rushes; the empty
+lodges, covered with crusted snow; the vast white meadows;
+the distant cliffs, bearded with shining icicles; and
+the hills wrapped in forests, which glittered from afar
+with the icy incrustations that cased each frozen twig.
+Yet there was life in the savage landscape. The men
+saw buffalo wading in the snow, and they killed one of
+them. More than this: they discovered the tracks of
+moccasins. They cut rushes by the edge of the river,
+piled them on the bank, and set them on fire, that the
+smoke might attract the eyes of savages roaming near.</p>
+
+<p>On the following day, while the hunters were smoking
+the meat of the buffalo, La Salle went out to reconnoitre,
+and presently met three Indians, one of whom proved to
+be Chassagoac, the principal chief of the Illinois. La
+Salle brought them to his bivouac, feasted them, gave
+them a red blanket, a kettle, and some knives and
+hatchets, made friends with them, promised to restrain the
+Iroquois from attacking them, told them that he was on
+his way to the settlements to bring arms and ammunition
+to defend them against their enemies, and, as the
+result of these advances, gained from the chief a promise
+that he would send provisions to Tonty’s party at Fort
+Crèvecoeur.</p>
+
+<p>After several days spent at the deserted town, La Salle<span class="pagenum" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</span>
+prepared to resume his journey. Before his departure,
+his attention was attracted to the remarkable cliff of
+yellow sandstone, now called Starved Rock, a mile or more
+above the village,—a natural fortress, which a score of
+resolute white men might make good against a host of
+savages; and he soon afterwards sent Tonty an order to
+examine it, and make it his stronghold in case of need.</p>
+
+<p>On the fifteenth, the party set out again, carried their
+canoes along the bank of the river as far as the rapids
+above Ottawa; then launched them and pushed their way
+upward, battling with the floating ice, which, loosened by
+a warm rain, drove down the swollen current in sheets.
+On the eighteenth, they reached a point some miles below
+the site of Joliet, and here found the river once more completely
+closed. Despairing of farther progress by water,
+they hid their canoes on an island, and struck across the
+country for Lake Michigan.</p>
+
+<p>It was the worst of all seasons for such a journey. The
+nights were cold, but the sun was warm at noon, and the
+half-thawed prairie was one vast tract of mud, water, and
+discolored, half-liquid snow. On the twenty-second, they
+crossed marshes and inundated meadows, wading to the
+knee, till at noon they were stopped by a river, perhaps
+the Calumet. They made a raft of hard-wood timber,
+for there was no other, and shoved themselves across.
+On the next day, they could see Lake Michigan glimmering
+beyond the waste of woods; and, after crossing three
+swollen streams, they reached it at evening. On the
+twenty-fourth, they followed its shore, till, at nightfall,
+they arrived at the fort, which they had built in the autumn
+at the mouth of the St. Joseph. Here La Salle
+found Chapelle and Leblanc, the two men whom he had
+sent from hence to Michillimackinac, in search of the
+“Griffin.” They reported that they had made the circuit<span class="pagenum" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</span>
+of the lake, and had neither seen her nor heard tidings
+of her. Assured of her fate, he ordered them to rejoin
+Tonty at Fort Crèvecoeur; while he pushed onward with
+his party through the unknown wilds of Southern
+Michigan.</p>
+
+<p>“The rain,” says La Salle, “which lasted all day, and
+the raft we were obliged to make to cross the river,
+stopped us till noon of the twenty-fifth, when we continued
+our march through the woods, which were so
+interlaced with thorns and brambles that in two days
+and a half our clothes were all torn and our faces so
+covered with blood that we hardly knew each other. On
+the twenty-eighth, we found the woods more open, and
+began to fare better, meeting a good deal of game, which
+after this rarely failed us; so that we no longer carried
+provisions with us, but made a meal of roast meat wherever
+we happened to kill a deer, bear, or turkey. These
+are the choicest feasts on a journey like this; and till now
+we had generally gone without them, so that we had often
+walked all day without breakfast.</p>
+
+<p>“The Indians do not hunt in this region, which is
+debatable ground between five or six nations who are at
+war, and, being afraid of each other, do not venture
+into these parts, except to surprise each other, and always
+with the greatest precaution and all possible secrecy.
+The reports of our guns and the carcasses of the animals
+we killed soon led some of them to find our trail.
+In fact, on the evening of the twenty-eighth, having made
+our fire by the edge of a prairie, we were surrounded by
+them; but as the man on guard waked us, and we posted
+ourselves behind trees with our guns, these savages,
+who are called Wapoos, took us for Iroquois, and thinking
+that there must be a great many of us, because we
+did not travel secretly, as they do when in small bands,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</span>
+they ran off without shooting their arrows, and gave the
+alarm to their comrades, so that we were two days without
+meeting anybody.”</p>
+
+<p>La Salle guessed the cause of their fright; and, in order
+to confirm their delusion, he drew with charcoal, on the
+trunks of trees from which he had stripped the bark, the
+usual marks of an Iroquois war-party, with signs for
+prisoners and for scalps, after the custom of those
+dreaded warriors. This ingenious artifice, as will soon
+appear, was near proving the destruction of the whole
+party. He also set fire to the dry grass of the prairies
+over which he and his men had just passed, thus destroying
+the traces of their passage. “We practised this device
+every night, and it answered very well so long as
+we were passing over an open country; but, on the thirtieth,
+we got into great marshes, flooded by the thaws,
+and were obliged to cross them in mud or water up to the
+waist; so that our tracks betrayed us to a band of Mascoutins,
+who were out after Iroquois. They followed us
+through these marshes during the three days we were
+crossing them; but we made no fire at night, contenting
+ourselves with taking off our wet clothes and wrapping
+ourselves in our blankets on some dry knoll, where we
+slept till morning. At last, on the night of the second of
+April, there came a hard frost, and our clothes, which
+were drenched when we took them off, froze stiff as
+sticks, so that we could not put them on in the morning
+without making a fire to thaw them. The fire betrayed
+us to the Indians, who were encamped across the marsh;
+and they ran towards us with loud cries, till they were
+stopped half way by a stream so deep that they could
+not get over, the ice which had formed in the night not
+being strong enough to bear them. We went to meet
+them, within gun shot; and whether our fire-arms frightened<span class="pagenum" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</span>
+them, or whether they thought us more numerous
+than we were, or whether they really meant us no harm,
+they called out, in the Illinois language, that they had
+taken us for Iroquois, but now saw that we were friends
+and brothers; whereupon, they went off as they came,
+and we kept on our way till the fourth, when two of
+my men fell ill and could not walk.”</p>
+
+<p>In this emergency, La Salle went in search of some
+watercourse by which they might reach Lake Erie, and
+soon came upon a small river, which was probably the
+Huron. Here, while the sick men rested, their companions
+made a canoe. There were no birch-trees; and they
+were forced to use elm bark, which at that early season
+would not slip freely from the wood until they loosened
+it with hot water. Their canoe being made, they embarked
+in it, and for a time floated prosperously down
+the stream, when at length the way was barred by a
+matted barricade of trees fallen across the water. The
+sick men could now walk again, and, pushing eastward
+through the forest, the party soon reached the banks of
+the Detroit.</p>
+
+<p>La Salle directed two of the men to make a canoe, and
+go to Michillimackinac, the nearest harborage. With the
+remaining two, he crossed the Detroit on a raft, and,
+striking a direct line across the country, reached Lake
+Erie, not far from Point Pelée. Snow, sleet, and rain
+pelted them with little intermission; and when, after a
+walk of about thirty miles, they gained the lake, the
+Mohegan and one of the Frenchmen were attacked with
+fever and spitting of blood. Only one man now remained
+in health. With his aid, La Salle made another canoe,
+and, embarking the invalids, pushed for Niagara. It
+was Easter Monday when they landed at a cabin of logs
+above the cataract, probably on the spot where the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</span>
+“Griffin” was built. Here several of La Salle’s men had
+been left the year before, and here they still remained.
+They told him woful news. Not only had he lost the
+“Griffin,” and her lading of ten thousand crowns in value,
+but a ship from France, freighted with his goods, valued
+at more than twenty-two thousand livres, had been
+totally wrecked at the mouth of the St. Lawrence; and,
+of twenty hired men on their way from Europe to join
+him, some had been detained by his enemy, the Intendant
+Duchesneau, while all but four of the remainder, being
+told that he was dead, had found means to return home.</p>
+
+<p>His three followers were all unfit for travel: he alone
+retained his strength and spirit. Taking with him three
+fresh men at Niagara, he resumed his journey, and on
+the sixth of May descried, looming through floods of
+rain, the familiar shores of his seigniory and the bastioned
+walls of Fort Frontenac. During sixty-five days, he had
+toiled almost incessantly, travelling, by the course he
+took, about a thousand miles through a country beset
+with every form of peril and obstruction; “the most
+arduous journey,” says the chronicler, “ever made by
+Frenchmen in America.” Such was Cavelier de la Salle.
+In him, an unconquerable mind held at its service a
+frame of iron, and tasked it to the utmost of its endurance.
+The pioneer of western pioneers was no rude son
+of toil, but a man of thought, trained amid arts and
+letters.</p>
+
+<p>He had reached his goal; but for him there was neither
+rest nor peace. Man and Nature seemed in arms against
+him. His agents had plundered him; his creditors had
+seized his property; and several of his canoes, richly
+laden, had been lost in the rapids of the St. Lawrence.
+He hastened to Montreal, where his sudden advent caused
+great astonishment; and where, despite his crippled resources<span class="pagenum" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</span>
+and damaged credit, he succeeded, within a week,
+in gaining the supplies which he required, and the needful
+succors for the forlorn band on the Illinois. He had
+returned to Fort Frontenac, and was on the point of embarking
+for their relief, when a blow fell upon him
+more disheartening than any that had preceded. On
+the twenty-second of July, two <em>voyageurs</em>, Messier and
+Laurent, came to him with a letter from Tonty, who
+wrote that soon after La Salle’s departure nearly all the
+men had deserted, after destroying Fort Crèvecoeur,
+plundering the magazine, and throwing into the river all
+the arms, goods, and stores which they could not carry
+off. The messengers who brought this letter were speedily
+followed by two of the <em>habitants</em> of Fort Frontenac, who
+had been trading on the lakes, and who, with a fidelity
+which the unhappy La Salle rarely knew how to inspire,
+had travelled day and night to bring him their tidings.
+They reported that they had met the deserters, and that,
+having been reinforced by recruits gained at Michillimackinac
+and Niagara, they now numbered twenty men.
+They had destroyed the fort on the St. Joseph, seized a
+quantity of furs belonging to La Salle at Michillimackinac,
+and plundered the magazine at Niagara. Here they had
+separated, eight of them coasting the south side of Lake
+Ontario to find harborage at Albany, a common refuge at
+that time of this class of scoundrels; while the remaining
+twelve, in three canoes, made for Fort Frontenac, along
+the north shore, intending to kill La Salle, as the surest
+means of escaping punishment.</p>
+
+<p>He lost no time in lamentation. Of the few men at his
+command, he chose nine of the trustiest, embarked with
+them in canoes, and went to meet the marauders. After
+passing the Bay of Quinté, he took his station, with five
+of his party, at a point of land suited to his purpose, and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</span>
+detached the remaining four to keep watch. In the morning,
+two canoes were discovered, approaching without
+suspicion, one of them far in advance of the other. As
+the foremost drew near, La Salle’s canoe darted out from
+under the leafy shore; two of the men handling the
+paddles, while he, with the remaining two, levelled their
+guns at the deserters, and called on them to surrender.
+Astonished and dismayed, they yielded at once; while
+two more, who were in the second canoe, hastened to
+follow their example. La Salle now returned to the fort
+with his prisoners, placed them in custody, and again set
+forth. He met the third canoe upon the lake at about six
+o’clock in the evening. His men vainly plied their paddles
+in pursuit. The mutineers reached the shore, took post
+among rocks and trees, levelled their guns, and showed
+fight. Four of La Salle’s men made a circuit to gain
+their rear and dislodge them, on which they stole back
+to their canoe, and tried to escape in the darkness.
+They were pursued, and summoned to yield; but they
+replied by aiming their guns at their pursuers, who instantly
+gave them a volley, killed two of them, and captured
+the remaining three. Like their companions, they
+were placed in custody at the fort, to await the arrival
+of Count Frontenac.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="right">Francis Parkman, <cite>La Salle and the Discovery<br>
+of the Great West</cite>. By permission of the publishers,<br>
+Little, Brown &amp; Company.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<br>
+<p>SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY OF HISTORICAL NARRATIVE</p>
+
+<p>The editors have found these additional selections very useful
+in teaching historical narrative:</p>
+
+<p>Guedalla, Philip. <cite>The Second Empire</cite>, Part III, <cite>The Emperor</cite>.
+G. P. Putnam’s Sons.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</span></p>
+
+<p>Parkman, Francis. <cite>La Salle and the Discovery of the Great
+West</cite>, particularly Chapter XV, <cite>Indian Conquerors</cite>. Little, Brown
+&amp; Company.</p>
+
+<p>Roosevelt, Theodore. <cite>The Winning of the West</cite>, Vol. IV, Chapter
+II, <cite>Mad Anthony Wayne</cite>. G. P. Putnam’s Sons.</p>
+
+<p>Strachey, Lytton. <cite>Queen Victoria</cite>, particularly pages 67-70.
+Harcourt, Brace and Company.</p>
+</div>
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_IV">CHAPTER IV</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="center"><cite>Historical Fiction</cite></p>
+
+
+<p>As in historical narrative some incident, or series of
+connecting incidents, is told in such a way that the details
+are impressed vividly upon the imagination, so in historical
+fiction some story or tradition which has come down
+through the past is portrayed so that it, too, may stand
+out the more clearly because of the larger setting, the
+greater wealth of details, and the added emphasis upon
+the dramatic situations which are given by the narrator.
+Many novelists since the time of Scott, recognizing the
+possibilities in this kind of fiction, have depicted characters
+in relation to certain great epochs of history; but there
+have been relatively few story-tellers who have seized
+upon a single event and constructed a short story with
+that event as the climax. We do have, however, in the
+work of Maurice Hewlett, James Branch Cabell, E. Barrington,
+and some others less noteworthy, delightful pieces
+of historical fiction which prove the charming possibilities
+afforded by this type of narrative.</p>
+
+<p>Here, too, the material lies ready for you. You have
+but to think of an appealing personality in the history of
+any land and then discover, if you do not already know,
+some climactic incident in his life which may serve as a
+nucleus for your story. Nor must you necessarily stick
+to the facts. Tradition, for the story-teller, is often more
+interesting and more valuable than history. In her story<span class="pagenum" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</span>
+of <em>Fair Rosemonde</em>, for example, E. Barrington forsakes
+the historical truth which would end the Lady Rosemonde’s
+days in Godstowe nunnery in favor of the wholly
+traditional story of her poisoning at the wicked hands of
+Queen Eleanore of Aquitaine. Literature may suggest a
+story to you. For example, what could afford better suggestions
+for a piece of historical fiction than Rossetti’s various
+ballads, particularly that of the <em>White Ship</em>?</p>
+
+<p>The methods employed are much the same as those
+suggested for historical narrative, although, since in historical
+fiction your scope is larger, since you are dealing
+with a series of <em>complicating</em> incidents instead of with one
+major incident, since you are in point of fact telling a
+story, it will be well to heed the following suggestions in
+addition to those already given:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>1. Do not fail to emphasize the setting for the story.
+Your characters will be far more real if they act against
+a background which is clear to your reader because of the
+detail with which you have pictured it.</p>
+
+<p>Note how Cabell in <cite>The Story of the Fox-Brush</cite> gives
+the exact time and place which mark the opening of his
+story, and again the detail with which he describes the
+cloudy morning of Katharine’s and Alain’s second meeting.</p>
+
+<p>2. Do not hesitate to give by careful weaving into your
+narrative details concerning the past of your characters.
+This will make them stand out far more clearly and will
+act as a motivation for their behavior in your story.</p>
+
+<p>Note how Cabell increases your feeling of disgust
+toward Queen Isabel by his suggestions concerning her
+previous life. In this case, as will be clearly seen, sympathy
+is generated for the main characters, and becomes
+an added reason for the portrayal of the past.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</span></p>
+
+<p>But far better than precept will be a careful study of
+the charming story that follows.</p>
+
+<p class="right">
+M. E. C.<br>
+</p>
+
+<br>
+<p class="center"><span class="smcap">The Story of the Fox-Brush</span></p>
+
+<p class="center">JAMES BRANCH CABELL</p>
+
+<p>In the year of grace 1417, about Martinmas (thus
+Nicolas begins), Queen Isabeau fled with her daughter,
+the Lady Katharine, to Chartres. There the Queen was
+met by the Duke of Burgundy, and these two laid their
+heads together to such good effect that presently they got
+back into Paris, and in its public places massacred some
+three thousand Armagnacs. That, however, is a matter
+which touches history; the root of our concernment is that,
+when the Queen and the Duke rode off to attend to this
+butcher’s business, the Lady Katharine was left behind
+in the Convent of Saint Scholastica, which then stood
+upon the outskirts of Chartres, in the bend of the Eure
+just south of that city. She dwelt for a year in this well-ordered
+place.</p>
+
+<p>There one finds her upon the day of the decollation of
+Saint John the Baptist, one fine August morning that
+starts the tale. Katharine the Fair, men called her, with
+considerable show of reason. She was very tall, and slim
+as a rush. Her eyes were large and black, having an
+extreme lustre, like the gleam of undried ink,—a lustre
+at some times uncanny. Her abundant hair, too, was
+black, and to-day seemed doubly sombre by contrast with
+the gold netting which confined it. Her mouth was scarlet,
+all curves, and her complexion was famous for its
+brilliancy; only a precision would have objected that she<span class="pagenum" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</span>
+possessed the Valois nose, long and thin and somewhat
+unduly overhanging the mouth.</p>
+
+<p>To-day as she came through the orchard, crimson-garbed,
+she paused with lifted eyebrows. Beyond the
+orchard wall there was a hodgepodge of noises, among
+which a nice ear might distinguish the clatter of hoofs, a
+yelping and scurrying, and a contention of soft bodies,
+and above all a man’s voice commanding the turmoil.
+She was seventeen, so she climbed into the crotch of an
+apple-tree and peered over the wall.</p>
+
+<p>He was in rusty brown and not unshabby; but her
+regard swept over this to his face, and there noted how his
+eyes shone like blue winter stars under the tumbled yellow
+hair, and noted the flash of his big teeth as he swore between
+them. He held a dead fox by the brush, which he
+was cutting off; two hounds, lank and wolfish, were scaling
+his huge body in frantic attempts to get at the carrion.
+A horse grazed close at hand.</p>
+
+<p>So for a heart-beat she saw him. Then he flung the
+tailless body to the hounds, and in the act spied two
+black eyes peeping through the apple-leaves. He laughed,
+all mirth to the heels of him. “Mademoiselle, I fear we
+have disturbed your devotions. But I had not heard that
+it was a Benedictine custom to rehearse aves in treetops.”
+Then, as she leaned forward, both elbows resting
+more comfortably upon the wall, and thereby disclosing
+her slim body among the foliage like a crimson flower
+green-calyxed, he said, “You are not a nun—Blood of
+God! you are the Princess Katharine!”</p>
+
+<p>The nuns, her present guardians, would have declared
+the ensuing action horrific, for Katharine smiled frankly
+at him and asked how could he thus recognize her at one
+glance.</p>
+
+<p>He answered slowly: “I have seen your portrait.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</span>
+Hah, your portrait!” he jeered, head flung back and big
+teeth glinting in the sunlight. “There is a painter who
+merits crucifixion.”</p>
+
+<p>She considered this indicative of a cruel disposition,
+but also of a fine taste in the liberal arts. Aloud she
+stated:</p>
+
+<p>“You are not a Frenchman, messire. I do not understand
+how you can have seen my portrait.”</p>
+
+<p>The man stood for a moment twiddling the fox-brush.
+“I am a harper, my Princess. I have visited the courts
+of many kinds, though never that of France. I perceive
+I have been woefully unwise.”</p>
+
+<p>This trenched upon insolence—the look of his eyes, indeed,
+carried it well past the frontier,—but she found the
+statement interesting. Straightway she touched the kernel
+of those fear-blurred legends whispered about Dom
+Manuel’s reputed descendants.</p>
+
+<p>“You have, then, seen the King of England?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, Highness.”</p>
+
+<p>“Is it true that in him the devil blood of Oriander has
+gone mad, and that he eats children—like Agrapard and
+Angoulaffre of the Broken Teeth?”</p>
+
+<p>His gaze widened. “I have heard a deal of scandal
+concerning the man. But certainly I never heard that.”</p>
+
+<p>Katharine settled back, luxuriously, in the crotch of
+the apple-tree. “Tell me about him.”</p>
+
+<p>Composedly he sat down upon the grass and began to
+acquaint her with his knowledge and opinions concerning
+Henry, the fifth of that name to reign in England, and the
+son of that squinting Harry of Derby about whom I have
+told you so much before.</p>
+
+<p>Katharine punctuated the harper’s discourse with eager
+questionings, which are not absolutely to our purpose.
+In the main, this harper thought the man now buffeting<span class="pagenum" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</span>
+France a just king, and he had heard, when the crown
+was laid aside, Sire Henry was sufficiently jovial, and
+even prankish. The harper educed anecdotes. He considered
+that the King would manifestly take Rouen,
+which the insatiable man was now besieging. Was the
+King in treaty for the hand of the Infanta of Aragon?
+Yes, he undoubtedly was.</p>
+
+<p>Katharine sighed her pity for this ill-starred woman.
+“And now tell me about yourself.”</p>
+
+<p>He was, it appeared, Alain Maquedonnieux, a harper by
+vocation, and by birth a native of Ireland. Beyond the
+fact that it was a savage kingdom adjoining Cataia, Katharine
+knew nothing of Ireland. The harper assured her
+that in this she was misinformed, since the kings of England
+claimed Ireland as an appanage, though the Irish
+themselves were of two minds as to the justice of these
+pretensions; all in all, he considered that Ireland belonged
+to Saint Patrick, and that the holy man had never accredited
+a vicar.</p>
+
+<p>“Doubtless, by the advice of God,” Alain said, “for I
+have read in Master Roger de Wendover’s Chronicles of
+how at the dread day of judgment all the Irish are to
+muster before the high and pious Patrick, as their liege
+lord and father in the spirit, and by him be conducted into
+the presence of God; and of how, by virtue of Saint
+Patrick’s request, all the Irish will die seven years to an
+hour before the second coming of Christ, in order to give
+the blessed saint sufficient time to marshal his company,
+which is considerable.” Katharine admitted the convenience
+of this arrangement, as well as the neglect of her
+education. Alain gazed up at her for a long while, as if
+in reflection, and presently said: “Doubtless the Lady
+Heleine of Argos also was thus starry-eyed and found in
+books less diverting reading than in the faces of men.”<span class="pagenum" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</span>
+It flooded Katharine’s cheeks with a livelier hue, but did
+not vex her irretrievably; if she chose to read this man’s
+face, the meaning was plain enough.</p>
+
+<p>I give you the gist of their talk, and that in all conscience
+is trivial. But it was a day when one entered
+love’s wardship with a plunge, not in more modern fashion
+venturing forward bit by bit, as though love were so
+much cold water. So they talked for a long while, with
+laughter mutually provoked and shared, with divers eloquent
+and dangerous pauses. The harper squatted upon
+the ground, the Princess leaned over the wall; but to all
+intent they sat together upon the loftiest turret of Paradise,
+and it was a full two hours before Katharine hinted at
+departure.</p>
+
+<p>Alain rose, approaching the wall. “To-morrow I ride
+for Milan to take service with Duke Filippo. I had
+broken my journey these three days past at Châteauneuf
+yonder, where this fox has been harrying my host’s
+chickens. To-day I went out to slay him, and he led me,
+his murderer, to the fairest lady earth may boast. Do
+you not think that, in returning good for evil, this fox
+was a true Christian, my Princess?”</p>
+
+<p>Katharine said: “I lament his destruction. Farewell,
+Messire Alain! And since chance brought you
+hither——”</p>
+
+<p>“Destiny brought me hither,” Alain affirmed, a mastering
+hunger in his eyes. “Destiny has been kind; I shall
+make a prayer to her that she continue so.” But when
+Katharine demanded what this prayer would be, Alain
+shook his tawny head. “Presently you shall know,
+Highness, but not now. I return to Châteauneuf on certain
+necessary businesses; to-morrow I set out at cock-crow
+for Milan and the Visconti’s livery. Farewell!”
+He mounted and rode away in the golden August sunlight,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</span>
+the hounds frisking about him. The fox-brush was fastened
+in his hat. Thus Tristran de Léonois may have
+ridden a-hawking in drowned Cornwall, thus statelily and
+composedly, Katharine thought, gazing after him. She
+went to her apartments, singing an inane song about the
+amorous and joyful time of spring when everything and
+everybody is happy,——</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent2">“El tems amoreus plein de joie,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">El tems où tote riens s’esgaie,—”</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>and burst into a sudden passion of tears. There were
+born every day, she reflected, such hosts of women-children,
+who were not princesses and therefore compelled
+to marry detestable kings.</p>
+
+<p>Dawn found her in the orchard. She was to remember
+that it was a cloudy morning, and that mist-tatters
+trailed from the more distant trees. In the slaty twilight
+the garden’s verdure was lustreless, the grass and foliage
+were uniformly sombre save where dewdrops showed like
+beryls. Nowhere in the orchard was there absolute
+shadow, nowhere a vista unblurred; in the east, half-way
+between horizon and zenith, two belts of coppery light
+flared against the gray sky like embers swaddled by ashes.
+The birds were waking; there were occasional scurryings
+in tree-tops and outbursts of peevish twittering to attest
+as much; and presently came a singing, less musical than
+that of many a bird perhaps, but far more grateful to the
+girl who heard it, heart in mouth. A lute accompanied
+the song demurely.</p>
+
+<p>Sang Alain:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent2">“O Madam Destiny, omnipotent,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Be not too obdurate to us who pray</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">That this our transient grant of youth be spent</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">In laughter as befits a holiday,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">From which the evening summons us away,</div><span class="pagenum" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</span>
+    <div class="verse indent0">From which to-morrow wakens us to strife</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">And toil and grief and wisdom,—and to-day</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Grudge us not life!</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent2">“O Madam Destiny, omnipotent,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Why need our elders trouble us at play?</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">We know that very soon we shall repent</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">The idle follies of our holiday,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">And being old, shall be as wise as they:</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">But now we are not wise, and lute and fife</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Plead sweetlier than axioms,—so to-day</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Grudge us not life!</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent2">“O Madam Destiny, omnipotent,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">You have given us youth—and must we cast away</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">The cup undrained and our one coin unspent</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Because our elders’ beards and hearts are gray?</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">They have forgotten that if we delay</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Death claps us on the shoulder, and with knife</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Or cord or fever flouts the prayer we pray—</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">‘Grudge us not life!’</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent2">“Madam, recall that in the sun we play</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">But for an hour, then have the worm for wife,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">The tomb for habitation—and to-day</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Grudge us not life!”</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>Candor in these matters is best. Katharine scrambled
+into the crotch of the apple-tree. The dew pattered
+sharply about her, but the Princess was not in a mood
+to appraise discomfort.</p>
+
+<p>“You came!” this harper said, transfigured; and then
+again, “You came!”</p>
+
+<p>She breathed, “Yes.”</p>
+
+<p>So for a long time they stood looking at each other.
+She found adoration in his eyes and quailed before it;
+and in the man’s mind no grimy and mean incident of the
+past but marshalled to leer at his unworthiness: yet in
+that primitive garden the first man and woman, meeting,
+knew no sweeter terror.</p>
+
+<p>It was by the minstrel that a familiar earth and the
+grating speech of earth were earlier regained. “The affair<span class="pagenum" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</span>
+is of the suddenest,” Alain observed, and he now
+swung the lute behind him. He indicated no intention
+of touching her, though he might easily have done so as
+he sat there exalted by the height of his horse. “A
+meteor arrives with more prelude. But Love is an arbitrary
+lord; desiring my heart, he has seized it, and accordingly
+I would now brave hell to come to you, and
+finding you there, would esteem hell a pleasure-garden.
+I have already made my prayer to Destiny that she concede
+me love. Now of God, our Father and Master, I
+entreat quick death if I am not to win you. For, God
+willing, I shall come to you again, even if in order to do
+this I have to split the world like a rotten orange.”</p>
+
+<p>“Madness! Oh, brave, sweet madness!” Katharine
+said. “You are a minstrel and I am a king’s daughter.”</p>
+
+<p>“Is it madness? Why, then, I think sane persons are
+to be commiserated. And indeed I spy in all this same
+design. Across half the earth I came to you, led by a
+fox. Hey God’s face!” Alain swore, “the foxes which
+Samson, that old sinewy captain, loosed among the corn
+of heathenry kindled no disputation such as this fox has
+set afoot. That was an affair of standing corn and olives
+spoilt, a bushel or so of disaster; now poised kingdoms
+topple on the brink of ruin. There will be martial argument
+shortly if you bid me come again.”</p>
+
+<p>“I bid you come,” said Katharine; and after they had
+stared at each other for a long while, he rode away in
+silence. It was through a dank and tear-flawed world
+that she stumbled conventward, while out of the east the
+sun came bathed in mists, a watery sun no brighter than
+a silver coin.</p>
+
+<p>And for a month the world seemed no less dreary, but
+about Michaelmas the Queen-Regent sent for her. At
+the Hôtel de Saint-Pol matters were much the same.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</span>
+Katharine found her mother in foul-mouthed rage over
+the failure of a third attempt to poison the Dauphin of
+Vienne, as Queen Isabeau had previously poisoned her
+two elder sons; I might here trace out a curious similitude
+between the Valois and that dragon-spawned race
+which Jason very anciently slew at Colchis, since the
+world was never at peace so long as any two of them
+existed. But King Charles greeted his daughter with
+ampler deference, esteeming her to be the wife of Presbyter
+John, the tyrant of Æthiopia. However, ingenuity
+had just suggested card-playing for King Charles’ amusement,
+and he paid little attention nowadays to any one
+save his opponent at this new game.</p>
+
+<p>So the French King chirped his senile jests over the
+card-table, while the King of England was besieging the
+French city of Rouen sedulously and without mercy. In
+late autumn an armament from Ireland joined Henry’s
+forces. The Irish fought naked, it was said, with long
+knives. Katharine heard discreditable tales of these Irish,
+and reflected how gross are the exaggerations of rumor.</p>
+
+<p>In the year of grace 1419, in January, the burgesses of
+Rouen, having consumed their horses, and finding frogs
+and rats unpalatable, yielded the town. It was the
+Queen-Regent who brought the news to Katharine.</p>
+
+<p>“God is asleep,” the Queen said; “and while He nods,
+the Butcher of Agincourt has stolen our good city of
+Rouen.” She sat down and breathed heavily. “Never
+was any poor woman so pestered as I! The puddings
+to-day were quite uneatable, as you saw for yourself, and
+on Sunday the Englishman entered Rouen in great splendor,
+attended by his chief nobles; but the Butcher rode
+alone, and before him went a page carrying a fox-brush
+on the point of his lance. I put it to you, is that
+the contrivance of a sane man? Euh! euh!” Dame<span class="pagenum" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</span>
+Isabeau squealed on a sudden; “you are bruising me.”</p>
+
+<p>Katharine had gripped her by the shoulder. “The
+King of England—a tall, fair man? with big teeth? a tiny
+wen upon his neck—here—and with his left cheek
+scarred? with blue eyes, very bright, bright as tapers?”
+She poured out her questions in a torrent, and awaited
+the answer, seeming not to breathe at all.</p>
+
+<p>“I believe so,” the Queen said, “and they say, too, that
+he has the damned squint of old Manuel the Redeemer.”</p>
+
+<p>“O God!” said Katharine.</p>
+
+<p>“Ay, our only hope now. And may God show him no
+more mercy than has this misbegotten English butcher
+shown us!” the good lady desired, with fervor. “The
+hog, having won our Normandy, is now advancing on
+Paris itself. He repudiated the Aragonish alliance last
+August; and until last August he was content with
+Normandy, they tell us, but now he swears to win all
+France. The man is a madman, and Scythian Tamburlaine
+was more lenient. And I do not believe that in all
+France there is a cook who understands his business.”
+She went away whimpering, and proceeded to get tipsy.</p>
+
+<p>The Princess remained quite still, as Dame Isabeau had
+left her; you may see a hare crouch so at sight of the
+hounds. Finally the girl spoke aloud. “Until last
+August!” Katharine said. “Until last August! <em>Poised
+kingdoms topple on the brink of ruin, now that you bid
+me come to you again.</em> And I bade this devil’s grandson
+come to me, as my lover!” Presently she went into her
+oratory and began to pray.</p>
+
+<p>In the midst of her invocation she wailed: “Fool, fool!
+How could I have thought him less than a king!”</p>
+
+<p>You are to imagine her breast thus adrum with remorse
+and hatred of herself, the while that town by town
+fell before the invader like card-houses. Every rumor<span class="pagenum" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</span>
+of defeat—and the news of some fresh defeat came daily—was
+her arraignment; impotently she cowered at God’s
+knees, knowing herself a murderess, whose infamy was
+still afoot, outpacing her prayers, whose victims were
+battalions. Tarpeia and Pisidicé and Rahab were her
+sisters; she hungered in her abasement for Judith’s nobler
+guilt.</p>
+
+<p>In May he came to her. A truce was patched up, and
+French and English met amicably in a great plain near
+Meulan. A square space was staked out and on three
+sides boarded in, the fourth side being the river Seine.
+This enclosure the Queen-Regent, Jehan of Burgundy,
+and Katharine entered from the French side. Simultaneously
+the English King appeared, accompanied by his
+brothers the Dukes of Clarence and Gloucester, and
+followed by the Earl of Warwick. Katharine raised her
+eyes with I know not what lingering hope; but it was he,
+a young Zeus now, triumphant and uneager. In his helmet
+in place of a plume he wore a fox-brush spangled
+with jewels.</p>
+
+<p>These six entered the tent pitched for the conference—the
+hanging of blue velvet embroidered with fleurs-de-lys
+of gold blurred before the girl’s eyes,—and there the Earl
+of Warwick embarked upon a sea of rhetoric. His
+French was indifferent, his periods were interminable,
+and his demands exorbitant; in brief, the King of England
+wanted Katharine and most of France, with a reversion
+at the French King’s death of the entire kingdom.
+Meanwhile Sire Henry sat in silence, his eyes glowing.</p>
+
+<p>“I have come,” he said, under cover of Warwick’s oratory—“I
+have come again, my lady.”</p>
+
+<p>Katharine’s gaze flickered over him. “Liar!” she said,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</span>
+very softly. “Has God no thunders remaining in His
+armory that this vile thief still goes unblasted? Would
+you steal love as well as kingdoms?”</p>
+
+<p>His ruddy face was now white. “I love you, Katharine.”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes,” she answered, “for I am your pretext. I can
+well believe, messire, that you love your pretext for theft
+and murder.”</p>
+
+<p>Neither spoke after this, and presently the Earl of
+Warwick having come to his peroration, the matter was
+adjourned till the next day. The party separated. It
+was not long before Katharine had informed her mother
+that, God willing, she would never again look upon the
+King of England’s face uncoffined. Isabeau found her a
+madwoman. The girl swept opposition before her with
+gusts of demoniacal fury, wept, shrieked, tore at her hair,
+and eventually fell into a sort of epileptic seizure; between
+rage and terror she became a horrid, frenzied beast. I
+do not dwell upon this, for it is not a condition in which
+the comeliest maid shows to advantage. But, for the
+Valois, insanity always lurked at the next corner, and
+they knew it; to save the girl’s reason the Queen was
+forced to break off all discussion of the match. Accordingly,
+the Duke of Burgundy went next day to the conference
+alone. Jehan began with “ifs,” and over these
+flimsy barriers Henry, already fretted by Katharine’s
+scorn, presently vaulted to a towering fury.</p>
+
+<p>“Fair cousin,” the King said, after a deal of vehement
+bickering, “we wish you to know that we will have the
+daughter of your King, and that we will drive both him
+and you out of this kingdom.”</p>
+
+<p>The Duke answered, not without spirit, “Sire, you are
+pleased to say so; but before you have succeeded in ousting<span class="pagenum" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</span>
+my lord and me from this realm, I am of the opinion
+that you will be very heartily tired.”</p>
+
+<p>At this the King turned on his heel; over his shoulder
+he flung: “I am tireless; also, I am agile as a fox in
+the pursuit of my desires. Say that to your Princess.”
+Then he went away in a rage.</p>
+
+<p>It had seemed an approvable business to win love
+incognito, according to the example of many ancient emperors,
+but in practice he had tripped over an ugly outgrowth
+from the legendary custom. The girl hated him,
+there was no doubt about it; and it was equally certain he
+loved her. Particularly caustic was the reflection that
+a twitch of his finger would get him Katharine as his wife,
+for before long the Queen-Regent was again attempting
+secret negotiations to bring this about. Yes, he could get
+the girl’s body by a couple of pen-strokes, and had he
+been older that might have contented him: as it was,
+what he wanted was to rouse the look her eyes had borne
+in Chartres orchard that tranquil morning, and this one
+could not readily secure by fiddling with seals and
+parchments. You see his position: this high-spirited
+young man now loved the Princess too utterly to take her
+on lip-consent, and this marriage was now his one possible
+excuse for ceasing from victorious warfare. So he
+blustered, and the fighting recommenced; and he slew in
+a despairing rage, knowing that by every movement of
+his arms he became to her so much the more detestable.</p>
+
+<p>Then the Vicomte de Montbrison, as you have heard,
+betrayed France, and King Henry began to strip the
+French realm of provinces as you peel the layers from
+an onion. By the May of the year of grace 1420 France
+was, and knew herself to be not beaten but demolished.
+Only a fag-end of the French army lay entrenched at
+Troyes, where King Charles and his court awaited<span class="pagenum" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</span>
+Henry’s decision as to the morrow’s action. If he chose
+to destroy them root and branch, he could; and they knew
+such mercy as was in the man to be quite untarnished by
+previous using. Sire Henry drew up a small force before
+the city and made no overtures toward either peace or
+throat-cutting.</p>
+
+<p>This was the posture of affairs on the evening of the
+Sunday after Ascension day, when Katharine sat at cards
+with her father in his apartments at the Hôtel de ville.
+The King was pursing his lips over an alternative play,
+when somebody began singing below in the courtyard.</p>
+
+<p>Sang the voice:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">“I can find no meaning in life,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">That have weighed the world,—and it was</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Abundant with folly, and rife</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">With sorrows brittle as glass,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">And with joys that flicker and pass</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Like dreams through a fevered head;</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">And like the dripping of rain</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">In gardens naked and dead</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Is the obdurate thin refrain</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Of our youth which is presently dead.</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">“And she whom alone I have loved</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Looks ever with loathing on me,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">As one she hath seen disproved</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">And stained with such smirches as be</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Not ever cleansed utterly;</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">And is loth to remember the days</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">When Destiny fixed her name</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">As the theme and the goal of my praise;</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">And my love engenders shame,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">And I stain what I strive for and praise.</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">“O love, most perfect of all,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Just to have known you is well!</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">And it heartens me now to recall</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">That just to have known you is well,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">And naught else is desirable</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Save only to do as you willed</div><span class="pagenum" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</span>
+    <div class="verse indent0">And to love you my whole life long;—</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">But this heart in me is filled</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">With hunger cruel and strong,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">And with hunger unfulfilled.</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">“Fond heart, though thy hunger be</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">As a flame that wanders unstilled,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">There is none more perfect than she!”</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>Malise now came into the room, and, without speaking,
+laid a fox-brush before the Princess.</p>
+
+<p>Katharine twirled it in her hand, staring at the card-littered
+table. “So you are in his pay, Malise? I am
+sorry. But you know that your employer is master here.
+Who am I to forbid him entrance?” The girl went away
+silently, abashed, and the Princess sat quite still, tapping
+the brush against the table.</p>
+
+<p>“They do not want me to sign another treaty, do they?”
+her father asked timidly. “It appears to me they are
+always signing treaties, and I cannot see that any good
+comes of it. And I would have won the last game,
+Katharine, if Malise had not interrupted us. You know
+I would have won.”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, Father, you would have won. Oh, he must not
+see you!” Katharine cried, a great tide of love mounting
+in her breast, the love that draws a mother fiercely to
+shield her backward boy. “Father, will you not go into
+your chamber? I have a new book for you, Father—all
+pictures, dear. Come—” She was coaxing him when
+Sire Henry appeared in the doorway.</p>
+
+<p>“But I do not wish to look at pictures,” Charles said,
+peevishly; “I wish to play cards. You are an ungrateful
+daughter, Katharine. You are never willing to amuse
+me.” He sat down with a whimper and began to pluck
+at his dribbling lips.</p>
+
+<p>Katharine had moved a little toward the door. Her<span class="pagenum" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</span>
+face was white. “Now welcome, sire!” she said. “Welcome,
+O great conqueror, who in your hour of triumph
+can find no nobler recreation than to shame a maid with
+her past folly! It was valorously done, sire. See,
+Father; here is the King of England come to observe how
+low we sit that yesterday were lords of France.”</p>
+
+<p>“The King of England!” echoed Charles, and he rose
+now to his feet. “I thought we were at war with him.
+But my memory is treacherous. You perceive, brother
+of England, I am planning a new mouse-trap, and my
+mind is somewhat preëmpted. I recall now that you are
+in treaty for my daughter’s hand. Katharine is a good
+girl, a fine upstanding girl, but I suppose—” He paused,
+as if to regard and hear some invisible counsellor, and
+then briskly resumed: “Yes, I suppose policy demands
+that she should marry you. We trammelled kings can
+never go free of policy—ey, my compère of England?
+No; it was through policy I wedded her mother; and we
+have been very unhappy, Isabeau and I. A word in
+your ear, son-in-law: Madame Isabeau’s soul formerly
+inhabited a sow, as Pythagoras teaches, and when our
+Saviour cast it out at Gadara, the influence of the moon
+drew it hither.”</p>
+
+<p>Henry did not say anything. Steadily his calm blue
+eyes appraised Dame Katharine. And King Charles
+went on, very knowingly:</p>
+
+<p>“Oho, these Latinists cannot hoodwink me, you observe,
+though by ordinary it chimes with my humor to appear
+content. Policy again, son-in-law: for once roused, I am
+terrible. To-day in the great hall-window, under the
+bleeding feet of Lazarus, I slew ten flies—very black
+they were, the black shrivelled souls of parricides,—and
+afterward I wept for it. I often weep; the Mediterranean
+hath its sources in my eyes, for my daughter cheats at<span class="pagenum" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</span>
+cards. Cheats, sir!—and I her father!” The incessant
+peering, the stealthy cunning with which Charles whispered
+this, the confidence with which he clung to his
+destroyer’s hand, was that of a conspiring child.</p>
+
+<p>“Come, Father,” Katharine said. “Come away to bed,
+dear.”</p>
+
+<p>“Hideous basilisk!” he spat at her; “dare you rebel
+against me? Am I not King of France, and is it not
+blasphemy for a King of France to be mocked? Frail
+moths that flutter about my splendor,” he shrieked, in
+an unheralded frenzy, “beware of me, beware! for I am
+omnipotent! I am King of France, Heaven’s regent. At
+my command the winds go about the earth, and nightly
+the stars are kindled for my recreation. Perhaps I am
+mightier than God, but I do not remember now. The
+reason is written down and lies somewhere under a bench.
+Now I sail for England. Eia! eia! I go to ravage England,
+terrible and merciless. But I must have my mouse-traps,
+Goodman Devil, for in England the cats of the
+middle-sea wait unfed.” He went out of the room, giggling,
+and in the corridor began to sing:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent2">“A hundred thousand times good-bye!</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">I go to seek the Evangelist,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">For here all persons cheat and lie....”</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>All this while Henry remained immovable, his eyes
+fixed upon Katharine. Thus (she meditated) he stood
+among Frenchmen; he was the boulder, and they the
+waters that babbled and fretted about him. But she
+turned and met his gaze squarely. She noted now for the
+first time how oddly his left eyebrow drooped.</p>
+
+<p>Katharine said: “And that is the king whom you have
+conquered! Is it not a notable conquest to overcome so
+wise a king? to pilfer renown from an idiot? There are
+cut-throats in Troyes, rogues doubly damned, who would<span class="pagenum" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</span>
+scorn the action. Now shall I fetch my mother, sire?
+the commander of that great army which you overcame?
+As the hour is late, she is by this time tipsy, but
+she will come. O God!” the girl wailed, on a sudden;
+“O just and all-seeing God! are not we of Valois so contemptible
+that in conquering us it is the victor who is
+shamed?”</p>
+
+<p>“Flower of the marsh!” he said, and his voice pulsed
+with tender cadences—“flower of the marsh! it is not
+the King of England who now comes to you, but Alain the
+harper. Henry Plantagenet God has led hither by the
+hand to punish the sins of this realm, and to reign in it
+like a true king. Henry Plantagenet will cast out the
+Valois from the throne they have defiled, as Darius cast
+out Belshazzar, for such is the desire and the intent of
+God. But to you comes Alain the harper, not as a conqueror
+but as a suppliant,—Alain who has loved you
+whole-hearted these two years past, and who now kneels
+before you entreating grace.”</p>
+
+<p>Katharine looked down into his countenance, for to his
+speech he had fitted action. Suddenly and for the first
+time she understood that he believed France to be his by
+Divine favor and Heaven’s peculiar intervention. He
+thought himself God’s factor, not His rebel. He was
+rather stupid, this huge, handsome, squinting boy; and
+as she comprehended this, her hand went to his shoulder,
+half maternally.</p>
+
+<p>“It is nobly done, sire. But I understand. You must
+marry me in order to uphold your claim to France. You
+sell, and I with my body purchase, peace for France.
+There is no need of a lover’s posture when hucksters
+meet.”</p>
+
+<p>“So changed,” he said, and he was silent for an interval,
+still kneeling. Then he began: “You force me to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</span>
+point out that I do not need any pretext for holding
+France. France lies before me prostrate. By God’s
+singular grace I reign in this fair kingdom, mine by right
+of conquest, and an alliance with the house of Valois
+will neither make nor mar me.” She was unable to deny
+this, unpalatable as was the fact. “But I love you, and
+therefore as man wooes woman I sue to you. Do you
+not understand that there can be between us no question
+of expediency? Katharine, in Chartres orchard there
+met a man and a maid we know of; now in Troyes they
+meet again,—not as princess and king, but as man and
+maid, the wooer and the wooed. Once I touched your
+heart, I think. And now in all the world there is one
+thing I covet—to gain for the poor king some portion of
+that love you would have squandered on the harper.”
+His hand closed upon her hand.</p>
+
+<p>At his touch the girl’s composure vanished. “My lord,
+you woo too timidly for one who comes with many loud-voiced
+advocates. I am daughter to the King of France,
+and next to my soul’s salvation I esteem the welfare of
+France. Can I, then, fail to love the King of England,
+who chooses the blood of my countrymen as a judicious
+garb to come a-wooing in? How else, since you have
+ravaged my native land, since you have besmirched the
+name I bear, since yonder afield every wound in my
+dead and yet unburied Frenchmen is to me a mouth
+which shrieks your infamy?”</p>
+
+<p>He rose. “And yet, for all that, you love me.”</p>
+
+<p>She could not at the first effort find words with which to
+answer him, but presently she said, quite simply, “To see
+you lying in your coffin I would willingly give up my hope
+of heaven, for heaven can afford no sight more desirable.”</p>
+
+<p>“You loved Alain.”</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</span></p>
+
+<p>“I loved the husk of a man. You can never comprehend
+how utterly I loved him.”</p>
+
+<p>“You are stubborn. I shall have trouble with you.
+But this notion of yours is plainly a mistaken notion.
+That you love me is indisputable, and this I propose to
+demonstrate. You will observe that I am quite unarmed
+except for this dagger, which I now throw out of the
+window—” with the word it jangled in the courtyard
+below. “I am in Troyes alone among some thousand
+Frenchmen, any one of whom would willingly give his
+life for the privilege of taking mine. You have but to
+sound the gong beside you, and in a few moments I
+shall be a dead man. Strike, then! for with me dies the
+English power in France. Strike, Katharine! if you see
+in me but the King of England.”</p>
+
+<p>She was rigid; and his heart leapt when he saw it was
+because of terror.</p>
+
+<p>“You came alone! You dared!”</p>
+
+<p>He answered, with a wonderful smile. “Proud spirit!
+how else might I conquer you?”</p>
+
+<p>“You have not conquered!” Katharine lifted the
+bâton beside the gong, poising it. God had granted her
+prayer—to save France. Now the past and the ignominy
+of the past might be merged in Judith’s nobler guilt.
+But I must tell you that in the supreme hour, Destiny
+at her beck, her main desire was to slap the man for his
+childishness. Oh, he had no right thus to besot himself
+with adoration! This dejection at her feet of his high
+destiny awed her, and pricked her, too, with her inability
+to understand him. Angrily she flung away the bâton.
+“Go! ah, go!” she cried, like one strangling. “There has
+been enough of bloodshed, and I must spare you, loathing
+you as I do, for I cannot with my own hand murder
+you.”</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</span></p>
+
+<p>But the King was a kindly tyrant, crushing independence
+from his associates as lesser folk squeeze water from
+a sponge. “I cannot go thus. Acknowledge me to be
+Alain, the man you love, or else strike upon the gong.”</p>
+
+<p>“You are cruel!” she wailed, in her torture.</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, I am cruel.”</p>
+
+<p>Katharine raised straining arms above her head in a
+hard gesture of despair. “You have conquered. You
+know that I love you. Oh, if I could find words to
+voice my shame, to shriek it in your face, I could better
+endure it! For I love you. With all my body and
+heart and soul I love you. Mine is the agony, for I love
+you! and presently I shall stand quite still and see little
+Frenchmen scramble about you as hounds leap upon a
+stag, and afterward kill you. And after that I shall
+live! I preserve France, but after I have slain you,
+Henry, I must live. Mine is the agony, the enduring
+agony.” She stayed motionless for an interval. “God,
+God! let me not fail!” Katharine breathed; and then:
+“O fair sweet friend, I am about to commit a vile action,
+but it is for the sake of the France that I love next to
+God. As Judith gave her body to Holofernes, I crucify
+my heart for the preservation of France.” Very calmly
+she struck upon the gong.</p>
+
+<p>If she could have found any reproach in his eyes during
+the ensuing silence, she could have borne it; but there
+was only love. And with all that, he smiled like one who
+knew the upshot of this matter.</p>
+
+<p>A man-at-arms came into the room. “Germain—”
+said Katharine, and then again, “Germain—” She gave
+a swallowing motion and was silent. When she spoke it
+was with crisp distinctness. “Germain, fetch a harp.
+Messire Alain here is about to play for me.”</p>
+
+<p>At the man’s departure she said: “I am very pitiably<span class="pagenum" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</span>
+weak. Need you have dragged my soul, too, in the dust?
+God heard my prayer, and you have forced me to deny
+His favor, as Peter denied Christ. My dear, be very
+kind to me, for I come to you naked of honor.” She fell
+at the King’s feet, embracing his knees. “My master,
+be very kind to me, for there remains only your love.”</p>
+
+<p>He raised her to his breast. “Love is enough,” he said.</p>
+
+<p>She was conscious, as he held her thus, of the chain
+mail under his jerkin. He had come armed; he had his
+soldiers no doubt in the corridor; he had tricked her, it
+might be from the first. But that did not matter now.</p>
+
+<p>“Love is enough,” she told her master docilely.</p>
+
+<p>Next day the English entered Troyes and in the cathedral
+church these two were betrothed. Henry was there
+magnificent in a curious suit of burnished armor; in
+place of his helmet-plume he wore a fox-brush ornamented
+with jewels, which unusual ornament afforded
+great matter of remark among the busybodies of both
+armies.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="right">From <cite>Chivalry</cite> by James Branch Cabell. By<br>
+permission of the publishers, Robert M.<br>
+McBride and Company.</p>
+</div>
+
+<br>
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p>SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY OF HISTORICAL FICTION</p>
+
+<p>The editors have found these additional selections very useful
+in teaching the writing of historical fiction:</p>
+
+<p>Barrington, E. <cite>Fair Rosemonde.</cite> <cite>The Atlantic Monthly</cite>, June,
+1921.</p>
+
+<p>Cabell, James Branch. <cite>Chivalry, The Rat-Trap.</cite> Robert M.
+McBride and Company.</p>
+
+<p>Dickens, Charles. <cite>A Tale of Two Cities</cite>, Book I, Chapter V, <cite>The
+Wine-Shop</cite>; and Book III, Chapter VI, <cite>Triumph</cite>.</p>
+
+<p>Macaulay, Thomas Babington. <cite>The Lays of Ancient Rome.</cite></p>
+
+<p>Rossetti, Dante Gabriel. <cite>The White Ship.</cite></p>
+</div>
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_V">CHAPTER V</h2>
+</div>
+<br>
+<p class="center"><cite>Tales and Legends</cite></p>
+
+
+<p>The derivations of the words <em>tale</em> and <em>legend</em> hold
+within themselves several of the features that distinguish
+the one from the other. A tale (As. <i lang="la">talu</i>, speech) means
+literally that which is told by oral relation or recital; a
+legend (L. <i lang="la">legendus</i>, to be read) that which is apprehended
+by the eye and not by the ear. Originally, then,
+the tale was an oral recital, though the term was afterwards
+applied to narrative whether oral or written,
+whereas the legend, which in the history of narrative is
+later than the tale, was a written chronicle that in its
+earliest form recorded the lives of the saints and was
+read in monastic houses for spiritual edification. Like
+the tale, however, the legend has long since lost its original
+meaning, and is now broadly applied to many a
+story of ancient origin which possesses an incredible, or
+seemingly miraculous character.</p>
+
+<p>And yet the tale and the legend possess certain distinguishing
+traits as types of narrative which their derivations
+suggest and their histories corroborate. Since
+the tale was an oral recital, the narrator must, of course,
+have employed all means in his power to impress his
+audience. Events which took place in many and strange
+lands, episodes of thrilling adventure, which, although they
+usually centered about one character, might be tacked
+on indefinitely so long as his audience was interested,
+humorous situations and escapades which not infrequently<span class="pagenum" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</span>
+degenerated into horseplay, often illustrated by grotesque
+mimicry and pantomime—such were the distinctive features
+of the early tale. Nor are those earlier attributes
+absent from the more modern tales. In these also there
+is often no unity of setting; there are always incredible
+incidents and episodes which, as in the case of Mr. James
+Stevens’s <em>Paul Bunyon</em>, center about one main character;
+there are frequently features grotesque and humorous.
+Even so is the legend, to a large extent, true to its derivation
+and early history. Written as it was for a religious
+assembly, it centered about the life of some saint
+whose spirituality it strove to glorify by the portrayal of
+some one remarkable incident rather than by the relation
+of several. Instead of the marvelous it dealt with the
+miraculous; instead of the humorous and grotesque, although
+these elements were not always absent, it dealt
+with romantic fancy; instead of merely diverting or amusing
+an audience, it sought to instruct and edify. And, as
+with the tale, these earlier features are easily apparent in
+the legends of our own time. Here, too, are the inexplicable,
+even the seemingly miraculous; here are romantic
+fancy and æsthetic charm; and here are often
+lessons in constancy, kindness, or heroism.</p>
+
+<p>To the careful student of literary types the history of
+the tale and of the legend and the distinguishing features
+of each afford a never failing source of interest and pleasure;
+but to the writer of narrative such a study must be
+cursory at best. He must, of course, recognize the individualizing
+attributes of the tale and of the legend;
+but he must at the same time realize that, although these
+attributes are in many cases still distinct, they have in
+many other examples merged into one another. For example,
+in <cite>The Legend of the Moor’s Legacy</cite> from Irving’s
+<cite>Tales of the Alhambra</cite> (the interchange of the words<span class="pagenum" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</span>
+legend and tale is interesting) which is more distinctly a
+tale than a legend, there are evident the purely æsthetic
+charm and fancy that characterize a legend; in Miss
+Lagerlöf’s beautiful <cite>Legend of the Christmas Rose</cite>, on
+the other hand, there are, especially in the conduct of the
+robber woman in Abbot Hans’s garden, some features
+that marked the earlier tales. Indeed, for practical purposes
+the words <em>tale</em> and <em>legend</em> may be used almost
+synonymously by the writer of narrative (as in point of
+fact they are in many dictionaries) if he has sufficient
+literary judgment to preserve a consistency of tone or a
+unity of artistic effect in his own work as he enters into
+that boundless and fascinating field—the writing or the
+expanding into literary form of old tales and legends.</p>
+
+<p>Nor are these adjectives, it seems to me, ill-chosen.
+Surely the field is boundless, stretching from the ancient
+papyrus tales of Egypt to the Indian legends of Minnesota
+and New Mexico. It includes the traditions sacred
+to every race and nationality, the stories which have been
+handed down in families, the tales and legends which add
+charm and personality to certain localities the world over.
+If you are of Scandinavian stock, you have a treasure-house
+in the thousands of old stories of valor and endurance
+which have been told for centuries by Norse
+grandmothers to their grandchildren during the long
+northern winters; if you are of Irish blood, what mysterious
+and miraculous legends of the earliest Christian
+centuries await you! It is strange if there are not in
+your own family tales which have never been put in writing,
+and stranger if in your own town and county there
+is not some legend which contains within itself romantic
+charm enough to justify its telling.</p>
+
+<p>It is a fascinating as well as a boundless field of writing.
+In the first place, it contains all the charm that lies in the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</span>
+old, the mysterious, the romantic, the sacred, the poetic,
+the valorous—words which lure one by their sound as well
+as by their connotations. Then there is fascination in
+the fact that the material lies ready for your workmanship.
+If you do not know a tale or a legend which is connected
+with your own family or locality, you have only
+to go upon a short journey of discovery to find literally
+hundreds. Perhaps the richest treasure-house is the various
+collections of the Miracles of Our Lady, those current
+legends of the Middle Ages which centered about the
+Virgin Mary and from which Anatole France drew his
+<em>Juggler to Our Lady</em>, or the many volumes which tell
+briefly the lives of the saints. If those do not appeal
+to you, however, there are scores of marvelous tales and
+legends of various peoples—Turkish, Egyptian, Indian,
+Russian, Norse. Lastly, and most important of all,
+there is fascination in the methods employed in the writing
+of these tales and legends, in the various ways by
+which you may gain pictorial charm and artistic effects.</p>
+
+<p>From a careful study of the models given in the pages
+that follow you will note certain outstanding characteristics
+for which you should strive in your own work:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>1. A tendency to plunge at once into the story.</p>
+
+<p>There is no expository material and singularly little introduction
+in the models given. Instead, you are taken
+into the situation almost with the first sentence: “Once,
+when Jesus was only five years old, he sat on the doorstep
+outside his father’s workshop, in Nazareth, and
+made clay cuckoos from a lump of clay which the potter
+across the way had given him.” “In the time of King
+Louis, there lived in France a poor juggler, native of
+Compiègne, named Barnabas, who went among the villagers
+doing feats of strength and skill.”</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</span></p>
+
+<p>2. A clear and, for the most part, simple narrative
+style, which proceeds directly to the one major incident
+to be related and allows few digressions.</p>
+
+<p>3. An emphasis on the concrete.</p>
+
+<p>This is well illustrated in <cite>The Legend of the Christmas
+Rose</cite> in the minute details which describe the awakening
+of the forest; in the description from <cite>The Song of the
+Minister</cite> of the wondrous <i lang="la">Te Deum</i> sung by the stone
+images in the cathedral; and in the “six copper balls”
+and the “twelve knives” of Barnabas, the juggler.</p>
+
+<p>4. The use of figures.</p>
+
+<p>The clay cuckoos of Jesus in Miss Lagerlöf’s <i lang="la">In Nazareth</i>
+are “as smooth and even as the oak leaves in the
+forests on Mt. Tabor”; in Göinge forest “the leaves
+dropped from the trees, rustling like rain.”</p>
+
+<p>5. A delight in color and in the sound of unusual proper
+names.</p>
+
+<p>This two-fold feature is apparent in all the selections.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="right">
+M. E. C.<br>
+</p>
+
+
+<p class="center"><span class="smcap">In Nazareth</span></p>
+
+<p class="center">SELMA LAGERLÖF</p>
+
+<p>Once, when Jesus was only five years old, he sat on
+the doorstep outside his father’s workshop, in Nazareth,
+and made clay cuckoos from a lump of clay which the
+potter across the way had given him. He was happier
+than usual. All the children in the quarter had told
+Jesus that the potter was a disobliging man, who wouldn’t
+let himself be coaxed, either by soft glances or honeyed
+words, and he had never dared ask aught of him. But,
+you see, he hardly knew how it had come about. He had<span class="pagenum" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</span>
+only stood on his doorstep and, with yearning eyes,
+looked upon the neighbor working at his molds, and then
+that neighbor had come over from his stall and given
+him so much clay that it would have been enough to
+finish a whole wine jug.</p>
+
+<p>On the stoop of the next house sat Judas, his face covered
+with bruises and his clothes full of rents, which he
+had acquired during his continual fights with street
+urchins. For the moment he was quiet, he neither quarreled
+nor fought, but worked with a bit of clay, just as
+Jesus did. But this clay he had not been able to procure
+for himself. He hardly dared venture within sight of
+the potter, who complained that he was in the habit of
+throwing stones at his fragile wares, and would have
+driven him away with a good beating. It was Jesus who
+had divided his portion with him.</p>
+
+<p>When the two children had finished their clay cuckoos,
+they stood the birds up in a ring in front of them. These
+looked just as clay cuckoos have always looked. They
+had big, round lumps to stand on in place of feet, short
+tails, no necks, and almost imperceptible wings.</p>
+
+<p>But, at all events, one saw at once a difference in the
+work of the little playmates. Judas’ birds were so
+crooked that they tumbled over continually; and no matter
+how hard he worked with his clumsy little fingers, he
+couldn’t get their bodies neat and well formed. Now and
+then he glanced slyly at Jesus, to see how he managed to
+make his birds as smooth and even as the oak-leaves in
+the forests on Mount Tabor.</p>
+
+<p>As bird after bird was finished, Jesus became happier
+and happier. Each looked more beautiful to him than
+the last, and he regarded them all with pride and affection.
+They were to be his playmates, his little brothers;
+they should sleep in his bed, keep him company, and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</span>
+sing to him when his mother left him. Never before had
+he thought himself so rich; never again could he feel
+alone or forsaken.</p>
+
+<p>The big, brawny water-carrier came walking along,
+and right after him came the huckster, who sat joggingly
+on his donkey between the large empty willow baskets.
+The water-carrier laid his hand on Jesus’ curly head
+and asked him about his birds; and Jesus told him that
+they had names and that they could sing. All the little
+birds were come to him from foreign lands, and told him
+things which only he and they knew. And Jesus spoke
+in such a way that both the water-carrier and the huckster
+forgot about their tasks for a full hour, to listen to him.</p>
+
+<p>But when they wished to go farther, Jesus pointed to
+Judas. “See what pretty birds Judas makes!” he said.</p>
+
+<p>Then the huckster good-naturedly stopped his donkey
+and asked Judas if his birds also had names and could
+sing. But Judas knew nothing of this. He was stubbornly
+silent and did not raise his eyes from his work,
+and the huckster angrily kicked one of his birds and
+rode on.</p>
+
+<p>In this manner the afternoon passed, and the sun sank
+so far down that its beams could come in through the
+low city gate, which stood at the end of the street and
+was decorated with a Roman Eagle. This sunshine,
+which came at the close of the day, was perfectly rose-red—as
+if it had become mixed with blood—and it colored
+everything which came in its path, as it filtered through
+the narrow street. It painted the potter’s vessels as well
+as the log which creaked under the woodman’s saw, and
+the white veil that covered Mary’s face.</p>
+
+<p>But the loveliest of all was the sun’s reflection as it
+shone on the little water-puddles which had gathered in<span class="pagenum" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</span>
+the big, uneven cracks in the stones that covered the street.
+Suddenly Jesus stuck his hand in the puddle nearest him.
+He had conceived the idea that he would paint his gray
+birds with the sparkling sunbeams which had given such
+pretty color to the water, the house-walls, and everything
+around him.</p>
+
+<p>The sunshine took pleasure in letting itself be captured
+by him, like paint in a paint pot; and when Jesus
+spread it over the little clay birds, it lay still and bedecked
+them from head to foot with a diamond-like luster.</p>
+
+<p>Judas, who every now and then looked at Jesus to see
+if he made more and prettier birds than his, gave a shriek
+of delight when he saw how Jesus painted his clay
+cuckoos with the sunshine, which he caught from the
+water pools. Judas also dipped his hand in the shining
+water and tried to catch the sunshine.</p>
+
+<p>But the sunshine wouldn’t be caught by him. It slipped
+through his fingers; and no matter how fast he tried to
+move his hands to get hold of it, it got away, and he
+couldn’t procure a pinch of color for his poor birds.</p>
+
+<p>“Wait, Judas!” cried Jesus. “I’ll come and paint your
+birds.”</p>
+
+<p>“No, you shan’t touch them!” cried Judas. “They’re
+good enough as they are.”</p>
+
+<p>He rose, his eyebrows contracted into an ugly frown,
+his lips compressed. And he put his broad foot on the
+birds and transformed them, one after another, into little
+flat pieces of clay.</p>
+
+<p>When all his birds were destroyed, he walked over to
+Jesus, who sat and caressed his birds—that glittered like
+jewels. Judas regarded them for a moment in silence,
+then he raised his foot and crushed one of them.</p>
+
+<p>When Judas took his foot away and saw the entire<span class="pagenum" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</span>
+little bird changed into a cake of clay, he felt so relieved
+that he began to laugh, and raised his foot to crush
+another.</p>
+
+<p>“Judas,” said Jesus, “what are you doing? Don’t you
+see that they are alive and can sing?”</p>
+
+<p>But Judas laughed and crushed still another bird.</p>
+
+<p>Jesus looked around for help. Judas was heavily built
+and Jesus had not the strength to hold him back. He
+glanced around for his mother. She was not far away,
+but before she could have gone there, Judas would have
+had ample time to destroy the birds. The tears sprang to
+Jesus’ eyes. Judas had already crushed four of his birds.
+There were only three left.</p>
+
+<p>He was annoyed with his birds, who stood so calmly
+and let themselves be trampled upon without paying the
+slightest attention to the danger. Jesus clapped his hands
+to awaken them; then he shouted: “Fly, fly!”</p>
+
+<p>Then the three birds began to move their tiny wings,
+and, fluttering anxiously, they succeeded in swinging
+themselves up to the eaves of the house, where they
+were safe.</p>
+
+<p>But when Judas saw that the birds took to their wings
+and flew at Jesus’ command, he began to weep. He tore
+his hair, as he had seen his elders do when they were in
+great trouble, and he threw himself at Jesus’ feet.</p>
+
+<p>Judas lay there and rolled in the dust before Jesus like
+a dog, and kissed his feet and begged that he would raise
+his foot and crush him, as he had done with the clay
+cuckoos. For Judas loved Jesus and admired and worshiped
+him, and at the same time hated him.</p>
+
+<p>Mary, who sat all the while and watched the children’s
+play, came up and lifted Judas in her arms and seated
+him on her lap, and caressed him.</p>
+
+<p>“You poor child!” she said to him, “you do not know<span class="pagenum" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</span>
+that you have attempted something which no mortal can
+accomplish. Don’t engage in anything of this kind
+again, if you do not wish to become the unhappiest of
+mortals! What would happen to any one of us who undertook
+to compete with one who paints with sunbeams
+and blows the breath of life into dead clay?”</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="right">Selma Lagerlöf, <cite>Christ Legends</cite>. By permission<br>
+of the publishers, Henry Holt and Company.</p>
+</div>
+
+<br>
+<p class="center"><span class="smcap">The Song of the Minster</span></p>
+
+<p class="center">WILLIAM CANTON</p>
+
+
+<p>When John of Fulda became Prior of Hethholme, says
+the old chronicle, he brought with him to the Abbey many
+rare and costly books—beautiful illuminated missals and
+psalters and portions of the Old and New Testament.
+And he presented rich vestments to the Minster; albs of
+fine linen, and copes embroidered with flowers of gold.
+In the west front he built two great arched windows
+filled with marvellous storied glass. The shrine of St.
+Egwin he repaired at vast outlay, adorning it with garlands
+in gold and silver, but the colour of the flowers was
+in coloured gems, and in like fashion the little birds in
+the nooks of the foliage. Stalls and benches of carved
+oak he placed in the choir; and many other noble works
+he had wrought in his zeal for the glory of God’s house.</p>
+
+<p>In all the western land was there no more fair or stately
+Minster than this of the Black Monks, with the peaceful
+township on one side, and on the other the sweet meadows
+and the acres of wheat and barley sloping down to the
+slow river, and beyond the river the clearings in the
+ancient forest.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</span></p>
+
+<p>But Thomas the Sub-prior was grieved and troubled
+in his mind by the richness and the beauty of all he saw
+about him, and by the Prior’s eagerness to be ever adding
+some new work in stone, or oak, or metal, or jewels.</p>
+
+<p>“Surely,” he said to himself, “these things are unprofitable—less
+to the honour of God than to the pleasure
+of the eye and the pride of life and the luxury of our
+house! Had so much treasure not been wasted on these
+vanities of bright colour and carved stone, our dole to
+the poor of Christ might have been fourfold, and they
+filled with good things. But now let our almoner do
+what best he may, I doubt not many a leper sleeps cold,
+and many a poor man goes lean with hunger.”</p>
+
+<p>This the Sub-prior said, not because his heart was
+quick with fellowship for the poor, but because he was
+of a narrow and gloomy and grudging nature, and he
+could conceive of no true service of God which was not
+one of fasting and praying, of fear and trembling, of
+joylessness and mortification.</p>
+
+<p>Now you must know that the greatest of the monks
+and the hermits and the holy men were not of this kind.
+In their love of God they were blithe of heart, and filled
+with a rare sweetness and tranquillity of soul, and they
+looked on the goodly earth with deep joy, and they had
+a tender care for the wild creatures of wood and water.
+But Thomas had yet much to learn of the beauty of
+holiness.</p>
+
+<p>Often in the bleak dark hours of the night he would
+leave his cell and steal into the Minster, to fling himself
+on the cold stones before the high altar; and there he
+would remain, shivering and praying, till his strength
+failed him.</p>
+
+<p>It happened one winter night, when the thoughts I
+have spoken of had grown very bitter in his mind,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</span>
+Thomas guided his steps by the glimmer of the sanctuary
+lamp to his accustomed place in the choir. Falling on
+his knees, he laid himself on his face with the palms of
+his outstretched hands flat on the icy pavement. And as
+he lay there, taking a cruel joy in the freezing cold and
+the torture of his body, he became gradually aware of
+a sound of far-away yet most heavenly music.</p>
+
+<p>He raised himself to his knees to listen, and to his
+amazement he perceived that the whole Minster was
+pervaded by a faint, mysterious light, which was every
+instant growing brighter and clearer. And as the light
+increased the music grew louder and sweeter, and he
+knew that it was within the sacred walls. But it was no
+mortal minstrelsy.</p>
+
+<p>The strains he heard were the minglings of angelic instruments,
+and the cadences of voices of unearthly loveliness.
+They seemed to proceed from the choir about
+him, and from the nave and transept and aisles; from
+the pictured windows and from the clerestory and from
+the vaulted roofs. Under his knees he felt that the crypt
+was throbbing and droning like a huge organ.</p>
+
+<p>Sometimes the song came from one part of the Minster,
+and then all the rest of the vast building was silent; then
+the music was taken up, as it were in response, in another
+part; and yet again voices and instruments would blend in
+one indescribable volume of harmony, which made the
+huge pile thrill and vibrate from roof to pavement.</p>
+
+<p>As Thomas listened, his eyes became accustomed to the
+celestial light which encompassed him, and he saw—he
+could scarce credit his senses that he saw—the little
+carved angels of the oak stalls in the choir clashing their
+cymbals and playing their psalteries.</p>
+
+<p>He rose to his feet, bewildered and half terrified. At
+that moment the mighty roll of unison ceased, and from<span class="pagenum" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</span>
+many parts of the church there came a concord of clear
+high voices, like a warbling of silver trumpets, and
+Thomas heard the words they sang. And the words
+were these——</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent4"><i lang="la">Tibi omnes Angeli.</i></div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">To Thee all Angels cry aloud.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>So close to him were two of these voices that Thomas
+looked up to the spandrels in the choir, and he saw that
+it was the carved angels leaning out of the spandrels
+that were singing. And as they sang the breath came
+from their stone lips white and vaporous in the frosty air.</p>
+
+<p>He trembled with awe and astonishment, but the wonder
+of what was happening drew him towards the altar.
+The beautiful tabernacle work of the altar screen contained
+a double range of niches filled with the statues of
+saints and kings; and these, he saw, were singing. He
+passed slowly onward with his arms outstretched, like a
+blind man who does not know the way he is treading.</p>
+
+<p>The figures on the painted glass of the lancets were
+singing.</p>
+
+<p>The winged heads of the baby angels over the marble
+memorial slabs were singing.</p>
+
+<p>The lions and griffons and mythical beasts of the finials
+were singing.</p>
+
+<p>The effigies of dead abbots and priors were singing
+on their tombs in bay and chantry.</p>
+
+<p>The figures in the frescoes on the walls were singing.</p>
+
+<p>On the painted ceiling westward of the tower the verses
+of the Te Deum, inscribed in letters of gold above the
+shields of kings and princes and barons, were visible in
+the divine light, and the very words of these verses were
+singing, like living things.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</span></p>
+
+<p>And the breath of all these as they sang turned to a
+smoke as of incense in the wintry air, and floated about
+the high pillars of the Minster.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly the music ceased, all save the deep organ-drone.</p>
+
+<p>Then Thomas heard the marvellous antiphon repeated
+in the bitter darkness outside; and that music, he knew,
+must be the response of the galleries of stone kings and
+queens, of abbots and virgin martyrs, over the western
+portals, and of the monstrous gargoyles along the eaves.</p>
+
+<p>When the music ceased in the outer darkness, it was
+taken up again in the interior of the Minster.</p>
+
+<p>At last there came one stupendous united cry of all
+the singers, and in that cry even the organ-drone of the
+crypt, and the clamour of the brute stones of pavement
+and pillar, of wall and roof, broke into words articulate.
+And the words were these:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0"><i lang="la">Per singulos dies, benedicimus Te.</i></div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Day by day: we magnify Thee,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">And we worship Thy name: ever world without end.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>As the wind of the summer changes into the sorrowful
+wail of the yellowing woods, so the strains of joyous worship
+changed into a wail of supplication; and as he caught
+the words, Thomas too raised his voice in wild entreaty:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0"><i lang="la">Miserere nostri, Domine, miserere nostri.</i></div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">O Lord, have mercy upon us: have mercy upon us.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>And then his senses failed him, and he sank to the ground
+in a long swoon.</p>
+
+<p>When he came to himself all was still, and all was
+dark save for the little yellow flower of light in the sanctuary
+lamp.</p>
+
+<p>As he crept back to his cell, he saw with unsealed eyes
+how churlishly he had grudged God the glory of man’s<span class="pagenum" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</span>
+genius and the service of His dumb creatures, the metal
+of the hills, and the stone of the quarry, and the timber
+of the forest; for now he knew that at all seasons, and
+whether men heard the music or not, the ear of God was
+filled by day and by night with an everlasting song from
+each stone of the vast Minster:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">We magnify Thee,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">And we worship Thy name: ever world without end.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="right">By permission, from William Canton, <cite>A Child’s<br>
+Book of Saints</cite>. Copyright by E. P. Dutton &amp;<br>
+Company.</p>
+</div>
+
+<br>
+<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Juggler to Our-Lady</span></p>
+
+<p class="center">ANATOLE FRANCE</p>
+
+
+<p>I</p>
+
+<p>In the time of King Louis, there lived in France a poor
+juggler, native of Compiègne, named Barnabas, who went
+among the villages doing feats of strength and skill. On
+market days he would spread out on the public square an
+old carpet very much worn, and, after having attracted
+the children and the gazing bumpkins by some suitable
+pleasantries which he had adopted from an old juggler
+and which he never changed at all, he would assume
+grotesque attitudes and balance a plate on his nose.</p>
+
+<p>The crowd at first looked at him with indifference.
+But when, standing on his hands with his head downward,
+he tossed in the air six copper balls which glittered
+in the sun, and caught them again with his feet; or when,
+by bending backward until his neck touched his heels,
+he gave his body the form of a perfect wheel, and in that
+posture juggled with twelve knives, a murmur of admiration<span class="pagenum" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</span>
+rose from the onlookers, and pieces of money rained
+upon the carpet.</p>
+
+<p>However, like the majority of those who live by their
+talents, Barnabas of Compiègne had much difficulty in
+living. Earning his bread by the sweat of his brow, he
+bore more than his part of the miseries connected with
+the fall of Adam, our father. Moreover, he was unable to
+work as much as he would have wished. In order to
+show off his fine accomplishment, he needed the warmth
+of the sun and the light of day, just as do the trees in order
+to produce their blossoms and fruits.</p>
+
+<p>In winter he was nothing more than a tree despoiled
+of its foliage and to appearance dead. The frozen
+earth was hard for the juggler. And, like the grasshopper
+of which Marie of France tells, he suffered
+from cold and from hunger in the bad season. But,
+since he possessed a simple heart, he bore his ills in
+patience.</p>
+
+<p>He had never reflected upon the origin of riches, nor
+upon the inequality of human conditions. He believed
+firmly that, if this world is evil, the other cannot fail to
+be good, and this hope sustained him. He did not imitate
+the thieving mountebanks and miscreants who have sold
+their souls to the devil. He never blasphemed the name
+of God; he lived honestly, and, although he had no wife,
+he did not covet his neighbor’s, for woman is the enemy
+of strong men, as appears from the history of Samson,
+which is reported in the Scriptures.</p>
+
+<p>In truth, he had not a spirit which turned to carnal
+desires, and it would have cost him more to renounce
+the jugs than the women. For, although without failing
+in sobriety, he loved to drink when it was warm. He
+was a good man, fearing God and very devout toward
+the Holy Virgin. He never failed, when he entered a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</span>
+church, to kneel before the image of the Mother of God
+and address to her this prayer:</p>
+
+<p>“Madame, take care of my life until it may please God
+that I die, and when I am dead, cause me to have the
+joys of paradise.”</p>
+
+
+<p>II</p>
+
+<p>Well, then, on a certain evening after a day of rain,
+while he was walking, sad and bent, carrying under his
+arm his balls and knives wrapped up in his old carpet,
+and seeking for some barn in which he might lie down
+supperless, he saw on the road a monk who was travelling
+the same way, and saluted him decorously. As they were
+walking at an equal pace, they began to exchange remarks.</p>
+
+<p>“Comrade,” said the monk, “how comes it that you are
+habited all in green? Is it not for the purpose of taking
+the character of a fool in some mystery-play?”</p>
+
+<p>“Not for that purpose, father,” responded Barnabas.
+“Such as you see me, I am named Barnabas, and I am
+by calling a juggler. It would be the most beautiful occupation
+in the world if one could eat every day.”</p>
+
+<p>“Friend Barnabas,” replied the monk, “take care what
+you say. There is no more beautiful calling than the
+monastic state. Therein one celebrates the praises of
+God, the Virgin, and the saints, and the life of a monk
+is a perpetual canticle to the Lord.”</p>
+
+<p>Barnabas answered:</p>
+
+<p>“Father, I confess that I have spoken like an ignoramus.
+Your calling may not be compared with mine, and, although
+there is some merit in dancing while holding on
+the tip of the nose a coin balanced on a stick, this merit
+does not approach yours. I should like very well to sing<span class="pagenum" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</span>
+every day, as you do, Father, the office of the most Holy
+Virgin, to whom I have vowed a particular devotion. I
+would right willingly renounce my calling, in which I am
+known from Soissons to Beauvais, in more than six hundred
+towns and villages, in order to embrace the monastic
+life.”</p>
+
+<p>The monk was touched by the simplicity of the juggler,
+and, as he did not lack discernment, he recognized in
+Barnabas one of those men of good purpose whereof our
+Lord said: “Let peace abide with them on earth!” This
+is why he replied to him:</p>
+
+<p>“Friend Barnabas, come with me, and I will enable
+you to enter the monastery of which I am the prior. He
+who conducted Mary the Egyptian through the desert
+has placed me on your path to lead you in the way of
+salvation.”</p>
+
+<p>This is how Barnabas became a monk.</p>
+
+<p>In the monastery where he was received, the brethren
+emulously solemnized the cult of the Holy Virgin, and
+each one employed in her service all the knowledge and all
+the ability which God had given him.</p>
+
+<p>The prior, for his part, composed books which, according
+to the rules of scholasticism, treated of the virtues of
+the Mother of God.</p>
+
+<p>Friar Maurice with a learned hand copied these dissertations
+on leaves of vellum.</p>
+
+<p>Friar Alexander painted fine miniatures, wherein one
+could see the Queen of Heaven seated upon the throne of
+Solomon, at the foot of which four lions kept vigil.
+Around her haloed head fluttered seven doves, which are
+the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit: gifts of fear, piety,
+science, might, counsel, intelligence, and wisdom. She
+had for companions six golden-haired Virgins: Humility,
+Prudence, Retirement, Respect, Virginity, and Obedience.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</span>
+At her feet two small figures, nude and quite white, were
+standing in a suppliant attitude. They were souls who
+implored her all-powerful intercession for their salvation—and
+certainly not in vain.</p>
+
+<p>On another page Friar Alexander represented Eve gazing
+upon Mary, so that thus one might see at the same
+time the sin and the redemption, the woman humiliated
+and the Virgin exalted. Furthermore, in this book one
+might admire the Well of Living Waters, the Fountain,
+the Lily, the Moon, the Sun, and the closed Garden which
+is spoken of in the Canticle, the Gate of Heaven and the
+Seat of God, and there were also several images of the
+Virgin.</p>
+
+<p>Friar Marbode was, similarly, one of the most affectionate
+children of Mary. He carved images in stone without
+ceasing, so that his beard, his eyebrows, and his
+hair were white with dust, and his eyes were perpetually
+swollen and tearful; but he was full of strength and joy
+in his advanced age, and, visibly, the Queen of Paradise
+protected the old age of her child. Marbode represented
+her seated on a bishop’s throne, her brow encircled by a
+nimbus whose orb was of pearls, and he took pains that
+the folds of her robe should cover the feet of one of
+whom the prophet said: “My beloved is like a closed
+garden.”</p>
+
+<p>At times, also, he gave her the features of a child full
+of grace, and she seemed to say: “Lord, thou art my
+Lord!”—“Dixi de ventre matris meae: Deus meus es tu.”
+(Psalm 21, II.)</p>
+
+<p>They had also in the monastery several poets, who
+composed, in Latin, both prose and hymns in honor of
+the most happy Virgin Mary, and there was even found
+one Picardian who set forth the miracles of Our Lady in
+ordinary language and in rhymed verses.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</span></p>
+
+
+<p>III</p>
+
+<p>Seeing such a concourse of praises and such a beautiful
+in-gathering of works, Barnabas lamented to himself
+his ignorance and his simplicity.</p>
+
+<p>“Alas!” he sighed as he walked along in the little
+garden of the convent, “I am very unfortunate not to be
+able, like my brothers, to praise worthily the Holy Mother
+of God to whom I have pledged the tenderness of my
+heart. Alas! Alas! I am a rude and artless man, and
+I have for your service, Madam the Virgin, neither edifying
+sermons, nor tracts properly divided according to the
+rules, nor fine paintings, nor statues exactly sculptured,
+nor verses counted by feet and marching in measure.
+I have nothing, alas!”</p>
+
+<p>He moaned in this manner and abandoned himself to
+sadness.</p>
+
+<p>One night that the monks were recreating by conversing,
+he heard one of them relate the history of a religious
+who did not know how to recite anything but the <em>Ave
+Maria</em>. This monk was disdained for his ignorance;
+but, having died, there came forth from his lips five
+roses in honor of the five letters in the name of <em>Maria</em>,
+and his sanctity was thus manifested.</p>
+
+<p>While listening to this recital Barnabas admired once
+again the bounty of the Virgin; but he was not consoled
+by the example of that happy death, for his heart was
+full of zeal, and he desired to serve the glory of his Lady
+who was in Heaven. He sought the means without being
+able to find them, and every day he grieved the
+more.</p>
+
+<p>One morning, however, having awakened full of joy, he
+ran to the chapel and stayed there alone for more than
+an hour. He returned there after dinner. And beginning<span class="pagenum" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</span>
+from that moment he went every day into the
+chapel at the hour when it was deserted, and there he
+passed a large part of the time which the other monks
+consecrated to the liberal and the mechanical arts. No
+more was he sad and no longer did he complain.</p>
+
+<p>A conduct so singular aroused the curiosity of the
+monks. They asked themselves in the community why
+Friar Barnabas made his retreats so frequent.</p>
+
+<p>The Prior, whose duty it is to ignore nothing in the
+conduct of his monks, resolved to observe Barnabas during
+his solitudes. One day that he was closeted in the
+chapel as his custom was, Dom Prior went, accompanied
+by two elders of the monastery, to observe through
+the windows of the door what was going on in the interior.</p>
+
+<p>They saw Barnabas, who—before the altar of the Holy
+Virgin, head downward, feet in air—was juggling with
+six brass balls and twelve knives. He was doing in
+honor of the Holy Mother of God the feats which had
+brought to him the most applause. Not comprehending
+that this simple man was thus placing his talent and his
+knowledge at the service of the Holy Virgin, the two
+elders cried out at the sacrilege.</p>
+
+<p>The Prior understood that Barnabas had an innocent
+heart; but he thought that he had fallen into dementia.
+All three were preparing to drag him vigorously from the
+chapel when they saw the Holy Virgin descend the
+steps of the altar in order to wipe with a fold of her blue
+mantle the sweat which burst from the brow of her juggler.</p>
+
+<p>Then the Prior, prostrating his face against the marble
+slabs, recited these words:</p>
+
+<p>“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see
+God!”</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</span></p>
+
+<p>“Amen,” responded the elders as they kissed the
+earth.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="right">Anatole France. From J. Berg Esenwein,<br>
+<em>Short-Story Masterpieces</em> (Volume II—French.)<br>
+By permission of Mr. Esenwein, the translator.<br>
+Copyright.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Paul Bunyon</span></p>
+
+<p class="center">JAMES STEVENS</p>
+
+<p>Paul Bunyon was the one historian of the useful and
+the beautiful; other writers of history tell only of terrible
+and dramatic events. Therefore the chronicles of Paul
+Bunyon, the mighty logger, the inventor of the lumber
+industry, the leader-hero of the best band of bullies, the
+finest bunch of savages, that ever tramped the continent,
+the master orator of a land that has since grown forests
+of orators—his chronicles alone tell of the Winter of the
+Blue Snow.</p>
+
+<p>The blue snow fell first in the north. It fell scantily
+in its earlier hours, its sapphire flakes floating down on
+the waves of a mild winter wind, and glittering in an
+ashen gold light, a sober pale radiance which shimmered
+through silver mists. There was poetry in the spectacle
+of these hours. And then the hard gray ground of
+a peopleless land was hidden under a blanket of dark
+blue. And the nameless frozen lakes and rivers, the
+silent valleys and the windy hills of the country were all
+spread over with a sky-dyed snow. When the last light
+of this day went out, the boughs of the great pines were
+creaking under heavy wet masses of snow like torn bales
+of blue cotton. There was a rush in the snowfall now, as
+a fiercer wind whipped it on; its heavy flakes were driven
+down in thick, whirling clusters, in streaming veils, leaping<span class="pagenum" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</span>
+lines and dashing columns; and there were cloudlike
+swarms of the blue flakes, which settled slowly, floating
+easily in the hard wind. This wind got so strong that it
+shivered the timber, and the piles of blue snow which
+had gathered on the pine boughs were shaken down.
+Most of this snow fell into blue mounds around the trees,
+but some of it fell on the fauna of the forest, adding
+to their troublement.</p>
+
+<p>At the time of the Winter of the Blue Snow, the forest
+creatures of this land lived a free and easy life. Man
+was not there to embarrass them with accusations of
+trespass and to slay them for their ignorance of the
+crime. Their main problem was the overcrowding of the
+forests. The vast moose herds, who populated the woods
+so densely that traffic through their favorite timber was
+dangerous, made the matter of getting food a simple one
+for the carnivorous animals. There were many moose
+to spare, and the elders of the herds, like most prolific
+parents, never became frantically resentful over the loss
+of an offspring. The moose themselves, of course, lived
+easily on the crisp, juicy moose grass which grew so
+plenteously in these regions before the blue snow. So the
+carnivorous creatures of the forests lived a fast and furious
+life; and it is certain that if they were capable of
+praise, they had good praises for the moose meat which
+they got with such little difficulty. The coal-black
+bruins of the North were an especially happy crowd.
+Theirs was a gay, frolicsome life in the summer time,
+when the big bruins danced and galloped through sunny
+valleys and the small ones had rolling races on shady
+hillsides. In the fall, all fat and drowsy from moose
+meat, the bruins would go to sleep in their warm caves
+and dream pleasantly all winter.</p>
+
+<p>They were all dreaming now; and the blue snow would<span class="pagenum" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</span>
+no doubt have fallen and melted away without their
+knowledge had it not been for the moose herds which
+crowded the forest aisles. Moose at that time did not
+have it in them to enjoy wonder, and they had not
+learned to combat fear, for they were never afraid.
+Still, they had some imagination, and the moose trembled
+when the first blue snowflakes fell among them.
+They kept up an appearance of unconcern at first, eating
+moose moss as usual; but they sniffed gingerly at the
+blue streaks in it, and they stole furtive glances at each
+other as they bravely ate. This strange snowfall was
+certainly breeding fear of it in the hearts of all the moose,
+but each one seemed determined to be the last one to
+show it. However, as the day-end got near, and the
+wind grew more boisterous, shaking snow masses from
+the trees, some of the moose had fits of trembling and
+eye-rolling which they could not conceal. When a heap
+of snow dropped on the back of some timid moose, he
+would twist his head sharply and stare with bulging eyes
+at the mysteriously fearsome color, then he would prance
+wildly until the unwelcome snow was bucked from his
+shivering back. When the early shadows of evening
+came among the trees, the moose all had a heavy darkness
+of fear in their hearts. Little was needed to put
+them in a panic.</p>
+
+<p>It was a great bull moose, a herd king, who forgot
+the example he owed to his weaker kindred and unloosed
+a thunderous bellow of terror which started the moose
+flight, the first memorable incident of the Winter of the
+Blue Snow. An overladen bough cracked above him; it
+fell and straddled him from quivering tail to flailing
+horns, burying him under its wet blue load. He reared
+out roaring, and his own herd echoed the cry; then a
+storm of moose bellows crashed through the forest. This<span class="pagenum" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</span>
+tumult died, but there followed the earth-shaking thunder
+of a stampede.</p>
+
+<p>The bruins, awakened from their pleasant dreams,
+came out from their caves and blinked at the hosts of
+terrified moose which were galloping past. The earth-shaking
+uproar of the flight at last thoroughly aroused
+the bruins, and they began to sniff the air uneasily.
+Then they noticed the blue snow; and now in front of
+every cave crowds of bruins were staring down at the
+snow, and each bruin was swaying heavily, lifting his
+left front foot as he swayed to the right, and lifting his
+right front foot as he swayed to the left. The bruins
+had no courage either, and, once they had got sleep out of
+their heads, nearly all of them took out after the moose
+herds. The wind roared louder with every passing minute
+this night. And the flakes of the blue snow were
+as dense as the particles of a fog. At dawn a blue blizzard
+was raging. But the fauna of the forest plunged
+tirelessly on, seeking a refuge of white snow.</p>
+
+<p>And Niagara, made faithless by the Blue Terror, galloped
+behind them—Niagara, the great moose hound,
+bread-winner for the student of history, Paul Bunyon
+(his real name), and his companion also.</p>
+
+<p>Paul Bunyon lived at Tonnere Bay. He dwelt in a
+cave that was as large as ten Mammoth Caves and which
+had a roof loftier than any tower or spire. But this cave
+was none too vast for Paul Bunyon, the one man of this
+region, but one man as great as a city of ordinary men.
+His tarpaulins and blankets covered one-fourth of the
+cave floor; his hunting clothes, traps and seines filled another
+quarter; and the rest of the space was occupied by
+a fireplace and his papers and books.</p>
+
+<p>For Paul Bunyon was a student now. There had been
+a time when he had gone forth in the hunting and fishing<span class="pagenum" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</span>
+season to gather the huge supplies of provender which
+he required, but now his days and nights were all spent
+with his books. Paul Bunyon’s favorite food was raw
+moose meat, and after he found Niagara in the Tall Wolf
+country he no longer needed to hunt. Each night Niagara
+trotted out in the darkness and satisfied his own
+hunger, then he carried mouthfuls of moose to the cave
+until he had a day’s supply of meat for his master.
+Niagara was ever careful not to frighten the moose herds;
+he hunted stealthily and with quiet. The moose at night
+were only conscious of a dark cloud looming over them,
+then numbers of the herds would disappear, without
+painful sound. The moose, if they had thought about
+it, would have been only thankful to Niagara for lessening
+the congestion of the forests.</p>
+
+<p>So Paul Bunyon fared well on the moose meat which
+Niagara brought him, and he lived contentedly as a student
+in his cave at Tonnere Bay. Each day he studied,
+and far into the night he figured. Taking a trimmed pine
+tree for a pencil, he would char its end in the fire and
+use the cave floor for a slate. He was not long in learning
+all the history worth knowing, and he became as good
+a figure as any man could be.</p>
+
+<p>Vague ambitions began to stir in his soul after this
+and he often deserted his studies to dream about them.
+He knew he would not spend his days forever in the
+cave at Tonnere Bay. Somewhere in the future a great
+Work was waiting to be done by him. Now it was
+only a dream; but he was sure that it would be a reality;
+and he came to think more and more about it. The
+books were opened less and less; the pine tree pencil
+was seldom brought from its corner. Paul Bunyon now
+used another pine tree which still had its boughs; it was
+a young one, and he brushed his curly black beard with<span class="pagenum" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</span>
+it as he dreamed. But he was still a contented man at
+the time of the Winter of the Blue Snow, for his dreams
+had not yet blazed up in a desire for any certain attainment.</p>
+
+<p>On the first day of the blue snow, Paul Bunyon was in
+a particularly contented mood. He sat all that day before
+his fire; so charmed with drowsy thoughts was he
+that he did not once look out. It had been dark a long
+time before he rolled into his blankets. He awoke at the
+dawn of a day that had scarcely more light than the night.
+He was cold, and he got up to throw an armful of trees
+on the fire. Then he saw the blue drifts which had piled
+up before the cave, and he saw the fog of the blue
+blizzard. He heard the roar of a terrific wind, too, and
+he knew that the storm was perilous as well as strange.
+But Paul Bunyon thought gladly of the blue snow, for
+it was a beautiful event, and the historians he liked
+most would write wonderful books about it.</p>
+
+<p>He kicked the drifts away from the cave entrance, but
+the usual pile of slain moose was not under them. Paul
+Bunyon was a little worried, as he thought that Niagara
+might have lost himself in the blue blizzard. The possibility
+that the unnatural color of the storm might send
+the fauna of the forest, and Niagara as well, into panicky
+flight did not occur to him. He was sure that Niagara
+would return with a grand supply of moose meat when
+the blue blizzard had passed.</p>
+
+<p>But the moose herds were now far to the North, fleeing
+blindly from the blue snow. The bruins galloped
+after them. Before the day was over, Niagara had
+overtaken the bruins and was gaining on the moose. At
+nightfall his lunging strides had carried him far ahead
+of all the fauna of the forest. He galloped yet faster as
+he reached the blacker darkness of the Arctic winter.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</span>
+Now the darkness was so heavy that even his powerful
+eyes could not see in it ... Niagara at last ran head-on
+into the North pole; the terrific speed at which he was
+traveling threw his body whirling high in the air; when
+Niagara fell he crashed through ninety feet of ice, and
+the polar fields cracked explosively as his struggles convulsed
+the waters under them.... Then only mournful
+blasts of wind sounded in the night of the Farthest North.</p>
+
+<p>The moose were wearied out before they reached the
+white Arctic, and hordes of them fell and perished in the
+blizzard; many others died from fright, and only a tiny
+remnant of the great herds survived. Some of the bruins
+reached the polar fields, and they have lived there since.
+Their hair had turned white from fright, and their
+descendants still wear that mark of fear. Others were
+not frightened so much, and their hair only turned gray.
+They did not run out of the timber, and their descendants,
+the silver-tip grizzlies, still live in the Northern
+woods. The baby bruins were only scared out of their
+growth, and their black descendants now grow no larger
+than the cubs of Paul Bunyon’s time.</p>
+
+<p>Being ignorant of this disaster, Paul Bunyon was comfortable
+enough while the blizzard lasted. He had a
+good store of trees on hand and his cave was warm in the
+storm. He got hungry in the last days; but this emotion,
+or any emotion, for that matter, could have but little
+power over him when he was dreaming. And he
+dreamed deeply now of great enterprises; his dreams
+were formless without any substance of reality; but
+they had brilliant colors, and they made him very hopeful.</p>
+
+<p>The sun shone at last from a whitish blue sky, and the
+strange snow fell no more. A snapping cold was in the
+land; and pine boughs were bangled and brocaded with<span class="pagenum" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</span>
+glittering blue crystals, and crusty blue snow crackled
+underfoot.</p>
+
+<p>Paul Bunyon strapped on his snow shoes and started
+out through the Border forests in search of Niagara.
+His was a kingly figure as he mushed through the pine
+trees, looming above all but the very tallest of them.
+He wore a wine-red hunting cap, and his glossy hair
+and beard shone under it with a blackness that blended
+with the cap’s color perfectly. His unique eyebrows were
+black also; covering a fourth of his forehead above the
+eyes, they narrowed where they arched down under his
+temples, and they ended in thin curls just in front of his
+ears. His mustache had natural twirls and he never disturbed
+it. He wore a yellow muffler this morning under
+his virile curly beard. His mackinaw coat was of huge
+orange and purple checks. His mackinaw pants were
+sober-seeming, having tan and light gray checks, but
+some small crimson dots and crosses brightened them.
+Green wool socks showed above his black boots, which
+had buckskin laces and big brass eyelets and hooks.
+And he wore striped mittens of white and plum color.
+Paul Bunyon was a gorgeous picture this morning in the
+frozen fields and forests, all covered with blue snow which
+sparkled in a pale gold light.</p>
+
+<p>That day and the next, and for five more days, he
+searched in vain for Niagara; and neither did he see
+any moose herds in the woods. Only the frost crackles
+broke the silences of the deserted blue forests. And at
+last Paul Bunyon returned to his cave, feeling depressed
+and lonely. He had not thought that the companionship
+of Niagara could mean so much to him. In his mood of
+depression he forgot his hunger and made no further
+effort to find food.</p>
+
+<p>Lonely Paul Bunyon lay sleepless in his blankets this<span class="pagenum" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</span>
+night, his eyes gleaming through hedgelike eye-lashes
+as their gaze restlessly followed the red flares that shot
+from the fire and streaked the walls and roof of the cave.
+He did not realize that his first creative idea was now
+struggling for birth. He could yet feel no shape of it.
+He was only conscious of an unaccustomed turmoil of
+mind. Wearied with fruitless thought, he at last fell
+into a doze. But Paul Bunyon was not fated to sleep this
+night. A sustained crashing roar, as of the splintering
+of millions of timbers, brought him up suddenly; it was
+hushed for a short second; then a thudding boom sounded
+from Tonnere Bay. Paul Bunyon leaped to the cave
+door, and in the moonlight he saw a white wave of water
+rolling over the blue beach. It came near to the cave before
+it stopped and receded. He pulled on his boots,
+and two strides brought him down to the bay. It had
+been covered with ice seven feet thick, and the cakes of
+this broken ice were now tossing on heaving waters.
+Now Paul Bunyon saw two ears show sometimes above
+the billows; they were of the shape of moose ears, but
+enormous as his two forefingers. Paul Bunyon waded
+out into the waters, and he reached these ears a mile
+from shore. He seized them without fear and he lifted
+... now a head with closed eyes appeared ... shoulders
+and forelegs ... body and hips ... rear legs and
+curled tail. It was a calf, newborn apparently, though it
+was of such a size that Paul Bunyon had to use both
+arms to carry it.</p>
+
+<p>“<i lang="fr">Nom d’un nom!</i>” exclaimed Paul Bunyon. “<i lang="fr">Pauvre
+petite bleue bête!</i>”</p>
+
+<p>For this great baby calf was of a bright blue hue which
+was neither darker nor lighter than the color of the
+beautiful strange snow. A blue baby ox calf. For such
+was its sex. Its ears drooped pitifully, and its scrawny,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</span>
+big-jointed legs hung limply below Paul Bunyon’s arms.
+A spasmodic shiver ran from its head to its tail, and its
+savior was glad to feel this shiver, for it showed that
+life remained. Paul Bunyon was touched with a tenderness
+that drove out his loneliness. “<i lang="fr">Ma bête</i>,” he
+said. “<i lang="fr">Mon cher bleu bébé ausha.</i>”</p>
+
+<p>He turned back through the waters, and the ice cakes
+pounded each other into bits as they rolled together in
+his wake. In thirty seconds Paul Bunyon was back in
+his cave. He spread out his blankets in front of the
+fire, and he laid Bébé upon them.</p>
+
+<p>Through the night Paul Bunyon worked over the blue
+ox calf, nursing him back to warm life; and in the morning
+Bébé was breathing regularly and seemed to rest.
+Paul Bunyon leaned over to hear his exhalations, and
+the blue ox calf suddenly opened his mouth and caressed
+Paul Bunyon’s neck with his tongue. Paul Bunyon then
+discovered that he was ticklish in this region, for the
+caress impelled him to roll and laugh. The serious
+student Paul Bunyon had never laughed before; and he
+now enjoyed the new pleasure to the utmost.</p>
+
+<p>“<i lang="fr">Eh, Bébé!</i>” he chuckled. “<i lang="fr">Eh, Bébé! Sacre blue!
+Bon blue, mon cher!</i>” Bébé raised his eyelids with
+astonishment upon hearing this cave-shaking chuckle,
+revealing large, bulging orbs which were of even a
+heavenlier blue than his silken hair. Such affection and
+intelligence shone in his eyes that Paul Bunyon wished
+he would keep his eyes opened. But Bébé was weary
+and weak, and he closed them again.</p>
+
+<p>He is hungry, thought Paul Bunyon; and he went out
+to find him food. None of the animals he knew about
+could supply milk for such a calf as this blue Bébé.
+But he was newborn and his parents should be somewhere
+in the neighborhood. Paul Bunyon stepped up<span class="pagenum" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</span>
+on the cliff over which Bébé had bounced when he fell
+into Tonnere Bay. From here a wide swath of smashed
+timber ran straight up the side of the tallest Northern
+mountain. It was here that Bébé had made his thunderous
+roll of the night before.</p>
+
+<p>Six strides brought Paul Bunyon to the mountaintop.
+One of its jagged peaks was broken off, showing where
+Bébé had stumbled over it and fallen. Then Paul Bunyon
+followed the calf tracks down the land side of the
+mountain. For two hours he trailed them, but they grew
+fainter as he went on, and in the Big Bay country the
+last fall of the blue snow had covered them. Paul Bunyon
+now had no doubt that Bébé’s mother had been
+frightened by the strange color of the snow and that his
+blueness was a birthmark. Like Niagara and the fauna
+of the forest, the parents had stampeded, forgetting the
+little one. It was no use to search for them.</p>
+
+<p>Paul Bunyon circled back through the forest and
+gathered a great load of moose moss before he returned
+to the cave. This rich food would meet the lack of milk.
+Bébé was asleep before the fireplace when Paul Bunyon
+returned, and he still slumbered while his friend prepared
+him some moose moss soup. But when a kettle
+full of steaming odorous food was set before him, he
+opened his eyes with amazing energy and sat up. It
+was then that Bébé first showed the depth and circumference
+of his natural appetite, an appetite which was to
+have its effect on history. He drank most of the moose
+moss soup at three gulps, he seized the rim of the kettle
+in his teeth and tilted it up until even the last ten gallons
+were drained out of it; then, looking roguishly at Paul
+Bunyon the while, he bit off a large section of the kettle
+rim and chewed it down, switching his pretty tail to show
+his enjoyment.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</span></p>
+
+<p>“<i lang="fr">Eh, Bébé!</i>” roared Paul Bunyon, doubling up with
+laughter for the second time in his life. And he praised
+the blue snow for giving him such a creature, and did not
+mourn Niagara, who had never been amusing. But now,
+as Paul Bunyon doubled over for another rare roar of
+laughter, he got one more surprise. He was struck with
+terrifical force from the rear and knocked flat. Paul
+Bunyon hit the cave floor so hard that its walls were
+shaken, and a cloud of stones dropped from the roof,
+covering him from his hips to his thighs. Paul Bunyon
+dug himself out with no displeasure. He was marveling
+too much to be wrathful.</p>
+
+<p>There is strength in this baby animal, he thought;
+surely he has the muscle and energy for great deeds; for
+that was such a tremendous butting he gave me that I
+am more comfortable standing than sitting. So he stood
+and admired this strong and energetic ox calf, who was
+calmly seated on his haunches before the fireplace, now
+throwing his head to the right as he licked his right
+shoulder, now throwing his head to the left as he licked
+his left shoulder. While Paul Bunyon admired, he pondered;
+then, even as Bébé had given him his first laugh,
+the ox calf now showed him the outline of his first real
+idea. The thought struck him that his student’s life was
+finally over; there was nothing more for him to learn;
+there was everything for him to do. The hour for action
+was at hand.</p>
+
+<p>Indeed, if he was to keep this blue ox calf, action was
+truly necessary. Bébé had shown that his superabundance
+of vitality made him dangerous as well as
+delightful and amusing. This inexhaustible energy of his
+must be put to work; this vast store of power in an oxhide
+should be developed and harnessed to give reality
+to some one of Paul Bunyon’s vague dreams.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</span></p>
+
+<p>Soon the well-fed blue ox calf lay down and slept
+contentedly. But Paul Bunyon did not sleep. One
+after another, occupations, enterprises and industries
+which would be worthy of his knowledge and his extraordinary
+mental and physical powers, and which would also
+offer labor great enough for Bébé when he was grown,
+were considered by Paul Bunyon; but nothing that he
+thought about satisfied him in the least. Certainly he
+would have to invent something new; and as he thought
+of invention, his imagination blazed up like a fire in a
+dry forest. He was so unused to it that it got out of
+control, and its smoky flames hid his idea rather than
+illuminated it.</p>
+
+<p>Wearied at last, he lay on his side, for he remembered
+his bruises, and he fell into a troubled doze. Now he
+dreamed and saw great blazing letters which formed the
+words REAL AMERICA. He sat up, and his bruises
+gave him such sudden pain that the dream vanished utterly.
+But he dreamed again before morning. In this
+second dream he saw no words, but a forest. A flame
+like a scythe blade sheared through the trees and they
+fell. Then Paul Bunyon saw in his dream a forest of
+stumps, and trees were fallen among them.</p>
+
+<p>For many days Paul Bunyon thought about these
+dreams as he gathered moose moss for Bébé and seined
+fish from the bay for himself. And for many nights he
+tried to dream again, but his sleep was the untroubled
+sleep of the weary.</p>
+
+<p>Bébé grew wonderfully as the weeks went by, and the
+moose moss made him saucy as well as fat. His bulging
+blue eyes got a jovial look that was never to leave them.
+His bellow already had bass tones in it. He would paw
+and snort and lift his tail as vigorously as any ordinary
+ox ten times his age. His chest deepened, his back<span class="pagenum" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</span>
+widened, muscle-masses began to swell and quiver under
+the fat of his shoulders and haunches. The drifts of
+the beautiful unnatural snow melted away in streams of
+blue water, and the marvelous color of this historical
+winter vanished, but the glittering blue of Bébé’s silken
+hair remained. His tail brush was of a darker blue; it
+looked like a heavily foliaged cypress bough in purple
+twilight; and Bébé was proud of this wonderful tail
+brush that belonged to him, for he would twist it from
+behind him and turn his head and stare at it by the
+hour.</p>
+
+<p>Now spring came and Paul Bunyon determined to start
+out with his blue ox calf and try to find the meanings of
+his dreams. The bright warm hours of these days gave
+him a tormenting physical restlessness; and his imagination
+ranged through a thousand lands, playing over a
+thousand activities. It was certainly the time to begin
+a Life Work.</p>
+
+<p>Each day Paul Bunyon pondered his two dreams without
+finding substantial meaning in them. The first one
+indicated that he should go to Real America; and this
+Paul Bunyon finally resolved to do, hoping that he would
+discover the Work that was meant for him and the blue
+ox calf. He knew that he could not fare worse in that
+land, for few of the fauna of his native country had
+returned with the spring, and Paul Bunyon could not
+live well on a fish diet. Bébé’s growing appetite, too,
+made some move a necessity, for the blue snow had
+killed the moose grass, and moose moss was a dry food
+without nourishment in the summer. The more Paul
+Bunyon thought about Real America, the better he liked
+the idea of going there. Moose and grass, at least, were
+to be found across the Border. And no doubt Real
+America was his Land of Opportunity.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</span></p>
+
+<p>So one fine day Paul Bunyon and Bébé came down to
+the Border. The blue ox calf frolicked with his master
+and bellowed happily when he saw the green grass and
+clover on the hills of Real America. He was for rushing
+over at once, but Paul Bunyon, the student, was not
+unmindful of his duty to his new country; he would
+not enter it without fitting ceremonies and pledges,
+though Bébé butted him soundly in resenting the delay.</p>
+
+<p>Now Paul Bunyon lifted his hands solemnly and
+spoke in the rightful language of Real America.</p>
+
+<p>“In becoming a Real American, I become Paul <em>Bunyan</em>,”
+he declared. “I am Paul <em>Bunyon</em> no more. Even
+so shall my blue ox calf be called Babe, and Bébé no
+longer. We are now Real Americans both, hearts, souls
+and hides.”</p>
+
+<p>After uttering these words with feeling and solemnity,
+an emotion more expansive, more uplifting and more
+inspiring than any he had ever known possessed Paul
+Bunyan and transfigured him. His chest swelled, his
+eyes danced and glittered, and his cheeks shone rosily
+through the black curls of his beard.</p>
+
+<p>“And I’m glad of it!” he roared. “By the holy old
+mackinaw, and by the hell-jumping, high-tailed, fuzzy-eared,
+whistling old jeem cris and seventeen slippery
+saints, I’m <em>proud</em> of it, too! Gloriously proud!”</p>
+
+<p>Then he felt amazed beyond words that the simple fact
+of entering Real America and becoming a Real American
+could make him feel so exalted, so pure, so noble, so
+good. And an indomitable conquering spirit had come to
+him also. He now felt that he could whip his weight
+in wildcats, that he could pull the clouds out of the sky,
+or chew up stones, or tell the whole world anything.</p>
+
+<p>“Since becoming a Real American,” roared Paul Bunyan,
+“I can look any man straight in the eye and tell<span class="pagenum" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</span>
+him to go to hell! If I could meet a man of my own
+size, I’d prove this instantly. We may find such a man
+and celebrate our naturalization in a Real American
+manner. We shall see. Yay, Babe!”</p>
+
+<p>Then the two great Real Americans leaped over the
+Border. Freedom and Inspiration and Uplift were in
+the very air of this country, and Babe and Paul Bunyan
+got more noble feelings in every breath. They were
+greatly exhilarated physically at first; and they galloped
+over valleys and hills without looking about them, but
+only breathing this soul-flushing air and roaring and
+bellowing their delight in it.</p>
+
+<p>But before the day was over, Paul Bunyan discovered
+that Real America had its sober, matter-of-fact side also.
+A whisper stirred in his heart: “To work! Take advantage
+of your opportunity!” The whisper got louder
+and more insistent every moment; and at last the idea
+it spoke possessed Paul Bunyan, and he sat down to
+ponder it, letting Babe graze and roll on the clover-covered
+hills.</p>
+
+<p>Now the whisper became an insistent cry: “Work!
+Work! Work!” Paul Bunyan looked up, and he
+seemed to see the word shining among the clouds; he
+looked down then into the vast valley, and he seemed to
+see—by the holy old mackinaw! he did see—the forest of
+his second dream! And now he knew it: his Life Work
+was to begin here.</p>
+
+<p>For many days and nights Paul Bunyan pondered on
+the hillside before the Great Idea came to him. Like all
+Great Ideas, it was simple enough, once he had thought
+of it. Real America was covered with forests. A forest
+was composed of trees. A felled and trimmed tree
+was a log. Paul Bunyan threw aside his pine tree beard
+brush and jumped to his feet with a great shout.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</span></p>
+
+<p>“What greater work could be done in Real America
+than to make logs from trees?” he cried. “Logging! I
+shall invent this industry and make it the greatest one
+of all time! I shall become a figure as admired in history
+as any of the great ones I have read about.”</p>
+
+<p>Paul Bunyan then delivered his first oration. The
+blue ox calf was his only listener; and this was a pity,
+for Paul Bunyan’s first oratorical effort, inspired as it
+was, surely was one of his noblest ones. But we know
+the outline of this oration, if not the words. It dealt
+mainly with the logging method which he had devised in
+the moment, the one which he used in his first work. So
+he told of his plan to uproot the trees by hand, and to
+transport the logs overland, binding a bundle of them on
+one side of Babe, and hanging a sack of rocks from the
+other side for ballast. It was months after this that he
+made his first improvement, the using of a second bundle
+of logs, instead of rocks, for ballast. And at this moment
+Paul Bunyan, for all his foresight and imagination,
+could not have dreamed of the superb tools and marvelous
+logging methods that he was to originate, or of the
+countless crews of little loggers that he was to import
+from France, Ireland, Scotland and Scandinavia, or of
+the tremendous river drives and the mammoth camp life
+he was to create. He would have been bewildered then
+by the fact that he would some day need a foreman as
+grand as himself for his Life Work; and the notion that
+he would some day need help in his figurings would have
+seemed like a far-fetched jest.</p>
+
+<p>No; in this first oration, imaginative and eloquent as
+it must have been, Paul Bunyan only spoke of simple
+work for himself and Babe. But he only tells us that
+the oration was not a long one, for the call to Work came
+more insistently as he ended each period. At last he<span class="pagenum" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</span>
+had to answer this powerful call. He commanded, “Yay,
+Babe!” and the baby blue ox and Paul Bunyan descended
+into the valley to begin the first logging in the Real
+American woods.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="right">Reprinted from <cite>The Winter of the Blue Snow</cite><br>
+by James Stevens. By permission of and special<br>
+arrangement with Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., authorized<br>
+publishers.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<p class="center"><span class="smcap">The Legend of the Christmas Rose</span></p>
+
+<p class="center">SELMA LAGERLÖF</p>
+
+<p>Robber Mother, who lived in Robbers’ Cave up in
+Göinge forest, went down to the village one day on a
+begging tour. Robber Father, who was an outlawed
+man, did not dare to leave the forest, but had to content
+himself with lying in wait for the wayfarers who ventured
+within its borders. But at that time travellers
+were not very plentiful in Southern Skåne. If it so happened
+that the man had had a few weeks of ill luck
+with his hunt, his wife would take to the road. She took
+with her five youngsters, and each youngster wore a
+ragged leathern suit and birch-bark shoes and bore a
+sack on his back as long as himself. When Robber
+Mother stepped inside the door of a cabin, no one dared
+refuse to give her whatever she demanded; for she was
+not above coming back the following night and setting
+fire to the house if she had not been well received.
+Robber Mother and her brood were worse than a pack
+of wolves, and many a man felt like running a spear
+through them; but it was never done, because they all
+knew that the man stayed up in the forest, and he would
+have known how to wreak vengeance if anything had
+happened to the children or the old woman.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</span></p>
+
+<p>Now that Robber Mother went from house to house
+and begged, she came one day to Övid, which at that
+time was a cloister. She rang the bell of the cloister gate
+and asked for food. The watchman let down a small
+wicket in the gate and handed her six round bread cakes—one
+for herself and one for each of the five children.</p>
+
+<p>While the mother was standing quietly at the gate,
+her youngsters were running about. And now one of
+them came and pulled at her skirt, as a signal that he had
+discovered something which she ought to come and see,
+and Robber Mother followed him promptly.</p>
+
+<p>The entire cloister was surrounded by a high and
+strong wall, but the youngster had managed to find a
+little back gate which stood ajar. When Robber Mother
+got there, she pushed the gate open and walked inside
+without asking leave, as it was her custom to do.</p>
+
+<p>Övid Cloister was managed at that time by Abbot
+Hans, who knew all about herbs. Just within the cloister
+wall he had planted a little herb garden, and it was into
+this that the old woman had forced her way.</p>
+
+<p>At first glance Robber Mother was so astonished that
+she paused at the gate. It was high summertide, and
+Abbot Hans’ garden was so full of flowers that the eyes
+were fairly dazzled by the blues, reds, and yellows, as
+one looked into it. But presently an indulgent smile
+spread over her features, and she started to walk up a
+narrow path that lay between many flower-beds.</p>
+
+<p>In the garden a lay brother walked about, pulling
+up weeds. It was he who had left the door in the wall
+open, that he might throw the weeds and tares on the
+rubbish heap outside.</p>
+
+<p>When he saw Robber Mother coming in, with all five
+youngsters in tow, he ran toward her at once and ordered
+them away. But the beggar woman walked right on as<span class="pagenum" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</span>
+before. She cast her eyes up and down, looking now at
+the stiff white lilies which spread near the ground, then
+on the ivy climbing high upon the cloister wall, and
+took no notice whatever of the lay brother.</p>
+
+<p>He thought she had not understood him, and wanted
+to take her by the arm and turn her toward the gate.
+But when the robber woman saw his purpose, she gave
+him a look that sent him reeling backward. She had
+been walking with back bent under her beggar’s pack,
+but now she straightened herself to her full height. “I
+am Robber Mother from Göinge forest; so touch me if
+you dare!” And it was obvious that she was as certain
+she would be left in peace as if she had announced that
+she was the Queen of Denmark.</p>
+
+<p>And yet the lay brother dared to oppose her, although
+now, when he knew who she was, he spoke reasonably
+to her. “You must know, Robber Mother, that this is a
+monks’ cloister, and no woman in the land is allowed
+within these walls. If you do not go away, the monks
+will be angry with me because I forgot to close the gate,
+and perhaps they will drive me away from the cloister
+and the herb garden.”</p>
+
+<p>But such prayers were wasted on Robber Mother. She
+walked straight ahead among the little flower-beds and
+looked at the hyssop with its magenta blossoms, and at
+the honeysuckles, which were full of deep orange-colored
+flower clusters.</p>
+
+<p>Then the lay brother knew of no other remedy than
+to run into the cloister and call for help.</p>
+
+<p>He returned with two stalwart monks, and Robber
+Mother saw that now it meant business! With feet
+firmly planted she stood in the path and began shrieking
+in strident tones all the awful vengeance she would
+wreak on the cloister if she couldn’t remain in the herb<span class="pagenum" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</span>
+garden as long as she wished. But the monks did not
+see why they need fear her and thought only of driving
+her out. Then Robber Mother let out a perfect volley
+of shrieks, and, throwing herself upon the monks, clawed
+and bit at them; so did all the youngsters. The men
+soon learned that she could overpower them, and all
+they could do was to go back into the cloister for reinforcements.</p>
+
+<p>As they ran through the passage-way which led to the
+cloister, they met Abbot Hans, who came rushing out
+to learn what all this noise was about.</p>
+
+<p>Then they had to confess that Robber Mother from
+Göinge forest had come into the cloister and that they
+were unable to drive her out and must call for assistance.</p>
+
+<p>But Abbot Hans upbraided them for using force and
+forbade their calling for help. He sent both monks back
+to their work, and although he was an old and fragile
+man, he took with him only the lay brother.</p>
+
+<p>When Abbot Hans came out in the garden, Robber
+Mother was still wandering among the flower-beds. He
+regarded her with astonishment. He was certain that
+Robber Mother had never before seen an herb garden;
+yet she sauntered leisurely between all the small patches,
+each of which had been planted with its own species
+of rare flower, and looked at them as if they were old
+acquaintances. At some she smiled, at others she shook
+her head.</p>
+
+<p>Abbot Hans loved his herb garden as much as it was
+possible for him to love anything earthly and perishable.
+Wild and terrible as the old woman looked, he couldn’t
+help liking that she had fought with three monks for
+the privilege of viewing the garden in peace. He came
+up to her and asked in a mild tone if the garden pleased
+her.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</span></p>
+
+<p>Robber Mother turned defiantly toward Abbot Hans,
+for she expected only to be trapped and overpowered.
+But when she noticed his white hair and bent form, she
+answered peaceably, “First, when I saw this, I thought
+I had never seen a prettier garden; but now I see that it
+can’t be compared with one I know of.”</p>
+
+<p>Abbot Hans had certainly expected a different answer.
+When he heard that Robber Mother had seen a garden
+more beautiful than his, a faint flush spread over his
+withered cheek. The lay brother, who was standing
+close by, immediately began to censure the old woman.
+“This is Abbot Hans,” said he, “who with much care and
+diligence has gathered the flowers from far and near for
+his herb garden. We all know that there is not a more
+beautiful garden to be found in all Skåne, and it is not
+befitting that you, who live in the wild forest all the year
+around, should find fault with his work.”</p>
+
+<p>“I don’t wish to make myself the judge of either him
+or you,” said Robber Mother. “I’m only saying that
+if you could see the garden of which I am thinking you
+would uproot all the flowers planted here and cast them
+away like weeds.”</p>
+
+<p>But the Abbot’s assistant was hardly less proud of the
+flowers than the Abbot himself, and after hearing her remarks
+he laughed derisively. “I can understand that you
+only talk like this to tease us. It must be a pretty garden
+that you have made for yourself amongst the pines in
+Göinge forest! I’d be willing to wager my soul’s salvation
+that you have never before been within the walls of
+an herb garden.”</p>
+
+<p>Robber Mother grew crimson with rage to think that
+her word was doubted, and she cried out: “It may be
+true that until today I had never been within the walls
+of an herb garden, but you monks, who are holy men,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</span>
+certainly must know that on every Christmas Eve the
+great Göinge forest is transformed into a beautiful garden,
+to commemorate the hour of our Lord’s birth. We who
+live in the forest have seen this happen every year. And
+in that garden I have seen flowers so lovely that I dared
+not lift my hand to pluck them.”</p>
+
+<p>The lay brother wanted to continue the argument, but
+Abbot Hans gave him a sign to be silent. For, ever
+since his childhood, Abbot Hans had heard it said that
+on every Christmas Eve the forest was dressed in holiday
+glory. He had often longed to see it, but he had
+never had the good fortune. Eagerly he begged and implored
+Robber Mother that he might come up to the
+Robbers’ Cave on Christmas Eve. If she would only
+send one of her children to show him the way, he could
+ride up there alone, and he would never betray them—on
+the contrary, he would reward them, in so far as it
+lay in his power.</p>
+
+<p>Robber Mother said no at first, for she was thinking of
+Robber Father and of the peril which might befall him
+should she permit Abbot Hans to ride up to their cave.
+At the same time the desire to prove to the monk
+that the garden which she knew was more beautiful
+than his got the better of her, and she gave in.</p>
+
+<p>“But more than one follower you cannot take with
+you,” said she, “and you are not to waylay us or trap
+us, as sure as you are a holy man.”</p>
+
+<p>This Abbot Hans promised, and then Robber Mother
+went her way. Abbot Hans commanded the lay brother
+not to reveal to a soul that which had been agreed upon.
+He feared that the monks, should they learn of his purpose,
+would not allow a man of his years to go up to
+the Robbers’ Cave.</p>
+
+<p>Nor did he himself intend to reveal his project to a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</span>
+human being. And then it happened that Archbishop
+Absalon from Lund came to Övid and remained through
+the night. When Abbot Hans was showing him the herb
+garden, he got to thinking of Robber Mother’s visit, and
+the lay brother, who was at work in the garden, heard
+Abbot Hans telling the Bishop about Robber Father, who
+these many years had lived as an outlaw in the forest,
+and asking him for a letter of ransom for the man, that
+he might lead an honest life among respectable folk.
+“As things are now,” said Abbot Hans, “his children are
+growing up into worse malefactors than himself, and you
+will soon have a whole gang of robbers to deal with up
+there in the forest.”</p>
+
+<p>But the Archbishop replied that he did not care to let
+the robber loose among honest folk in the villages. It
+would be best for all that he remain in the forest.</p>
+
+<p>Then Abbot Hans grew zealous and told the Bishop all
+about Göinge forest, which, every year at Yuletide,
+clothed itself in summer bloom around the Robber’s
+Cave. “If these bandits are not so bad but that God’s
+glories can be made manifest to them, surely we cannot
+be too wicked to experience the same blessing.”</p>
+
+<p>The Archbishop knew how to answer Abbot Hans.
+“This much I will promise you, Abbot Hans,” he said,
+smiling, “that any day you send me a blossom from the
+garden in Göinge forest, I will give you letters of ransom
+for all the outlaws you may choose to plead for.”</p>
+
+<p>The lay brother apprehended that Bishop Absalon
+believed as little in this story of Robber Mother’s as he
+himself; but Abbot Hans perceived nothing of the sort,
+but thanked Absalon for his good promise and said that
+he would surely send him the flower.</p>
+
+<p>Abbot Hans had his way. And the following Christmas
+Eve he did not sit at home with his monks in<span class="pagenum" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</span>
+Övid Cloister, but was on his way to Göinge forest. One
+of Robber Mother’s wild youngsters ran ahead of him,
+and close behind him was the lay brother who had talked
+with Robber Mother in the herb garden.</p>
+
+<p>Abbot Hans had been longing to make this journey,
+and he was very happy now that it had come to pass.
+But it was a different matter with the lay brother who
+accompanied him. Abbot Hans was very dear to him,
+and he would not willingly have allowed another to attend
+him and watch over him; but he didn’t believe that
+he should see any Christmas Eve garden. He thought
+the whole thing a snare which Robber Mother had, with
+great cunning, laid for Abbot Hans, that he might fall
+into her husband’s clutches.</p>
+
+<p>While Abbot Hans was riding toward the forest, he saw
+that everywhere they were preparing to celebrate Christmas.
+In every peasant settlement fires were lighted in the
+bath-house to warm it for the afternoon bathing. Great
+hunks of meat and bread were being carried from the
+larders into the cabins, and from the barns came the men
+with big sheaves of straw to be strewn over the floors.</p>
+
+<p>As he rode by the little country churches, he observed
+that each parson, with his sexton, was busily engaged in
+decorating his church; and when he came to the road
+which leads to Bösjo Cloister, he observed that all the
+poor of the parish were coming with armfuls of bread and
+long candles, which they had received at the cloister
+gate.</p>
+
+<p>When Abbot Hans saw all these Christmas preparations,
+his haste increased. He was thinking of the festivities
+that awaited him, which were greater than any the
+others would be privileged to enjoy.</p>
+
+<p>But the lay brother whined and fretted when he saw
+how they were preparing to celebrate Christmas in every<span class="pagenum" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</span>
+humble cottage. He grew more and more anxious, and
+begged and implored Abbot Hans to turn back and not
+to throw himself deliberately into the robber’s hands.</p>
+
+<p>Abbot Hans went straight ahead, paying no heed to
+his lamentations. He left the plain behind him and
+came up into desolate and wild forest regions. Here
+the road was bad, almost like a stony and burr-strewn
+path, with neither bridge nor plank to help them over
+brooklet and rivulet. The farther they rode, the colder
+it grew, and after a while they came upon snow-covered
+ground.</p>
+
+<p>It turned out to be a long and hazardous ride through
+the forest. They climbed steep and slippery side paths,
+crawled over swamp and marsh, and pushed through
+windfall and bramble. Just as daylight was waning, the
+robber boy guided them across a forest meadow, skirted
+by tall, naked leaf trees and green fir trees. Back of
+the meadow loomed a mountain wall, and in this wall
+they saw a door of thick boards. Now Abbot Hans understood
+that they had arrived, and dismounted. The
+child opened the heavy door for him, and he looked into a
+poor mountain grotto, with bare stone walls. Robber
+Mother was seated before a log fire that burned in the
+middle of the floor. Alongside the walls were beds of
+virgin pine and moss, and on one of these beds lay
+Robber Father asleep.</p>
+
+<p>“Come in, you out there!” shouted Robber Mother
+without rising, “and fetch the horses in with you, so they
+won’t be destroyed by the night cold.”</p>
+
+<p>Abbot Hans walked boldly into the cave, and the lay
+brother followed. Here were wretchedness and poverty!
+and nothing was done to celebrate Christmas. Robber
+Mother had neither brewed nor baked; she had neither<span class="pagenum" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</span>
+washed nor scoured. The youngsters were lying on the
+floor around a kettle, eating; but no better food was provided
+for them than a watery gruel.</p>
+
+<p>Robber Mother spoke in a tone as haughty and dictatorial
+as any well-to-do peasant woman. “Sit down by
+the fire and warm yourself, Abbot Hans,” said she; “and
+if you have food with you, eat, for the food which we
+in the forest prepare you wouldn’t care to taste. And if
+you are tired after the long journey, you can lie down
+on one of these beds to sleep. You needn’t be afraid of
+oversleeping, for I’m sitting here by the fire keeping
+watch. I shall awaken you in time to see that which you
+have come up here to see.”</p>
+
+<p>Abbot Hans obeyed Robber Mother and brought forth
+his food sack; but he was so fatigued after the journey
+he was hardly able to eat, and as soon as he could stretch
+himself on the bed, he fell asleep.</p>
+
+<p>The lay brother was also assigned a bed to rest upon,
+but he didn’t dare sleep, as he thought he had better
+keep his eye on Robber Father to prevent his getting up
+and capturing Abbot Hans. But gradually fatigue got
+the better of him, too, and he dropped into a doze.</p>
+
+<p>When he woke up, he saw that Abbot Hans had left his
+bed and was sitting by the fire talking with Robber
+Mother. The outlawed robber sat also by the fire. He
+was a tall, raw-boned man with a dull, sluggish appearance.
+His back was turned to Abbot Hans, as though
+he would have it appear that he was not listening to the
+conversation.</p>
+
+<p>Abbot Hans was telling Robber Mother all about the
+Christmas preparations he had seen on the journey, reminding
+her of Christmas feasts and games which she
+must have known in her youth, when she lived at peace<span class="pagenum" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</span>
+with mankind. “I’m sorry for your children, who can
+never run on the village street in holiday dress or tumble
+in the Christmas straw,” said he.</p>
+
+<p>At first Robber Mother answered in short, gruff
+sentences, but by degrees she became more subdued and
+listened more intently. Suddenly Robber Father turned
+toward Abbot Hans and shook his clenched fist in his
+face. “You miserable monk! did you come here to coax
+from me my wife and children? Don’t you know that
+I am an outlaw and may not leave the forest?”</p>
+
+<p>Abbot Hans looked him fearlessly in the eyes. “It is
+my purpose to get a letter of ransom for you from Archbishop
+Absalon,” said he. He had hardly finished speaking
+when the robber and his wife burst out laughing.
+They knew well enough the kind of mercy a forest robber
+could expect from Bishop Absalon!</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, if I get a letter of ransom from Absalon,” said
+Robber Father, “then I’ll promise you that never again
+will I steal so much as a goose.”</p>
+
+<p>The lay brother was annoyed with the robber folk for
+daring to laugh at Abbot Hans, but on his own account
+he was well pleased. He had seldom seen the Abbot
+sitting more peaceful and meek with his monks at Övid
+than he now sat with this wild robber folk.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly Robber Mother rose. “You sit here and
+talk, Abbot Hans,” she said, “so that we are forgetting
+to look at the forest. Now I can hear, even in this cave,
+how the Christmas bells are ringing.”</p>
+
+<p>The words were barely uttered when they all sprang up
+and rushed out. But in the forest it was still dark night
+and bleak winter. The only thing they marked was a
+distant clang borne on a light south wind.</p>
+
+<p>“How can this bell ringing ever awaken the dead<span class="pagenum" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</span>
+forest?” thought Abbot Hans. For now, as he stood
+out in the winter darkness, he thought it far more impossible
+that a summer garden could spring up here than
+it had seemed to him before.</p>
+
+<p>When the bells had been ringing a few moments, a sudden
+illumination penetrated the forest; the next moment
+it was dark again, and then the light came back. It
+pushed its way forward between the stark trees, like
+a shimmering mist. This much it effected: The darkness
+merged into a faint daybreak. Then Abbot Hans
+saw that the snow had vanished from the ground, as if
+some one had removed a carpet, and the earth began to
+take on a green covering. Then the ferns shot up their
+fronds, rolled like a bishop’s staff. The heather that
+grew on the stony hills and the bog-myrtle rooted in the
+ground moss dressed themselves quickly in new bloom.
+The moss-tufts thickened and raised themselves, and
+the spring blossoms shot upward their swelling buds,
+which already had a touch of color.</p>
+
+<p>Abbot Hans’ heart beat fast as he marked the first
+signs of the forest’s awakening. “Old man that I am,
+shall I behold such a miracle?” thought he, and the
+tears wanted to spring to his eyes. Again it grew so
+hazy that he feared the darkness would once more cover
+the earth; but almost immediately there came a new wave
+of light. It brought with it the splash of rivulet and the
+rush of cataract. Then the leaves of the trees burst into
+bloom, as if a swarm of green butterflies came flying and
+clustered on the branches. It was not only trees and
+plants that awoke, but crossbeaks hopped from branch
+to branch, and the woodpeckers hammered on the limbs
+until the splinters fairly flew around them. A flock of
+starlings from up country lighted in a fir top to rest.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</span>
+They were paradise starlings. The tips of each tiny
+feather shone in brilliant reds, and, as the birds moved,
+they glittered like so many jewels.</p>
+
+<p>Again, all was dark for an instant, but soon there came
+a new light wave. A fresh, warm south wind blew and
+scattered over the forest meadow all the little seeds
+that had been brought here from southern lands by birds
+and ships and winds, and which could not thrive elsewhere
+because of this country’s cruel cold. These took
+root and sprang up the instant they touched the ground.</p>
+
+<p>When the next warm wind came along, the blueberries
+and lignon ripened. Cranes and wild geese shrieked in
+the air, the bullfinches built nests, and the baby squirrels
+began playing on the branches of the trees.</p>
+
+<p>Everything came so fast now that Abbot Hans could
+not stop to reflect on how immeasurably great was the
+miracle that was taking place. He had time only to use
+his eyes and ears. The next light wave that came rushing
+in brought with it the scent of newly ploughed acres,
+and far off in the distance the milkmaids were heard
+coaxing the cows—and the tinkle of the sheep’s bells.
+Pine and spruce trees were so thickly clothed with red
+cones that they shone like crimson mantles. The juniper
+berries changed color every second, and forest flowers
+covered the ground till it was all red, blue and yellow.</p>
+
+<p>Abbot Hans bent down to the earth and broke off a
+wild strawberry blossom, and, as he straightened up, the
+berry ripened in his hand.</p>
+
+<p>The mother fox came out of her lair with a big litter
+of black-legged young. She went up to Robber Mother
+and scratched at her skirt, and Robber Mother bent down
+to her and praised her young. The horned owl, who had
+just begun his night chase, was astonished at the light
+and went back to his ravine to perch for the night. The<span class="pagenum" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</span>
+male cuckoo crowed, and his mate stole up to the nests of
+the little birds with her egg in her mouth.</p>
+
+<p>Robber Mother’s youngsters let out perfect shrieks of
+delight. They stuffed themselves with wild strawberries
+that hung on the bushes, large as pine cones. One of
+them played with a litter of young hares; another ran a
+race with some young crows, which had hopped from
+their nest before they were really ready; a third caught
+up an adder from the ground and wound it around his
+neck and arm.</p>
+
+<p>Robber Father was standing out on a marsh eating
+raspberries. When he glanced up, a big black bear stood
+beside him. Robber Father broke off an osier twig and
+struck the bear on the nose. “Keep to your own ground,
+you!” he said; “this is my turf.” Then the huge bear
+turned around and lumbered off in another direction.</p>
+
+<p>New waves of warmth and light kept coming, and now
+they brought with them seeds from the star-flower.
+Golden pollen from rye fields fairly flew in the air. Then
+came butterflies, so big that they looked like flying lilies.
+The bee-hive in a hollow oak was already so full of honey
+that it dripped down on the trunk of the tree. Then all
+the flowers whose seeds had been brought from foreign
+lands began to blossom. The loveliest roses climbed up
+the mountain wall in a race with the blackberry vines,
+and from the forest meadow sprang flowers as large as
+human faces.</p>
+
+<p>Abbot Hans thought of the flower he was to pluck for
+Bishop Absalon; but each new flower that appeared was
+more beautiful than the others, and he wanted to choose
+the most beautiful of all.</p>
+
+<p>Wave upon wave kept coming until the air was so filled
+with light that it glittered. All the life and beauty and
+joy of summer smiled on Abbot Hans. He felt that earth<span class="pagenum" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</span>
+could bring no greater happiness than that which welled
+up about him, and he said to himself, “I do not know what
+new beauties the next wave that comes can bring
+with it.”</p>
+
+<p>But the light kept streaming in, and now it seemed
+to Abbot Hans that it carried with it something from an
+infinite distance. He felt a celestial atmosphere enfolding
+him, and tremblingly he began to anticipate, now that
+earth’s joys had come, the glories of heaven were approaching.</p>
+
+<p>Then Abbot Hans marked how all grew still; the birds
+hushed their songs, the flowers ceased growing, and the
+young foxes played no more. The glory now nearing
+was such that the heart wanted to stop beating; the eyes
+wept without one’s knowing it; the soul longed to soar
+away into the Eternal. From far in the distance faint
+harp tones were heard, and celestial song, like a soft
+murmur, reached him.</p>
+
+<p>Abbot Hans clasped his hands and dropped to his
+knees. His face was radiant with bliss. Never had he
+dreamed that even in this life it should be granted him
+to taste the joys of heaven, and to hear angels sing.
+Christmas carols!</p>
+
+<p>But beside Abbot Hans stood the lay brother who had
+accompanied him. In his mind there were dark thoughts.
+“This cannot be a true miracle,” he thought, “since it is
+revealed to malefactors. This does not come from God,
+but has its origin in witchcraft and is sent hither by
+Satan. It is the Evil One’s power that is tempting us
+and compelling us to see that which has no real existence.”</p>
+
+<p>From afar were heard the sound of angel harps and the
+tones of a Miserere. But the lay brother thought it was<span class="pagenum" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</span>
+the evil spirits of hell coming closer. “They would enchant
+and seduce us,” sighed he, “and we shall be sold
+into perdition.”</p>
+
+<p>The angel throng was so near now that Abbot Hans
+saw their bright forms through the forest branches. The
+lay brother saw them, too; but back of all this wondrous
+beauty he saw only some dread evil. For him it was
+the devil who performed these wonders on the anniversary
+of our Saviour’s birth. It was done simply for
+the purpose of more effectually deluding poor human
+beings.</p>
+
+<p>All the while the birds had been circling around the
+head of Abbot Hans, and they let him take them in his
+hands. But all the animals were afraid of the lay
+brother; no bird perched on his shoulder, no snake played
+at his feet. Then there came a little forest dove. When
+she marked that the angels were nearing, she plucked up
+courage and flew down on the lay brother’s shoulder,
+and laid her head against his cheek.</p>
+
+<p>Then it appeared to him as if sorcery were come right
+upon him, to tempt and corrupt him. He struck with his
+hand at the forest dove and cried in such a loud voice
+that it rang throughout the forest. “Go thou back to
+hell, whence thou art come!”</p>
+
+<p>Just then the angels were so near that Abbot Hans felt
+the feathery touch of their great wings, and he bowed
+down to earth in reverent greeting.</p>
+
+<p>But when the lay brother’s words sounded, their song
+was hushed and the holy guests turned in flight. At the
+same time the light and the mild warmth vanished in
+unspeakable terror for the darkness and cold in a human
+heart. Darkness sank over the earth, like a coverlet;
+frost came, all the growths shrivelled up; the animals<span class="pagenum" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</span>
+and birds hastened away; the rushing of streams was
+hushed; the leaves dropped from the trees, rustling like
+rain.</p>
+
+<p>Abbot Hans felt how his heart, which had but lately
+swelled with bliss, was now contracting with insufferable
+agony. “I can never outlive this,” thought he, “that the
+angels from heaven had been so close to me and were
+driven away; that they wanted to sing Christmas carols
+for me and were driven to flight.”</p>
+
+<p>Then he remembered the flower he had promised
+Bishop Absalon, and at the last moment he fumbled
+among the leaves and moss to try and find a blossom.
+But he sensed how the ground under his fingers froze
+and how the white snow came gliding over the ground.
+Then his heart caused him even greater anguish. He
+could not rise, but fell prostrate on the ground and lay
+there.</p>
+
+<p>When the robber folk and the lay brother had groped
+their way back to the cave, they missed Abbot Hans.
+They took brands with them and went out to search for
+him. They found him dead upon the coverlet of snow.</p>
+
+<p>Then the lay brother began weeping and lamenting,
+for he understood that it was he who had killed Abbot
+Hans because he had dashed from him the cup of happiness
+which he had been thirsting to drain to its last
+drop.</p>
+
+<p>When Abbot Hans had been carried down to Övid,
+those who took charge of the dead saw that he held
+his right hand locked tight around something which he
+must have grasped at the moment of death. When they
+finally got his hand open, they found that the thing
+which he had held in such an iron grip was a pair of
+white root bulbs, which he had torn from among the
+moss and leaves.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</span></p>
+
+<p>When the lay brother who had accompanied Abbot
+Hans saw the bulbs, he took them and planted them in
+Abbot Hans’ herb garden.</p>
+
+<p>He guarded them the whole year to see if any flower
+would spring from them. But in vain he waited through
+the spring, the summer, and the autumn. Finally, when
+winter had set in and all the leaves and the flowers were
+dead, he ceased caring for them.</p>
+
+<p>But when Christmas Eve came again, he was so
+strongly reminded of Abbot Hans that he wandered out
+into the garden to think of him. And lo! as he came
+to the spot where he had planted the bare root bulbs,
+he saw that from them had sprung flourishing green
+stalks, which bore beautiful flowers with silver white
+leaves.</p>
+
+<p>He called out all the monks at Övid, and when they
+saw that this plant bloomed on Christmas Eve, when all
+the other growths were as if dead, they understood that
+this flower had in truth been plucked by Abbot Hans
+from the Christmas garden in Göinge forest. Then the
+lay brother asked the monks if he might take a few
+blossoms to Bishop Absalon.</p>
+
+<p>And when he appeared before Bishop Absalon, he gave
+him the flowers and said: “Abbot Hans sends you these.
+They are the flowers he promised to pick for you from
+the garden in Göinge forest.”</p>
+
+<p>When Bishop Absalon beheld the flowers, which had
+sprung from the earth in darkest winter, and heard the
+words, he turned as pale as if he had met a ghost. He
+sat in silence a moment; thereupon he said, “Abbot Hans
+has faithfully kept his word and I shall keep mine.” And
+he ordered that a letter of ransom be drawn up for the
+wild robber who was outlawed and had been forced to
+live in the forest ever since his youth.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</span></p>
+
+<p>He handed the letter to the lay brother, who departed
+at once for the Robbers’ Cave. When he stepped in
+there on Christmas Day, the robber came toward him
+with axe uplifted. “I’d like to hack you monks into
+bits, as many as you are!” said he. “It must be your
+fault that Göinge forest did not last night dress itself
+in Christmas bloom.”</p>
+
+<p>“The fault is mine alone,” said the lay brother, “and
+I will gladly die for it; but first I must deliver a message
+from Abbot Hans.” And he drew forth the Bishop’s letter
+and told the man that he was free. “Hereafter you
+and your children shall play in the Christmas straw and
+celebrate your Christmas among people, just as Abbot
+Hans wished to have it,” said he.</p>
+
+<p>Then Robber Father stood there pale and speechless,
+but Robber Mother said in his name, “Abbot Hans has
+indeed kept his word, and Robber Father will keep
+his.”</p>
+
+<p>When the robber and his wife left the cave, the lay
+brother moved in and lived all alone in the forest, in
+constant meditation and prayer that his hard-heartedness
+might be forgiven him.</p>
+
+<p>But Göinge forest never again celebrated the hour of
+our Saviour’s birth; and of all its glory, there lives to-day
+only the plant which Abbot Hans had plucked. It
+has been named CHRISTMAS ROSE. And each year
+at Christmastide she sends forth from the earth her green
+stalks and white blossoms, as if she never could forget
+that she had once grown in the great Christmas garden
+at Göinge forest.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="right">Selma Lagerlöf, <cite>The Girl from the Marsh<br>
+Croft</cite>. By permission of the publishers, Little,<br>
+Brown &amp; Company.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</span></p>
+
+<br>
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p>SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY OF LEGENDS AND TALES</p>
+
+<p>The editors have found these additional selections very useful
+in teaching the writing of legends and tales:</p>
+
+<p>Beck, L. Adams. <cite>The Building of the Taj Mahal</cite>. <cite>The Atlantic
+Monthly</cite>, March, 1921.</p>
+
+<p>Canton, William. <cite>A Child’s Book of Saints</cite> (almost any chapter).
+The Everyman Library, E. P. Dutton &amp; Company.</p>
+
+<p>Chaucer, Geoffrey. The Prioress’ Tale, <cite>Hugh of Lincoln</cite>.</p>
+
+<p>Frazer, Lady. <cite>Leaves from the Golden Bough</cite>. The Macmillan
+Company.</p>
+
+<p>Irving, Washington. <cite>Tales of the Alhambra</cite>, particularly <cite>The
+Legend of the Moor’s Legacy</cite>.</p>
+
+<p>Keats, John. <cite>The Eve of St. Agnes</cite>, <cite>The Pot of Basil</cite>.</p>
+
+<p>Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth. <cite>Tales of a Wayside Inn</cite>, particularly
+<cite>The Falcon of Ser Federigo</cite>, <cite>King Robert of Sicily</cite>, and <cite>The
+Vision Beautiful</cite>.</p>
+</div>
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_VI">CHAPTER VI</h2>
+</div>
+<br>
+<p class="center"><cite>Fairy Tales, Allegories, Parables and Fables</cite></p>
+
+
+<p>In this section are included several types of stories
+which, though different in certain particulars, are clearly
+related to one another. In general, they are fictitious
+stories, often of supernatural events, told to teach a moral
+lesson. To modern ears, this is not an attractive description,
+but the stories, nevertheless, remain perennial
+favorites. La Fontaine, the great French writer of
+fables, says:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">“Fables in sooth are not what they appear;</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Our moralists are mice, and such small deer.</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">We yawn at sermons, but we gladly turn</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">To moral tales, and so amused, we learn.”</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>From earliest times, fables, parables, and fairy tales have
+been popular devices for teaching without provoking
+yawns.</p>
+
+<p>“Mice and such small deer” are characteristic figures
+in fables, where we usually find animals moved by human
+motives and speaking and acting like human beings. The
+longevity of such stories appears when we trace <em>The
+Town Mouse and the Country Mouse</em> back to the <em>Satires</em>
+of Horace, and <em>Chanticleer</em> to the <em>Nun’s Priest’s Tale</em> in
+Chaucer. The moral of the fable is simple and obvious,
+some bit of indisputable folk wisdom. The style of the
+typical fable is equally direct and simple. Æsop gives
+you no setting, no description, and no elaborate characterizations;
+his stories have survived because of their unmistakable<span class="pagenum" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</span>
+agreement with human experience. Stevenson’s
+<cite>The Frog and the Tadpole</cite> consists of nothing more
+than translating familiar human relationships and words
+into parallel ones for animals.</p>
+
+<p>The term “parable” has often been limited to those in
+the New Testament, but the <cite>Encyclopædia Britannica</cite>
+says that there is no clear line of demarcation between
+the fable and the parable except that supernaturally
+gifted animals are usually confined to the former. The
+parable is longer than the fable, uses familiar objects and
+events in a normal way, and may teach a more elaborate
+lesson. In <cite>A Parable for Philanthropists</cite>, for example,
+you will observe that the cat, though important, is in no
+way supernatural, and does not contribute to the conversation.
+The situation is very simple and familiar, and
+drives home the moderate moral, “You may waste your
+time and do more harm than good if you insist upon trying
+to help those whose circumstances you do not understand.”</p>
+
+<p>The fairy tale is a more widely varied type than either
+of the others mentioned; it has wide ramifications, and
+has been loved by people in many times and places. At
+first glance, it may seem almost futile to include it here,
+for most fairy tales, folk lore, and mythology have sprung
+out of the imaginations of primitive peoples, and do not
+lend themselves readily to sophisticated invention.
+Nevertheless, the old favorites demand retelling for almost
+every generation, and we have some lovely modern
+tales in which the old elements are recombined most effectively.
+What these elements are, any child can tell
+you: that in fairy tales all sorts of kinships between
+people and animals may well be expected, that stepmothers
+are always cruel, that younger sisters triumph,
+and that beauty and virtue are vindicated through patience<span class="pagenum" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</span>
+and fortitude. Besides these familiar rules, collections
+of folk lore or books on mythology will furnish
+a host of other stock situations and introduce a variety
+of superhuman characters from the Toomtegoobe of the
+Scandinavians to the Banshee of the Irish. The fairy
+tale is often written very simply, but it permits of a more
+elaborate style, and sometimes illustrates the effectiveness
+of refrains by the repetition of a formula such as the
+doves’ warning in <cite>Cinderella</cite>, “There’s blood on the shoe!
+There’s blood on the shoe!” Vivid descriptions help to
+create atmosphere, and a graceful and colorful style carries
+the modern reader into an appreciation of the imaginative
+material, which might otherwise seem only
+unreal. In <cite>The King’s Barn</cite> are to be found one after
+another of the stock situations and characters of fairy
+lore, the maiden in distress, the lad subjected to magical
+tests, the supernatural smithy, and many others, bound
+into a radiant whole by the serenely picturesque style of
+the author.</p>
+
+<p>Not all people can appreciate fairy tales, and only
+those with sensitive and exuberant imaginations will be
+able to write them, but the selections in this section
+show something of the charm that may be given them by
+an artist’s hand.</p>
+
+<p>In beginning, it may be well to remember the following
+suggestions:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>1. Make your style plain and simple in fables, dignified
+and serious in parables, and as graceful and colorful as
+you can in fairy tales.</p>
+
+<p>2. Retell some of your childhood favorites without
+reference to any book, paying particular attention to style.</p>
+
+<p>3. Try expanding proverbs into fables, using familiar<span class="pagenum" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</span>
+animals, and remembering to keep each true to his traditional
+character.</p>
+
+<p>4. From such a collection as <cite>English and Scottish
+Popular Ballads</cite>, choose a ballad and turn it into a fairy
+tale, retaining any suitable refrain.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="right">
+F. del P.<br>
+</p>
+
+
+<p class="center"><span class="smcap">The King’s Barn</span><br>
+
+ELEANOR FARJEON</p>
+
+<p>There was once, dear maidens, a King in Sussex of
+whose kingdom and possessions nothing remained but a
+single Barn and a change of linen. It was no fault of
+his. He was a very young king when he came into his
+heritage, and it was already dwindled to these proportions.
+Once his fathers had owned a beautiful city on
+the banks of the Adur, and all the lands to the north and
+the west were theirs, for a matter of several miles indeed,
+including many strange things that were on them: such
+as the Wapping Thorp, the Huddle Stone, the Bush
+Hovel where a Wise Woman lived, and the Guess Gate;
+likewise those two communities known as the Doves and
+the Hawking Sopers, whose ways of life were as opposite
+as the Poles. The Doves were simple men, and religious;
+but the Hawking Sopers were indeed a wild and rowdy
+crew, and it is said that the King’s father had hunted
+and drunk with them until his estates were gambled away
+and his affairs decayed of neglect, and nothing was left at
+last but the solitary Barn which marked the northern
+boundary of his possessions. And here, when his father
+was dead, our young King sat on a tussock of hay with
+his golden crown on his head and his golden scepter in<span class="pagenum" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</span>
+his hand, and ate bread and cheese thrice a day, throwing
+the rind to the rats and the crumbs to the swallows.
+His name was William, and beyond the rats and the swallows
+he had no other company than a nag called Pepper,
+whom he fed daily from the tussock he sat on.</p>
+
+<p>But at the end of a week he said:</p>
+
+<p>“It is a dull life. What should a King do in a Barn?”</p>
+
+<p>So saying, he pulled the last handful of hay from under
+him, rising up quickly before he had time to fall down,
+and gave it to his nag; and next he tied up his scepter
+and crown with his change of linen in a blue handkerchief;
+and last he fetched a rope and a sack and put
+them on Pepper for bridle and saddle, and rode out of
+the Barn leaving the door to swing.</p>
+
+<p>“Let us go south, Pepper,” said he, “for it is warmer
+to ride into the sun than away from it, and so we shall
+visit my Father’s lands that might have been mine.”</p>
+
+<p>South they went, with the great Downs ahead of them,
+and who knew what beyond? And first they came to the
+Hawking Sopers, who when they saw William approaching
+tumbled out of their dwelling with a great racket,
+crying to him to come and drink and play with them.</p>
+
+<p>“Not I,” said he. “For so I should lose my Barn to
+you, and such as it is it is a shelter, and my only one.
+But tell me, if you can, what should a King do in a Barn?”</p>
+
+<p>“He should dance in it,” said they, and went laughing
+and singing back to their cups.</p>
+
+<p>“What sort of advice is this, Pepper?” said the King.
+“Shall we try elsewhere?”</p>
+
+<p>The nag whinnied with unusual vehemence, and the
+King, taking this for yea, and not observing that she
+limped as she went, rode on to the Doves: the gentle
+gray-gowned Brothers who spent their days in pious works
+and their nights in meditation. Between the twelve<span class="pagenum" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</span>
+hours of twilight and dawn they were pledged not to
+utter speech, but the King arriving there at noon they
+welcomed him with kind words, and offered him a bowl
+of rice and milk.</p>
+
+<p>He thanked them, and when he had eaten and drunk
+put to them his riddle.</p>
+
+<p>“What should a King do in a Barn?”</p>
+
+<p>They answered, “He should pray in it.”</p>
+
+<p>“This may be good advice,” said the King. “Pepper
+should we go further?”</p>
+
+<p>The little nag whinnied till her sides shook, which the
+King took, as before, to be an affirmative. However, because
+it was Sunday he remained with the Doves a day
+and a night, and during such time as their lips were not
+sealed they urged him to become one of them, and found
+a new settlement of Brothers in his Barn. He spent his
+night in reflection, but by morning had come to no decision.</p>
+
+<p>“To what better use could you dedicate it?” asked the
+Chief Brother, who was known as the Ringdove because
+he was the leader.</p>
+
+<p>“None that I can think of,” said the King, “but I fear
+I am not good enough.”</p>
+
+<p>“When you have passed our initiation,” said the Ringdove,
+“you will be.”</p>
+
+<p>“Is it difficult?” asked William.</p>
+
+<p>“No, it is very easy, and can be accomplished within
+a month. You have only to ride south till you come to
+the hills, on the highest of which you will see a Ring of
+beech-trees. Under the hills lies the little village of
+Washington, and there you may dwell in comfort through
+the week. But on each of the four Saturdays of the
+lunar month you must mount the hill at sunset and keep
+a vigil among the beeches till sunrise. And you must<span class="pagenum" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</span>
+see that these Saturdays occur on the four quarters of
+the moon—once when she is in her crescent, once at the
+half, again at the full, and lastly when she is waning.”</p>
+
+<p>“And is this all?” said William. “It sounds very
+simple.”</p>
+
+<p>“Not quite all, but the rest is nearly as simple. You
+have but to observe four rules. First, to tell no living
+soul of your resolve during the month of initiation.
+Second, to keep your vigil always between the two great
+beeches in the middle of the Ring. Third, to issue forth
+at midnight and immerse your head in the Dewpond which
+lies on the hilltop to the west, and having done so to
+return to your watch between the trees. And fourth, to
+make no utterance on any account whatever from sunset
+to sunrise.”</p>
+
+<p>“Suppose I should sneeze?” inquired the King anxiously.</p>
+
+<p>“There’s no supposing about it,” said the Ringdove.
+“Sneezing, seeing that your head will be extremely wet,
+is practically inevitable. But the rule applies only to
+such utterance as lies within human control. When the
+fourth vigil has been successfully accomplished, return
+to us for a blessing and the gray robe of our Order.”</p>
+
+<p>“But how,” asked the King, “during my vigils shall I
+know when midnight is due?”</p>
+
+<p>“In the third quarter after eleven a bird sings. At the
+beginning of its song go forth from the Ring, and at the
+ending plunge your head into the Pond. For on these
+nights the bird sings ceaselessly for fifteen minutes, but
+stops at the very moment of midnight.”</p>
+
+<p>“And is this really all?”</p>
+
+<p>“This is all.”</p>
+
+<p>“How easy it is to become good,” said William cheerfully.
+“I will begin at once.”</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</span></p>
+
+<p>So impatient was he to become a Brother Dove—that
+he abandoned his idea of visiting the Huddle Stone and
+the Wapping Thorp (which would have taken him out
+of his course), and, without even waiting to break his
+fast, leaped on to Pepper’s back and turned her head
+southwest towards the hills. And in his eagerness he
+failed to remark how Pepper stumbled at every second
+step. Before he had gone a mile he came to the Guess
+Gate.</p>
+
+<p>Of the Guess Gate, as you may know, all men ask a
+question in passing through, and in the back-swing of the
+Gate it creaks an answer. So nothing more natural than
+that the King, having flung the Gate open, should cry
+aloud once more:</p>
+
+<p>“Gate, Gate! what should a King do in a Barn?”</p>
+
+<p>“Now at last,” thought he, “I shall be told whether to
+dance or to pray in it.” And he stood listening eagerly
+as the Gate hung an instant on its outward journey and
+then began to creak home.</p>
+
+<p>“He—should—rule—in—it—he—should—rule—in—it—he—should—”
+squeaked the Guess Gate, and then the
+latch clicked and it was silent.</p>
+
+<p>This disconcerted William.</p>
+
+<p>“Now I am worse off than ever,” he sighed. “Pray,
+Pepper, can this advice be bettered?”</p>
+
+<p>As usual when he questioned her, the nag pricked up
+her ears and whinnied so violently that he nearly fell off
+her back. Nevertheless, he kept Pepper’s head in a beeline
+for Chanctonbury, never noticing how very ill she
+was going, and presently crossed the great High Road
+beyond which lay the Bush Hovel. The Wise Woman
+was at home; from afar the King saw her sitting outside
+the Hovel mending her broom with a withe from the
+Bush.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</span></p>
+
+<p>“Here if anywhere,” rejoiced William, “I shall learn
+the truth.”</p>
+
+<p>He dismounted and approached the old woman, cap in
+hand.</p>
+
+<p>“Wise Woman,” he said respectfully, “you know most
+things, but do you know this—whether a King should
+dance or pray or rule in his Barn?”</p>
+
+<p>“He should do all three, young man,” said the Wise
+Woman.</p>
+
+<p>“But—!” exclaimed William.</p>
+
+<p>“I’m busy,” snapped the Wise Woman. “You men
+will always be chattering, as though pots need never
+be stewed nor cobwebs swept.” So saying, she went into
+the Hovel and slammed the door.</p>
+
+<p>“Pepper,” said the poor King, “I am at my wits’ ends.
+Go where yours lead you.”</p>
+
+<p>At this Pepper whinnied in a perfect frenzy of delight,
+and the King had to clasp both arms round her neck to
+avoid tumbling off.</p>
+
+<p>Now the little nag preferred roads to beelines over
+copses and ditches, and she turned back and ambled along
+the highway so very lamely that it became impossible even
+for her preoccupied rider not to perceive that she had
+cast all her four shoes.</p>
+
+<p>“Poor beast!” he cried dismayed, “how has this happened,
+and where? Oh, Pepper, how could you be so
+careless? I have not a penny in my purse to buy you
+new shoes, my poor Pepper. Do you not remember where
+you lost them?”</p>
+
+<p>The little nag licked her master’s hand (for he had dismounted
+to examine her trouble), and looked at him with
+great eyes full of affection, and then she flung up her
+head and whinnied louder than ever. The sound of it<span class="pagenum" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</span>
+was like nothing so much as laughter. Then she went
+on, hobbling as best she could, and the King walked by
+her side with his hand on her neck. In this way they
+came to a small village, and here the nag turned up a
+by-road and halted outside the blacksmith’s forge. The
+smith’s Lad stood within, clinking at the anvil, the smuttiest
+Lad smith ever had.</p>
+
+<p>“Lad!” cried the King.</p>
+
+<p>The Lad looked up from his work and came at once to
+the door, wiping his hands upon his leather apron.</p>
+
+<p>“Where am I?” asked the King.</p>
+
+<p>“In the village of Washington,” said the Lad.</p>
+
+<p>“What! Under the Ring?” cried the King.</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, sir,” said the Lad.</p>
+
+<p>“A blessing on you!” said the King joyfully, and
+clapped his hand on the Lad’s shoulder. “Pepper, you
+have solved the problem and led me to my destiny.”</p>
+
+<p>“Is Pepper your nag’s name?” asked the blacksmith’s
+Lad.</p>
+
+<p>“It is,” said the King; “her only one.”</p>
+
+<p>“Then she has one more name than she has shoes,”
+said the Lad. “How came she to lose them?”</p>
+
+<p>“I didn’t notice,” confessed the King.</p>
+
+<p>“You must have been thinking very deeply,” remarked
+the Lad. “Are you in love?”</p>
+
+<p>“I am not quite twenty-one,” said the King.</p>
+
+<p>“I see. Do you want your nag shod?”</p>
+
+<p>“I do. But I have spent my last penny.”</p>
+
+<p>“Earn another then,” said the Lad.</p>
+
+<p>“I did not even earn the last one,” said the King
+shamefacedly. “I have never worked in my life.”</p>
+
+<p>“Why, where have you lived?” exclaimed the Lad.</p>
+
+<p>“In a Barn.”</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</span></p>
+
+<p>“But one works in a Barn——”</p>
+
+<p>“Stop!” cried the King, putting his fingers in his ears.
+“One prays in a Barn.”</p>
+
+<p>“Very likely,” said the Lad, looking at him curiously.
+“Are you going to pray in one?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes,” said the King. “When is the New Moon?”</p>
+
+<p>“Next Saturday.”</p>
+
+<p>“Hurrah!” cried the King. “That settles it. But
+what’s to-day?”</p>
+
+<p>“Monday, sir.”</p>
+
+<p>“Alas!” sighed William, wondering how he should make
+shift to live for five days.</p>
+
+<p>“I don’t know what you mean, sir,” said the Lad.</p>
+
+<p>“I would tell you my meaning,” said the King, “but
+am pledged not to.”</p>
+
+<p>Then the Lad said, “Let it pass. I have a proposal to
+make. My father is dead, and for two years I have
+worked the forge single-handed. Now I am willing to
+teach you to shoe your nag with four good shoes and
+strong, if you will meanwhile blow the bellows for whatever
+other jobs come to the forge; and if the shoes are not
+done by dinner-time you shall have a meal thrown in.”</p>
+
+<p>The King looked at the Lad kindly.</p>
+
+<p>“I shall blow your bellows very badly,” he said, “and
+shoe my nag still worse.”</p>
+
+<p>Said the Lad, “You’ll learn in time.”</p>
+
+<p>“Not before dinner-time, I hope,” said the King, “for
+I am very hungry.”</p>
+
+<p>“You look hungry,” said the Lad. “It’s a bargain
+then.”</p>
+
+<p>The King held out his hand, but the Lad suddenly
+whipped his behind his back. “It’s so dirty, sir,” he
+said.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</span></p>
+
+<p>“Give it me all the same,” said the King; and they
+clasped hands.</p>
+
+<p>The rest of that morning the King spent in blowing
+the bellows, and by dinner-time not so much as the first
+of Pepper’s hoofs was shod. For a great deal of business
+came into the forge, and there was no time for a lesson.
+So the King and the Lad took their meal together, and
+the King was by this time nearly as black as his master.
+He would have washed himself, but the Lad said it was
+no matter, he himself having no time to wash from
+week’s end to week’s end. In the afternoon they changed
+places, and the King stood at the anvil and the Lad at
+the bellows. He was a good teacher, but the King made
+a poor job of it. By nightfall he had produced shoes
+resembling all the letters of the alphabet excepting U, and
+when at last he submitted to the Lad a shoe like nothing
+so much as a drunken S, his master shrugged and said:</p>
+
+<p>“Zeal is praiseworthy within its limits, but the best of
+smiths does not attempt to make two shoes at once. Let
+us sup.”</p>
+
+<p>They supped; and afterwards the Lad showed the King
+a small bedroom as neat as a new pin.</p>
+
+<p>“I shall sully the sheets,” said William, “and you will
+excuse me if I fetch the kettle, which is on the boil.”</p>
+
+<p>“As you please,” said the Lad, and took himself off.</p>
+
+<p>In the morning the King came clean to breakfast, but
+the Lad was as black as he had been.</p>
+
+<p>Tuesday passed as Monday had passed; now William
+took the bellows, marveling at his youthful master’s deftness,
+and now the Lad blew, groaning at his pupil’s
+clumsiness. By nightfall, however, he had achieved a
+shoe faintly recognizable as such. For a second time
+the King washed himself and slept again in the little trim<span class="pagenum" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</span>
+chamber, but the Lad in the morning resembled midnight.
+In this way the week went by, the King’s heart beating
+a little faster each morning as Saturday approached, and
+he wondered by what ruse he could explain his absence
+without creating suspicion or breaking his pledge.</p>
+
+<p>On Saturday morning the Lad said to the King:
+“This is a half-day. You must make your shoe this
+morning or not at all. It is my custom at one o’clock
+to close the forge and go to visit my Great-Aunt. I will
+be at work again on Monday, till when you must shift
+for yourself.”</p>
+
+<p>The King could hardly believe his luck in having matters
+so well settled, and he spent the morning so diligently
+that by noon he had produced a shoe which, if not that
+of a master craftsman, was at least adaptable to the purpose
+for which it had been fashioned.</p>
+
+<p>The Lad examined it and said reluctantly, “It will do,”
+and proceeded to show the King how to fasten it to
+Pepper’s hoof.</p>
+
+<p>“Why,” said the King, having the nag’s off forefoot in
+his hand, “here’s a stone in it. Small wonder she
+limped.”</p>
+
+<p>“It isn’t a stone,” said the Lad, extracting it, “it is a
+ruby.”</p>
+
+<p>And he exhibited to the King a ruby of such a glowing
+red that it was as though the souls of all the grapes of
+Burgundy had been pressed to create it.</p>
+
+<p>“You are a rich man now,” said the Lad quietly, “and
+can live as you will.”</p>
+
+<p>But William closed the Lad’s fingers over the stone.
+“Keep it,” he said, “for you have filled me for a week,
+and I have paid you with nothing but my breath.”</p>
+
+<p>“As you please,” said the Lad carelessly, and, tossing
+the stone upon a shelf, locked up the forge. “Now I am<span class="pagenum" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</span>
+going to my Great-Aunt. There’s a cake in the larder.”</p>
+
+<p>So saying, he strolled away, and the King was left to
+his own devices. These consisted in bathing himself
+from head to foot till his body was as pure without as
+he desired his heart to be within; and in donning his fresh
+suit of linen. He would not break his fast, but waited,
+trembling and eager, till an hour before sundown, and
+then at last he set forth to mount the great hill with the
+sacred crown of trees upon its crest.</p>
+
+<p>When at last he stood upon the boundary of the Ring,
+his heart sprang for joy in his breast, and his breath
+nearly failed him with amazement at the beauty of the
+world which lay outspread for leagues below him.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, lovely earth!” he cried aloud, “never till now
+have I known what beauty I lived in. How is it that
+we cannot see the wonder of our surroundings until we
+gaze upon them from afar? But if you look so fair from
+the hilltops, what must you appear from the very sky?”
+And lost in delight he turned his eyes upward, and was
+recalled to his senses by the sight of the sinking sun.
+“Lovely one, how nearly you have betrayed me!” he said,
+and smiling waved his hand to the dear earth, sealed up
+his lips, and entered the Ring.</p>
+
+<p>And here between the two midmost beeches he knelt
+down and buried his face in his hands, and prayed the
+spirits of that place to make him worthy.</p>
+
+<p>The hours passed, quarter by quarter, and the King
+stayed motionless like one in a dream. Presently, however,
+the dream was faintly shaken by a little lirrup of
+sound, as light as rain dropping from leaves above a pool.
+Again and again the sweet round notes fell on the meditations
+of the King, and he remembered with entrancement
+that this was the tender signal by which he was summoned
+to the Pond. So, rising silently, he wandered<span class="pagenum" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</span>
+through the trees, and keeping his eyes fixed on the soft
+dim turf, lest some new beauty should tempt him to
+speech, he went across the open hill to the Pond. Here
+he knelt down again, listening to the childlike bird, until
+at last the young piping ceased with a joyous chuckle.
+And at that instant, reflected in the Pond, he saw the
+silver star that watches the invisible young moon, and
+dipped his head.</p>
+
+<p>Oh, my dear maids! when he lifted it again, all wet and
+bewildered, he saw upon the opposite border of the Pond,
+a figure, the white figure of—a woman? a girl? a child?
+He could not tell, for she lay three parts in the shadowy
+water with her back towards him, and his gaze and senses
+swam; but in that faint starlight one bare and lovely
+arm, as white as the crescent moon, was clear to him,
+upcurved to her shadowy hair. So she reclined, and so
+he knelt, both motionless, and his heart trembled (even
+as it had trembled at the bird’s song) with a wish to go
+near to her, or at least to whisper to her across the
+water. Indeed, he was on the point of doing so, when
+a sudden contraction seized him, his eyes closed in a delicious
+agony, and he sneezed once vigorously; and in that
+moment of shattering blackness he recalled his vow, and
+rising turned his back upon the vision and groped his
+way again to the shelter of the trees.</p>
+
+<p>Here he remained till dawn in meditation, but as to the
+nature of his meditations I am, dear maidens, ignorant.
+Nor do I know in what restless wise he passed his Sunday.</p>
+
+<p>It is enough to know that on Monday when he went
+into the forge he found the Lad already at work, and if
+he had been pitch-black at their parting he was no less
+so at their meeting. He appeared to be out of humor,
+and for some time regarded his apprentice with dissatisfaction,
+but only remarked at last:</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</span></p>
+
+<p>“You look fatigued.”</p>
+
+<p>“My sleep was broken with dreams,” said the King.
+“I am sorry if I am late. Let me to my shoeing. Since
+Saturday ended in success, I suppose I shall now finish
+the business without more ado.”</p>
+
+<p>He was, however, too hopeful as it appeared, for though
+he managed to fashion a shoe which was in his eyes the
+equal of the other, the Lad was captious and would not
+commend it.</p>
+
+<p>“I should be an ill craftmaster,” said he, “if I let you
+rest content on what you have already done. I made
+such a shoe as this on my thirteenth birthday, and my
+father’s only praise was, ‘You must do better yet.’”</p>
+
+<p>So particular was the young smith that William spent
+the whole of another week in endeavoring to please him.
+This might have chafed the King, but that it agreed entirely
+with his desires to remain in that place, sleeping
+and eating at no cost to himself, and working so strenuously
+that his hands grew almost as hard as the metal he
+worked in; for the Lad now began to entrust him with
+small jobs of various sorts, although in the matter of the
+second shoe he refused to be satisfied.</p>
+
+<p>When Saturday came, however, the King contrived a
+shoe so much superior to any he had yet made that the
+Lad, examining it, was compelled to say, “It is better
+than the other.” Then Pepper, who always stood in a
+noose beside the door awaiting her moment, lifted up her
+near forefoot of her own accord, and the King took it
+in his hand.</p>
+
+<p>“How odd!” he exclaimed a moment later. “The nag
+has a stone in this foot also. It is not strange that she
+went so ill.”</p>
+
+<p>“It is not a stone,” said the Lad. “It is a pearl.”</p>
+
+<p>And he held out to the King a pearl of such a shining<span class="pagenum" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</span>
+purity that it was as though it had been rounded within
+the spirit of a saint.</p>
+
+<p>“This makes you a rich man,” said the Lad moodily,
+“and you can journey whither you please.”</p>
+
+<p>But the King shook his head. “Keep it,” he said, “for
+you have lodged me for a week, and I have given you
+only the clumsy service of my hands.”</p>
+
+<p>“Very well,” said the Lad simply, and put the pearl
+in his pocket. “My Great-Aunt is expecting me.
+There’s a cake in the larder.”</p>
+
+<p>So saying he walked off, and the King was left alone.
+As before, he bathed himself and changed his linen, and
+left the contents of the larder untouched; and an hour before
+sunset he climbed the hill for the second time, and
+presently stood panting on the edge of the Ring. And
+again a pang of wonder that was akin to pain shot
+through his heart at the loveliness of the world below
+him.</p>
+
+<p>“Beautiful earth!” he cried once more, “how fair and
+dear you are become to me in your remoteness. But oh,
+if you appear so beautiful from this summit, what must
+you appear from the summit of the clouds?” And he
+glanced from the earth to the sky, and saw the sun running
+down his airy hill. “Dear Temptress!” he said,
+“how cunningly you would snare me from my purpose.”
+And he kissed his hand to her thrice, sealed up his lips,
+and entered the Ring.</p>
+
+<p>Between the two tall beeches he knelt down, and
+drowned the following hours in thought and prayer; till
+that deep lake of meditation was divided by the sound
+of singing, as though a shoal of silver fishes swam and
+leaped upon its surface, putting all quietness to flight,
+and troubling its waters with a million lovelinesses. For
+now it was as though the bird’s enchanting song came<span class="pagenum" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</span>
+partly from within and partly from without, and if the
+fall of its music shattered his dream like falling fish, certain
+it seemed to him that the fish had first leaped from
+his own heart, out of whose unsuspected caves darted a
+shoal of nameless longings. He too leaped up and darted
+through the trees, and with head bent down, for fear of
+he knew not what, made his way to the Pond. Here he
+knelt again, drinking in the tremulous song of the bird,
+as tremulous as youth and maidenhood, until at last it
+ceased with a sweet uncompleted cry of longing. And
+at that instant, in the mirror of the Pond, he saw the
+uncompleted disc of the half-moon, and dipped his
+head.</p>
+
+<p>Ah wonder! when he lifted it again, dazzled and dripping,
+he saw across the Pond a figure rising from the
+water, the figure, as he could now perceive in the fuller
+light, of a girl, clear to the waist. Her face was half
+turned from him, and her hair flowed half to him and
+half away, but within that cloudy setting gleamed the
+lines of her lovely neck and one white shoulder and one
+moonlit breast, whose undercurve appeared to float upon
+the Pond like the petal of a waterlily. So he knelt on
+his side and she on hers, both motionless, and his heart
+leaped (even as it had leaped at the bird’s song) with
+a longing to kneel beside and ever touch that loveliness;
+or, if he could not, at least to call to her across the Pond
+so that she would turn and reveal to him what still was
+hidden. He was in fact about to do so, when suddenly
+his senses were overwhelmed with a sweet anguish, darkness
+fell on him, and from its very core he sneezed twice,
+violently. This interruption of the previous spell was
+sufficient to bring him to a realization of his peril, and
+rising hastily he ran back to the Ring, where he remained
+till morning. But to what pious thoughts he then committed<span class="pagenum" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</span>
+himself I cannot tell you; neither in what feverish
+fashion he got through Sunday.</p>
+
+<p>On Monday morning when he arrived at the forge he
+found the Lad at work before him, and ebony was not
+blacker than his face. He glanced at the King with some
+show of temper, but only said:</p>
+
+<p>“You look worn out.”</p>
+
+<p>“I have had bad dreams,” said the King. “Excuse me
+for being behind my time. I will try to make up for
+it by wasting no more, and fashioning instantly two shoes
+as good as that I made on Saturday.”</p>
+
+<p>But though he handled his tools with more dexterity
+than he had yet exhibited, the Lad petulantly pushed
+aside the first shoe he made, which to the King appeared
+to be, if anything, superior to the one he had made on
+Saturday. The Lad, however, quickly explained himself,
+saying:</p>
+
+<p>“A master-smith who intends to make his apprentice
+his equal will not let him rest at the halfway house. I
+made a shoe like this when I was fourteen, and all my
+father said was, ‘I have hopes for you.’”</p>
+
+<p>So for yet another week the King’s nose was kept to
+the grindstone, and it would have irritated most men to
+find their good work repeatedly condemned; but William
+was, as you may have observed, singularly sweet-tempered,
+besides which he desired nothing so much as to
+remain where he was. And for another five days he slept
+and ate and worked, until the muscles of his arms began
+to swell, and he swung the hammer with as much ease as
+his master, who now left a great part of the work entirely
+in his hands. Although in the matter of the third
+shoe he refused to be satisfied.</p>
+
+<p>Nevertheless on Saturday morning the King, making a
+last effort before the forge was shut, submitted a shoe<span class="pagenum" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</span>
+so far beyond anything he had yet achieved, that the Lad
+could not but say, “This is a good shoe.” And Pepper,
+seeing them coming, lifted her off hind-foot to be shod.</p>
+
+<p>“Now as I live!” cried the King. “Another stone!
+And how she contrived to hobble so far is a miracle.”</p>
+
+<p>“It isn’t a stone,” said the Lad, “it is a diamond.”</p>
+
+<p>And he presented to the King a diamond of such triumphant
+brilliance that it might have been conceived of
+the ambitions of the mightiest monarch of the earth.</p>
+
+<p>“You now own surpassing wealth,” said the Lad dejectedly,
+“and you have no more need to work.”</p>
+
+<p>But William would not even touch the stone. “Keep
+it,” he said, “for you have befriended me for a week, and
+I have given you only the strength of my arms.”</p>
+
+<p>“Let it be so,” said the Lad gently, and put the diamond
+in his belt. “I must not keep my Great-Aunt
+waiting. There’s a cake in the larder.”</p>
+
+<p>So saying he went his way, and the King went his;
+which, as you may surmise, was to the bath and his clean
+clothes. He did not go into the larder, and an hour before
+sunset made the ascent of the hill, and for the third
+time stood like a conqueror upon the crest. And as he
+gazed over the lands below his heart throbbed with a
+passion for the earth that was half agony and half love,
+unless indeed it was the whole agony of love.</p>
+
+<p>“Most beautiful earth!” he cried aloud, “only as you
+recede from me do I realize how necessary it is for me
+to possess you. How is it that when I possess you I
+know you not as I know you now? But oh! if you are
+so wonderful from these great hills, what must you be
+from the greater hills of the air?” And he looked up, and
+saw the sun descending in the west. “Sweet earth,” he
+sighed, “you would hold me when I should be gone, and
+never remind me that the moment to depart is due.”<span class="pagenum" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</span>
+And he stretched out his arms to her, sealed up his lips,
+and went into the Ring.</p>
+
+<p>Once more he knelt between the giant beeches, and
+sank all thoughts in pious contemplation; till suddenly
+those still waters were convulsed as though with stormy
+currents, and a wild song beat through his breast, so
+that he could not believe it was the bird singing from a
+short distance: it was as though the storm of music
+broke from his singing heart—yes, from his own heart
+singing for some unexpressed fulfillment. He was barely
+conscious of going through the trees, with eyes tight shut
+against the outer world, but soon he was kneeling at the
+brink of the Pond, while a surge of joy and pain in the
+song broke on his spirit like waves upon a shore, or love
+upon a man and a woman—washed back, towered up, and
+broke on him again. At last on one full glorious phrase
+it ceased. And at that instant, deep in the Pond, he saw
+the full orb of the moon, and dipped his head.</p>
+
+<p>Oh, when he lifted it, startled and illuminated, he saw
+on the further side of the Pond a woman standing. The
+moonlight bathed her form from head to foot, her hair
+was thrown behind her, and she stood facing him, so
+that in the cold clear light he could see her fully revealed:
+her strong tender face, her strong soft body, her
+strong slim legs, her strong and lovely arms. As white as
+mayblossom she was, and beauty went forth from her
+like fragrance from the shaken bough. So he knelt on
+his side and she stood on hers, both motionless, but gazing
+into each other’s eyes, and his heart broke (even as it had
+broken at the bird’s song) with a passion to take her in
+his arms, for it seemed to him that this alone would mend
+its breaking. Or if he might not do this, at least to send
+his need of her in a great cry across the Pond. And as
+his passion grew she slowly lifted her arms and opened<span class="pagenum" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</span>
+them to him as though to bid him enter; and her lips
+parted, and she cried out, as though she were uttering
+the cry of his own soul:</p>
+
+<p>“Beloved!”</p>
+
+<p>All the joy and the pain, unfulfilled, of the bird’s song
+were gathered in that word.</p>
+
+<p>Glorified he leaped up, his whole being answering the
+cry of hers, but before his lips could translate it he was
+gripped by a mighty agony, and sneeze after sneeze shook
+all his senses, so that he was utterly helpless. When he
+was able to look up again he saw the woman moving
+towards him round the Pond, and suddenly he clapped
+his hands over his eyes and fled towards the Ring, as
+though pursued by demons. Here he passed the remainder
+of the night, but in what sort of prayers I leave
+you to imagine; as also amid what ravings he passed his
+Sunday.</p>
+
+<p>On Monday the Lad was again before him at the forge,
+and a crow’s wing looked milky beside his face. He did
+not raise his eyes as the King came in, but said:</p>
+
+<p>“You look very ill.” He said it furiously.</p>
+
+<p>“I have had nightmares,” said the King. “Pardon me
+if you can. I will get to work and make my final shoe.”</p>
+
+<p>But though he now had little more to learn in his craft,
+the Lad, when the shoe was made, picked it up in his
+pincers and flung it to the other end of the forge; yet the
+King now knew enough to know that few smiths could
+have made its equal. So he looked surprised; at which
+the Lad, controlling himself, said:</p>
+
+<p>“When I pass your fourth shoe you will need no more
+masters—I forged a shoe like that one yonder when I was
+fifteen, and my father said of it, ‘You will make a smith
+one day.’”</p>
+
+<p>And on neither Tuesday nor Wednesday nor Thursday<span class="pagenum" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</span>
+nor Friday could the King succeed in pleasing the Lad;
+the better his shoes the angrier grew his young master
+that they were not good enough. Yet between these
+gusts of temper he was gentle and remorseful, and once
+the King saw tears in his eyes, and another time the
+Lad came humbly to ask for pardon. Then William
+laughed and put out his hand, but, as once before, the
+Lad slipped his behind his back and said:</p>
+
+<p>“It is so dirty, friend.”</p>
+
+<p>And this time he would not let William take it. So
+the King was forced instead to lay his arm about the
+Lad’s shoulder, and press it tenderly; but the Lad made
+no response, and only stood hanging his head until the
+King removed his arm. All the same, when next the
+King made a shoe he was full of rage, and stamped on
+it, and ran out of the forge. Which surprised the King
+all the more because it was so excellent a shoe. Yet he
+was secretly glad of its rejection, for he felt it would break
+his heart to go away from that place; and he could think
+of no good cause for remaining, once Pepper was shod.
+So there he stayed, eating, sleeping, and working, while
+the thews of his back became as strong under the smooth
+skin as the thews of a beech-tree under the smooth bark;
+and his craft was such that the Lad at last left the whole
+of the work of the forge in his charge. For there was
+nothing he could not do surpassingly well. And this the
+Lad admitted, save only in the case of the fourth shoe.</p>
+
+<p>But on Saturday, just before closing-time, the King set
+to and made a shoe so fine that when the Lad saw it he
+said quietly, “I could not make a better.” Had he not
+said so he must have lied, or proved that he did not know
+a masterpiece when he saw it. And he was too good a
+craftsman for that, besides being honest.</p>
+
+<p>Pepper instantly lifted up her near hind-foot.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</span></p>
+
+<p>“Upon my word!” exclaimed the King, “the world is
+full of stones, and Pepper has found them all. The wonder
+is that she did not fall down on the road.”</p>
+
+<p>“This is not a stone,” said the Lad, “it is an opal.”</p>
+
+<p>And he displayed an opal of such marvelous changeability,
+such milk and fire shot with such shifting rainbows,
+that it was as though it had had birth of all the
+moods of all the women of all time.</p>
+
+<p>“This enriches you for life,” said the Lad gloomily,
+“and now you are free of masters for ever.”</p>
+
+<p>But William thrust his hands into his pockets. “Keep
+it,” he said, “for this week you have given me love, and
+I have given you nothing but the sinews of my body.”</p>
+
+<p>The Lad looked at him and said, “I have given you
+hard words, and fits of temper, and much injustice.”</p>
+
+<p>“Have you?” said William. “I remember only your
+tenderness and your tears. So keep the opal in love’s
+name.”</p>
+
+<p>The Lad tried to answer, but could not; and he slipped
+the opal under his shirt. Then he faltered, “My Great-Aunt—”
+and still he could not speak. But he made a
+third effort, and said, “There is a cake in the larder,”
+and turned on his heel and went away quickly. And the
+King looked after him till he was out of sight, and then
+very slowly went to his bath and his fresh linen. But he
+left the cake where it was.</p>
+
+<p>And he sat by the door of the forge with his face in
+his hands until the length of his shadow warned him that
+he must go. And he rose and went for the last time up
+the hill, but with a sinking heart; and when he stood on
+the top and gazed upon the beauty of the earth he had
+left below, in his breast was the ache of loss and longing
+for one he had loved, and with his eyes he tried to draw
+that beauty into himself, but the void in him remained<span class="pagenum" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</span>
+unfulfilled. Yet never had her beauty been so great.</p>
+
+<p>“Beloved and lovely earth!” he whispered, “why do
+you appear most fair and most desirable now that I am
+about to lose you? Why when I had you did you not
+hold me by force, and tell me what you were? Only now
+I discover you from mid-heaven—but oh! in what way
+should I discover you from heaven itself?” And he looked
+upward, and lo! a blurred sun shone upon him, swimming
+to its rest. But the blurring was caused by his
+own tears in his eyes. “Farewell, dear earth!” said the
+King. “Since you cannot mount to me, and I may not
+descend to you.” And he knelt upon the turf and laid
+his cheek and forehead to it, and then he rose, sealed
+up his lips, and passed into the Ring.</p>
+
+<p>Between the two tall beeches he sank down, and all
+sense and thought and consciousness sank with him, as
+though his being had become a dead forgotten lake, hidden
+in a lifeless wood; where birds sang not, nor rain fell,
+nor fishes played, nor currents moved below the stagnant
+waters. But presently a wind seemed to wail among the
+trees, and the sound of it traveled over the King’s senses,
+stirred them, and passed. But only to return again,
+moan over him, and trail away; and so it kept coming
+and going till first he heard, then listened to, and at last
+realized the haunting signal of the bird. And he went
+forth into the open night, his eyes wide apart but seeing
+nothing until he stumbled at the Pond and crouched beside
+it. The bird grew fainter and fainter, and presently
+the sound, like a ghost at dawn, ceased to exist; and at
+that instant, under the Pond, he beheld the lessening circle
+of the moon, and dipped his head.</p>
+
+<p>Alas! when he lifted it, shivering and stunned, he saw
+the form he longed to see on the other side of the Pond;
+but not as he had longed to see it, gazing at him with the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</span>
+love and glory of seven nights ago. Now she stood on
+the turf, half turned from him, and the wave of her hair
+blew to and fro like a cloud, now revealing her white side,
+now concealing it. And he looked, but she would not
+look. So he knelt on his side and she remained on hers,
+both motionless. And suddenly the impulse to sneeze
+arose within him, and at that instant she began to move—not
+towards him, as before, but away from him, downhill.</p>
+
+<p>At that he could bear no more, and quelling the impulse
+with a mighty effort, he got upon his feet crying,
+“Beloved, stay! Beloved, stay, beloved!”</p>
+
+<p>And he staggered round the Pond as quickly as his
+shaking knees would let him; but quicker still she slid
+away, and when he came where she had been the place
+was as empty as the sky in its moonless season. He
+called and ran about and called again; but he got no answer,
+nor found what he sought. All that night he
+spent in calling and running to and fro. What he did
+on Sunday you may know, and I may know, but he did
+not. On Sunday night he stayed beside the Pond, but
+whatever his hopes were they received no fulfillment. On
+Monday night he was there again, and on Tuesday, and
+on Wednesday; and between the mornings and the nights
+he went from hill to hill, seeking her hiding-place who
+came to bathe in the lake. There was not a hill within
+a day’s march that did not know him, from Duncton
+to Mount Harry. But on none of them he found the
+Woman. How he lived is a puzzle. Perhaps upon wild
+raspberries.</p>
+
+<p>After the sun had set on Chanctonbury on Saturday
+night, he came exhausted to the Ring again, and stood
+on that high hill gazing earthward. But there was no
+light above or below, and he said:</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</span></p>
+
+<p>“I have lost all. For the earth is swallowed in blackness,
+and the Woman has disappeared into space, and I
+myself have cast away my spiritual initiation. I will sit
+by the pond till midnight, and if the bird sings then I
+will still hope, but if it does not I will dip my head in
+the water and not lift it again.”</p>
+
+<p>So he went and lay down by the Pond in the darkness,
+and the hours wore away. And as the time of the bird’s
+song drew near he clasped his hands and prayed. But
+the bird did not sing; and when he judged that midnight
+was come, he got upon his knees and prepared to put his
+head under the water. And as he did so he saw, on the
+opposite side of the Pond, the feeble light of a lantern.
+He could not see who held it, because even as he looked
+the bearer blew out the light; but in that moment it appeared
+to him that she was as black as the night itself.</p>
+
+<p>So for awhile he knelt upon his side, and she remained
+on hers, both trembling; but at last the King, dreading
+to startle her away, rose softly and went round the Pond
+to where he had seen her.</p>
+
+<p>He said into the night in a shaking voice, “I cannot
+see you. If you are there, give me your hand.”</p>
+
+<p>And out of the night a shaking voice replied:</p>
+
+<p>“It is so dirty, beloved.”</p>
+
+<p>Then he took her in his arms, and felt how she trembled,
+and he held her closely to him to still her, whispering:</p>
+
+<p>“You are my Lad.”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes,” she said in a low voice. “But wait.”</p>
+
+<p>And she slipped out of his embrace, and he heard her
+enter the Pond, and she stayed there as it seemed to him
+a lifetime; but presently she rose up, and even in that
+black night the whiteness of her body was visible to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</span>
+him, and she came to him as she was and laid her head
+on his breast and said:</p>
+
+<p>“I am your Woman.”</p>
+<br>
+
+<p><span class="pad3">(“I want my apple,” said Martin Pippin.</span></p>
+
+<p><span class="pad3">“But is this the end?” cried little Joan.</span></p>
+
+<p><span class="pad3">“Why not?” said Martin. “The lovers are united.”</span></p>
+
+<p><span class="pad3">Joscelyn: Nonsense! Of course it is not the end!
+You must tell a thousand other things. Why was the</span>
+<span class="pad3">Woman a woman on Saturday night and a lad all the rest
+of the week?</span></p>
+
+<p><span class="pad3">Joyce: What of the four jewels?</span></p>
+
+<p><span class="pad3">Jennifer: Which of the answers to the King’s riddle
+was the right one?</span></p>
+
+<p><span class="pad3">Jessica: What happened to the cake?</span></p>
+
+<p><span class="pad3">Jane: What was her name?</span></p>
+
+<p><span class="pad3">“Please,” said little Joan, “do not let this be the end,
+but tell us what they did next.”</span></p>
+
+<p><span class="pad3">“Women will be women,” observed Martin, “and to
+the end of time prefer unessentials to the essential. But</span>
+<span class="pad3">I will endeavor to satisfy you on the points you name.”)</span></p>
+<br>
+
+<p>In the morning William said to his beloved:</p>
+
+<p>“Now tell me something of yourself. How come you to
+be so masterful a smith? Why do you live as a black
+Lad all the week and turn only into a white Woman on
+Saturdays? Have you really got a Great-Aunt, and
+where does she live? How old are you? Why were you
+so hard to please about the shoeing of Pepper? And why,
+the better my shoes the worse your temper? Why did
+you run away from me a week ago? Why did you never
+tell me who you were? Why have you tormented me
+for a whole month? What is your name?”</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</span></p>
+
+<p>“Trust a man to ask questions!” said his beloved, laughing
+and blushing. “Is it not enough that I am your beloved?”</p>
+
+<p>“More than enough, yet not nearly enough,” said the
+King, “for there is nothing of yourself which you must not
+tell me in time, from the moment when you first stole
+barley sugar behind your father’s back, down to that in
+which you first loved me.”</p>
+
+<p>“Then I had best begin at once,” she smiled, “or a
+lifetime will not be long enough. I am eighteen years old
+and my name is Viola. I was born in Falmer, and my
+father was the best smith in all Sussex, and because he
+had no other child he made me his bellows-boy, and in
+time, as you know, taught me his trade. But he was, as
+you also know, a stern master, and it was not until, on my
+sixteenth birthday, I forged a shoe the equal of your last,
+that he said ‘I could not make a better.’ And so saying
+he died. Now I had no other relative in all the world except
+my Great-Aunt, the Wise Woman of the Bush Hovel,
+and her I had never seen; but I thought I could not do better
+in my extremity than go to her for counsel. So, shouldering
+my father’s tools, I journeyed west until I came to
+her place, and found her trying to break in a new birch-broom
+that was still too green and full of sap to be easily
+mastered; and she was in a very bad temper. ‘Good day,
+Great-Aunt,’ I said, ‘I am your Great-Niece Viola.’ ‘I
+have no more use for great nieces,’ she snapped, ‘than for
+little ones.’ And she continued to tussle with the broomstick
+and took no further notice of me. Then I went into
+the Hovel, where a fire burned on the hearth, and I took
+out my tools and fashioned a bit on the hob; and when it
+was ready I took it to her and said, ‘This will teach it its
+manners’; and she put the bit on the broom, which became
+as docile as a lamb. ‘Great-Niece,’ said she, ‘it appears<span class="pagenum" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</span>
+that I told you a lie this morning. What can I do
+for you?’ ‘Tell me, if you please, how I am to live now
+that my father is dead.’ ‘There is no need to tell you,’
+said she; ‘you have your living at your fingers’ ends.’
+‘But women cannot be smiths,’ said I. ‘Then become a
+lad,’ said she, ‘and ply your trade where none knows
+you; and lest men should suspect you by your face, which
+fools though they be they might easily do, let it be so
+sooted from week’s end to week’s end that none can discover
+what you look like; and if any one remarks on it,
+put it down to your trade.’ ‘But Great-Aunt,’ I said, ‘I
+could not bear to go dirty from week’s end to week’s end.’
+‘If you will be so particular,’ she said, ‘take a bath every
+Saturday night and spend your Sundays with me, as fair
+as when you were a babe. And before you go to work
+again on Monday you shall once more conceal your fairness
+past all men’s penetration.’ ‘But, dear Great-Aunt,’
+I pleaded, ‘it may be that the day will come when I
+might not wish——’”</p>
+
+<p>And here, dear maidens, Viola faltered. And William
+put his arm about her a little tighter—because it was
+there already—and said, “What might you not wish, beloved?”
+And she murmured, “To be concealed past one
+man’s penetration. And my Great-Aunt said I need not
+worry. Because though men, she said, were fools, there
+was one time in every man’s life when he was quick
+enough to penetrate all obscurities, whether it were a
+layer of soot or a night without a moon.” And she hid
+her face on the King’s shoulder, and he tried to kiss her
+but could not make her look up until he said, “Or even a
+woman’s waywardness?” Then she looked up of her own
+accord and kissed him.</p>
+
+<p>“In this way,” she resumed, “it became my custom on
+each Saturday, after closing the forge, to come here with<span class="pagenum" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</span>
+my woman’s raiment, and wait in a hollow until night
+had fallen, and make myself clean of this week’s blackness.
+For I dared not do this by daylight or be seen
+going forth from the forge in my proper person.”</p>
+
+<p>“But why did you choose to bathe at midnight?” asked
+the King.</p>
+
+<p>She was silent for a few moments, and then said hurriedly,
+“I did not choose to bathe at midnight until a
+month ago.—For the rest,” she resumed, “I was hard to
+please in the matter of the shoes because I knew that
+when they were finished you would ride away. And
+therefore the more you improved the crosser I became.
+And if I have tormented you for a month it was because
+you tormented me by refusing to speak when you saw
+me here, in spite of your hateful vow; and you would not
+even look at my cake in the larder.”</p>
+
+<p>“Women are strange,” said the King. “How do you
+know I did not look at the cake?”</p>
+
+<p>“I do know,” she said as hurriedly as before. “And
+if I would not tell you who I was, it was because I could
+not bear, on the other hand, to extort from you a love
+you seemed so reluctant to endure; until indeed it became
+of its own accord too strong even for the purpose which
+brought you every week to the Ring. For I knew that
+purpose, since all dwellers in Washington know why men
+go up the hill with the new moon.”</p>
+
+<p>“But when my love did become too strong for my vow,
+and opened my lips at last,” said the King, “why did you
+run away?”</p>
+
+<p>Viola said, “Had you not run away the week before?
+And now I have answered all your questions?”</p>
+
+<p>“No,” said the King, “not all. You haven’t told me yet
+when you first loved me.”</p>
+
+<p>Viola smiled and said, “I first stole barley sugar when<span class="pagenum" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</span>
+my father said ‘This is for the other little girl over the
+way’; and I first loved you when, seeing you had been
+too absent-minded to know that Pepper had cast her
+shoes, I feared you were in love.”</p>
+
+<p>“But that was three minutes after we met!” cried the
+King.</p>
+
+<p>“Was it as much as that!” said she.</p>
+
+<p>Now after awhile Viola said, “Let us get down to the
+world again. We cannot stay here for ever.”</p>
+
+<p>“Why not?” said the King. However, they walked to
+the brow of the hill, and stood together gazing awhile over
+the sunlit earth that had never been so beautiful to
+either of them; for their sight was newly-washed with
+love, and all things were changed.</p>
+
+<p>“Now I know how she looks from heaven,” said the
+King, “and that is like heaven itself. Let us go; for I
+think she will still look so at our coming, seeing that we
+carry heaven with us.”</p>
+
+<p>So they went downhill to the forge, and there Viola
+said to her lover, “I can stay no longer in this place
+where all men have known me as a lad; and besides, a
+woman’s home is where her husband lives.”</p>
+
+<p>“But I live only in a Barn,” said William the King.</p>
+
+<p>“Then I will live there with you,” said Viola, “and from
+this very night. But first I will shoe Pepper anew, for
+she is so unequally shod that she might spill us on the
+road. And that she may be shod worthily of herself
+and of us, give me what you have tied up in your blue
+handkerchief.” The King fetched his handkerchief and
+unknotted it, and gave her his crown and scepter; and
+she set him at the bellows and made three golden shoes
+and shod the nag on her two fore-feet and her off hind-foot.
+But when she looked at the near hind-foot, which
+the King had shod last of all, she said: “I could not<span class="pagenum" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</span>
+make a better. And therefore, like his father, the Lad
+shut his smithy, for he is dead.” Then she put the three
+shoes she had removed into a bag with some other trifles;
+and while she did so the King took what remained of the
+gold and made it into two rings. This done, they got on
+to Pepper’s back, and with her three shoes of gold and
+one of iron she bore them the way the King had come.
+When they passed the Bush Hovel they saw the Wise
+Woman currying her broomstick, and Viola cried:</p>
+
+<p>“Great-Aunt, give us a blessing.”</p>
+
+<p>“Great-Niece,” said the Wise Woman, “how can I give
+you what you already have? But I will give you this.”
+And she held out a horseshoe.</p>
+
+<p>“Good gracious,” said the King, “this was once Pepper’s.”</p>
+
+<p>“It was,” said the Wise Woman. “In her merriment at
+hearing you ask a silly question, she cast it outside my
+door.” A little further on they came to the Guess Gate,
+but when the King, dismounting, swung it open, it grated
+on something in the road. He stooped and lifted—a
+horseshoe.</p>
+
+<p>“Wonder of wonders!” exclaimed the King. “This
+also was Pepper’s. What shall we do with it?”</p>
+
+<p>“Hang—it—up—hang—it—up—hang—” creaked the
+Gate; and clicked home.</p>
+
+<p>In due course they reached the Doves, and at the
+sound of Pepper’s hoofs the Brothers flocked out to
+meet them.</p>
+
+<p>“Is all well?” cried the Ringdove, seeing the King
+only, “And have you returned to us for the final blessing?”</p>
+
+<p>“I have,” replied the King, “for I bring my bride
+behind me, and now you must make us one.”</p>
+
+<p>The gentle Brothers, rejoicing at the sight of their<span class="pagenum" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</span>
+happiness and their beauty, led them in; and there they
+were wedded. The Doves offered them to eat, but the
+King was impatient to reach his Barn by nightfall; so
+they got again on Pepper’s back, and as they were about
+to leave the Ringdove said:</p>
+
+<p>“I have something of yours which is in itself a thing
+of no moment; yet, because it is of good augury, take it
+with you.”</p>
+
+<p>And he gave the King Pepper’s third shoe.</p>
+
+<p>“Thank you,” said the King, “I will hang it over my
+Barn door.”</p>
+
+<p>Now he urged Pepper to her full speed, and they went
+at a gallop past the Hawking Sopers, who, hearing the
+clatter, came running into the road.</p>
+
+<p>“Stay, gallopers, stay!” they cried, “and make merry
+with us.”</p>
+
+<p>“We cannot,” called the King, “for we are newly married.”</p>
+
+<p>“Good luck to you then!” shouted the Sopers, and with
+huzzas and laughter flung something after them. Viola
+stretched out her hand and caught it in mid-air, and it was
+a horseshoe.</p>
+
+<p>“The tale is complete,” she laughed, “and now you
+know where Pepper picked up her stones.”</p>
+
+<p>Soon after the King said, “Here is my Barn.” And he
+sprang down and lifted his bride from the nag’s back
+and brought her in.</p>
+
+<p>“It is a poor place,” he said gently, “but it is all I
+have. What can I do for you in such a home?”</p>
+
+<p>“I will tell you,” said Viola, and putting her hand into
+her left pocket, she drew out the ruby winking with the
+wine of mirth. “You can dance in it.” And suddenly
+they caught each other by the hands and went capering
+and laughing round the Barn like children.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</span></p>
+
+<p>“Hurrah!” cried William, “now I know what a King
+should do in a Barn?”</p>
+
+<p>“But he should do more than dance in it,” said Viola;
+and putting her hand into her right pocket she gave him
+the pearl, as pure as a prayer; “beloved, he should pray
+in it too.”</p>
+
+<p>And William looked at her and knelt, and she knelt by
+him, and in silence they prayed the same prayer, side
+by side.</p>
+
+<p>Then William rose and said simply, “Now I know.”</p>
+
+<p>But she knelt still, and took from her girdle the diamond,
+as bright as power, and she put it in his hand,
+saying very low, “Oh, my dear King! but he should
+also rule in it.” And she kissed his hand. But the King
+lifted her very quickly so that she stood equal with
+his heart, and embracing her he said, with tears in his
+eyes:</p>
+
+<p>“And you, beloved! what will a Queen do in a Barn?”</p>
+
+<p>“The same as a King,” she whispered, and drew from
+her bosom the opal, as lovely and as variable as the
+human spirit. “With the other three stones you may, if
+you will, buy back your father’s kingdom. But this,
+which contains all qualities in one, let us keep for ever,
+for our children and theirs, that they may know there
+is nothing a King and a Queen may not do in a Barn,
+or a man and a woman anywhere. But the best thing
+they can do is to work in it.”</p>
+
+<p>Then, going out, she came back with the bag which she
+had slung on Pepper’s back, and took from it her father’s
+tools.</p>
+
+<p>“In three weeks you learned all I learned in three
+years,” said she. “When I shod Pepper this morning I
+did my last job as a smith; for now I shall have other
+work to do. But you, whether you choose to get your<span class="pagenum" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</span>
+father’s lands again or no, I pray to work in the trade
+I have given you, for I have made you the very king
+of smiths, and all men should do the thing they can do
+best. So take the hammer and nail up the horseshoes
+over the door while I get supper; for you look as hungry
+as I feel.”</p>
+
+<p>“But there’s nothing to eat,” said the King ruefully.</p>
+
+<p>However, he went outside, and over the door he hung
+as many shoes as there are nails in one—the four Pepper
+had cast on the road, and the three he had first made her.
+As he drove the last nail home Viola called:</p>
+
+<p>“Supper is ready.”</p>
+
+<p>And the King went into the Barn and saw a Wedding
+Cake.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="right">By permission, from <cite>Martin Pippin in the<br>
+Apple Orchard</cite> by Eleanor Farjeon. Copyright<br>
+1922 by Frederick A. Stokes Company.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<p class="center"><span class="smcap">The Happy Prince</span><br>
+
+OSCAR WILDE</p>
+
+<p>High above the city, on a tall column, stood the statue
+of the Happy Prince. He was gilded all over with thin
+leaves of fine gold, for eyes he had two bright sapphires,
+and a large red ruby glowed on his sword-hilt.</p>
+
+<p>He was very much admired indeed. “He is as beautiful
+as a weathercock,” remarked one of the Town Councillors
+who wished to gain a reputation for having
+artistic tastes; “only not quite so useful,” he added, fearing
+lest people should think him unpractical, which he
+really was not.</p>
+
+<p>“Why can’t you be like the Happy Prince?” asked a
+sensible mother of her little boy who was crying for the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</span>
+moon. “The Happy Prince never dreams of crying for
+anything.”</p>
+
+<p>“I am glad there is some one in the world who is quite
+happy,” muttered a disappointed man as he gazed at the
+wonderful statue.</p>
+
+<p>“He looks just like an angel,” said the Charity Children
+as they came out of the cathedral in their bright
+scarlet cloaks and their clean white pinafores.</p>
+
+<p>“How do you know?” said the Mathematical Master,
+“you have never seen one.”</p>
+
+<p>“Ah! but we have, in our dreams,” answered the children;
+and the Mathematical Master frowned and looked
+very severe, for he did not approve of children dreaming.</p>
+
+<p>One night there flew over the city a little Swallow.
+His friends had gone away to Egypt six weeks before,
+but he had stayed behind, for he was in love with the most
+beautiful Reed. He had met her early in the spring
+as he was flying down the river after a big yellow moth,
+and had been so attracted by her slender waist that he
+had stopped to talk to her.</p>
+
+<p>“Shall I love you?” said the Swallow, who liked to
+come to the point at once, and the Reed made him a low
+bow. So he flew round and round her, touching the
+water with his wings, and making silver ripples. This
+was his courtship, and it lasted all through the summer.</p>
+
+<p>“It is a ridiculous attachment,” twittered the other
+Swallows; “she has no money, and far too many relations”;
+and indeed the river was quite full of Reeds.
+Then, when the autumn came, they all flew away.</p>
+
+<p>After they had gone he felt lonely, and began to tire of
+his ladylove. “She has no conversation,” he said, “and
+I am afraid that she is a coquette, for she is always
+flirting with the wind.” And certainly, whenever the
+wind blew, the Reed made the most graceful curtseys.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</span>
+“I admit that she is domestic,” he continued, “but I love
+travelling, and my wife, consequently, should love travelling
+also.”</p>
+
+<p>“Will you come away with me?” he said finally to her;
+but the Reed shook her head, she was so attached to
+her home.</p>
+
+<p>“You have been trifling with me,” he cried, “I am off
+to the Pyramids. Good-bye!” and he flew away.</p>
+
+<p>All day long he flew, and at night-time he arrived at
+the city. “Where shall I put up?” he said; “I hope the
+town has made preparations.”</p>
+
+<p>Then he saw the statue on the tall column.</p>
+
+<p>“I will put up there,” he cried; “it is a fine position
+with plenty of fresh air.” So he alighted just between
+the feet of the Happy Prince.</p>
+
+<p>“I have a golden bedroom,” he said softly to himself
+as he looked round, and he prepared to go to sleep;
+but just as he was putting his head under his wing
+a large drop of water fell on him. “What a curious
+thing!” he cried; “there is not a single cloud in the sky,
+the stars are quite clear and bright, and yet it is raining.
+The climate in the north of Europe is really dreadful.
+The Reed used to like the rain, but that was merely her
+selfishness.”</p>
+
+<p>Then another drop fell.</p>
+
+<p>“What is the use of a statue if it cannot keep the
+rain off?” he said; “I must look for a good chimney-pot,”
+and he determined to fly away.</p>
+
+<p>But before he had opened his wings, a third drop fell,
+and he looked up, and saw—Ah! what did he see?</p>
+
+<p>The eyes of the Happy Prince were filled with tears,
+and tears were running down his golden cheeks. His
+face was so beautiful in the moonlight that the little
+Swallow was filled with pity.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</span></p>
+
+<p>“Who are you?” he said.</p>
+
+<p>“I am the Happy Prince.”</p>
+
+<p>“Why are you weeping then?” asked the Swallow;
+“you have quite drenched me.”</p>
+
+<p>“When I was alive and had a human heart,” answered
+the statue, “I did not know what tears were, for I lived
+in the Palace of Sans-Souci, where sorrow is not allowed
+to enter. In the daytime I played with my companions
+in the garden, and in the evening I led the dance in the
+Great Hall. Round the garden ran a very lofty wall,
+but I never cared to ask what lay beyond it, everything
+about me was so beautiful. My courtiers called me the
+Happy Prince, and happy indeed I was, if pleasure be
+happiness. So I lived, and so I died. And now that I
+am dead they have set me up here so high that I can
+see all the ugliness and all the misery of my city, and
+though my heart is made of lead yet I cannot choose
+but weep.”</p>
+
+<p>“What! is he not solid gold?” said the Swallow to himself.
+He was too polite to make any personal remarks out
+loud.</p>
+
+<p>“Far away,” continued the statue in a low musical
+voice, “far away in a little street there is a poor house.
+One of the windows is open, and through it I can see a
+woman seated at a table. Her face is thin and worn,
+and she has coarse, red hands, all pricked by the needle,
+for she is a seamstress. She is embroidering passion-flowers
+on a satin gown for the loveliest of the Queen’s
+maids-of-honour to wear at the next Court-ball. In a bed
+in the corner of the room her little boy is lying ill. He
+has a fever, and is asking for oranges. His mother has
+nothing to give him but river water, so he is crying.
+Swallow, Swallow, little Swallow, will you not bring her<span class="pagenum" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</span>
+the ruby out of my sword-hilt? My feet are fastened
+to this pedestal and I cannot move.”</p>
+
+<p>“I am waited for in Egypt,” said the Swallow. “My
+friends are flying up and down the Nile, and talking to
+the large lotus-flowers. Soon they will go to sleep in
+the tomb of the great King. The King is there himself
+in his painted coffin. He is wrapped in yellow linen, and
+embalmed with spices. Round his neck is a chain of pale
+green jade, and his hands are like withered leaves.”</p>
+
+<p>“Swallow, Swallow, little Swallow,” said the Prince,
+“will you not stay with me for one night, and be my
+messenger? The boy is so thirsty, and the mother so
+sad.”</p>
+
+<p>“I don’t think I like boys,” answered the Swallow.
+“Last summer, when I was staying on the river, there
+were two rude boys, the miller’s sons, who were always
+throwing stones at me. They never hit me, of course;
+we swallows fly far too well for that, and besides, I come
+of a family famous for its agility; but still, it was a mark
+of disrespect.”</p>
+
+<p>But the Happy Prince looked so sad that the little
+Swallow was sorry. “It is very cold here,” he said; “but
+I will stay with you for one night, and be your messenger.”</p>
+
+<p>“Thank you, little Swallow,” said the Prince. So the
+Swallow picked out the great ruby from the Prince’s
+sword, and flew away with it in his beak over the roofs
+of the town.</p>
+
+<p>He passed by the cathedral tower, where the white
+marble angels were sculptured. He passed by the palace
+and heard the sound of dancing. A beautiful girl came
+out on the balcony with her lover. “How wonderful the
+stars are,” he said to her, “and how wonderful is the
+power of love!”</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</span></p>
+
+<p>“I hope my dress will be ready in time for the State-ball,”
+she answered; “I have ordered passion-flowers to
+be embroidered on it; but the seamstresses are so lazy.”</p>
+
+<p>He passed over the river, and saw the lanterns hanging
+to the masts of the ships. He passed over the Ghetto,
+and saw the old Jews bargaining with each other, and
+weighing out money in copper scales. At last he came
+to the poor house and looked in. The boy was tossing
+feverishly on his bed, and the mother had fallen asleep,
+she was so tired. In he hopped, and laid the great ruby
+on the table beside the woman’s thimble. Then he flew
+gently round the bed, fanning the boy’s forehead with his
+wings. “How cool I feel,” said the boy, “I must be getting
+better”; and he sank into a delicious slumber.</p>
+
+<p>Then the Swallow flew back to the Happy Prince, and
+told him what he had done. “It is curious,” he remarked,
+“but I feel quite warm now, although it is so cold.”</p>
+
+<p>“That is because you have done a good action,” said
+the Prince. And the little Swallow began to think,
+and then he fell asleep. Thinking always made him
+sleepy.</p>
+
+<p>When day broke he flew down to the river and had a
+bath. “What a remarkable phenomenon,” said the Professor
+of Ornithology as he was passing over the bridge.
+“A swallow in winter!” And he wrote a long letter
+about it to the local newspaper. Every one quoted it, it
+was full of so many words that they could not understand.</p>
+
+<p>“To-night I go to Egypt,” said the Swallow, and he
+was in high spirits at the prospect. He visited all the
+public monuments, and sat a long time on top of the
+church steeple. Wherever he went the Sparrows chirruped,
+and said to each other, “What a distinguished
+stranger!” so he enjoyed himself very much.</p>
+
+<p>When the moon rose he flew back to the Happy Prince.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</span></p>
+
+<p>“Have you any commissions for Egypt?” he cried; “I am
+just starting.”</p>
+
+<p>“Swallow, Swallow, little Swallow,” said the Prince,
+“will you not stay with me one night longer?”</p>
+
+<p>“I am waited for in Egypt,” answered the Swallow.
+“To-morrow my friends will fly up to the Second Cataract.
+The river-horse couches there among the bulrushes,
+and on a great granite throne sits the God Memnon.
+All night long he watches the stars, and when the
+morning star shines he utters one cry of joy, and then he
+is silent. At noon the yellow lions come down to
+the water’s edge to drink. They have eyes like green
+beryls, and their roar is louder than the roar of the cataract.”</p>
+
+<p>“Swallow, Swallow, little Swallow,” said the Prince,
+“far away across the city I see a young man in a garret.
+He is leaning over a desk covered with papers, and in
+a tumbler by his side there is a bunch of withered violets.
+His hair is brown and crisp, and his lips are red as a
+pomegranate, and he has large and dreamy eyes. He is
+trying to finish a play for the Director of the Theatre,
+but he is too cold to write any more. There is no fire in
+the grate, and hunger has made him faint.”</p>
+
+<p>“I will wait with you one night longer,” said the Swallow,
+who really had a good heart. “Shall I take him another
+ruby?”</p>
+
+<p>“Alas! I have no ruby now,” said the Prince; “my
+eyes are all that I have left. They are made of rare
+sapphires, which were brought out of India a thousand
+years ago. Pluck out one of them and take it to him.
+He will sell it to the jeweller, and buy food and firewood,
+and finish his play.”</p>
+
+<p>“Dear Prince,” said the Swallow, “I cannot do that”;
+and he began to weep.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</span></p>
+
+<p>“Swallow, Swallow, little Swallow,” said the Prince,
+“do as I command you.”</p>
+
+<p>So the Swallow plucked out the Prince’s eye, and flew
+away to the student’s garret. It was easy enough to get
+in, as there was a hole in the roof. Through this he
+darted, and came into the room. The young man had his
+head buried in his hands, so he did not hear the flutter
+of the bird’s wings, and when he looked up he found the
+beautiful sapphire lying on the withered violets.</p>
+
+<p>“I am beginning to be appreciated,” he cried; “this is
+from some great admirer. Now I can finish my play,”
+and he looked quite happy.</p>
+
+<p>The next day the Swallow flew down to the harbour.
+He sat on the mast of a large vessel and watched the
+sailors hauling big chests out of the hold with ropes.
+“Heave a-hoy!” they shouted as each chest came up.
+“I am going to Egypt,” cried the Swallow, but nobody
+minded, and when the moon rose he flew back to the
+Happy Prince.</p>
+
+<p>“I am come to bid you good-bye,” he cried.</p>
+
+<p>“Swallow, Swallow, little Swallow,” said the Prince,
+“will you not stay with me one night longer?”</p>
+
+<p>“It is winter,” answered the Swallow, “and the chill
+snow will soon be here. In Egypt the sun is warm on
+the green palm-trees, and the crocodiles lie in the mud
+and look lazily about them. My companions are building
+a nest in the Temple of Baalbec, and the pink and white
+doves are watching them, and cooing to each other.
+Dear Prince, I must leave you, but I will never forget
+you, and next spring I will bring you back two beautiful
+jewels in place of those you have given away. The
+ruby shall be redder than a red rose, and the sapphire
+shall be as blue as the great sea.”</p>
+
+<p>“In the square below,” said the Happy Prince, “there<span class="pagenum" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</span>
+stands a little match-girl. She has let her matches fall
+in the gutter, and they are all spoiled. Her father will
+beat her if she does not bring home some money, and
+she is crying. She has no shoes or stockings, and her
+little head is bare. Pluck out my other eye, and give
+it to her, and her father will not beat her.”</p>
+
+<p>“I will stay with you one night longer,” said the Swallow,
+“but I cannot pluck out your eye. You would be
+quite blind then.”</p>
+
+<p>“Swallow, Swallow, little Swallow,” said the Prince,
+“do as I command you.”</p>
+
+<p>So he plucked out the Prince’s other eye, and darted
+down with it. He swooped past the match-girl, and
+slipped the jewel into the palm of her hand. “What a
+lovely bit of glass,” cried the little girl; and she ran home,
+laughing.</p>
+
+<p>Then the Swallow came back to the Prince. “You are
+blind now,” he said, “so I will stay with you always.”</p>
+
+<p>“No, little Swallow,” said the poor Prince, “you must
+go away to Egypt.”</p>
+
+<p>“I will stay with you always,” said the Swallow, and he
+slept at the Prince’s feet.</p>
+
+<p>All the next day he sat on the Prince’s shoulder, and
+told him stories of what he had seen in strange lands.
+He told him of the red ibises, who stand in long rows on
+the banks of the Nile, and catch gold-fish in their beaks;
+of the Sphinx, who is as old as the world itself, and lives
+in the desert, and knows everything; of the merchants,
+who walk slowly by the side of their camels, and carry
+amber beads in their hand; of the King of the Mountains
+of the Moon, who is as black as ebony, and worships a
+large crystal; of the great green snake that sleeps in a
+palm-tree, and has twenty priests to feed it with honey-cakes;
+and of the pygmies who sail over a big lake on<span class="pagenum" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</span>
+large flat leaves, and are always at war with the butterflies.</p>
+
+<p>“Dear little Swallow,” said the Prince, “you tell me of
+marvellous things, but more marvellous than anything
+is the suffering of men and of women. There is no Mystery
+so great as Misery. Fly over my city, little Swallow,
+and tell me what you see there.”</p>
+
+<p>So the Swallow flew over the great city, and saw the
+rich making merry in their beautiful houses, while the
+beggars were sitting at the gates. He flew into dark
+lanes, and saw the white faces of starving children looking
+out listlessly at the black streets. Under the archway
+of a bridge two little boys were lying in one another’s
+arms to try and keep themselves warm. “How hungry
+we are!” they said. “You must not lie here,” shouted
+the Watchman, and they wandered out into the rain.</p>
+
+<p>Then he flew back and told the Prince what he had
+seen.</p>
+
+<p>“I am covered with fine gold,” said the Prince, “you
+must take it off, leaf by leaf, and give it to my poor; the
+living always think that gold can make them happy.”</p>
+
+<p>Leaf after leaf of the fine gold the Swallow picked off,
+till the Happy Prince looked quite dull and grey. Leaf
+after leaf of the fine gold he brought to the poor, and
+the children’s faces grew rosier, and they laughed and
+played games in the street. “We have bread now!”
+they cried.</p>
+
+<p>Then the snow came, and after the snow came the frost.
+The streets looked as if they were made of silver, they
+were so bright and glistening; long icicles like crystal
+daggers hung down from the eaves of the houses, everybody
+went about in furs, and the little boys wore scarlet
+caps and skated on the ice.</p>
+
+<p>The poor little Swallow grew colder and colder, but he<span class="pagenum" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</span>
+would not leave the Prince, he loved him too well. He
+picked up crumbs outside the baker’s door when the
+baker was not looking, and tried to keep himself warm
+by flapping his wings.</p>
+
+<p>But at last he knew that he was going to die. He had
+just strength to fly up to the Prince’s shoulder once more.
+“Good-bye, dear Prince!” he murmured, “will you let
+me kiss your hand?”</p>
+
+<p>“I am glad that you are going to Egypt at last, little
+Swallow,” said the Prince, “you have stayed too long
+here; but you must kiss me on the lips, for I love you.”</p>
+
+<p>“It is not to Egypt that I am going,” said the Swallow.
+“I am going to the House of Death. Death is the brother
+of Sleep, is he not?”</p>
+
+<p>And he kissed the Happy Prince on the lips, and fell
+down dead at his feet.</p>
+
+<p>At that moment a curious crack sounded inside the
+statue, as if something had broken. The fact is that the
+leaden heart had snapped right in two. It certainly was
+a dreadfully hard frost.</p>
+
+<p>Early the next morning the Mayor was walking in the
+square below in company with the Town Councillors. As
+they passed the column he looked up at the statue; “Dear
+me! how shabby the Happy Prince looks!” he said.</p>
+
+<p>“How shabby indeed!” cried the Town Councillors,
+who always agreed with the Mayor; and they went up to
+look at it.</p>
+
+<p>“The ruby has fallen out of his sword, his eyes are
+gone, and he is golden no longer,” said the Mayor; “in
+fact, he is little better than a beggar!”</p>
+
+<p>“Little better than a beggar,” said the Town Councillors.</p>
+
+<p>“And here is actually a dead bird at his feet!” continued
+the Mayor. “We must really issue a proclamation<span class="pagenum" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</span>
+that birds are not to be allowed to die here.” And
+the Town Clerk made a note of the suggestion.</p>
+
+<p>So they pulled down the statue of the Happy Prince.
+“As he is no longer beautiful he is no longer useful,”
+said the Art Professor at the University.</p>
+
+<p>Then they melted the statue in a furnace, and the
+Mayor held a meeting of the Corporation to decide what
+was to be done with the metal. “We must have another
+statue, of course,” he said, “and it shall be a statue of
+myself.”</p>
+
+<p>“Of myself,” said each of the Town Councillors, and
+they quarrelled. When I last heard of them they were
+quarrelling still.</p>
+
+<p>“What a strange thing!” said the overseer of the workmen
+at the foundry. “This broken lead heart will not
+melt in the furnace. We must throw it away.” So they
+threw it on a dust-heap where the dead Swallow was
+also lying.</p>
+
+<p>“Bring me the two most precious things in the city,”
+said God to one of His Angels; and the Angel brought
+Him the leaden heart and the dead bird.</p>
+
+<p>“You have rightly chosen,” said God, “for in my garden
+of Paradise this little bird shall sing for evermore, and in
+my city of gold the Happy Prince shall praise me.”</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="right">Oscar Wilde, <cite>A House of Pomegranates, The<br>
+Happy Prince and Other Tales</cite>.</p>
+</div>
+
+<br>
+<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Truth</span></p>
+
+<p class="center">OLIVE SCHREINER</p>
+
+<p>“‘In certain valleys there was a hunter. Day by
+day he went to hunt for wild-fowl in the woods; and it
+chanced that once he stood on the shores of a large lake.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</span>
+While he stood waiting in the rushes, for the coming of
+the birds, a great shadow fell on him, and in the water
+he saw a reflection. He looked up to the sky; but the
+thing was gone. Then a burning desire came over him to
+see once again that reflection in the water, and all day
+he watched and waited; but night came, and it had not
+returned. Then he went home with his empty bag,
+moody and silent. His comrades came questioning about
+him to know the reason, but he answered them nothing;
+he sat alone and brooded. Then his friend came to him,
+and to him he spoke.</p>
+
+<p>“‘I have seen today,’ he said ‘that which I never saw
+before—a vast white bird, with silver wings out-stretched,
+sailing in the everlasting blue. And now it is as though
+a great fire burned within my breast. It was but a sheen,
+a shimmer, a reflection in the water; but now I desire
+nothing more on earth than to hold her.’”</p>
+
+<p>“His friend laughed.</p>
+
+<p>“‘It was but a beam playing in the water, or the
+shadow of your own head. To-morrow you will forget
+her,’ he said.</p>
+
+<p>“But to-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow the
+hunter walked alone. He sought in the forest and in the
+woods, by the lakes and among the rushes, but he could
+not find her. He shot no more wild-fowl; what were they
+to him?</p>
+
+<p>“‘What ails him?’ said his comrades.</p>
+
+<p>“‘He is mad,’ said one.</p>
+
+<p>“‘No; but he is worse,’ said another; ‘he would see
+that which none of us have seen, and make himself a
+wonder.’</p>
+
+<p>“‘Come, let us forswear his company,’ said all.</p>
+
+<p>“So the hunter walked alone.</p>
+
+<p>“One night, as he wandered in the shade, very heartsore<span class="pagenum" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</span>
+and weeping, an old man stood before him, grander
+and taller than the sons of men.</p>
+
+<p>“‘Who are you?’ asked the hunter.</p>
+
+<p>“‘I am Wisdom,’ answered the old man; ‘but some
+men called me Knowledge. All my life I have grown in
+these valleys; but no man sees me till he has sorrowed
+much. The eyes must be washed with tears that are to
+behold me; and, according as a man has suffered, I speak.’</p>
+
+<p>“And the hunter cried, ‘Oh, you who have lived here so
+long, tell me, what is that great wild bird I have seen
+sailing in the blue? They would have me believe she is
+a dream; the shadow of my own head.’</p>
+
+<p>“The old man smiled.</p>
+
+<p>“‘Her name is Truth. He who has once seen her never
+rests again. Till death he desires her.’</p>
+
+<p>“And the hunter cried, ‘Oh, tell me where I may find
+her.’</p>
+
+<p>“But the man said, ‘You have not suffered enough,’
+and went.</p>
+
+<p>“Then the hunter took from his breast the Shuttle of
+Imagination, and wound on it the thread of his Wishes;
+and all night he sat and wove a net.</p>
+
+<p>“In the morning he spread the golden net open on the
+ground, and into it he threw a few grains of Credulity,
+which his father had left him, and which he kept in his
+breast-pocket. They were like white puff-balls, and when
+you trod on them a brown dust flew out. Then he sat
+by to see what would happen. The first that came into
+the net was a snow-white bird, with dove’s eyes, and he
+sang a beautiful song, ‘A human-God! a human-God!
+a human-God!’ it sang. The second that came was black
+and mystical, with dark, lovely eyes, that looked into the
+depths of your soul, and he sang only this, ‘Immortality!’</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</span></p>
+
+<p>“And the hunter took them both in his arms, for he
+said, ‘They are surely of the beautiful Family of Truth.’</p>
+
+<p>“Then came another, green and gold, who sang in a
+shrill voice, like one crying in the market-place, ‘Reward
+after Death! Reward after Death!’</p>
+
+<p>“And he said, ‘You are not so fair; but you are fair
+too,’ and he took it.</p>
+
+<p>“And others came, brightly colored, singing pleasant
+songs, till all the grains were finished. And the hunter
+gathered all his birds together, and built a strong iron
+cage called a new creed, and put all his birds in it.</p>
+
+<p>“Then the people came about, dancing and singing.</p>
+
+<p>“‘Oh, happy hunter!’ they cried. ‘Oh, wonderful
+man! Oh, delightful birds! Oh, lovely songs!’</p>
+
+<p>“No one asked where the birds had come from, nor
+how they had been caught; but they danced and sang
+before them, and the hunter too was glad, for he said,
+‘Surely Truth is among them. In time she will moult
+her feathers, and I shall see her snow-white form.’</p>
+
+<p>“But the time passed, and the people sang and danced;
+but the hunter’s heart grew heavy. He crept alone, as of
+old, to weep; the terrible desire had awakened again in
+his breast. One day, as he sat alone weeping, it chanced
+that Wisdom met him. He told the old man what he
+had done.</p>
+
+<p>“And Wisdom smiled sadly.</p>
+
+<p>“‘Many men,’ he said, ‘have spread that net for Truth;
+but they have never found her. On the grains of
+Credulity she will not feed; in the net of Wishes her
+feet cannot be held; in the air of these valleys she will
+not breathe. The birds you have caught are of the
+brood of Lies. Lovely and beautiful, but still lies;
+Truth knows them not.’</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_226">[Pg 226]</span></p>
+
+<p>“And the hunter cried out in bitterness,——</p>
+
+<p>“‘And must I then sit still, to be devoured of this
+great burning?’</p>
+
+<p>“And the old man said: ‘Listen, and in that you have
+suffered much and wept much, I will tell you what I know.
+He who sets out to search for Truth must leave these
+valleys of Superstition forever, taking with him not
+one shred that has belonged to them. Alone he must
+wander down into the land of Absolute Negation and
+Denial; he must abide there; he must resist temptation;
+when the light breaks he must arise and follow it into
+the country of Dry Sunshine. The mountains of Stern
+Reality will rise before him; he must climb them; beyond
+them lies Truth.’</p>
+
+<p>“‘And he will hold her fast! He will hold her in his
+hands!’ the hunter cried.</p>
+
+<p>“Wisdom shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>“‘He will never see her, never hold her. The time
+is not yet.’</p>
+
+<p>“‘Then there is no hope?’ cried the hunter.</p>
+
+<p>“‘There is this,’ said Wisdom. ‘Some men have
+climbed on those mountains; circle above circle of bare
+rock they have scaled; and wandering there in those
+high regions some have chanced to pick up on the ground,
+one white, silver feather dropped from the wing of Truth.
+And it shall come to pass,’ said the old man, raising himself
+prophetically and pointing with his finger to the sky,
+‘it shall come to pass, that, when enough of those silver
+feathers shall have been gathered by the hands of men,
+and shall have been woven into a cord, and the cord into
+a net, that in <em>that</em> net Truth may be captured. <em>Nothing
+but Truth can hold Truth.’</em></p>
+
+<p>“The hunter arose. ‘I will go,’ he said.</p>
+
+<p>“But Wisdom detained him.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_227">[Pg 227]</span></p>
+
+<p>“‘Mark you well—who leaves these valleys never returns
+to them. Though he should weep tears of blood
+seven days and nights upon the confines, he can never
+put his foot across them. Left,—they, are left forever.
+Upon the road which you would travel, there is no reward
+offered. Who goes, goes freely, for the great love that is
+in him. The work is his reward.’</p>
+
+<p>“‘I go,’ said the hunter; ‘but upon the mountains, tell
+me, which path shall I take?’</p>
+
+<p>“‘I am the child of The-Accumulated-Knowledge-of
+Ages,’ said the man; ‘I can walk only where many men
+have trodden. On those mountains few feet have passed;
+each man strikes out a path for himself. He goes at
+his own peril; my voice he hears no more. I may
+follow after him, but I cannot go before him.’</p>
+
+<p>“Then Knowledge vanished.</p>
+
+<p>“And the hunter turned. He went to his cage, and
+with his hands broke down the bars, and jagged iron tore
+his flesh. It is sometimes easier to build than to break.</p>
+
+<p>“One by one he took his plumed birds, and let them
+fly. But, when he came to his dark-plumed bird, he held
+it, and looked into its beautiful eyes, and the bird uttered
+its low deep cry,—‘Immortality!’</p>
+
+<p>“And he said quickly, ‘I cannot part with it. It is not
+heavy; it eats no food. I will hide it in my breast; I
+will take it with me.’ And he buried it there, and covered
+it over with his cloak.</p>
+
+<p>“But the thing he had hidden grew heavier, heavier,
+heavier,—till it lay on his breast like lead. He could
+not move with it. He could not leave those valleys with
+it. Then again he took it out, and looked at it.</p>
+
+<p>“‘Oh, my beautiful, my heart’s own!’ he cried, ‘may I
+not keep you?’</p>
+
+<p>“He opened his hands sadly.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_228">[Pg 228]</span></p>
+
+<p>“‘Go,’ he said. ‘It may happen that in Truth’s song
+one note is like to yours; but I shall never hear it.’</p>
+
+<p>“Sadly he opened his hand, and the bird flew from him
+forever.</p>
+
+<p>“Then from the Shuttle of Imagination he took the
+thread of his Wishes and threw it on the ground, and the
+empty shuttle he put into his breast; for the thread was
+made in those valleys, but the shuttle came from an unknown
+country. He turned to go; but now the people
+came about him, howling.</p>
+
+<p>“‘Fool, hound, demented lunatic!’ they cried. ‘How
+dared you break your cage and let the birds fly?’</p>
+
+<p>“The hunter spoke; but they would not hear him.</p>
+
+<p>“‘Truth! who is she? Can you eat her? Can you
+drink her? Who has ever seen her? Your birds were
+real; all could hear them sing. Oh, fool, vile reptile,
+atheist!’ they cried, ‘you pollute the air.’</p>
+
+<p>“‘Come, let us take up stones and stone him!’ cried
+some.</p>
+
+<p>“‘What affair is it of ours?’ said others. ‘Let the
+idiot go!’ and went away. But the rest gathered up
+stones and mud, and threw at him. At last, when he was
+bruised and cut, the hunter crept away into the woods.
+And it was evening about him.”</p>
+
+<p>At every word the stranger spoke the fellow’s eyes
+flashed back on him,—yes, and yes, and yes. The
+stranger smiled. It was almost worth the trouble of
+exerting oneself, even on a lazy afternoon, to win those
+passionate flashes, more thirsty and desiring than the
+love-glances of a woman.</p>
+
+<p>“He wandered on and on,” said the stranger, “and the
+shade grew deeper. He was on the borders now of the
+land where it is always night. Then he stepped into it,
+and there was no light there. With his hands he groped;<span class="pagenum" id="Page_229">[Pg 229]</span>
+but each branch, as he touched it, broke off, and the earth
+was covered with cinders. At every step his foot sank
+in, and a fine cloud of impalpable ashes flew up into his
+face; and it was dark. So he sat down upon a stone, and
+buried his face in his hands, to wait in that land of Negation
+and Denial till the light came.</p>
+
+<p>“And it was night in his heart also.</p>
+
+<p>“Then from the marshes to his right and left cold mists
+arose, and closed about him. A fine imperceptible rain
+fell in the dark, and great drops gathered on his hair
+and clothes. His heart beat slowly, and a numbness
+crept through all his limbs. Then, looking up, two merry
+whisp lights came dancing. He lifted his head to look
+at them. Nearer, nearer, they came. So warm, so
+bright, they danced like stars of fire. They stood before
+him at last. From the centre of the radiating flame in
+one looked out a woman’s face, laughing, dimpled, with
+streaming yellow hair. In the centre of the other were
+merry laughing ripples, like the bubbles on a glass of
+wine. They danced before him.</p>
+
+<p>“‘Who are you,’ asked the hunter, ‘who alone come to
+me in my solitude and darkness?’</p>
+
+<p>“‘We are the twins Sensuality!’ they cried. ‘Our
+father’s name is Human-Nature, and our mother’s name
+is Excess. We are as old as the hills and rivers,—as
+old as the first man; but we never die,’ they laughed.</p>
+
+<p>“‘Oh, let me wrap my arms about you!’ cried the first;
+‘they are soft and warm. Your heart is frozen now, but
+I will make it beat. Oh, come to me!’</p>
+
+<p>“‘I will pour my hot life into you,’ said the second;
+‘your brain is numb, and your limbs are dead now, but
+they shall live with a fierce free fire. Oh, let me pour
+it in!’</p>
+
+<p>“‘Oh, follow us!’ they cried, ‘and live with us. Nobler<span class="pagenum" id="Page_230">[Pg 230]</span>
+hearts than yours have sat here in this darkness to wait;
+and they have come to us and we to them, and they have
+never left us,—never. All else is a delusion; but we are
+real, we are real. Truth is a shadow; the valleys of
+Superstition are a farce; the earth is of ashes, the trees
+all rotten; but we—feel us—we live! You cannot doubt
+us. Feel us, how warm we are! Oh, come to us! come
+to us!’</p>
+
+<p>“Nearer and nearer round his head they hovered, and
+the cold drops melted on his forehead. The bright light
+shot into his eyes, dazzling him, and the frozen blood
+began to run. And he said,——</p>
+
+<p>“‘Yes; why should I die here in this awful darkness?
+They are warm, they melt my frozen blood!’ and he
+stretched out his hands to take them.</p>
+
+<p>“Then in a moment there arose before him the image
+of the thing he had loved, and his hand dropped to his
+side.</p>
+
+<p>“‘Oh, come to us!’ they cried.</p>
+
+<p>“But he buried his face.</p>
+
+<p>“‘You dazzle my eyes,’ he cried, ‘you make my heart
+warm; but you cannot give me what I desire. I will
+wait here,—wait till I die. Go!’</p>
+
+<p>“He covered his face with his hands, and would not
+listen; and when he looked up again they were two
+twinkling stars, that vanished in the distance.</p>
+
+<p>“And the long, long night rolled on.</p>
+
+<p>“All who leave the valley of Superstition pass through
+that dark land; but some go through it in a few days,
+some linger there for months, some for years, and some
+die there.</p>
+
+<p>The boy had crept closer; his hot breath almost touched
+the stranger’s hand; a mystic wonder filled his eyes.</p>
+
+<p>“At last for the hunter a faint light played along the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_231">[Pg 231]</span>
+horizon, and he rose to follow it; and he reached that
+light at last, and stepped into the broad sunshine. Then
+before him rose the almighty mountains of Dry-facts and
+Realities. The clear sunshine played on them, and the
+tops were lost in the clouds. At the foot many paths
+ran up. An exultant cry burst from the hunter. He
+chose the straightest, and began to climb; and the rocks
+and ridges resounded with his song. They had exaggerated;
+after all, it was not so high, nor was the road
+so steep! A few days, a few weeks, a few months at
+most, and then the top! Not one feather only would he
+pick up; he would gather all that other men had found,—weave
+the net,—capture Truth,—hold her fast,—touch
+her with his hands,—clasp her!</p>
+
+<p>“He laughed in the merry sunshine, and sang loud.
+Victory was very near. Nevertheless after a while the
+path grew steeper. He needed all his breath for climbing,
+and the singing died away. On the right and left
+rose huge rocks, devoid of lichen or moss, and in the
+lava-like earth chasms yawned. Here and there he saw
+a sheen of white bones. Now too the path began to
+grow less and less marked; then it became a mere trace,
+with a foot-mark here and there; then it ceased altogether.
+He sang no more, but struck forth a path for
+himself, until he reached a mighty wall of rock, smooth
+and without break, stretching as far as the eye could see.
+‘I will rear a stair against it; and, once this wall climbed,
+I shall be almost there,’ he said bravely; and worked.
+With his Shuttle of Imagination he dug out stones; but
+half of them would not fit, and half a month’s work would
+roll down because those below were ill-chosen. But the
+hunter worked on, saying always to himself, ‘Once this
+wall climbed, I shall be almost there. This great work
+ended!’</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_232">[Pg 232]</span></p>
+
+<p>“At last he came out upon the top, and he looked
+about him. Far below rolled the white mist over the
+valleys of Superstition, and above him towered the mountains.
+They had seemed low before; they were of an
+immeasurable height now, from crown to foundation surrounded
+by walls of rock, that rose tier above tier in
+mighty circles. Upon them played the eternal sunshine.
+He uttered a wild cry. He bowed himself on to the
+earth, and when he rose his face was white. In absolute
+silence he walked on. He was very silent now. In
+those high regions the rarefied air is hard to breathe by
+those born in the valleys; every breath he drew hurt
+him, and the blood oozed out from the tips of his fingers.
+Before the next wall of rock he began to work. The
+height of this seemed infinite, and he said nothing. The
+sound of his tool rang night and day upon the iron rocks
+into which he cut steps. Years passed over him, yet he
+worked on; but the wall towered up always above him to
+heaven. Sometimes he prayed that a little moss or lichen
+might spring up on those bare walls to be a companion
+to him; but it never came.” The stranger watched the
+boy’s face.</p>
+
+<p>“And the years rolled on; he counted them by the steps
+he had cut—a few for a year—only a few. He sang no
+more; he said no more, ‘I will do this or that’—he only
+worked. And at night when the twilight settled down,
+there looked out at him from the holes and crevices in the
+rocks strange wild faces.</p>
+
+<p>“‘Stop your work, you lonely man, and speak to us,’
+they cried.</p>
+
+<p>“‘My salvation is in work. If I should stop but for
+one moment, you would creep down upon me,’ he replied.
+And they put out their long necks farther.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_233">[Pg 233]</span></p>
+
+<p>“‘Look down into the crevices at your feet,’ they said.
+‘See what lies there,—white bones! As brave and strong
+a man as you climbed to these rocks. And he looked up.
+He saw there was no use in striving; he would never hold
+Truth, never see her, never find her. So he lay down
+here, for he was very tired. He went to sleep forever.
+He put himself to sleep. Sleep is very tranquil. You
+are not lonely when you are asleep, neither do your hands
+ache, nor your heart.’ And the hunter laughed between
+his teeth.</p>
+
+<p>“‘Have I torn from my heart all that was dearest;
+have I wandered alone in the land of night; have I resisted
+temptation; have I dwelt where the voice of my
+kind is never heard, and labored alone, to lie down and
+be food for you, ye harpies?’</p>
+
+<p>“He laughed fiercely; and the echoes of Despair slunk
+away, for the laugh of a brave, strong heart is as a
+death-blow to them.</p>
+
+<p>“Nevertheless they crept out again, and looked at him.</p>
+
+<p>“‘Do you know that your hair is white?’ they said,
+‘that your hands begin to tremble like a child’s. Do you
+see that the point of your Shuttle is gone? It is cracked
+already. If you should ever climb this stair,’ they said,
+‘it will be your last. You will never climb another.’</p>
+
+<p>“And he answered, ‘I know it!’ and worked on.</p>
+
+<p>“The old, thin hands cut the stones ill and jaggedly, for
+the fingers were stiff and bent. The beauty and the
+strength of the man was gone.</p>
+
+<p>“At last an old, wizened, shrunken face looked out
+above the rocks. It saw the eternal mountains rise with
+walls to the white clouds; but its work was done.</p>
+
+<p>“The old hunter folded his tired hands, and lay down
+by the precipice where he had worked away his life.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_234">[Pg 234]</span>
+It was the sleeping time at last. Below him over the
+valleys rolled the thick white mist. Once it broke; and
+through the gap the dying eyes looked down on the trees
+and fields of their childhood. From afar seemed born
+to him the cry of his own wild birds, and he heard the
+noise of people singing as they danced. And he thought
+he heard among them the voices of his old comrades; and
+he saw far off the sunlight shine on his early home. And
+great tears gathered in the hunter’s eyes.</p>
+
+<p>“‘Ah! they who die there do not die alone,’ he cried.</p>
+
+<p>“Then the mists rolled together again, and he turned
+his eyes away.</p>
+
+<p>“‘I have sought,’ he said, ‘for long years I have
+labored; but I have not found her. I have not rested, I
+have not ripened, and I have not seen her; now my
+strength is gone. Where I lie down worn out, other men
+will stand, young and fresh. By the steps that I have
+cut they will climb; by the stairs that I have built they
+will mount. They will never know the name of the man
+who made them. At the clumsy work they will laugh;
+when the stones roll, they will curse me. But they will
+mount, and on <em>my</em> work; they will climb, and by <em>my</em>
+stair. They will find her, and through me. And no man
+liveth to himself, and no man dieth to himself.’</p>
+
+<p>“The tears rolled from beneath the shrivelled eyelids.
+If Truth had appeared above him in the clouds now, he
+could not have seen her; the mist of death was in his
+eyes.</p>
+
+<p>“‘My soul hears their glad step coming,’ he said; ‘and
+they shall mount! they shall mount!’ He raised his
+shrivelled hand to his eyes.</p>
+
+<p>“Then slowly from the white sky above, through the
+still air, came something falling, falling, falling. Softly
+it fluttered down, and dropped on to the breast of the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_235">[Pg 235]</span>
+dying man. He felt it with his hands. It was a feather.
+He died holding it.”</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="right">Olive Schreiner, <cite>The Story of an African Farm</cite>.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<p class="center"><span class="smcap">A Parable for Philanthropists</span></p>
+
+<p>Christopher and I were motoring through the Adirondacks;
+and, on the morning in question, were traversing
+an unusually long stretch of unbroken wilderness. For
+ten or fifteen miles we had passed not a cottage, not a
+camp, not even a trail. Nothing but forest on both
+sides of the road—wild, tangled forest, beautiful, fragrant,
+and infinitely lonely. Its silence had fallen upon us. We
+felt as if we had escaped forever from the troubled haunts
+of men, and could never again be confronted with human
+problems. We drove slowly, with only a half apprehensive
+eye on the gray sky, which threatened rain.</p>
+
+<p>I was just thinking that it was strange we saw so little
+evidence of the wild animal life with which the woods
+must abound, when suddenly, like an answer to my mental
+challenge, there came a little stir in the bushes ahead of
+us. A tiny, discreet stir. No suggestion of a bear or a
+deer. Perhaps a hedgehog, however. As we passed, I
+looked closely and, to my astonishment, saw, not a hedgehog,
+not even a rabbit or a squirrel, but—of all things, in
+that uninhabited wilderness—a shrinking, small gray
+kitten. I could hardly have been more surprised by the
+appearance of a woodchuck on Fifth Avenue.</p>
+
+<p>Christopher saw it as soon as I did, and he slid into
+neutral and stopped the car. An indignant and disdainful
+look crept about his mouth. I knew what he was
+thinking. We live in a summer-resorted valley ourselves,—and
+we have had incredulously disgusting experience
+with people who abandon pet cats when they close their<span class="pagenum" id="Page_236">[Pg 236]</span>
+cottages. But not out in the wilderness like this, at the
+mercy of all kinds of dangers, and so little and helpless,
+its mother’s milk scarcely dry on its mouth. I was so
+angry that I could not speak, as I got out of the car and
+went back along the road.</p>
+
+<p>“I don’t know what in the world we’ll do with it,” said
+Christopher.</p>
+
+<p>The point was well taken. We were planning to spend
+the night in a hotel. Neither of us hesitated, however.
+Our duty seemed clear.</p>
+
+<p>“I suppose we can leave it at some camp or farmhouse,”
+I suggested.</p>
+
+<p>“And pay them for taking care of it!” Christopher
+added, ironically.</p>
+
+<p>The kitten remained just where we had discovered it
+until we were near enough to look it in the eye. It had
+evidently been a pet. Its fur was sleek and its face wore
+the open, candid expression peculiar to well-bred cats.
+It seemed glad to see us. Steadfastly it returned our
+gaze, and its pink mouth opened in a plaintive meow.</p>
+
+<p>“Kitty!” I murmured. I’m fond of cats, and this one
+quite went to my heart. “Pick her up for me, Christopher.
+I’ll hold her while you drive.”</p>
+
+<p>So Christopher went to pick her up, and for the next
+hour and a half he continued to repeat the motion.</p>
+
+<p>Who could have believed it would be so hard to make
+connections with a pet kitten? She was not afraid of
+us. On the contrary, the minute we let her alone, she
+came stealing back to the side of the road where she
+could see us and call to us. But she simply could not
+make up her mind to let us rescue her.</p>
+
+<p>First Christopher tried, with a confident method which
+left him staring rather foolishly at his unexpectedly empty
+hand. Then I tried.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_237">[Pg 237]</span></p>
+
+<p>“That’s not the way. Evidently, she’s been out here
+long enough to get frightened. Poor little thing! We
+must coax her into confidence.”</p>
+
+<p>So Christopher sat down on a rock and lighted a cigarette
+while, slowly, slowly, discoursing, “Poor kitty! nice
+kitty!” in my most mellifluous accents. I crossed the
+road and approached the spot where the kitten crouched.
+It took me at least ten minutes, and, in the end, she
+slipped from beneath my very fingers. My discomfiture
+was worse than Christopher’s, for the retreating ball of
+fur turned and spat at me.</p>
+
+<p>“Hard luck!” said Christopher, sympathetically, if
+also a little critically, “when you so nearly had her. I’ll
+try again next; but we’d better sit still for a while till
+she gets over her scare.”</p>
+
+<p>As we sat waiting, it became evident that it really
+was going to rain. In fact, already a fine mist was in
+the air.</p>
+
+<p>“Those bushes will soon be nice and wet,” remarked
+Christopher.</p>
+
+<p>“Well,” I replied, much subdued, “she’s near the edge
+now. Go and get her, and get it over with.”</p>
+
+<p>Three minutes later, after a slow approach followed
+by a plunge on Christopher’s part, the kitten was in the
+heart of the forest.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, I say!” cried Christopher. “This is hopeless.
+We might stay here all day and all night and all another
+day. Don’t you think we’d better conclude that we’ve
+done our best? After all, there are plenty of mice and
+grass-hoppers in the woods.”</p>
+
+<p>I recognized this as sound, sensible masculine advice,
+and I longed to accept it. The prospect of spending indefinite
+hours dodging about tangled bushes in the rain
+was not exhilarating. Moreover, the next inn was leagues<span class="pagenum" id="Page_238">[Pg 238]</span>
+ahead, and we were hungry. But the sentiment of my
+sex was too much for me.</p>
+
+<p>“I’m afraid I could never look Shem in the face again,”
+I murmured.</p>
+
+<p>Shem is our yellow cat at home.</p>
+
+<p>Christopher was admirable. He always is, but on this
+occasion he outdid himself. He said nothing further, but
+took off his hat and coat, turned up his trousers, and went
+to work. For nearly an hour he pursued that kitten, trying
+every method he could think of or I could suggest.
+He stalked and coaxed, he waited and plunged, he withdrew,
+he circumvented and headed off. The rain fell
+steadily, and the bushes more than fulfilled their promise
+of wetness. I was very unhappy. After all, I care more
+about Christopher than about kittens. But something of
+the kitten’s perversity had infected me. As she could not
+bring herself to be caught, so I could not bring myself
+to abandon her.</p>
+
+<p>“Well,” said Christopher finally (he spoke carefully;
+for the last half hour when he had said anything at all,
+he had said it carefully), “I’m going to make one more
+effort, and then——”</p>
+
+<p>It was a thorough effort. He made a wide détour
+about the kitten’s position, entering a part of the forest
+which he had not penetrated before, and was about to
+close in on the maddening outcast, when, to my perplexity,
+he suddenly desisted from the whole undertaking and returned
+to the road, shaking the rain from his hair and
+turning down his trousers with as dark an air of disgust
+as I have ever seen. I wanted to ask, “What in the world
+is the matter?” but I thought I’d better not.</p>
+
+<p>He told me, however, presently. The situation was
+one which just had to be shared. “There’s a trail over
+there,” he said concisely, “leading to an occupied camp.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_239">[Pg 239]</span>
+We’ve spent the morning trying to kidnap that kitten.”</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps there is nothing more to be said. Certainly
+Christopher and I said nothing for many miles. I was
+too humbly chastened, and he was too—well, let us call it
+considerate. But we did some thinking; and, after a
+most opportunely good dinner at an unexpected wayside
+inn, I was relieved to hear Christopher begin to meditate
+aloud.</p>
+
+<p>“It wasn’t crying at all,” he reflected. “It was just
+saying, as its mother had taught it, ‘Welcome to our
+mountain home.’ How embarrassed it must have been!”</p>
+
+<p>“And frightened,” I added. “No wonder I thought it
+looked scared. Several times we nearly had it.”</p>
+
+<p>“Well,” Christopher concluded, with a grave glance at
+me, “philanthropy’s a ticklish business.”</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>By kind permission of <cite>The Atlantic Monthly</cite>.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="center"><span class="smcap">The Tadpole and the Frog</span></p>
+
+<p>“Be ashamed of yourself,” said the frog. “When I
+was a tadpole, I had no tail.”</p>
+
+<p>“Just what I thought!” said the tadpole. “You never
+were a tadpole.”</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="right">Robert Louis Stevenson. <cite>Fables.</cite> By permission<br>
+of Charles Scribner’s Sons, the authorized<br>
+publishers.</p>
+</div>
+<br>
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p>SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY OF FAIRY TALES, ALLEGORIES,
+PARABLES, AND FABLES</p>
+
+<p>The editors have found the additional selections very useful in
+teaching these forms of narrative:</p>
+
+<p>Andersen, Hans Christian. <cite>Fairy Tales.</cite></p>
+
+<p>Æsop. <cite>Fables.</cite></p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_240">[Pg 240]</span></p>
+
+<p>Frazer, Lady. <cite>Leaves from the Golden Bough.</cite> The Macmillan
+Company.</p>
+
+<p>La Fontaine. <cite>Fables.</cite></p>
+
+<p>Schreiner, Olive. <cite>Dreams.</cite></p>
+
+<p>Stephens, James. <cite>Irish Fairy Tales.</cite> The Macmillan Company.</p>
+
+<p>Stevenson, Robert Louis. <cite>Fables</cite>, particularly <cite>The Cart Horse
+and Saddle Horse</cite> and <cite>The Sinking Ship</cite>. Charles Scribner’s Sons.</p>
+</div>
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_241">[Pg 241]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_VII">CHAPTER VII</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="center"><cite>Biographical Narrative</cite></p>
+
+
+<p>It is true that, strictly speaking, all biography is narrative;
+but it is also true that in much biography the
+best narrative is lacking. Thus, in calling this chapter
+Biographical Narrative, we obviously mean the type of
+biography in which the narrative, or story, element is
+stressed, in which the character depicted lives in the mind
+of the reader because he has been drawn as an actor
+upon his stage, or, in other words, because he himself
+acts rather than is acted upon by the faithful but none
+too vigorous pen of his biographer.</p>
+
+<p>This kind of biographical narrative requires, first, a
+subject, who, although not a Dr. Johnson, is at least sufficiently
+striking in personality and achievement to merit
+one’s attention and interest, and, second, a sense of perception
+and discrimination on the part of the biographer.
+The three selections which are given to illustrate biographical
+narrative fulfill these requirements. One
+records the life and work of Dr. Trudeau, the beloved
+physician of Saranac; another depicts Beau Nash, a
+“character” of the early eighteenth century; a third
+portrays the eccentric Lady Hester Stanhope of the Pitt
+house and the Pitt nose.</p>
+
+<p>Even the most cursory reading of the three selections
+will convince him who reads that the persons portrayed
+really live, and a careful analysis will show him why
+and how. It is this analysis which should give him suggestions<span class="pagenum" id="Page_242">[Pg 242]</span>
+for his own writing of this kind of narrative.</p>
+
+<p>He will easily discover that the last of the models,
+<em>The Beloved Physician</em>, is far longer than either of the
+others, that it possesses far greater wealth of anecdote
+and of detail, and that it lays greater stress upon the
+work of the man than upon the man himself—or, in other
+words, that it reveals the physician through his relations
+to his environment rather than through personal traits
+and habits.</p>
+
+<p>And yet when he compares it with <em>Beau Nash</em>, which
+is only one-fourth as long, he will be convinced that the
+subject of the latter is after all just as clearly portrayed.
+This debonair gentleman of the early eighteenth century
+with his snuff-boxes, his white beaver, and his two imperious
+fingers, lives because of the very choice of detail with
+which his biographer has drawn him. Bath lives, too,
+with her welcoming abbey bells and her “periwigged men
+of fashion, immaculate in all but morals.” Here is no
+wealth of detail at all, but here instead are a few vivid
+and concrete facts and objects which paint the picture
+every whit as clearly.</p>
+
+<p>The second selection, <em>Lady Hester Stanhope</em>, is written
+much after the manner of <em>Beau Nash</em>; that is, the author,
+Lytton Strachey, sketches Lady Hester’s meteoric life
+with a few heavily penciled lines. His details are few,
+but they are wonderfully telling ones. Moreover, he employs
+a kind of unifying device which unquestionably
+adds to the artistic value of his narrative. That device is
+Lady Hester’s nose, with which Mr. Strachey begins
+and ends her sensational career.</p>
+
+<p>It hardly seems necessary after even this brief comparative
+study of the three selections given to suggest
+methods of handling this type of narrative. The compelling
+motive of the writer must be to make his subject<span class="pagenum" id="Page_243">[Pg 243]</span>
+live; but whether he will do it by presenting it from many
+sides and in relation to many persons and environments,
+whether he will seize upon some fault, foible, or individualizing
+trait, whether he will present a series of
+amazing and revealing incidents,—the choice must rest
+with him.</p>
+
+<p class="right">
+M. E. C.<br>
+</p>
+
+
+<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Beau Nash</span></p>
+
+<p class="center">LLEWELYN POWYS</p>
+
+<p>Richard Nash, despot of silk stockings and most tyrannical
+of beaux, was born at Swansea, 18 October, 1674.
+His father was a small glass-manufacturer, and in the
+days of his prosperity the incomparable dandy was wont
+to say, when twitted as to his reticence concerning his
+origin, “I seldom mention my father in company, not because
+I have any reason to be ashamed of him, but because
+he has some reason to be ashamed of me.” Nash
+was educated at Oxford, where, in the words of Goldsmith,
+he showed “that though much might be expected
+from his genius, nothing could be hoped from his industry”;
+indeed, it appears that he was compelled to absent
+himself from the university somewhat abruptly, leaving
+in his hastily abandoned chambers “some plays, a
+tobacco-box, and a fiddle.”</p>
+
+<p>After his unceremonious departure from Oxford, Nash
+occupied himself for the next few years ostensibly in reading
+law at the Inner Temple, though in reality living “to
+the very edge of his finances” as a man-about-town. In
+1704 he betook himself by stage-coach to Bath, a journey
+which at that time was performed, “if God permitted, in
+three days.” Shortly after his arrival the Corporation of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_244">[Pg 244]</span>
+Bath elected him Master of Ceremonies of that city, a
+position which he held with eminent success and unequalled
+pomp for more than half a century.</p>
+
+<p>It must not be thought that the post was in any way
+a sinecure. It would be difficult to enumerate all the
+varied activities by which the debonair gamester converted
+the humdrum West Country town into the most fashionable
+centre of eighteenth-century life in England. He
+superintended the improving of the roads leading to the
+city, had the streets lighted, regulated the charges of the
+sedan-chair men, had ballrooms and hospitals built, and
+contrived suitable shelters around the famous baths.
+Always an expert in such matters as rank, precedence,
+and urbane decorum, he transformed the city of Bath into
+a modish and exquisite resort for gaming, foppery, and
+gallantry.</p>
+
+<p>When Beau Nash first took up office his sense of the
+correct was considerably exercised by a certain grossness
+of manners which prevailed at that time. It seems that
+in those days men were not at all ashamed to appear at
+polite gatherings in their jack boots and the ladies in their
+aprons. As a counterstroke to such unseemly practices,
+Nash composed the following satirical rhyme:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Come, trollops and slatterns,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Cockt hats and white aprons,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">This best our modesty suits;</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">For why should not we</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">In dress be as free</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">As Hogs-Norton ’squires in boots.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>Nor was this his only method of displaying his displeasure.
+If Nash’s eye so much as caught a glimpse of heavy footwear
+in an assembly-room, he would hurry across to the
+offender and with a low bow inquire of him “if he had not
+forgotten his horse.” Recalcitrant dames he would treat<span class="pagenum" id="Page_245">[Pg 245]</span>
+still more severely: on one occasion even going so far as
+to remove with his own hands, from the person of the
+Duchess of Queensbury, an apron of point lace which was
+said to be worth 500 guineas.</p>
+
+<p>It was indeed a prim and elegant life that Nash inaugurated,
+a life in which periwigged men of fashion,
+immaculate in all but their morals, strutted and minuetted
+before exquisitely patched and powdered ladies. They
+met at the pump-room, where they were diverted by the
+conversation of the “gay, the witty, and the forward”;
+they met at Spring Gardens, where on summer mornings
+they would tread a cotillion together on the smooth lawns
+between the painted flower-beds; they met again as they
+made a tour “through the milliners and toymen, to stop
+at Mr. Gill’s, the pastry-cook, to take a jelly, a tart, or a
+small basin of vermicelli.” Each night they attended a
+ball opened with the minuet danced by a lady and gentleman
+“of the highest rank present” and followed by
+country dances “wherein the ladies according to their
+quality stood up first.” At an appointed hour Nash
+would raise two fingers as a sign that it was time for the
+music to cease, and then, after a short interval for the
+dancers to cool, the company would take their departure.</p>
+
+<p>What a delightful picture one gets of it all, of the
+sedate, pleasure-loving old town with its abbey-bells ringing
+out a welcome to each fashionable arrival, with Beau
+Nash hurrying down the cobbled streets, his famous white
+beaver hat on his head, to pay his compliments to each
+newcomer. And what a gay figure he himself must have
+cut in those resplendent days; indeed, we learn from
+Lord Chesterfield that his attire was on one occasion so
+gorgeous “that as he stood by chance in the midst of the
+dancers he was taken by many to be a gilt garland.”
+Though Beau Nash was fond of declaring that “Wit, flattery,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_246">[Pg 246]</span>
+and fine clothes were enough to debauch a nunnery,”
+there is little evidence that he himself ever indulged in intrigues
+with his fair visitors who every morning like so
+many lovely nymphs stepped into the elegant health-giving
+waters and received from the hands of their attendants
+“little floating dishes into which to lay their handkerchiefs,
+little nosegays, and sweetmeats.” Judging by the
+standards of the eighteenth century, it would seem that
+his personal life defied criticism, for in an age “when a fellow
+of high humour would drink no wine but what was
+strained through his mistress’s smock,” he can scarcely
+be condemned for accepting the blandishments bestowed
+upon him by his three successive adorers, Lady Betty
+Besom, Hannah Lightfoot, and Juliana Popjoy.</p>
+
+<p>An issue of the <cite>Gentleman’s Magazine</cite> at the end of the
+eighteenth century throws a remarkable light upon the
+latter years of the last of these women. “Juliana Popjoy,”
+it says, “died last week. For thirty or forty years
+she has lived in a hollow tree. She had been mistress
+to the famous Beau Nash of Bath.”</p>
+
+<p>In Wesley’s journal we find a curious description of a
+meeting that took place between that honest rantipole
+evangelist and Beau Nash. Wesley had come to hold a
+conventicle at Bath, which was, of course, the very stronghold
+of frivolity. Before his service opened Nash appeared
+and did not hesitate to protest that his preaching
+“frightened the people out of their wits.”</p>
+
+<p>“Sir, did you ever hear me preach?” inquired the
+Puritan of the Dandy.</p>
+
+<p>“No,” came the answer, “but I judge by common report.”</p>
+
+<p>“Common report, Sir, is not enough. Give me leave,
+Sir, to ask is not your name Nash?”</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_247">[Pg 247]</span></p>
+
+<p>“My name is Nash.”</p>
+
+<p>“Sir, I dare not judge of you by common report.” And
+with that, so the story runs, the man of fashion uttered
+not a word more, but walked silently away.</p>
+
+<p>Are we to suppose that, as sometimes happens to simple
+souls, Beau Nash experienced at that moment a new and
+strange misgiving as to the import of the superficial
+existence which surrounded him and which in part he
+himself had been responsible for calling into existence?
+And is there perhaps some connection between his religious
+susceptibilities on that occasion and the extraordinary
+conduct of his lady in taking up her residence
+where patches and cosmetics were replaced by owls’ pellets
+and bats’ droppings?</p>
+
+<p>Alas! as the years went by the evening of the Beau’s
+life began to grow cloudy. The old man grew choleric
+and testy: he became egotistical and would weary the
+company with his oft-repeated tales. There is something
+strangely pathetic about the spectacle of this aged
+“glass of fashion” clinging peevishly to the last remnants
+of his mock power, which with the passing of the years
+he had come to consider his natural right. “Old Beau
+Knash makes himself disagreeable to all who come to
+Bath. He is now become fit only to read ‘Shirlock’ upon
+death, by which he may save his soul and gaine more
+proffits than ever he could by his white hatt, suppose it
+was to be dyed red,” wrote an impertinent illiterate eager
+to usurp the old gentleman’s place, who, having lived and
+prospered in the reigns of half a dozen sovereigns of England,
+was now “labouring under the unconquerable distemper
+of old age.”</p>
+
+<p>Sick and decrepit, the antique Macaroni drifted into
+poverty. At the last, even his cherished collection of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_248">[Pg 248]</span>
+snuff-boxes had to be sold, and he gladly accepted a
+pension of ten pounds to be delivered him on the first
+Monday of every month.</p>
+
+<p>Only after his death did something of the glamour of
+his ancient renown revive. For we are told that on a certain
+afternoon in the middle of February, 1761, the farm-labourers
+of Somerset unyoked their oxen, the colliers
+ceased from mining, the weavers from spinning, in order
+to witness from the stately roof-tops of Bath the body of
+the celebrated old fop pass by on its way to its final
+resting place in the Abbey church; there to await the
+ordained hour when, in a form more glorified than it had
+ever been by lace or frill, it should be called to appear
+before the presence of its Maker.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="right">From <cite>Thirteen Worthies</cite> by Llewelyn Powys.<br>
+By permission of Harcourt, Brace and Company,<br>
+Inc., holders of the copyright.</p>
+</div>
+
+<br>
+<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Lady Hester Stanhope</span></p>
+
+<p class="center">LYTTON STRACHEY</p>
+
+<p>The Pitt nose has a curious history. One can watch its
+transmigrations through three lives. The tremendous
+hook of old Lord Chatham, under whose curve Empires
+came to birth, was succeeded by the bleak upward-pointing
+nose of William Pitt the younger—the rigid symbol
+of an indomitable <i lang="fr">hauteur</i>. With Lady Hester Stanhope
+came the final stage. The nose, still with an upward tilt
+in it, had lost its masculinity; the hard bones of the
+uncle and the grandfather had disappeared. Lady
+Hester’s was a nose of wild ambitions, of pride grown
+fantastical, a nose that scorned the earth, shooting off,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_249">[Pg 249]</span>
+one fancies, towards some eternally eccentric heaven. It
+was a nose, in fact, altogether in the air.</p>
+
+<p>Noses, of course, are aristocratic things; and Lady
+Hester was the child of a great aristocracy. But, in her
+case, the aristocratic impulse, which had carried her predecessors
+to glory, had less fortunate results. There has
+always been a strong strain of extravagance in the governing
+families of England; from time to time they throw off
+some peculiarly ill-balanced member, who performs a
+strange meteoric course. A century earlier, Lady Mary
+Wortley Montagu was an illustrious example of this
+tendency: that splendid comet, after filling half the
+heavens, vanished suddenly into desolation and darkness.
+Lady Hester Stanhope’s spirit was still more uncommon;
+and she met with a most uncommon fate.</p>
+
+<p>She was born in 1776, the eldest daughter of that extraordinary
+Earl Stanhope, Jacobin and inventor, who
+made the first steamboat and the first calculating machine,
+who defended the French Revolution in the House of
+Lords and erased the armorial bearings—“damned aristocratical
+nonsense”—from his carriages and his plate. Her
+mother, Chatham’s daughter and the favourite sister of
+Pitt, died when she was four years old. The second Lady
+Stanhope, a frigid woman of fashion, left her stepdaughters
+to the care of futile governesses, while “Citizen Stanhope”
+ruled the household from his laboratory with the
+violence of a tyrant. It was not until Lady Hester was
+twenty-four that she escaped from the slavery of her
+father’s house, by going to live with her grandmother,
+Lady Chatham. On Lady Chatham’s death, three years
+later, Pitt offered her his protection, and she remained
+with him until his death in 1806.</p>
+
+<p>Her three years with Pitt, passed in the very centre of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_250">[Pg 250]</span>
+splendid power, were brilliant and exciting. She flung
+herself impetuously into the movement and the passion
+of that vigorous society; she ruled her uncle’s household
+with high vivacity; she was liked and courted; if not
+beautiful, she was fascinating—very tall, with a very fair
+and clear complexion, and dark-blue eyes, and a countenance
+of wonderful expressiveness. Her talk, full of the
+trenchant nonchalance of those days, was both amusing
+and alarming: “My dear Hester, what are you saying?”
+Pitt would call out to her from across the room. She
+was devoted to her uncle, who warmly returned her affection.
+She was devoted, too—but in a more dangerous
+fashion—to the intoxicating Antinous, Lord Granville
+Leveson Gower. The reckless manner in which she carried
+on this love-affair was the first indication of something
+overstrained, something wild and unaccountable, in
+her temperament. Lord Granville, after flirting with her
+outrageously, declared that he could never marry her,
+and went off on an embassy to St. Petersburg. Her distraction
+was extreme: she hinted that she would follow
+him to Russia; she threatened, and perhaps attempted,
+suicide; she went about telling everybody that he had
+jilted her. She was taken ill, and then there were rumours
+of an accouchement, which, it was said, she took
+care to <i lang="fr">afficher</i>, by appearing without rouge and fainting
+on the slightest provocation. In the midst of these excursions
+and alarms there was a terrible and unexpected
+catastrophe. Pitt died. And Lady Hester suddenly
+found herself a dethroned princess, living in a small house
+in Montagu Square on a pension of £1,200 a year.</p>
+
+<p>She did not abandon society, however, and the tongue
+of gossip continued to wag. Her immediate marriage
+with a former lover, Mr. Hill, was announced: “il est
+bien bon,” said Lady Bessborough. Then it was whispered<span class="pagenum" id="Page_251">[Pg 251]</span>
+that Canning was “le regnant”—that he was with
+her “not only all day, but almost all night.” She quarreled
+with Canning and became attached to Sir John
+Moore. Whether she was actually engaged to marry him—as
+she seems to have asserted many years later—is
+doubtful; his letters to her, full as they are of respectful
+tenderness, hardly warrant the conclusion; but it is certain
+that he died with her name on his lips. Her favourite
+brother, Charles, was killed beside him; and it was
+natural that under this double blow she should have retired
+from London. She buried herself in Wales; but
+not for long. In 1810 she set sail for Gibraltar with her
+brother James, who was rejoining his regiment in the
+Peninsula. She never returned to England.</p>
+
+<p>There can be no doubt that at the time of her departure
+the thought of a lifelong exile was far from her mind.
+It was only gradually, as she moved further and further
+eastward, that the prospect of life in England—at last
+even in Europe—grew distasteful to her; as late as 1816
+she was talking of a visit to Provence. Accompanied by
+two or three English fellow travellers, her English maid,
+Mrs. Fry, her private physician, Dr. Meryon, and a host
+of servants, she progressed, slowly and in a great state,
+through Malta and Athens, to Constantinople. She was
+conveyed in battleships, and lodged with governors and
+ambassadors. After spending many months in Constantinople,
+Lady Hester discovered that she was “dying to
+see Napoleon with her own eyes,” and attempted accordingly
+to obtain passports to France. The project was
+stopped by Stratford Canning, the English Minister, upon
+which she decided to visit Egypt, and, chartering a Greek
+vessel, sailed for Alexandria in the winter of 1811. Off
+the island of Rhodes a violent storm sprang up; the
+whole party were forced to abandon the ship, and to take<span class="pagenum" id="Page_252">[Pg 252]</span>
+refuge upon a bare rock, where they remained without
+food or shelter for thirty hours. Eventually, after many
+severe privations, Alexandria was reached in safety; but
+this disastrous voyage was a turning-point in Lady Hester’s
+career. At Rhodes she was forced to change her torn
+and dripping raiment for the attire of a Turkish gentleman—a
+dress which she never afterwards abandoned. It
+was the first step in her orientalization.</p>
+
+<p>She passed the next two years in a triumphal progress.
+Her appearance in Cairo caused the greatest sensation,
+and she was received in state by the Pasha, Mehemet
+Ali. Her costume on this occasion was gorgeous: she
+wore a turban of cashmere, a brocaded waistcoat, a priceless
+pelisse, and a vast pair of purple velvet pantaloons
+embroidered all over in gold. She was ushered by chamberlains
+with silver wands through the inner courts of the
+palace to a pavilion in the harem, where the Pasha, rising
+to receive her, conversed with her for an hour. From
+Cairo she turned northwards, visiting Jaffa, Jerusalem,
+Acre, and Damascus. Her travelling dress was of scarlet
+cloth trimmed with gold, and, when on horseback, she
+wore over the whole a white-hooded and tasselled burnous.
+Her maid, too, was forced, protesting, into trousers, though
+she absolutely refused to ride astride. Poor Mrs. Fry
+had gone through various and dreadful sufferings—shipwreck
+and starvation, rats and blackbeetles unspeakable—but
+she retained her equanimity. Whatever her Ladyship
+might think fit to be, she was an Englishwoman to the
+last, and Philippaki was Philip Parker and Mustapha
+Mr. Farr.</p>
+
+<p>Outside Damascus, Lady Hester was warned that the
+town was the most fanatical in Turkey, and that the
+scandal of a woman entering it in man’s clothes, unveiled,
+would be so great as to be dangerous. She was begged to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_253">[Pg 253]</span>
+veil herself, and to make her entry under cover of darkness.
+“I must take the bull by the horns,” she replied,
+and rode into the city unveiled at midday. The population
+were thunderstruck; but at last their amazement
+gave way to enthusiasm, and the incredible lady was
+hailed everywhere as Queen, crowds followed her, coffee
+was poured out before her, and the whole bazaar rose as
+she passed. Yet she was not satisfied with her triumphs;
+she would do something still more glorious and astonishing;
+she would plunge into the desert and visit the ruins
+of Palmyra, which only half-a-dozen of the boldest travellers
+had ever seen. The Pasha of Damascus offered her
+a military escort, but she preferred to throw herself upon
+the hospitality of the Bedouin Arabs, who, overcome by
+her horsemanship, her powers of sight, and her courage,
+enrolled her a member of their tribe. After a week’s
+journey in their company, she reached Palmyra, where the
+inhabitants met her with wild enthusiasm, and under
+the Corinthian columns of Zenobia’s temple crowned her
+head with flowers. This happened in March, 1813; it
+was the apogee of Lady Hester’s life. Henceforward her
+fortunes gradually but steadily declined.</p>
+
+<p>The rumour of her exploits had spread through Syria,
+and from the year 1813 onwards, her reputation was
+enormous. She was received everywhere as a royal, almost
+a supernatural personage: she progressed from town
+to town amid official prostrations and popular rejoicings.
+But she herself was in a state of hesitation and discontent.
+Her future was uncertain; she had grown scornful
+of the West—must she return to it? The East alone
+was sympathetic, the East alone was tolerable—but could
+she cut herself off for ever from the past? At Laodicea
+she was suddenly struck down by the plague, and, after
+months of illness, it was borne in upon her that all was<span class="pagenum" id="Page_254">[Pg 254]</span>
+vanity. She rented an empty monastery on the slopes of
+Mount Lebanon, not far from Sayda (the ancient Sidon),
+and took up her abode there. Then her mind took a new
+surprising turn; she dashed to Ascalon, and, with the
+permission of the Sultan, began excavations in a ruined
+temple with the object of discovering a hidden treasure
+of three million pieces of gold. Having unearthed nothing
+but an antique statue, which, in order to prove her disinterestedness,
+she ordered her appalled doctor to break
+into little bits, she returned to her monastery. Finally,
+in 1816, she moved to another house, further up Mount
+Lebanon, and near the village of Djoun; and at Djoun
+she remained until her death, more than twenty years
+later.</p>
+
+<p>Thus, almost accidentally as it seems, she came to the
+end of her wanderings, and the last, long, strange, mythical
+period of her existence began. Certainly the situation
+that she had chosen was sublime. Her house, on the top
+of a high bare hill among great mountains, was a one-storied
+group of buildings, with many ramifying courts
+and out-houses, and a garden of several acres surrounded
+by a rampart wall. The garden, which she herself had
+planted and tended with the utmost care, commanded
+a glorious prospect. On every side but one the vast
+mountains towered, but to the west there was an opening,
+through which, in the far distance, the deep blue Mediterranean
+was revealed. From this romantic hermitage,
+her singular renown spread over the world. European
+travellers who had been admitted to her presence brought
+back stories full of Eastern mystery; they told of a peculiar
+grandeur, a marvellous prestige, an imperial power.
+The precise nature of Lady Hester’s empire was, indeed,
+dubious; she was in fact merely the tenant of her Djoun
+establishment, for which she paid a rent of £20 a year.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_255">[Pg 255]</span>
+But her dominion was not subject to such limitations.
+She ruled imaginatively, transcendentally; the solid glory
+of Chatham had been transmuted into the phantasy of
+an Arabian Night. No doubt she herself believed that
+she was something more than a chimerical Empress.
+When a French traveller was murdered in the desert,
+she issued orders for the punishment of the offenders;
+punished they were, and Lady Hester actually received
+the solemn thanks of the French Chamber. It seems
+probable, however, that it was the Sultan’s orders rather
+than Lady Hester’s which produced the desired effect.
+In her feud with her terrible neighbour, the Emir Beshyr,
+she maintained an undaunted front. She kept the tyrant
+at bay; but perhaps the Emir, who, so far as physical
+force was concerned, held her in the hollow of his hand,
+might have proceeded to extremities if he had not received
+a severe admonishment from Stratford Canning at
+Constantinople. What is certain is that the ignorant and
+superstitious populations around her feared and loved her,
+and that she, reacting to her own mysterious prestige,
+became at last even as they. She plunged into astrology
+and divination; she awaited the moment when, in accordance
+with prophecy, she should enter Jerusalem side by
+side with the Mahdi, the Messiah; she kept two sacred
+horses, destined, by sure signs, to carry her and him to
+their last triumph. The Orient had mastered her utterly.
+She was no longer an Englishwoman, she declared; she
+loathed England; she would never go there again; if she
+went anywhere it would be to Arabia, to “her own people.”</p>
+
+<p>Her expenses were immense—not only for herself but
+for others, for she poured out her hospitality with a noble
+hand. She ran into debt, and was swindled by the
+moneylenders; her steward cheated her, her servants pilfered
+her; her distress was at last acute. She fell into<span class="pagenum" id="Page_256">[Pg 256]</span>
+fits of terrible depression, bursting into dreadful tears and
+savage cries. Her habits grew more and more eccentric.
+She lay in bed all day, and sat up all night, talking unceasingly
+for hour upon hour to Dr. Meryon, who alone
+of her English attendants remained with her, Mrs. Fry
+having withdrawn to more congenial scenes long since.
+The doctor was a poor-spirited and muddle-headed man,
+but he was a good listener; and there he sat while that
+extraordinary talk flowed on—talk that scaled the heavens
+and ransacked the earth, talk in which memories of an
+abolished past—stories of Mr. Pitt and of George III.,
+vituperations against Mr. Canning, mimicries of the
+Duchess of Devonshire—mingled phantasmagorically with
+doctrines of Fate and planetary influence, and speculations
+on the Arabian origin of the Scottish clans, and lamentations
+over the wickedness of servants; till the unaccountable
+figure, with its robes and its long pipe, loomed through
+the tobacco-smoke like some vision of a Sibyl in a dream.
+She might be robbed and ruined, her house might crumble
+over her head; but she talked on. She grew ill and
+desperate; yet still she talked. Did she feel that the
+time was coming when she should talk no more?</p>
+
+<p>Her melancholy deepened into a settled gloom when the
+news came of her brother James’s death. She had quarrelled
+with all her English friends, except Lord Hardwiche—with
+her eldest brother, with her sister, whose kind
+letters she left unanswered; she was at daggers drawn with
+the English consul at Alexandria, who worried her about
+her debts. Ill and harassed, she hardly moved from her
+bedroom, while her servants rifled her belongings and
+reduced the house to a condition of indescribable disorder
+and filth. Three dozen hungry cats ranged through the
+rooms, filling the courts with frightful noises. Dr. Meryon,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_257">[Pg 257]</span>
+in the midst of it all, knew not whether to cry or
+laugh. At moments the great lady regained her ancient
+fire; her bells pealed tumultuously for hours together;
+or she leapt up, and arraigned the whole trembling household
+before her, with her Arab war-mace in her hand.
+Her finances grew more and more involved—grew at
+length irremediable. It was in vain that the faithful
+Lord Hardwiche pressed her to return to England to settle
+her affairs. Return to England, indeed! To England
+that ungrateful, miserable country, where, so far as she
+could see, they had forgotten the very name of Mr. Pitt!
+The final blow fell when a letter came from the English
+authorities threatening to cut off her pension for the payment
+of her debts. Upon that, after dispatching a series
+of furious missives to Lord Palmerston, to Queen Victoria,
+to the Duke of Wellington, she renounced the world.
+She commanded Dr. Meryon to return to Europe, and he—how
+could he have done it?—obeyed her. Her health
+was broken, she was over sixty, and, save for her vile
+servants, absolutely alone. She lived for nearly a year
+after he left her—we know no more. She had vowed
+never again to pass through the gate of her house; but
+did she sometimes totter to her garden—that beautiful
+garden which she had created, with its roses and its
+fountains, its alleys and its bowers—and look westward
+at the sea? The end came in June, 1839. Her servants
+immediately possessed themselves of every moveable
+object in the house. But Lady Hester cared no longer:
+she was lying back in her bed—inexplicable, grand, preposterous,
+with her nose in the air.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class= "right">From <cite>Books and Characters</cite> by Lytton Strachey.<br>
+Copyright 1922, by Harcourt, Brace and Company,<br>
+Inc. By permission.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_258">[Pg 258]</span></p>
+
+<br>
+<p class="center"><span class="smcap">The Beloved Physician</span></p>
+
+<p class="center"><span class="smcap">An Appreciation of Edward Livingston Trudeau</span></p>
+
+<p class="center">STEPHEN CHALMERS</p>
+
+<br>
+<p class="center">I</p>
+
+<p>When Dr. Edward Livingston Trudeau died the other
+day, many people wondered, suddenly realizing their impression
+that it was long years since he had joined the
+little band of heroes who have gone down in the battle
+against disease. And many must have asked themselves
+what manner of man this was who, sick unto death over
+forty years ago, could from scantiest materials build a
+little laboratory in the wilderness and exert an influence
+which cannot be measured by its practical materialization
+into five hundred sanitaria for the treatment of tuberculosis
+by fresh air, rest, and sound philosophy. Here
+was a man who, from his invalid’s chair, revolutionized
+this sanitation of business offices and of uncounted homes
+where ignorance shrank from pure air and sunshine. If
+I assume the task of sketching that indomitable character,
+it is only because I was privileged for many years to be
+Dr. Trudeau’s friend, to whom he chose occasionally to
+reveal in some degree his inner self.</p>
+
+<p>It may, at the outset, be well to sketch briefly his voyage
+through the world which benefited so richly from his
+journeying. He was born in New York City in 1848 of
+French parents. His mother was a daughter of Dr.
+François Eloi Berger, a Parisian practicing in New York,
+and his father a descendant of a Huguenot family, which,
+leaving France for Canada, later drifted down the Mississippi
+to New Orleans. Near the Southern city James<span class="pagenum" id="Page_259">[Pg 259]</span>
+Trudeau, who was an intimate friend and fellow traveler
+of the naturalist painter, Audubon, owned a plantation
+which was confiscated by General Butler in the Civil War.
+He died later as a result of wounds received while in command
+of a Confederate post, Island Number Ten, on the
+Mississippi.</p>
+
+<p>When Edward L., the youngest of his three children,
+was but little over two years of age, his mother went with
+her father, Dr. Berger, to Paris. Here the boy was
+educated at the Lycée Bonaparte. When he was eighteen
+years of age Edward returned to New York, and found
+himself hardly able to speak the language of his native
+city.</p>
+
+<p>He attended the Columbia School of Mines, and after
+graduation entered the United States Navy. An elder
+brother who had preceded him to Annapolis was stricken
+with tuberculosis. Edward nursed his brother up to the
+hour of the latter’s death six months later, and thus first
+came into personal contact with that disease to the extermination
+of which he devoted the rest of his life. He
+entered the New York College of Physicians and Surgeons,
+and in the year of his graduation, 1871, practiced
+medicine in New York City. In the same year, unconscious
+that he was doomed to his brother’s disease, he
+married Miss Charlotte Beare, of Douglaston, Long
+Island, to whom he ever attributed the inspiration of his
+labors through nearly half a century. The marriage was
+a perfect one, although attended by many sorrows. Three
+of their four children died. One son survives—Dr.
+Francis B. Trudeau. The death of Dr. Edward L.
+Trudeau Jr., in 1906, was a great blow to his father and
+a loss to the medical profession.</p>
+
+<p>It was in 1873 that Dr. Trudeau left New York City
+with the doom of tuberculosis pronounced upon him. He<span class="pagenum" id="Page_260">[Pg 260]</span>
+was only twenty-five; the gates of life seemed shut in his
+face, for it was believed that he had less than six months
+to live. Hardly able to stand alone, he was taken to Paul
+Smith’s in the Adirondacks by a friend who was also a
+distant relation,—Louis Livingston. Smith’s was then a
+hunters’ inn in the heart of the wilderness, forty miles
+from the nearest railway point at Ausable Forks. The
+guide who carried Dr. Trudeau upstairs and put him
+to bed described his burden as “weighin’ no more’n a
+lamb-skin.” And the same guide lived to see that
+lightweight defeat a local champion in the backwoods
+ring!</p>
+
+<p>A college-mate of Trudeau’s, Edward H. Harriman, was
+then staying at Paul Smith’s. Harriman, Livingston, and
+“Uncle” Paul Smith took turns nursing the sick doctor
+through nights which he was not expected, in nature, to
+survive. And yet he outlived them all! He improved
+at Paul Smith’s, then tried a winter at St. Paul, Minnesota.
+Here he suffered a relapse and was brought back
+to the Adirondacks, where he again improved. It was
+at about this time that, being joined by Mrs. Trudeau and
+their two children, Ned and Charlotte, the family passed
+through a terrible ordeal on a journey from Malone to
+Paul Smith’s. A blizzard arose, and the trip, which
+usually occupied less than a day, took over forty-eight
+hours. Paul Smith handled the team and wagon. After
+plunging through miles of snowdrift in the teeth of a biting
+norther, the horses fell down exhausted. The family’s
+baggage had previously been abandoned at Barnum
+Pond. Paul Smith made the sick man as comfortable as
+possible, wrapped the children in blankets, and buried
+them for warmth in the snow. When the blizzard abated,
+the family reached the hunter’s place, after two days of
+unspeakable hardship.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_261">[Pg 261]</span></p>
+
+<p>Surviving this ordeal, seeming even to have thrived
+upon it, Dr. Trudeau began to consider seriously the possible
+advantages in pulmonary diseases of exposure to
+pure cold air. He proposed to spend a winter in the
+Adirondacks, where the frigid season is prolonged and
+the thermometer occasionally stands at forty degrees below
+zero. His friends and medical advisers considered his
+proposition as a kind of suicidal mania, all except Dr.
+Loomis and Mrs. Trudeau. Dr. Trudeau had been impressed
+with the theory of Brehmer, the Silesian, and of
+Dettweiler, a patient and pupil of Brehmer, that the consumptive
+was not harmed by inclement weather, provided
+he accustomed himself to living out of doors, at rest. With
+the approval of Loomis and Mrs. Trudeau, the doctor
+carried out his experiment, the results of which practically
+revolutionized the science of treating tuberculosis. Trudeau
+so improved that presently he began to practice
+medicine among the Adirondack natives. He continued
+to do so for several years, often traveling forty miles in
+a day or night and in all sorts of weather, to usher, perhaps,
+some little woodsman into the world, or even to
+allay anxiety by his mere presence. It has been said that
+his bedside manner did more than physic in ninety per
+cent of his cases. Half of his bills were never rendered
+and a quarter of the other half never paid; but tears
+would come into the eyes of many a woman when she
+saw him in after years; and men called him “the beloved
+physician.”</p>
+
+<p>I have beside me as I write some old prescriptions that
+were found in the ragged ledger of a general store in the
+wilderness of forty years ago, when stovepipes and pills
+were sold over the same counter. There are three of
+them that reveal as many phases of this humane country
+doctor, who often came in the night, dressed in mackinaw,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_262">[Pg 262]</span>
+pontiacs, and moccasins. Apparently, if the family pig
+or cow or dog was ailing, Dr. Trudeau was summoned
+through the wilderness. Here is a prescription calling for
+carbolic oil, tar, sulphur, and olive oil—which, a veterinary
+doctor tells me, could not be improved upon to-day as a
+cure for mange. “<cite>Sig:</cite>” writes Trudeau at the end of the
+prescription; then, remembering that his patient might
+lack appreciation even of dog-Latin, he dashes his pen
+through the word and adds, “Rub on the dog several
+times!”</p>
+
+<p>There was no liquor license in the woods in those days,
+and little whiskey, licit or otherwise; yet there was an all-abiding
+thirst, and men made their own poteen if they
+could get pure alcohol and some spirits of rye. Trudeau
+believed that, if a man liked an occasional drink, it was
+his human right to have it—in reasonable measure. But
+if the man abused the doctor’s confidence, from that day
+on he went parched and prescriptionless.</p>
+
+<p>Again, one finds an early prescription for a common
+symptom of tuberculosis. I brought this prescription to
+Dr. Trudeau not very long ago and asked him what he
+would prescribe now—after thirty-five years.</p>
+
+<p>“That—if anything,” he said; “but probably nothing—no
+physic at all. Open the window—go to bed—and keep
+your nerve!”</p>
+
+<p>During these early years Trudeau lived the life of the
+people in many ways. Being restored to health, he
+hunted and fished with the other sons of the wilderness.
+Every year up to 1913 he brought home his string of
+trout and killed his buck. His skill with the rifle was
+remarkable. It was a natural gift. On one occasion he
+outmatched all competitors, then, on a challenge, picked
+off his own empty cartridge shells suspended from the
+branch of a tree on strings. And as for boxing, it is said<span class="pagenum" id="Page_263">[Pg 263]</span>
+that one evening at Paul Smith’s a local champion coaxed
+the doctor to put on the gloves.</p>
+
+<p>“I promise not to hurt ye,” said the amateur bruiser.</p>
+
+<p>Where the doctor acquired the gentle art no one seems
+to know; but when the local champion picked himself up
+at the end of the bout, he allowed that “the doctor’s the
+quickest thing with the mitts I ever run up ag’in!”</p>
+
+<p>In 1877 Dr. Trudeau left Paul Smith’s and moved into
+the adjacent hamlet of Saranac Lake, which was then a
+lumber centre with six houses and a sawmill. The railway
+was not constructed to that point until 1888. But
+when the doctor came to the village, gradual developments
+began. He was followed by a few patients who had
+placed themselves in his care as a last hope of cure or
+prolonged life. The town to-day is a small city, the
+metropolis of the Adirondacks, which grew up around the
+beloved physician and his great work. It has a remarkable
+sanitary system, and a health code after one portion
+of which New York is said to have reformed its own.</p>
+
+
+<p>II</p>
+
+<p>It was at Saranac Lake during his first winter there that
+Dr. Trudeau literally dreamed a dream. Loomis had
+published a paper in the <em>Medical Record</em>, drawing attention
+to the climatic value of the Adirondack air for pulmonary
+invalids, citing the theories of Brehmer and Dettweiler
+and, no doubt, having in mind Trudeau’s own
+case. Shortly after reading this paper, Dr. Trudeau fell
+asleep while leaning on his gun on a fox runway on the
+side of Mount Pisgah, near Saranac Lake. He dreamed
+that the forest around him melted away and that the
+whole mountain-side was dotted with houses built inside
+out, as if the inhabitants lived on the outside. As he<span class="pagenum" id="Page_264">[Pg 264]</span>
+said many years later, at the twenty-fifth anniversary of
+the founding of the Adirondack Cottage Sanitarium, “I
+dreamed a dream of a great sanitarium that should be the
+everlasting foe of tuberculosis, and lo!—the dream has
+come true!”</p>
+
+<p>Shortly after a reception held on January 1, 1915, at
+which all of the sanitarium patients came to shake hands
+with the founder, I happened to remark to the doctor on
+the quaintness of his speech for the occasion. He had
+spoken of the strange new faces before him, and how
+there had been a time when he was personally acquainted
+with each and every one, “his hopes, his fears, and very
+often the state of his bank account”; and how the girls
+even told him of their love affairs and of womanly dreams
+that too often were never fulfilled. The doctor suddenly
+leaned forward in his invalid’s chair and said to me in a
+confidential stage-whisper,——</p>
+
+<p>“Would you believe it? I didn’t know what my tongue
+was saying. I felt strangely aloof for the moment. I
+saw a younger man thirty years before, leaning on his
+gun, waiting for a fox. There was not a house, not a
+sign of a human being. Now——”</p>
+
+<p>His face was all aglow as he spread out his hands.</p>
+
+<p>But even after the dream the beginning of the fulfillment
+did not occur for five or six years. He had built
+a house in the village. There, in that wonderful year,
+1882, when Koch announced his discovery of the tubercle
+bacillus, Trudeau, who could not read German, received,
+as a Christmas present from his friend, C. M. Lea of
+Philadelphia, a translation of that document which the
+doctor termed “the most far-reaching, in its importance to
+the human race, of any original communication”—Koch’s
+<em>Etiology of Tuberculosis</em>. This was young Trudeau’s
+immediate inspiration. He had an “indifferent medical<span class="pagenum" id="Page_265">[Pg 265]</span>
+education,” to quote himself, “no apparatus, and no
+books”; and the remoteness of his surroundings had removed
+him from contact with medical men to whom he
+might apply for instruction.</p>
+
+<p>During brief visits to New York—sometimes at the
+expense of his health—he learned some of the first principles
+of bacteriology;—and “I taught myself the rest as
+best I could.”</p>
+
+<p>His laboratory was a little room in Saranac Lake, heated
+by a wood stove (there was no coal). He had a home-made
+thermostat heated by a kerosene lamp, and in this
+he succeeded in growing the tubercle bacillus, although
+he had to sit up o’ nights to see that the living organism
+was not destroyed by varying temperatures. To regulate
+this, he invented a little shutter arrangement which could
+be opened or closed. He obtained the bacillus in pure
+cultures, and with them repeated all Koch’s experiments.
+The guinea-pigs used for immunizing tests he had to keep
+in a hole underground which was heated by another kerosene
+lamp. He again proved that fresh air and natural
+hygiene were the deadly foes of tuberculosis, by turning
+loose on an island rabbits that had been inoculated with
+the disease. Running wild, they soon recovered; while
+others, similarly inoculated and kept in unhygienic places,
+died of the disease in a very short time.</p>
+
+<p>While his enthusiasm was thus running high, he built
+in 1884 on the side of Pisgah—on the place of the dream—a
+little shack which is still there and which is known
+among the great buildings now around it as “The Little
+Red.” This was the nucleus of the present vast sanitarium.
+He began with two patients, whom he apparently
+cured by making them sit all day and sleep all
+night practically in the open air, the windows being open,
+with the mercury courting the thermometer bulb.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_266">[Pg 266]</span></p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile he himself was laboring with his cultures,
+his home-made thermostat, his guinea-pigs and rabbits.
+During the week in 1890 when Koch announced his tuberculin
+as a “cure” for tuberculosis, Dr. Trudeau published
+in the <em>Medical Record</em> an article describing his failure to
+obtain any appreciable degree of immunity by injections
+of sterilized and filtered liquid cultures of the tubercle bacillus
+(tuberculin). Later experiments with Koch’s tuberculin
+by thousands of others proved similar failures.</p>
+
+<p>Not long after this, while Dr. Trudeau was lying ill and
+depressed in New York City, there came from Saranac
+Lake the news that during the night his house, cultures,
+guinea-pigs—everything—had been destroyed by fire! It
+was the last straw. The sick man was in despair; but his
+indomitable spirit came to the rescue again, and a letter
+signed by William Osler helped him to accept fresh battle.</p>
+
+<p>“I am sorry, Trudeau,” wrote Dr. Osler, “to hear of
+your misfortune, but take my word for it, there is nothing
+like a fire to make a man do the phœnix trick!”</p>
+
+<p>The phœnix rose from its ashes, with the financial help
+of George C. Cooper, of New York. Near the ruins of
+Dr. Trudeau’s first house was built the first and best-equipped
+laboratory in the United States for the study of
+tuberculosis. Here Trudeau labored for years, searching,
+as he often said, “in the haystack for the needle that we
+know is there.” Here his followers still work at all hours
+in immunizing experiments and in the testing of proposed
+specific remedies for the cure of tuberculosis. Here many
+a “patent remedy” of the “cure-consumption” order has
+met its Nemesis. Here, years before either Friedmann or
+Piorkowski tried to commercialize his so-called remedies
+through the press of two continents, the turtle-germ of
+both was weighed in the scientific balance and discarded<span class="pagenum" id="Page_267">[Pg 267]</span>
+as useless. It is not a breach of confidence now to reveal
+the fact that an article entitled “Has Dr. Friedmann found
+a Cure for Tuberculosis?” which appeared on two pages
+of the New York <cite>Times</cite> on the very morning when the
+Berlin physician landed in New York, came from the
+Saranac Laboratory and was the work of several scientific
+brains, with Dr. Trudeau’s as the master-mind on the
+subject. That article changed overnight the opinions of
+many in the medical world regarding the merits of Friedmann’s
+“specific.” Dr. Trudeau had examined the turtle
+organism years before, and had labeled it, not only
+harmless, but quite useless, as an immunizing agent in
+human tuberculosis.</p>
+
+<p>To go back to the early days of sanitarium work, the
+success Trudeau achieved by his open-air and rest
+methods attracted great attention. The sanitarium grew
+swiftly. Other states of the Union built institutions of
+somewhat similar design and for similar treatment. To-day,
+as already remarked, there must be fully five hundred
+sanitaria for this method of treatment of pulmonary
+tuberculosis throughout the United States and Canada.
+The valley of the Saranac itself, with the adjacent
+Adirondack region, contains several private and state
+sanitaria that owe their inception, directly or indirectly,
+to the influence of Trudeau.</p>
+
+<p>The Adirondack Cottage Sanitarium is, and has been
+from the first, a semi-charitable institution which treats
+patients at a sum that does not cover the cost of their
+board and housing. The annual deficit of the institution
+is comparatively large, as a result, and up to the time of
+his death it was Trudeau’s personality that attracted
+voluntary contributions for the continuance of the great
+work. Such names as Harriman, Sage, Schiff, Rockefeller,
+Tiffany, have figured in the contributors’ lists.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_268">[Pg 268]</span>
+E. H. Harriman was ever a friend and admirer of Trudeau
+and of his altruistic labors for humanity. In the
+days when ministers of money sat in Harriman’s antechamber,
+they were allowed to cool their heels while a
+frail country doctor was ushered in; and the railroad king
+let great affairs hang fire while he heard the latest yarn
+about “Uncle” Paul Smith, or became enthralled by the
+idealism of the practical dreamer who sat opposite him,—a
+great head on an emaciated body, a voice resonant
+with faith’s enthusiasm, even while it broke short in a
+gasp. This man was sending back to life and usefulness
+twenty per cent of his patients apparently cured,
+fifty per cent with the disease arrested, and the other
+thirty per cent with a fighting chance. And while the
+restless ministers of finance consulted their watches in
+the antechamber, Harriman listened—and reached for his
+check-book!</p>
+
+<p>As for that annual deficit, a friend who merely sought
+information once wrote to me as follows:—</p>
+
+<p>“What sort of a man is Trudeau? Is he what so many
+say he is, or just a clever doctor who has made a fortune
+out of the Adirondacks?”</p>
+
+<p>In a rash moment I referred this to the doctor himself.
+I do not know that he was ever more upset. He promptly
+sent me this:—</p>
+
+<p>“I am always puzzled to know why people cannot understand
+the spirit of the sanitarium work. To give a
+patient for $7 what costs $12 or $12.50, and to have a
+deficit of $27,000 on running expenses for the year, can
+hardly be a business way to make a man rich! Perhaps
+it is the imposing appearance of my <cite>equipage</cite> which
+makes the world think me a coiner of money!!”</p>
+
+<p>The “equipage” to which he referred with irony was a
+regular country doctor’s buggy, just large enough to accommodate<span class="pagenum" id="Page_269">[Pg 269]</span>
+himself (and Mrs. Trudeau, at a pinch), and
+drawn by a shaggy mare which the townspeople affectionately
+termed “the old plush horse.” In his latter
+years some one presented him with a fine carriage and a
+high-stepping thoroughbred. When Trudeau was called
+out to inspect this equipage, he looked worried.</p>
+
+<p>“I—I can’t ride in that thing!” he said. “People will
+think I don’t need any money for my sanitarium!”</p>
+
+<p>He agreed to accept the gift, however, when it was
+pointed out that the ancient mare was on her last legs.
+Thereupon the “old plush horse” was pensioned and
+given a comfortable stall for life. On the first day of
+her long holiday Dr. Trudeau visited the stable.</p>
+
+<p>“Well, Kitty,” he said, patting the old mare, “your
+troubles are all over. As for me—I expect this old horse
+will have to keep plodding along until his left ventricle
+ceases to contract.”</p>
+
+<p>But the matter of that “fortune” troubled him for some
+time. A month later he sent me another letter, accompanying
+a financial report underscored in places.</p>
+
+<p>“This,” he wrote, “is for the gentleman who sized me
+up as ‘a clever business man who has made a fortune out
+of the Adirondacks.’ Tell him I begged all this money
+personally, but not for myself, as I don’t own a cent of
+it and draw no salary.”</p>
+
+<p>Whatever he earned from private practice barely
+covered his living expenses. He raised the money to
+cover that deficit by what he called his “begging letters.”
+I remember he said to me one day after an anxious
+silence,—</p>
+
+<p>“I’ve got a young fellow up there [at the sanitarium]
+who is a first-class radiographer. Then there is a
+bacteriologist, too. As soon as they get to feeling well
+they’ll go off and leave me. They are married, or are<span class="pagenum" id="Page_270">[Pg 270]</span>
+going to be, I’ve no doubt. If I could only build houses
+for them and get their <em>wives</em> settled—That’s it!” he
+broke off. “I’ve got to raise the money for it somehow!”</p>
+
+<p>He raised it, of course. Now there are two new cottages
+in the sanitarium grounds, and a permanent X-ray
+expert and a clever bacteriologist have been added to the
+colony there and to the cause.</p>
+
+<p>When the doctor’s end had been achieved, he told me of
+his success.</p>
+
+<p>“But why is every one so good?” he asked. “Why do
+people work for me?”</p>
+
+<p>“They work for—you,” was suggested.</p>
+
+<p>“No, no—I hope not,” he protested. “They work for
+my work.”</p>
+
+<p>“Well, did you ever consider how much your own personality
+inspires this work?”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, come, come!” said he, as pleasurably confused as
+a girl complimented for the first time on her looks.</p>
+
+<p>“What do people call my work?” he presently asked.</p>
+
+<p>I had never heard it given a name. It was unique.
+But I ventured the word “philanthropy.” He shook his
+head.</p>
+
+<p>“A distrustful word these days. Still—yes—say philanthropy,
+plus science. The sanitarium is the philanthropy—to
+cure or console; the laboratory is the science—to find
+a means of further immunizing toward ultimate, permanent
+cure.”</p>
+
+<p>It was, as a whole, a science and philanthropy of Christ;
+a sort of Christian science without intellectual sacrifice.
+To this philanthropy Trudeau would never permit his
+name to be attached. It was the Adirondack Cottage
+Sanitarium—not “Trudeau.” It was the Saranac Laboratory—not
+“Trudeau” Laboratory. It was usage and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_271">[Pg 271]</span>
+the postal authorities that labeled a little branch post-office,
+“Trudeau, N. Y.”</p>
+
+<p>His work and worth were recognized, however, during
+his lifetime. Among the honors conferred upon him were
+Master of Science, Columbia University, 1889; Honorary
+Fellow of the Phipps Institute, 1903; LL.D., McGill University,
+1904; and LL.D., University of Pennsylvania,
+1913. The last-mentioned degree he received <i lang="la">in absentia</i>.
+Yale offered to confer the degree of LL.D., but the doctor
+was too ill to be present at the exercises.</p>
+
+
+<p>III</p>
+
+<p>I had intended to omit anecdotes in this brief sketch of
+Trudeau’s life, from the time that he was carried into
+Paul Smith’s “weighin’ no more’n a lambskin” up to the
+latter days when he lay on a final bed of suffering. But
+the anecdotes would creep in; and now they may stay
+just where they are, for it was characteristic of Trudeau,
+even when addressing a grave body of physicians and
+master-surgeons, to lighten his most serious discourses
+with anecdotal humor; although the first time he ever
+tried to address his colleagues,—at Baltimore in the
+eighties,—he fainted from illness, and, while others restored
+him, Dr. Loomis read the frail doctor’s address to
+the gathering.</p>
+
+<p>Even in his own sufferings he found a text for interesting
+discourse that was flavored with the grim humor of
+grit. It does not seem long ago that I stood by his bedside
+while he, with one poor portion of a single lung,
+labored for breath. The possible benefits of artificial
+pneumo-thorax had not yet been fully established, yet
+the doctor had been one of the first to submit to the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_272">[Pg 272]</span>
+operation, offering himself, it seemed, as a victim of experimentation,
+although he told the operating physician
+that he expected no good results,—“For, after all, my dear
+fellow, the age of miracles is past.” Yet it eased his sufferings
+for several years, although at the time he was very
+ill. He assured me that he was not going to die right
+away.</p>
+
+<p>“No such luck!” said he in the most cheerful manner.
+“But,” he continued, as connectedly as breath would
+allow, “what is the scheme of this business—of life—suffering—death?
+I don’t understand. It reminds me
+of this English ‘Cat and Mouse’ bill. They put a woman
+in a cell till she’s near dead of starvation. Then they
+let her out for a square meal—so she can get strength
+enough to suffer some more. You’ve got to have feeling,
+you know, to suffer. There’s a philosophy, by the way,
+for those who fear the agony of death. As you lose the
+enduring powers of life, you lose also the sensibility to
+suffering. It must be so. It is so. I have seen it many
+times.... Cat and mouse,” he half-mused,—“life and
+death. Death’s the cat—comes and paws until poor life
+is about dead to all feeling. Then the cat retires into a
+dark corner and purrs while the mouse gets a little life
+back, so as to be more sensible of suffering when the cat
+comes pawing again. I don’t say there’s no reason behind
+it—but I can’t see it—can you?”</p>
+
+<p>I may be pardoned personal intrusion for a moment to
+relate when and where I first saw this remarkable man.
+I had gone to Saranac Lake in ill health. I asked why
+there was no statue in the community to the great Trudeau
+of whom I had read in Stevenson’s Letters. Being
+reminded that it was not customary to erect statues to the
+living, I decided to see this (to me) resurrected person.
+It happened to be about the time of the twenty-fifth anniversary<span class="pagenum" id="Page_273">[Pg 273]</span>
+of the founding of the sanitarium. When he
+stood up on a platform and, in a voice tense with emotion,
+told of his dream that was now materialized, I was
+filled with a sudden comprehension of the amazing thing
+that was happening—the celebration of that which this
+frail man had <em>lived to achieve</em>! I wrote several verses
+and gave them to my own physician, merely as one way
+of expressing what I thought about it all.</p>
+
+<p>The next morning I was called on the telephone. It
+was Dr. Trudeau himself; some one had pinned the verses
+to his pillow on the previous night, and they had added
+to the happiness of the doctor at the end of one of the
+proudest days of his life. He asked me to come and see
+him.</p>
+
+<p>“Do you know,” he said when we shook hands, “writing
+verses is something beyond my comprehension. I understand
+poetry, but not how one can write it. My case
+is like that of Zeb Robare, a guide over at Paul’s. He
+was asked by some ladies he was rowing the name of a
+certain mountain up here. ‘That’s Ampersand,’ said
+Zeb. ‘But, guide, how do you spell it?’ ‘Ah,’ said Zeb,
+‘that’s the hell of it, ma’am. I can climb it easy enough,
+but I couldn’t spell it to save my life!’ That’s how I
+feel about poetry!”</p>
+
+<p>Oddly coincident, Clayton Hamilton, a writer engaged
+in a book about Stevenson, called upon Dr. Trudeau to
+ask about Robert Louis’s sojourn at Saranac Lake. Mr.
+Hamilton later confessed in cold type, “I had come to ask
+of R. L. S. and remained to admire this hero of innumerable,
+unnoted battles,—this maker of a City of the Sick,
+who, because of him, look more hopefully on each successive
+rising sun.” Trudeau marveled at the feat of
+juggling English; yet this author wrote in conclusion:
+“And the best of our tricky achievements in setting words<span class="pagenum" id="Page_274">[Pg 274]</span>
+together dwindle in my mind to indistinction beside the
+labors and spirit of this man.”</p>
+
+<p>Stevenson, by the way, produced some of his greatest
+essays during the winter of 1887-88, while he was under
+Dr. Trudeau’s care at Saranac Lake. Stories of the relationship
+of the two men have been told and retold. At
+one time I sent a version of the oft-repeated “oil” story
+to the doctor for confirmation. It was to the effect that
+Stevenson, after he had written “The Lantern-Bearers”
+for the Scribners, went to see Trudeau’s “light” in the
+laboratory. Stevenson was shown, in the effects of
+tuberculosis in guinea-pigs, the ravages of the disease that
+kills one human being in every seven. The sensitive
+author bolted out of the house, declaring that while Trudeau’s
+lantern might be very bright, to him it “smelled of
+oil like the devil.” Fearing that the anti-vivisectionists
+might make capital of the story, I took the liberty of
+modifying it. Dr. Trudeau wrote,—</p>
+
+<p>“I thank you for your motive in changing the end of
+the oil story. I had never thought of the anti-vivisectionists.
+Had I thought, I could have told you a little more
+about it. Stevenson saw no mutilated animals in my
+laboratory. The only things he saw were the diseased
+organs in bottles, and cultures of the germs which had
+produced the disease. These were the things that turned
+him sick. I remember he went out just after I made this
+remark: ‘This little scum on the tube is consumption,
+and the cause of more human suffering than anything
+else in the world. We can produce tuberculosis in the
+guinea-pig with it; and if we could learn to cure tuberculosis
+in the guinea-pig, this great burden of human suffering
+might be lifted from the world.’”</p>
+
+<p>It is true that Trudeau and Stevenson differed a great
+deal on a great many subjects, but so far as I have been<span class="pagenum" id="Page_275">[Pg 275]</span>
+able to judge from much that the doctor has told me, they
+agreed on so many of the greater things of life that they
+had to disagree about trivial matters for the sake of something
+to discuss. They actually got into heated argument
+over the great issue as to which is superior, the
+American system of <em>transferring baggage</em>, or the British
+method of <em>handling luggage</em>!</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Trudeau assured me, incidentally, that Stevenson
+had no active symptoms of tuberculosis while at Saranac
+Lake, but had apparently had the disease and may have
+developed active symptoms after he went away. He did
+not die of tuberculosis, although this might have been a
+contributing cause. Trudeau had a full report made to
+him regarding the circumstances of Stevenson’s death at
+Samoa in 1894.</p>
+
+<p>This paternal interest in ex-patients was characteristic
+of Trudeau. Particularly he liked to address a word of
+parting advice to a young man going back, apparently
+cured, to a life of continued usefulness. Here is a typical
+letter of this kind:—</p>
+
+<p>“Do take my advice and don’t presume upon your
+physical endurance. When you have once been in the
+grip of the tiger you ought not to give him a chance to
+get you again, for he has downed many as good a man
+as you are; and you must not act on impulse, but use
+your head and self-control, even if you can’t accomplish
+all you want to in life. If you can’t have a whole loaf,
+try and be satisfied with a half one, or else the graham
+bread will get burned in good earnest and you won’t have
+any loaf at all!”</p>
+
+<p>His attitude toward the patients, who came to him from
+all lands, ranks, and conditions, was ever eloquent of the
+man’s human kindness and sympathy. Many came as
+broken in spirit as in health, and often with but two<span class="pagenum" id="Page_276">[Pg 276]</span>
+hopes: one, that Trudeau would perform the great miracle;
+the other, that a physician of his reputation would
+not charge more than this latest victim of tuberculosis
+could scrape together. I know of one case in which the
+new patient said, “Doctor—before you do anything—I
+haven’t much money. How—how much will it cost?”</p>
+
+<p>“Much depends on how much you’ve got, and how bad
+you are,” said Trudeau, himself assisting to unbutton the
+patient’s collar. “You see,” he went on disarmingly, “if
+you are not very bad, it will cost you quite a lot, so I can
+use the money for those who are. If you are a really
+bad case—Well—say ‘Ninety-nine,’ please, and keep on
+saying it while I listen to your chest.”</p>
+
+<p>The doctor’s face became grave as he noted the vibrations
+caused by the reiterated “nine-nine-nine.” When
+the examination was over the patient asked,—</p>
+
+<p>“How bad—I mean—how much will it be, doctor?”</p>
+
+<p>For reply Trudeau—and one can imagine the great
+sympathy that flooded the beloved physician’s face—handed
+the patient a ten-dollar bill.</p>
+
+<p>“I owe you—that much—at least,” he said.</p>
+
+<p>One can imagine the rest—that speech which he employed
+so often and to so many:—</p>
+
+<p>“Don’t take it too seriously, but just seriously enough.
+I am no better off in health than you are, and both you
+and I, old man, will be a great deal worse before we’re
+better.”</p>
+
+<p>When, however, he sent some promising young man
+back into the battle of life, a repaired asset to the world,
+he liked to refer to him as “another young gladiator with
+a new blade in his sword.” The following, which he sent
+to me one day, explains the simile:—</p>
+
+<p>“My sympathies are naturally in the world with the
+vanquished. My favorite statue is that great one of Victory<span class="pagenum" id="Page_277">[Pg 277]</span>
+carrying the dying gladiator, his broken sword in
+hand. The world applauds and bows before success and
+achievement; it has little thought for those who fall by
+the way, sword in hand; and yet it takes most courage to
+fight a losing fight!”</p>
+
+<p>Speaking of this same statue, “Gloria Victis,” a fine
+copy of which stood in the hall of his house, he said one
+day early in the great European war: “When he created
+that thing, I wonder did the sculptor, Mercié, realize that
+he was modeling the glory of Belgium in ruin?”</p>
+
+<p>Others saw something of the doctor’s own heroic spirit
+in that figure, with the broken sword in the drooping right
+hand, and the left arm still held aloft as if the dying warrior
+challenged even death—“<i lang="la">Moriturus, te saluto!</i>”</p>
+
+<p>The last active labor of Dr. Trudeau was the writing of
+his autobiography, and perhaps the last service of the
+writer on behalf of the beloved physician was the proof-reading
+of its pages. The doctor was seized with his
+mortal illness just after the last pages were written and
+before he had decided upon a title for his work. The
+single word, “Aquiescence,” was proposed as descriptive
+of the life of a man who accepted adverse conditions and,
+like the master of a ship, turned the ill wind to advantage.
+The word was taken from a sentence which he had once
+written to me, “The conquest of Fate comes not by rebellious
+struggle, but by acquiescence.”</p>
+
+<p>When the title was suggested to the doctor, he was unable
+to speak, but smiled and shook his head. Later,
+when he was a little better, he dictated to his secretary,
+“If the world finds a sermon in my life-story—good; but
+I don’t want any one to think I was trying to preach one.”</p>
+
+<p>Possibly the impression has been given in these pages
+that Trudeau was an approachable person. He was, to
+some; to many he was quite unapproachable, especially<span class="pagenum" id="Page_278">[Pg 278]</span>
+interviewers. He feared a scribe. To the present writer
+he repeatedly said, “Remember—I trust you; but don’t
+you ever publish what I’m telling you until after I am
+where I won’t care what the world says about me.”</p>
+
+<p>Even to his most intimate friends he was difficult of
+approach when, after “studying the ceiling” for many long
+days, he was irritated beyond human self-control by his
+sufferings. But even then he could be played like a fine
+instrument if the player had technique. If the doctor was
+in that depth of depression out of which he would chant a
+“De Profundis” of blackest pessimism, all that was necessary
+was to agree with him that life was “a senseless business”;
+whereupon he would draw his sword of optimism
+and flash the text engraven upon its bright blade: “O
+ye of little faith!” But if you told him he looked well
+and you hoped he felt so, he would say, “I don’t. I’m utterly
+miserable!” and sink back in his invalid’s chair with
+a smile that seemed to add, “There’s little sport in an
+easy game.”</p>
+
+<p>Characteristic of the man’s philosophy was his own
+comment on his fits of melancholy, vouchsafed once to a
+fellow sufferer who had been in depths of depression: “If
+you go down to the depths at times, you have many
+glimpses of higher things that people of more even temperament
+never get; and after all, the ideal is the beautiful
+in life; the facts of life are hideous.”</p>
+
+<p>He once told a visitor some tales of his experiences with
+the great human tragedy—told them as if they belonged
+to the great human comedy, for his humor was irrepressible.
+But the visitor did not laugh; he went away a sadder
+and a wiser man. Possibly he thought the doctor
+hardened; but I shall never forget the expression of Trudeau’s
+face when I asked him directly if he had not become
+so accustomed to tragedy that it no longer touched<span class="pagenum" id="Page_279">[Pg 279]</span>
+his emotions. The smile left his face; his eyes looked
+out and beyond with a suddenly moist softness, and he
+said slowly, “Pity, as an emotion, passes. Pity, as a
+motive, remains.”</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class = "right">Stephen Chalmers. By kind permission of <cite>The<br>
+Atlantic Monthly</cite>.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<p class = "center">SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY OF BIOGRAPHICAL
+NARRATIVE</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>The editors have found these additional selections very useful in
+teaching biographical narrative:</p>
+
+<p>Barrie, James. <cite>Margaret Ogilvy.</cite> Charles Scribner’s Sons.</p>
+
+<p>Bradford, Gamaliel. <cite>Portraits of Women</cite>, particularly <cite>Lady Mary
+Wortley Montagu</cite> and <cite>Mrs. Pepys</cite>. Houghton, Mifflin Company.</p>
+
+<p>Eliot, Charles W. <cite>John Gilley, Maine Farmer and Fisherman.</cite>
+Houghton Mifflin Company.</p>
+
+<p>Morley, Christopher. <cite>Silas Orrin Howes</cite> in <cite>Pipefuls</cite>. Doubleday,
+Page &amp; Company.</p>
+
+<p>Strachey, Lytton. <cite>Mr. Creevey</cite> in <cite>Books and Characters</cite>, and
+<cite>Florence Nightingale in Eminent Victorians</cite>. Harcourt, Brace
+and Company.</p>
+</div>
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_280">[Pg 280]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_VIII">CHAPTER VIII</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="center"><cite>Reminiscent Narrative</cite></p>
+
+
+<p>Reminiscent narrative is the grown-up prototype of the
+nursery favorite, “A story about the time when you were
+about my size.” Many people have found pleasure in
+writing their reminiscences, and have discovered that it is
+much pleasanter to write about the past than about the
+present, for it is often easier to discern and to tell the
+truth about events which no longer vitally concern us,
+than about those which still move our emotions deeply.
+We are able to write about our “dead selves” with a certain
+measure of affectionate or at least sympathetic detachment.
+Mistakes and achievements now long past
+may be recorded without smacking either of a Uriah Heep
+’umbleness or of an uncomfortably priggish smugness.
+This detached tone runs through much reminiscent writing,
+and may become explicit in such a passage as Miss
+Portor’s, “I love the Raphael baby, and I am proud ever
+to have been so proud ... but before the other one that
+is me ... I bow my head on my hands.”</p>
+
+<p>There are two obvious sources of interest in reminiscent
+narrative. The first is suggested by Hudson’s title, <em>Far
+Away and Long Ago</em>. Every one likes to know what
+other people ate and wore and said and did in other times
+and places. If other people’s experiences interest you,
+so will yours interest them. In a country so varied in surface
+and so wide in extent as the United States, scarcely
+two people in a group of adults will have had exactly the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_281">[Pg 281]</span>
+same early surroundings, and if we take into consideration
+the large admixture of foreigners with their old world
+background, we must realize that the “step-daughter of
+the prairie” brings a new vista to the forest bred, and such
+a book as <em>Upstream</em> records a struggle entirely unknown
+to those born and reared in typical American security. It
+is easy enough to see romance in other people’s lives, but
+it is hard to see it in our own. A friend of mine who
+was born in a foreign country and whose family was long
+a part of the diplomatic service in many places tells how
+as a little girl she once burst out crying in the midst of
+one of her mother’s stories of her own quiet childhood in
+an obscure fishing village. “I shall never have any stories
+to tell my children; I’ve never been anywhere,” sobbed
+this juvenile globe trotter, consumed with envy of an
+experience, which, though pale and quiet, had for her
+the fascination of the remote and the unknown.</p>
+
+<p>But even dwellers in the most familiar places have
+command of a sure spring of interest; for greater than
+our curiosity about material things is our interest in
+the inner life of the individual, how and why he laughed
+or wept, loved or hated—in brief, how he reacted to
+the elements that the fates mix in some measure in every
+life. We wish to know not merely what he did, but why
+he did it, and how he felt about it. Miss Portor’s reminiscences
+give us only two events, the taking of the two
+photographs, but she is able to tell us so much about her
+own feelings toward them, both then and now, that we
+live with her in those events. If you in like manner
+seize upon the unforgettable experiences of your own
+life, the feelings which still burn in your memory, you
+will not lack material upon which to try your hand.</p>
+
+<p>In method, reminiscent narrative varies widely, depending
+upon its purpose. Madame Soskice tells us<span class="pagenum" id="Page_282">[Pg 282]</span>
+the stories of her childhood without explanation or
+apology just as she felt about them as a child. Neither
+her work nor <em>The Burglars</em> shows any concern as to how
+the reader may regard the children pictured. Their
+naïve ideas and grotesque misapprehensions are neither
+explained nor apologized for. Their deeds and ideas
+stand, as children always stand, sublimely unrelated to
+an adult world. “The little boy” in the selection from
+Lord Frederick Hamilton, on the other hand, is seen
+through the eyes and memory of an older person; his
+ideas are frequently explained, and we sympathize with
+his groping toward adult standards. In some cases it is
+interesting to notice how a piece of reminiscence is given
+an effect of unity by means of emphasis upon some important
+element. Miss Portor, in <cite>The Photograph</cite>, uses
+the two events as a framework upon which to stretch her
+picture of her family, of the village, and of her own
+process of growing up. Even more strikingly, Nevinson
+uses Greek as a unifying device for his account of Shrewsbury
+School. The very landscape, the pupils’ amusements,
+their attitude toward their various studies and toward
+athletics are all illuminated for us by some
+relationship to his early study of Greek. Another writer
+might find such a unifying device in athletics, in his
+nationality, in his feeling toward school or toward his
+choice of a profession, in his experiences earning money,
+or in the influence of some member of his family.</p>
+
+<p>Whatever method is used, most beginners will profit
+by observing the following points:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>1. Begin without apology or mock heroics. Your
+reader is not obliged to read unless he chooses. The reluctant
+story teller is a bore in conversation; he is
+insufferable in print.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_283">[Pg 283]</span></p>
+
+<p>2. Give only enough explanation to enable the reader to
+follow the story in hand. Observe how ruthlessly and
+how happily Mr. Grahame has shorn off related but extraneous
+details of time, place, names, and consequences
+in his pursuit of the burglars.</p>
+
+<p>3. On the other hand, be generous with illuminating,
+picturesque, and characteristic details—“the little boy
+with bare legs,” Harold climbing down the porch “like
+a white rat,” and the cook’s wooden leg. Remember that
+the reader cannot supply the details which are so clear
+to your own mind.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="right">
+F. del P.<br>
+</p>
+
+<br>
+<p class="center"><span class="smcap">My Fate</span></p>
+
+<p class="center">LUDWIG LEWISOHN</p>
+
+<p>In October, 1893, after an oral examination which,
+thanks to my mother’s instruction, I passed with ease,
+I was admitted to the High School of Queenshaven. The
+school building is plain and dignified, somewhat after
+the fashion of an English mansion of the eighteenth century.
+What the school has become in recent years I
+do not know. I have heard rumours of courses in bookkeeping
+and shorthand and other dexterities that have
+nothing to do with the education of youth. In my time
+it was a good school. The pupils were all boys and
+they were taught by men. They were young enough to
+be grounded in the necessities of a liberal education
+without having their callow judgment consulted, and to
+be caned when they were lazy or rowdy. The school
+had one grave fault: Greek was an elective study.
+Through this fault my life sustained an irreparable
+loss. Yet when I consider what might have happened<span class="pagenum" id="Page_284">[Pg 284]</span>
+to my mind if the school had been like the High Schools
+of 1921, I am filled with a sense of gratitude. For
+I was enabled to lay the foundations of a sound and
+permanent knowledge of Latin and French; I was taught
+to study with thoroughness and accuracy under pain of
+tangible and very wholesome penalties, and it was not
+the fault of the school that my mind was and is all but
+impervious to any form of mathematical reasoning.</p>
+
+<p>I passed into the rough and tumble of school life with
+a distinct shudder. There was no direct hazing but there
+was a good deal of rather cruel horse-play. You were
+apt to be tripped up and thrown on your back, to have
+pins and needles stuck viciously into you, to be held under
+the pump until you nearly choked. Also, during the
+first year, I was taunted with being a foreigner and a
+Jew. One boy especially tormented me—a tallish fellow
+with <a id="tn_284">a</a> huge mouth always distorted by idiotic laughter,
+hateful, offstanding ears and small, greenish eyes. I was
+no match for him in strength and he persisted in cuffing
+and thumping and taunting me. I tried to avoid him,
+for I shrank from the thought of touching him as shudderingly
+as I did from his touch. Then, one day he
+clapped me brutally on the back and yelled with laughter.
+Two scarlet lights danced before my eyes and I leapt
+at his throat. Boys hurried from all sides of the playground
+and formed a ring around us. Cries arose:
+“Fight fair!” I remembered how the contemptuous
+thoughts raced through my brain. Fight fair! Oh yes,
+give the over-grown lout a chance to trounce me as a reward
+for months of bruises and insults. I didn’t want to
+fight him and suffer more undeserved pain and humiliation.
+I wanted to hurt him, to hurt him so effectively that
+he would never again dare lay his red, bony claws on me.
+I did. A teacher had to come into the yard and order<span class="pagenum" id="Page_285">[Pg 285]</span>
+me to be torn from my gasping and bloody victim. I
+had no trouble after that....</p>
+
+<p>Gradually, too, I fell in with a group of boys that belonged
+to the gentler families of Queenshaven. I shall
+have more to say of them later, for these classmates
+passed together through school and college with me and so
+lived on terms of daily intimacy with me for eight years.
+Through their companionship, at all events, I soon felt
+at home in the school, an equal among equals in play and
+study.</p>
+
+<p>I have said that our teachers were men. Real men,
+I hasten to add, not the spiritual starvelings who are content
+nowadays with the wage-slavery of the High School.
+The salaries of these Queenshaven teachers were rather
+better than such salaries are today and the purchasing
+power of money was of course far greater. The principal
+was the only man I have ever known who truly embodied
+the peculiar ideal of the Christian gentleman.
+He had both sweetness and strength, profound piety and
+wide charity. I can still see the beautiful benevolence
+in his searching blue eyes and hear his clear, bell-like
+voice. I do not know whether he consciously thought
+of the methods of Arnold of Rugby; it is certain that
+he practiced them. The better natured of my schoolmates
+and I never resented his punishments; we knew
+he was incapable of inflicting them until in his kind and
+manly judgment forgiveness would have been morally
+harmful to the offender. His influence and example drew
+me back to the Methodist church.... It is a sad reflection
+that this good man’s end was pitiful. A trusted
+brother in the church absconded with all our principal’s
+modest savings. They were small enough, for he was
+liberal in his charities beyond the bounds of discretion.
+But this blow both in its moral and in its physical aspect<span class="pagenum" id="Page_286">[Pg 286]</span>
+overwhelmed him. He fell into a state of melancholia
+and I remembered him, in later years, a mild, vague-eyed,
+broken figure on the Queenshaven streets.</p>
+
+<p>I shall not linger over the burly and severe but sound
+pedagogue who taught us history and physics nor over the
+graceful youth—still young and vivid in his middle age—who
+taught French and German with a stringent accuracy
+and sternness that added virility to his Greek profile
+and his curving locks. It is on our teacher of Latin
+that I must dwell. I cannot estimate his influence over
+me. To this day I find myself using locutions and mannerisms
+that are ultimately traceable to him. He was—I
+beg his pardon for writing of him as in the past, but to me
+he lives only in the past, though admirably and fruitfully
+to others in the present—he was the son of an Italian gentleman,
+obviously of gentle lineage and exquisite breeding.
+His face and head and hands and form had in them
+something indescribably Roman. Roman of the empire.
+But for his severer modern morals he might have been
+a friend of Petronius and, like him, an <cite>arbiter elegantiarum</cite>.
+Or, from another point of view, a gentleman of
+the age of Queen Anne—a friend of Addison. Of course
+this does not render the whole man. But he was singularly
+free from all the modern maladies of the soul—a devout
+Catholic with a frugal and pagan delight in the good
+things of the world, a lover of the arts without morbid intensity
+or perverting ambitions, a believer in that golden
+mean which he interpreted so well. I need hardly say
+that the particular objects of his tireless and exquisite zeal
+were Vergil and Horace and, among English writers, Milton
+and Tennyson and Thackeray.</p>
+
+<p>As a teacher he was strict, though always with a light
+touch—stinging the lazy and loutish by some ironic turn
+of speech. He taught us to appreciate a fine and mellow<span class="pagenum" id="Page_287">[Pg 287]</span>
+Latinity as well as the human warmth and living power
+of the literature we read. But he was tireless, too, in
+the humbler portions of his task. I find I know my Latin
+accidence and syntax better to-day than graduate students
+who “major” in Latin at our universities. And I
+can still hear his voice as, repeating some line of Vergil,
+he first awakened me to the magic of a great and perfect
+style:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent4">“... et jam nox umida coelo</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">praecipitat suadentque cadentia sidera somnos.”</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>It was in the third year of High School. He was teaching
+us to scan Vergil. We were repeating a passage in
+unison. Suddenly he swung on his heels and pointed his
+finger straight at me: “That is the only boy who has
+a natural ear for verse!” he cried. A keen, strange
+quiver went through me. I realized the meaning suddenly
+of that constant scribbling which I had been impelled
+to during the preceding months. I had a gift for
+literature! I knew it now; I never doubted it again. My
+fate had found me.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class = "right">Ludwig Lewisohn. <cite>Upstream.</cite> By permission<br>
+of Boni and Liveright, Publishers.</p>
+</div>
+
+<br>
+<p class="center"><span class="smcap">The Photograph</span></p>
+
+<p class="center">LAURA SPENCER PORTOR</p>
+
+<p>In the days when I was a child—before “films” were
+so much as heard of—there was a photographer, a certain
+photographer, very particular, who might have figured in
+the Arabian Nights as some one of importance.</p>
+
+<p>A photographer was then very much a person in the
+community. If we were a people of nicety as to precedents,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_288">[Pg 288]</span>
+I think he would have stood, in all our reckonings,
+fourth in the realm: minister, doctor, lawyer—<em>photographer</em>—with
+mere bankers, cooks, icemen, aldermen,
+and mayor, following subservient. Everyone, sometime,
+somehow, sooner or later, came at last to the
+photographer. In the flat glass show case that hung
+outside the steps leading to his upper parlor, they all
+hung, some of them fiercely in high collars, some of them
+frightened, in low ones; but all there.</p>
+
+<p>I was prepared for a visit to the “photograph parlor”
+with some occasion, I assure you, the process being long,
+painstaking, and full of admonition. I was now nearly
+three years old and there was needed, I suppose, an official
+photograph to send to distant and inquiring aunts
+and uncles.</p>
+
+<p>I recall the photographer perfectly, or my composite
+recollections of later years—for he remained long with
+us—serve me perfectly. He had masses of curly hair
+through which he often temperamentally ran his delicate
+long fingers; a poetic personality; and eyes that never left
+you for so much as an instant, once the real ordeal had
+begun; and an index finger that flew up and remained
+rigid at unaccountable moments. He had imagination;
+for he was repeatedly referring to a little bird, and asking
+me to look at it, which I did my utmost to see, but which
+for me was never there.</p>
+
+<p>After sundry final preparations I was ushered into
+the strange “parlor.” I was parted from my mother’s
+hand, as a ship from her moorings; was for a moment
+lost, then saved; for the photographer took me in tow.
+I was guided to a velours chair, and allowed, no, assisted,
+to climb upon it. There was some talk on the photographer’s
+part, I believe, of naturalness. Then, almost
+immediately, he began dancing back and forth intensely,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_289">[Pg 289]</span>
+fantastically, with lithe poses and bendings of his lissom
+body this side and that; his eyes half closed, fixed all
+the while on me, with a rapt attention I had never before
+received.</p>
+
+<p>“A <em>lit</em>-tle more to one side! There!”</p>
+
+<p>He even took my head delicately between his terribly
+firm fingers and turned it ever so little. Why? I should
+have preferred it as it was. At last his assistant under
+his direction—a rather elderly man he was, and disillusioned
+I think, bent, and with long fingers too, but
+bony and no hair to run them through—placed some
+sort of a terrible iron thing I never saw nor could have
+imagined at the back of my head.</p>
+
+<p>During all this, the photographer’s eyes never left me.
+What was it he saw? Then up flew his forefinger.</p>
+
+<p>“So! Keep that!”</p>
+
+<p>(Keep what?)</p>
+
+<p>He flew like a dragon fly to the hooded instrument,
+ducked his head under the hood, lost his own head,
+it seemed, took on the hooded head of the instrument,
+<em>became</em> the instrument as it were, so that it now had human
+arms and legs clothed in a checked suit, and in this
+metamorphic condition, proceeded with an unaccountable
+section of the Eleusinian mysteries.</p>
+
+<p>So, this was the manner in which one had one’s picture
+taken! Was that all? Bless you, no! We had but
+begun! He suddenly turned into a man again, and the
+instrument degenerated into a mere instrument.</p>
+
+<p>We made, I cannot imagine, how many false starts.
+The index finger would fly up. I would be recommended
+to watch the little bird I could not see. The old assistant
+would stand ready to click the instrument. The
+photographer would count three. So! Now! Off we
+were, surely! But no! Something was suddenly altogether<span class="pagenum" id="Page_290">[Pg 290]</span>
+a mistake. What was the matter? I wish I
+could tell you. I suppose I must have altered infinitesimally
+his precious pose. So, <i lang="la">da capo</i>. Well! Now!
+There! So! Up would go the index finger. We are off
+now!</p>
+
+<p>No! by my strapped slippers, we are not! Spoiled
+again!</p>
+
+<p>Then he would run his fingers really wildly through
+his hair. Patience! Reconstruction. I knew I was not
+to blame. I was healthy and well disposed, and eager to
+do my part, but he wanted something better than the
+best.</p>
+
+<p>I do not know how long he worked feverishly, but I
+have still the perfectly good-natured, secure, contented
+likeness which seems to have resulted—not because of,
+but in spite of all this frenzy; a baby likeness showing as
+nothing else in the world could the immeasurable distance
+between our two worlds, his and mine.</p>
+
+<p>I was showing it laughingly, perhaps a little wistfully,
+to an artist friend of mine the other day. He appeared
+to be startled almost by its certainty, its poise.</p>
+
+<p>“Good Lord, how wise! How <em>secure</em>! It is like the
+Raphael babies! I’ve always thought they <em>knew</em>; some
+knowledge you could not shake.”</p>
+
+<p>The mistake is, of course, to limit the observation to
+the Raphael babies. Of course children of that age <em>do</em>
+know, but it is a sad mistake to say you cannot shake
+their knowledge. This I can prove to you, if you are
+in doubt, by another photograph, taken two years later,
+when I was of the tenderly advanced age of five. It
+was no official photograph like the first, but a hasty unofficial
+matter, an emergency affair, a tintype, and taken
+in a hurry. And this is its story:</p>
+
+<p>There was in our home, as in most homes of its class<span class="pagenum" id="Page_291">[Pg 291]</span>
+of that day, a deep tradition of family affection. We
+were told, I cannot imagine how early, that we must
+love one another. In the prayers we said at night, tiny
+as we three youngest ones were, we asked God severally
+to bless each member of the household, naming them,
+before we severally asked Him to “make us a good girl”;
+and these petitions, linked with a shadow and possibility
+of our perhaps “dying before we waked,” gave love, I am
+inclined to think, in our inadequate conception of it a
+certain solemn tone.</p>
+
+<p>I was an impressionable child, and easily devoted. Besides
+my much elder brothers and sisters, I had two sisters
+rather close to my own age. A day came when the one
+nearest to me in years went away with some older relative,
+an aunt, I believe, to the East, for a long visit; eight
+months indeed.</p>
+
+<p>I know I must at first have missed her very much.
+But I think I had always a certain zest for life. The
+wind blew as mysteriously in the tree tops as it ever did;
+the birds built in quite as fascinating half-secret places;
+the lilacs waved incredible plumes announcing that the
+roses were about to arrive. Amid all this present glory
+the sister who was absent faded gradually, in my memory.</p>
+
+<p>Who can trace the beginnings of terror in early years?
+I wakened at last to the hideous realization that I had
+lost her; not in a bodily sense, not in a sense of absence
+or loneliness, for I knew she was in the world still, but
+in a terrible sense—as though a witch had caught me by
+the hair, or I had caught my feet in the hideous net of
+some spell—she was obliterated—<em>I could not remember
+what she looked like!</em></p>
+
+<p>There are terrors of many kinds in life. I know. I
+have met not a few; but for abysmal terror, that realization,
+it sometimes seems to me, leads them all. Blackness<span class="pagenum" id="Page_292">[Pg 292]</span>
+without a gleam of light, depth without a bottom.
+Downright mental panic. I know I made a few desperate
+efforts. “Jeanette!” Her name I knew, and often
+heard spoken; I could remember things she had done and
+said; but not form or feature.</p>
+
+<p>My mother was away that day; but I was blessed by
+a special providence with an older sister some seventeen
+years older than myself—who was compounded of all
+that was best and most sympathetic in the world. I
+rushed to her; was held close in her arms; but could tell
+her nothing for sobbing.</p>
+
+<p>When she at last got the circumstances from me, her
+delicate handling of it was, I think, very nearly as good
+as the mercy of God; only it was debonair besides, in
+good measure.</p>
+
+<p>She kissed me, and laughed, and said that she was just
+thinking that minute that in all that time Jeanette might
+have forgotten what I looked like! (Think of the delicacy
+of her putting it that way!) So, let us go to the
+photographer’s and have a little tintype taken of myself;
+let us send it this very day to Jeanette; and let us ask
+her to send us one of herself in return.</p>
+
+<p>So, my disloyalty was blotted out, and all tears were
+wiped away from my eyes. I was dressed quickly, a
+lace fichu was put about my neck, my drooping leghorn
+was set upon my head; I think I must have felt that
+goodness and mercy would follow me all the days of my
+life and I would dwell in the house of the Lord forever.</p>
+
+<p>No appointment was necessary. There was no art
+to the taking of this picture. It was to be a tintype precisely
+because these partook of immediacy and expedition.
+The young temperamental photographer with his
+zeal for perfection was not even there; only the old one,
+bent, kind, disillusioned.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_293">[Pg 293]</span></p>
+
+<p>Well, it is a different picture, I tell you, that second
+one—utterly different. Good God! What life does to
+one! And how early it begins! That complacent, secure,
+Raphael child, who knew everything, and was so
+sure—for how short a while was she allowed her knowledge
+and her sovereignty! Then, the second and unofficial
+photograph! Such a darling child, but one whose
+scepter had been finally taken from it. Already a certain
+nostalgia had irrevocably touched me. I only tell you the
+truth: every line of that photograph droops—not tragically,
+but enough, enough. Already, you could not mistake
+it, that child had sounded the depths of its own
+fallible humanity.</p>
+
+<p>I have both photographs beside me. I love the
+Raphael baby, and I am proud ever to have been so
+proud—and to have had that pride recorded by the all-seeing
+sun and a temperamental photographer with a
+passion for perfection; but before that other one that
+is me—(how much sadness already; and how soon!)
+before that other one I bow my head on my hands.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class = "right">By kind permission of the author, Laura Spencer<br>
+Portor.</p>
+</div>
+
+<br>
+<p class="center"><span class="smcap">My Childhood</span></p>
+
+<p class="center">LORD FREDERICK HAMILTON</p>
+
+<p>I was born the thirteenth child of a family of fourteen,
+on the thirteenth day of the month, and I have for many
+years resided at No. 13 in a certain street in Westminster.
+In spite of the popular prejudice attached to this numeral,
+I am not conscious of having derived any particular ill-fortune
+from my accidental association with it.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_294">[Pg 294]</span></p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>Looking down the long vista of sixty years with eyes
+that have already lost their keen vision, the most vivid
+impression that remains of my early childhood is the
+nightly ordeal of the journey down “The Passage of Many
+Terrors” in our Irish home. It had been decreed that, as
+I had reached the mature age of six, I was quite old
+enough to come down-stairs in the evening by myself
+without the escort of a maid, but no one seemed to realize
+what this entailed on the small boy immediately concerned.
+The house had evidently been built by some
+malevolent architect with the sole object of terrifying
+little boys. Never, surely, had such a prodigious length
+of twisting, winding passages and such a superfluity of
+staircases been crammed into one building, and as in the
+early “sixties” electric light had not been thought of,
+and there was no gas in the house, these endless passages
+were only sparingly lit with dim colza-oil lamps.
+From his nursery the little boy had to make his way alone
+through a passage and up some steps. These were
+brightly lit, and concealed no terrors. The staircase that
+had to be negotiated was also reassuringly bright, but
+at its base came the “Terrible Passage.” It was interminably
+long, and only lit by an oil lamp at its far
+end. Almost at once a long corridor running at right
+angles to the main one, and plunged in total darkness,
+had to be crossed. This was an awful place, for under a
+marble slab in its dim recesses a stuffed crocodile reposed.
+Of course in the daytime the crocodile <em>pretended</em>
+to be very dead, but every one knew that as soon as it
+grew dark, the crocodile came to life again, and padded
+noiselessly about the passage on its scaly paws seeking
+for its prey, with its great cruel jaws snapping, its fierce
+teeth gleaming, and its horny tail lashing savagely from
+side to side. It was also a matter of common knowledge<span class="pagenum" id="Page_295">[Pg 295]</span>
+that the favourite article of diet of crocodiles was a little
+boy with bare legs in a white suit.</p>
+
+<p>Even should one be fortunate enough to escape the
+crocodile’s jaws, there were countless other terrors awaiting
+the traveller down this awe-inspiring passage. A
+little farther on there was a dark lobby, with cupboards
+surrounding it. Anyone examining these cupboards by
+daylight would have found that they contained innocuous
+cricket-bats and stumps, croquet-mallets and balls, and
+sets of bowls. But as soon as the shades of night fell,
+these harmless sporting accessories were changed by
+some mysterious and malign agency into grizzly bears,
+and grizzly bears are notoriously the fiercest of their
+species. It was advisable to walk very quickly, but
+quietly, past the lair of the grizzlies, for they would have
+gobbled up a little boy in one second. Immediately after
+the bears’ den came the culminating terror of all—the
+haunt of the wicked little hunchbacks. These malignant
+little beings inhabited an arched and recessed cross-passage.
+It was their horrible habit to creep noiselessly
+behind their victims, tip ... tip ... tip-toeing silently
+but swiftly behind their prey, and then ... with a sudden
+spring they threw themselves on to little boys’ backs,
+and getting their arms around their necks, they remorselessly
+throttled the life out of them. In the early
+“sixties” there was a perfect epidemic of so-called “garrotting”
+in London. Harmless citizens proceeding peaceably
+homeward through unfrequented streets or down
+suburban roads at night were suddenly seized from behind
+by nefarious hands, and found arms pressed under
+their chins against their windpipe, with a second hand
+drawing their heads back until they collapsed insensible,
+and could be despoiled leisurely of any valuables that
+they might happen to have about them. Those familiar<span class="pagenum" id="Page_296">[Pg 296]</span>
+with John Leech’s <cite>Punch Album</cite> will recollect how many
+of his drawings turned on this outbreak of garrotting.
+The little boy had heard his elders talking about this
+garrotting, and had somehow mixed it up with a story
+about hunchbacks and the fascinating local tales about
+“the wee people,” but the terror was a very real one for
+all that. The hunchbacks baffled, there only remained a
+dark archway to pass, but this archway led to the “Robbers’
+Passage.” A peculiarly bloodthirsty gang of malefactors
+had their fastnesses along this passage, but the
+dread of being in the immediate neighbourhood of such
+a band of desperadoes was considerably modified by the
+increasing light, as the solitary oil lamp of the passage
+was approached. Under the comforting beams of this
+lamp the little boy would pause until his heart began to
+thump less wildly after his deadly perils, and he would
+turn the handle of the door and walk into the great hall
+as demurely as though he had merely traversed an
+ordinary everyday passage in broad daylight. It was
+very reassuring to see the big hall blazing with light,
+with the logs roaring on the open hearth, and grown-ups
+writing, reading, and talking unconcernedly, as though
+unconscious of the awful dangers lurking within a few
+yards of them. In that friendly atmosphere, what with
+toys and picture-books, the fearful experiences of the
+“Passage of Many Terrors” soon faded away, and the return
+journey upstairs would be free from alarms, for
+Catherine, the nursery-maid, would come to fetch the little
+boy when his bedtime arrived.</p>
+
+<p>Catherine was fat, freckled, and French. She was also
+of a very stolid disposition. She stumped unconcernedly
+along the “Passage of Terrors,” and any reference to
+its hidden dangers of robbers, hunch-backs, bears, and
+crocodiles only provoked the remark, “Quel tas de bêtises!”<span class="pagenum" id="Page_297">[Pg 297]</span>
+In order to reassure the little boy, Catherine
+took him to view the stuffed crocodile reposing inertly
+under its marble slab. Of course, before a grown-up
+the crocodile would pretend to be dead and stuffed,
+but ... the little boy knew better. It occurred gleefully
+to him, too, that the plump French damsel might
+prove more satisfactory as a repast to a hungry saurian
+than a skinny little boy with thin legs. In the cheerful
+nursery, with its fragrant peat fire (we called it “turf”),
+the terrors of the evening were quickly forgotten, only
+to be renewed with tenfold activity next evening, as the
+moment for making the dreaded journey again approached.</p>
+
+<p>The little boy had had the <cite>Pilgrim’s Progress</cite> read to
+him on Sundays. He envied “Christian,” who not only
+usually enjoyed the benefit of some reassuring companion,
+such as “Mr. Interpreter,” or “Mr. Greatheart,” to help
+him on his road, but had also been expressly told, “Keep
+in the midst of the path, and no harm shall come to thee.”</p>
+
+<p>This was distinctly comforting, and Christian enjoyed
+another conspicuous advantage. All the lions he encountered
+in the course of his journey were chained up,
+and could not reach him provided he adhered to the
+Narrow Way. The little boy thought seriously of tying
+a rolled-up tablecloth to his back to represent Christian’s
+pack; in his white suit, he might perhaps then pass for a
+pilgrim, and the strip of carpet down the centre of the
+passage would make an admirable Narrow Way, but it
+all depended on whether the crocodile, bears, and hunchbacks
+knew, and would observe the rules of the game.
+It was most improbable that the crocodile had ever had
+the <cite>Pilgrim’s Progress</cite> read to him in his youth, and he
+might not understand that the carpet representing the
+Narrow Way was inviolable territory. Again, the bears<span class="pagenum" id="Page_298">[Pg 298]</span>
+might make their spring before they realized that, strictly
+speaking, they ought to consider themselves chained up.
+The ferocious little hunchbacks were clearly past praying
+for; nothing would give them a sense of the most
+elementary decency. On the whole, the safest plan
+seemed to be, on reaching the foot of the stairs, to keep an
+eye on the distant lamp and to run to it as fast as short
+legs and small feet could carry one. Once safe under its
+friendly beams, panting breath could be recovered, and
+the necessary stolid look assumed before entering the
+hall.</p>
+
+<p>There was another voyage, rich in its promise of ultimate
+rewards, but so perilous that it would only be undertaken
+under escort. That was to the housekeeper’s
+room through a maze of basement passages. On the road
+two fiercely-gleaming roaring pits of fire had to be encountered.
+Grown-ups said this was the furnace that
+heated the house, but the little boy had his own ideas on
+the subject. Every Sunday his nurse used to read to him
+out of a little devotional book, much in vogue in the
+“sixties,” called <cite>The Peep of Day</cite>, a book with the most
+terrifying pictures. One Sunday evening, so it is said, the
+little boy’s mother came into the nursery to find him
+listening in rapt attention to what his nurse was reading
+him.</p>
+
+<p>“Emery is reading to me out of a good book,” explained
+the small boy quite superfluously.</p>
+
+<p>“And do you like it, dear?”</p>
+
+<p>“Very much indeed.”</p>
+
+<p>“What is Emery reading to you about? Is it about
+Heaven?”</p>
+
+<p>“No, it’s about ’ell,” gleefully responded the little boy,
+who had not yet found all his “h’s.”</p>
+
+<p>Those glowing furnace-bars; those roaring flames ...<span class="pagenum" id="Page_299">[Pg 299]</span>
+there could be no doubt whatever about it. A hymn
+spoke of “Gates of Hell” ... of course they just called
+it the heating furnace to avoid frightening him. The little
+boy became acutely conscious of his misdeeds. He had
+taken ... no, stolen an apple from the nursery pantry
+and had eaten it. Against all orders he had played with
+the taps in the sink. The burden of his iniquities pressed
+heavily on him; remembering the encouraging warnings
+Mrs. Fairchild, of <cite>The Fairchild Family</cite>, gave her offspring
+as to their certain ultimate destiny when they
+happened to break any domestic rule, he simply dared not
+pass those fiery apertures alone. With his hand in that
+of his friend Joseph, the footman, it was quite another
+matter. Out of gratitude, he addressed Joseph as “Mr.
+Greatheart,” but Joseph, probably unfamiliar with the
+<cite>Pilgrim’s Progress</cite>, replied that his name was Smith.</p>
+
+<p>The interminable labyrinth of passages threaded, the
+warm, comfortable housekeeper’s room, with its red curtains,
+oak presses and a delicious smell of spice pervading
+it, was a real haven of rest. To this very day, nearly
+sixty years afterwards, it still looks just the same, and
+keeps its old fragrant spicy odour. Common politeness
+dictated a brief period of conversation, until Mrs. Pithers,
+the housekeeper, should take up her wicker key-basket
+and select a key (the second press on the left). From
+that inexhaustible treasure-house dates and figs would
+appear, also dried apricots and those little discs of crystallised
+apple-paste which, impaled upon straws, and
+coloured green, red and yellow, were in those days manufactured
+for the special delectation of greedy little boys.
+What a happy woman Mrs. Pithers must have been with
+such a prodigal wealth of delicious products always at her
+command! It was comforting, too, to converse with Mrs.
+Pithers, for though this intrepid woman was alarmed<span class="pagenum" id="Page_300">[Pg 300]</span>
+neither by bears, hunchbacks, nor crocodiles, she was terribly
+frightened by what she termed “cows,” and regulated
+her daily walks so as to avoid any portion of the
+park where cattle were grazing. Here the little boy experienced
+a delightful sense of masculine superiority. He
+was not the least afraid of cattle, or of other things in
+daylight and the open air; of course at night in dark passages
+infested with bears and little hunchbacks.... Well,
+it was obviously different. And yet that woman who was
+afraid of “cows” could walk without a tremor, or a little
+shiver down the spine, past the very “Gates of Hell,”
+where they roared and blazed in the dark passage.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class = "right">From <cite>The Days Before Yesterday</cite> by Lord<br>
+Frederick Hamilton. Copyright 1920, George<br>
+H. Doran Company, Publishers.</p>
+</div>
+
+<br>
+<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Shrewsbury School</span></p>
+
+<p class="center">HENRY W. NEVINSON</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">“High the vanes of Shrewsbury gleam,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Islanded in Severn Stream;</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">The bridges from the steepled crest</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Cross the water east and west.</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">“The flag of morn in conqueror’s state</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Enters at the English gate;</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">The vanquished eve, as night prevails,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Bleeds upon the road to Wales.”</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">—<cite>A Shropshire Lad.</cite></div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>In my old school upon the Severn, I can see now that
+we were not educated at all: no scientific methods were
+tried upon us. I doubt if any of the masters had ever
+heard there was such a thing as a science of education.
+To them education was a natural process which all decent
+people went through, like washing: and their ideas upon<span class="pagenum" id="Page_301">[Pg 301]</span>
+it were as unscientific as was our method of “swilling,”
+when we ran down naked from the bedrooms to sheds in
+the backyards, sluiced cold water over us with zinc basins,
+and then came dripping back to dry upstairs. And yet
+I do remember one young mathematician whose form by
+the end of his hour was always reduced to a flushed and
+radiant chaos: and when the other masters complained
+he replied that this was part of his “system.” So I suppose
+that he at all events was scientific, and had possibly
+studied Pädagogik in Germany.</p>
+
+<p>The others were content to teach what they had learned,
+and in the same manner. Most of them were Shrewsbury
+boys themselves, and because Greek had been taught
+there for more than three centuries, they taught Greek.
+Of course, we had Latin too, and up to the sixth form,
+our time was equally divided between the two languages;
+but Latin, as being easier and rather more connected with
+modern life, never ranked so high, and we turned to it
+with the relief which most men feel when the ladies rise
+from the dinner table. Latin prose, it is true, was thought
+more of than Greek prose, and no doubt there was some
+instinctive reason why. I suspect that in reality it is the
+more difficult: for it was the unconscious rule of our
+ancient tradition that of two subjects the more difficult
+was the better worth learning, provided always that both
+were entirely useless.</p>
+
+<p>Of Greek our knowledge was both peculiar and limited.
+We were allowed no devices to make the language in the
+least interesting, no designs, or pictures, or explanations.
+We had no idea what the Greek plays looked like on the
+stage, or why Demosthenes uttered those long-winded
+sentences. We knew nothing of the Dantesque pride underlying
+the tortured prose of Thucydides, and when a
+sixth-form master told us that the stupendous myth at the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_302">[Pg 302]</span>
+end of the Phaedo appeared to him singularly childish,
+we took no notice of the remark one way or the other.
+We only knew that the passage was easy, just as Homer
+was easy, and the choruses hard. The greater part of the
+school believed that Greek literature was written as a
+graduated series of problems for Shrewsbury boys to
+solve, and when a sixth-form boy was asked by a new
+master whether he did not consider the Prometheus a
+very beautiful play, he replied that he thought it contained
+too many weak caesuras.</p>
+
+<p>So there was nothing in the least artistic about our
+knowledge. No one expected to find either beauty or
+pleasure in what we read, and we found none. Nor were
+we scientific; we neither knew nor cared how the Greek
+words arose, or how the aorists grew, and why there were
+two of them, like Castor and Pollux. After all these
+things do the Germans seek, but us they never troubled.
+Our sole duty was to convert, with absolute precision, so
+much Greek into so much English. No possible shade of
+meaning or delicate inflection on the page was allowed
+to slide unnoticed. The phases of every mood with all
+its accompanying satellites were traced with the exactitude
+of astronomy. No one cared much about beauty of language
+provided the definite meaning was secure. Yet
+beauty sometimes came by accident, just as happiness
+comes, and I first learned what style is from the renderings
+of the head-boy when he mounted the “rostrum.”
+He was himself an antique Roman; his eagle nose, wide
+mouth, and massive chin, the low, broad brow, with black
+curls growing close to the square-backed head, were made
+to rule nations. But not long since he died in the serviceable
+obscurity of a mastership, for which his knowledge
+of Greek was his only qualification. It is true he was our<span class="pagenum" id="Page_303">[Pg 303]</span>
+captain of football, but he owed that position to his Greek
+rather than his play.</p>
+
+<p>When as a new boy I was first taken for a walk out of
+bounds on a Sunday afternoon by one of the upper sixth,
+who is now an earthly saint, we went to a hillside with a
+long blue vision of western mountains, and while I had
+no thought or eyes for anything but them, he continued
+to talk quietly of Greek—the significance of various forms,
+the most telling way of turning this meaning or that,
+especially, I remember, the cunning idioms by which the
+idea of “self” might be rendered in verse, either with
+emphasis or modesty. So it was. The school breathed
+Greek, and through its ancient buildings a Greek wind
+blew. To enter the head-room—a dim, panelled chamber
+which the upper sixth used as a study—was to become a
+scholar. I doubt if good Greek verse could be written
+anywhere else. Winged iambics fluttered through the air;
+they hung like bats along the shelves, and the dust fell
+in Greek particles. Now the school is moved to the
+further side of the river, and its grey and storied stone
+is exchanged for cheerful brick. Our old head-room has
+become the housekeeper’s parlor in some citizen’s dwelling,
+but on the hearthstone at eventide beside her petticoats
+squats the imperishable Lar, real as a rat, though
+not so formidable, and murmurs iambics to himself.</p>
+
+<p>Other subjects besides Greek were taught, but no one
+ever learned them. There was French, for instance,
+taught by an aged Englishman who had outlived three
+generations of mortal head-masters, and, besides his wig,
+was supposed gradually to have acquired an artificial
+body that would last forever. To us he was important
+because he registered the punishments, and had the reputation
+of a very bloodhound for detecting crime. Certainly<span class="pagenum" id="Page_304">[Pg 304]</span>
+he was the best comic reader I ever heard, and
+when he read prayers at night the whole school used to
+howl like a rising and falling wind, following the cadence
+of his voice. But nobody learned French of him. Once,
+because I had shown him decent politeness he assigned
+me a prize. I could honestly say I knew less French than
+any one this side the Channel; and yet I should never
+have outlived a certain stigma attaching to imaginary
+knowledge of anything so paltry, if nature had not given
+me the power of running long distances without fatigue.
+But, unhappily for me, to prove that power I had to
+wait from summer till autumn, when the school huntsman
+led out his pack in white to scour the wild country
+west of the town—a country of yellow woods and deep
+pools, where water-fowl rose, and of isolated limestone
+hills, the promise of Wales. Each run followed a course
+fixed by old tradition. Foxes were seldom sent out, and
+were never supposed to be caught. We ran for the sake
+of running, just as we learned Greek for the sake of
+learning it.</p>
+
+<p>Mathematics were held in scarcely less contempt than
+French. We had two wranglers to teach us, but they
+never taught anyone. Their appearance in form was
+hailed with indecent joy. As one of the classical masters
+said, it was like the “Cease fire” on a field-day, and the
+whole body of boys abandoned themselves at once to relaxation.
+In the lower forms far-sailing darts were seen
+floating through the air as at a spiritualist seance; in the
+upper we discussed the steeple-chase or did Greek verses.
+A boy who really knew any mathematics was regarded
+by ourselves and the masters as a kind of freak. There
+was no dealing with him. His mathematical marks got
+him into forms beyond his real knowledge—his knowledge
+of Greek. He upset the natural order of things. He was<span class="pagenum" id="Page_305">[Pg 305]</span>
+a perpetual ugly duckling, that could not emit iambics.
+So his lot was far from enviable, and happily I remember
+only two such cases.</p>
+
+<p>In the sixth, it was Saturday mornings which were
+given to this innocent pursuit of mathematics, and to it
+we owed our happiest hours of peace. To go up School
+Gardens on a bright summer day, to cross the leisurely
+street of the beautiful country town, to buy breakfast
+(for an ancient tradition kept us strenuously underfed),
+to devour it slowly and at ease, knowing there was only
+mathematics before us that morning, to be followed by the
+long afternoon and Sunday—that was a secure and unequalled
+joy, and whenever mathematics are mentioned,
+I still feel a throb of gratitude for those old pleasures.
+Our one lesson on Sunday was a difficulty to the masters.
+Of course there was the Greek testament to fall back
+upon, but its Greek was so easy and so inferior to ours
+that it became a positive danger. We were sometimes
+given a Latin catechism, by some Protestant Father of
+the sixteenth century, denouncing Transubstantiation, but
+that also we had to read with caution lest it should influence
+our Latin prose. Once we waded through Dr.
+Westcott’s <cite>Gospel of the Resurrection</cite>, a supposed concession
+to those of us who were going to Oxford. On Sunday
+evenings we learnt cantos of the <i lang="la">In Memoriam</i> by heart,
+and explained them next morning by suggesting how they
+might be turned into Greek or Latin lyrics. Then the
+real labor of life began again with Greek, and so the
+weeks rolled on without a change. Once, it is true, our
+greatest master got an afternoon hour for the teaching of
+wisdom to the sixth, and we really tried to listen, for he
+stood six foot four and had been captain of football at
+Oxford. But it was no good. Wisdom was far too easy
+and unimportant for us, and we let her voice cry in vain.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_306">[Pg 306]</span>
+Of such diversions as physical science or mechanics we
+never even heard, though their absence was perhaps sufficiently
+compensated for by the system of fagging, under
+which all the lower forms learnt the arts of lighting fires
+and plain cooking for the upper sixth. The new-boys
+were also practiced in public oratory, having in turn to
+proclaim the athletic announcements for the day, standing
+on the breakfast-table. The proclamation began
+with “O-Yes!” three times repeated, and ended with
+“God save the Queen, and down with the Radicals!”
+Anyone was at liberty to throw bread, sugar, or boots at
+the crier during his announcement; and many of my
+schoolfellows have since displayed extraordinary eloquence
+on public platforms and in the pulpit.</p>
+
+<p>In politics our instruction was entirely practical. For
+centuries the school had been divided into bitterly hostile
+camps—day-boys and boarders—doing the same work,
+sitting side by side in form, but never speaking to each
+other or walking together, or playing the same games.
+No feud of Whig and Tory, or Boer and Briton, was so
+implacable as ours. “Skytes” we called them, those hated
+day-boys, for whom the school was founded—mere
+Scythians, uncouth and brutish things that sacrificed the
+flesh of men and drank from a human skull. Out of
+school hours we did not suffer them within school gates.
+They were excluded even from the ball-court, except for
+fights. They were compelled to pay for separate football
+and cricket fields; and in football they adopted the
+vulgar rules of Association, while we aristocrats of tradition
+continued to cherish an almost incomprehensible
+game, in which, as in a Homeric battle, the leaders did
+the fighting, while the indistinguishable host trampled to
+and fro in patient pursuit of a ball which they rarely
+touched, but sometimes saw. The breach may have begun<span class="pagenum" id="Page_307">[Pg 307]</span>
+when Elizabeth was Queen, or in the days of Cavaliers
+and Roundheads, and there is no knowing how long it
+would have lasted but for the wisdom of that wise master
+already mentioned. Whilst I was still there, myself a
+red-hot boarder, he began delicately to reason, amid the
+choking indignation of both sides, whose rancor increased
+as reason shook it. No reformer ever set himself to a
+task so hopeless, and yet it was accomplished. Within a
+year we were playing football under Association rules together,
+and before the old school was removed the wrath
+of ages was appeased.</p>
+
+<p>For the rest, I cannot say that the ingenuous art of
+Greek, though we learnt it faithfully, softened our manners
+much, or forbade us to be savages. One peculiar
+custom may stand for many as an instance of the primitive
+barbarity which stamps upon any abnormal member
+of a herd. Since the last Pancratium was fought at
+Olympia, no such dire contest has been seen among men
+as our old steeple-chase. Clad in little but gloves—a
+little which grew less with every hundred yards—the
+small band of youths tore their way through bare and
+towering hedges, wallowed through bogs, plunged into
+streams and ponds, racing over a two miles of country
+that no horse would have looked at. The start was at the
+Flash side of the Severn, and if I had cleared the first
+stream and the hedge beyond it with one clean bound, as
+my young brother did, I would have it engraved on my
+tombstone: “He jumped the Flash ditch, R. I. P.” The
+winner of the race was, of course, the boy who came in
+first; but the hero of the school was he from whom the
+most blood was trickling at the finish, and who showed
+the bravest gashes on his face as he walked down the
+choir of St. Mary’s at next morning’s service. The course
+for the display of all this heroism was marked by the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_308">[Pg 308]</span>
+new boys, whose places as “sticks” were allotted by the
+huntsman the day before, the whole school accompanying
+them, and by immemorial custom the most unpopular
+new-boy of the year was always set at the last post,—a
+slippery stump of ancient tree projecting in the very midst
+of a particularly filthy pond. As we drew nearer and
+nearer the place, all of us advancing at a gentle trot, one
+could see the poor creature growing more and more certain
+that he was the boy. We all exchanged smiles, and
+sometimes his name was called out, for all, except himself,
+had agreed who it would probably be. At last the
+pond was reached, and we stood round it in a thick and
+silent circle, awaiting the public execution of a soul. The
+boy’s name was called. He came sullenly forward and
+made a wild leap for the stump. Invariably he fell short,
+or slipped and plunged headlong into the stagnant water,
+whilst we all yelled with satisfaction. Wallowing through
+the black slush and duckweed, he clambered on to the tree
+at last, and stood there in the public gaze, declared the
+most hateful boy in the school. Upon himself the
+ceremony had not always the elevating effect at which, I
+suppose, we aimed. For I remember one disappointed
+moralist in the fourth form remarking, “Frog’s pond
+doesn’t seem to have done that fellow any good. He
+wants kicking again.”</p>
+
+<p>It is all gone now—Frog’s pond, the steeple-chase, and
+the runners. The old school itself has been converted
+into a museum, and in the long raftered room where we
+learnt Greek, a crocodile with gaping jaws, stuffed
+monkeys, and some bottled snakes teach useful knowledge
+to all who come. When last I was there, they were teaching
+a blue-nosed boy to make squeaks on the glass with
+his wetted finger, and he was getting on very well. But
+from my old seat (under the crocodile) I could see beyond<span class="pagenum" id="Page_309">[Pg 309]</span>
+the Berwick woods the wild and tossing hills, already
+touched with snow, just as when I used to watch the
+running light upon them, and envy the lives folded in their
+valleys. Close in front was the bend of the river where
+Bryan’s Ford swings past Blue Rails, just as it ran one
+night, still longer ago, when Admiral Benbow as a little
+boy launched his coracle for the sea. In a shining horseshoe
+the river sweeps round the spires on Shrewsbury
+Hill. The red castle guards the narrows, and east and
+west the Welsh and English bridges cross the water. Below
+the English bridge I never cared to discover what
+might come, for the river ran down towards the land of
+dulness, opposite to the course of adventure and the sun.
+But to follow up the stream, to scrape across her shingly
+fords, to watch for the polished surface of her shoals,
+and move silently over the black depths where no line
+had reached a bottom—let me die, as Wordsworth says,
+if the very thought of it does not always fill me with joy!
+Incalculable from hour to hour, the river never loses her
+charm and variety. In a single night the water will rise
+twenty feet, and pour foaming through the deep channel
+it has been cutting for so many years. Along its banks
+of sandstone and loam the dotterels run, and rats and
+stoats thread the labyrinth of the flood-washed roots.
+There the bullfinches build, kingfishers dig their “tunnelled
+house,” moorhens set their shallow bowl of reeds,
+and sometimes a tern flits by like a large white swallow.
+On tongues of gravel, where the current eddies under the
+deep opposite bank, red cattle with white faces used to
+come down in summer and stand far out in the stream,
+ruminating and flicking their tails, or following us with
+wondering eyes as we ran naked over the grass and fell
+splashing into the water. Severn water is full of light
+and motion. Never stopping to sulk, it has no dead and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_310">[Pg 310]</span>
+solid surface, but is alive right through, reflecting the sunshine,
+green with long ribbons of weed, orange from the
+pebbly bed, and indigo where the unbreaking crests of
+its ripples rise. As it passes beneath deep meadows, and
+under the solemn elms, it whispers still of the mountains
+from which it came. Into the midst of hedgerow villages
+and ordered fields it brings its laughing savagery, telling
+of another life than theirs, of rocks and sounding falls and
+moorland watersheds. Other rivers may be called majestic,
+and we talk of Father Tiber and Father Thames, but
+no one ever called the Severn Father, or praised her but
+for her grace; for she is like the body and soul of a
+princess straight from a western fairyland—so wild and
+pliant, so full of laughter and of mystery, so uncertain in
+her gay and sorrowing moods. On my word, though the
+science of education must be a very splendid thing, untaught,
+untrained, uninstructed as we Shrewsbury boys
+would now be considered, I would not change places with
+the most scientifically educated man in England, who had
+never known a river such as that.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class = "right">From <cite>Changes and Chances</cite> by Henry W.<br>
+Nevinson. Copyright by Harcourt, Brace and<br>
+Company, Inc.</p>
+</div>
+
+<br>
+<p class="center"><span class="smcap">The Burglars</span></p>
+
+<p class="center">KENNETH GRAHAME</p>
+
+<p>It was much too fine a night to think of going to bed
+at once, and so, although the witching hour of nine <span class="allsmcap">P. M.</span>
+had struck, Edward and I were still leaning out of the
+open window in our nightshirts, watching the play of the
+cedar-branch shadows on the moonlit lawn, and planning
+schemes of fresh deviltry for the sunshiny morrow. From<span class="pagenum" id="Page_311">[Pg 311]</span>
+below, strains of the jocund piano declared that the
+Olympians were enjoying themselves in their listless impotent
+way; for the new curate had been bidden to dinner
+that night, and was at the moment unclerically proclaiming
+to all the world that he feared no foe. His discordant
+vociferations doubtless started a train of thought in
+Edward’s mind, for he presently remarked, <i lang="fr">à propos</i> of
+nothing whatever that had been said before, “I believe the
+new curate’s rather gone on Aunt Maria.”</p>
+
+<p>I scouted the notion; “Why, she’s quite old,” I said.
+(She must have seen some five-and-twenty summers.)</p>
+
+<p>“Of course she is,” replied Edward scornfully. “It’s
+not her, it’s her money he’s after, you bet!”</p>
+
+<p>“Didn’t know she had any money,” I observed timidly.</p>
+
+<p>“Sure to have,” said my brother with confidence.
+“Heaps and heaps.”</p>
+
+<p>Silence ensued, both our minds being busy with the
+new situation thus presented: mine, in wonderment at this
+flaw that so often declared itself in enviable natures of
+fullest endowment,—in a grown-up man and a good
+cricketer, for instance, even as this curate; Edward’s
+(apparently) in the consideration of how such a state of
+things, supposing it existed, could be best turned to his
+own advantage.</p>
+
+<p>“Bobby Ferris told me,” began Edward in due course,
+“that there was a fellow spooning his sister once——”</p>
+
+<p>“What’s spooning?” I asked meekly.</p>
+
+<p>“O I dunno,” said Edward indifferently. “It’s—it’s—it’s
+just a thing they do, you know. And he used to carry
+notes and messages and things between ’em, and he got a
+shilling almost every time.”</p>
+
+<p>“What, from each of ’em?” I innocently inquired.</p>
+
+<p>Edward looked at me with scornful pity. “Girls never
+have any money,” he briefly explained. “But she did his<span class="pagenum" id="Page_312">[Pg 312]</span>
+exercises, and got him out of rows, and told stories for
+him when he needed it—and much better ones than he
+could have made up for himself. Girls are useful in some
+ways. So he was living in clover, when unfortunately
+they went and quarrelled about something.”</p>
+
+<p>“Don’t see what that’s got to do with it,” I said.</p>
+
+<p>“Nor don’t I,” rejoined Edward. “But anyhow the
+notes and things stopped, and so did the shillings. Bobby
+was fairly cornered, for he had bought two ferrets on
+tick, and promised to pay a shilling a week, thinking the
+shillings were going on for ever, the silly young ass. So
+when the week was up, and he was being dunned for the
+shilling, he went off to the fellow and said: ‘Your
+broken-hearted Bella implores you to meet her at sundown.
+By the hollow oak as of old, be it only for a
+moment. Do not fail!’ He got all that out of some rotten
+book, of course. The fellow looked puzzled and
+said:</p>
+
+<p>“‘What hollow oak? I don’t know any hollow oak.’</p>
+
+<p>“‘Perhaps it was the Royal Oak?’ said Bobby promptly,
+’cos he saw he had made a slip, through trusting too
+much to the rotten book; but this didn’t seem to make the
+fellow any happier.”</p>
+
+<p>“Should think not,” I said, “the Royal Oak’s an awful
+low sort of pub.”</p>
+
+<p>“I know,” said Edward. “Well, at last the fellow said,
+‘I think I know what she means: the hollow tree in your
+father’s paddock. It happens to be an elm, but she
+wouldn’t know the difference. All right: say I’ll be there.’
+Bobby hung about a bit, for he hadn’t got his money.
+‘She was crying awfully,’ he said. Then he got his
+shilling.”</p>
+
+<p>“And wasn’t the fellow riled,” I inquired, “when he got
+to the place and found nothing?”</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_313">[Pg 313]</span></p>
+
+<p>“He found Bobby,” said Edward indignantly. “Young
+Ferris was a gentleman, every inch of him. He brought
+the fellow another message from Bella: ‘I dare not leave
+the house. My cruel parents immure me closely. If you
+only knew what I suffer. Your broken-hearted Bella.’
+Out of the same rotten book. This made the fellow a
+little suspicious, ’cos it was the old Ferrises who had been
+keen about the thing all through. The fellow, you see,
+had tin.”</p>
+
+<p>“But what’s that got to—” I began again.</p>
+
+<p>“O I dunno,” said Edward impatiently. “I’m telling
+you just what Bobby told me. He got suspicious, anyhow,
+but he couldn’t exactly call Bella’s brother a liar, so
+Bobby escaped for the time. But when he was in a hole
+next week, over a stiff French exercise, and tried the same
+sort of game on his sister, she was too sharp for him, and
+he got caught out. Somehow women seem more mistrustful
+than men. They’re so beastly suspicious by nature,
+you know.”</p>
+
+<p>“I know,” said I. “But did the two—the fellow and
+the sister—make it up afterwards?”</p>
+
+<p>“I don’t remember about that,” replied Edward indifferently:
+“but Bobby got packed off to school a whole
+year earlier than his people meant to send him. Which
+was just what he wanted. So you see it all came right in
+the end!”</p>
+
+<p>I was trying to puzzle out the moral of this story—it
+was evidently meant to contain one somewhere—when a
+flood of golden lamplight mingled with the moon-rays
+on the lawn, and Aunt Maria and the new curate strolled
+out on the grass below us, and took the direction of a
+garden-seat which was backed by a dense laurel shrubbery
+reaching round in a half-circle to the house. Edward
+meditated moodily. “If we only knew what they were<span class="pagenum" id="Page_314">[Pg 314]</span>
+talking about,” said he, “you’d soon see whether I was
+right or not. Look here! Let’s send the kid down by
+the porch to reconnoitre!”</p>
+
+<p>“Harold’s asleep,” I said; “it seems rather a
+shame——”</p>
+
+<p>“O rot!” said my brother; “he’s the youngest, and he’s
+got to do as he’s told!”</p>
+
+<p>So the luckless Harold was hauled out of bed and given
+his sailing-orders. He was naturally rather vexed at being
+stood up suddenly on the cold floor, and the job had
+no particular interest for him; but he was both staunch
+and well disciplined. The means of exit were simple
+enough. A porch of iron trellis came up to within easy
+reach of the window, and was habitually used by all three
+of us, when modestly anxious to avoid public notice.
+Harold climbed deftly down the porch like a white rat,
+and his night-gown glimmered a moment on the gravel
+walk ere he was lost to sight in the darkness of the shrubbery.
+A brief interval of silence ensued; broken suddenly
+by a sound of scuffle, and then a shrill long-drawn
+squeal, as of metallic surfaces in friction. Our
+scout had fallen into the hands of the enemy!</p>
+
+<p>Indolence alone had made us devolve the task of investigation
+on our younger brother. Now that danger
+had declared itself, there was no hesitation. In a second
+we were down the side of the porch, and crawling
+Cherokee-wise through the laurels to the back of the
+garden-seat. Piteous was the sight that greeted us.
+Aunt Maria was on the seat, in a white evening frock,
+looking—for an aunt—really quite nice. On the lawn
+stood an incensed curate, grasping our small brother by a
+large ear, which—judging from the row he was making—seemed
+on the point of parting company with the head it
+completed and adorned. The gruesome noise he was<span class="pagenum" id="Page_315">[Pg 315]</span>
+emitting did not really affect us otherwise than æsthetically.
+To one who has tried both, the wail of genuine
+physical anguish is easily distinguishable from the
+pumped-up <i lang="la">ad misericordiam</i> blubber. Harold’s could
+clearly be recognised as belonging to the latter class.
+“Now you young—” (whelp, I think it was, but Edward
+stoutly maintains it was devil), said the curate sternly;
+“tell us what you mean by it!”</p>
+
+<p>“Well leggo of my ear then!” shrilled Harold, “and I’ll
+tell you the solemn truth!”</p>
+
+<p>“Very well,” agreed the curate, releasing him, “now go
+ahead, and don’t lie more than you can help.”</p>
+
+<p>We abode the promised disclosure without the least misgiving;
+but even we had hardly given Harold due credit
+for his fertility of resource and powers of imagination.</p>
+
+<p>“I had just finished saying my prayers,” began the
+young gentleman slowly, “when I happened to look out
+of the window, and on the lawn I saw a sight which froze
+the marrow in my veins! A burglar was approaching the
+house with snakelike tread! He had a scowl and a dark
+lantern, and he was armed to the teeth!”</p>
+
+<p>We listened with interest. The style, though unlike
+Harold’s native notes, seemed strangely familiar.</p>
+
+<p>“Go on,” said the curate grimly.</p>
+
+<p>“Pausing in his stealthy career,” continued Harold, “he
+gave a low whistle. Instantly the signal was responded
+to, and from the adjacent shadows two more figures glided
+forth. The miscreants were both armed to the teeth.”</p>
+
+<p>“Excellent,” said the curate; “proceed.”</p>
+
+<p>“The robber chief,” pursued Harold, warming to his
+work, “joined his nefarious comrades, and conversed with
+them in silent tones. His expression was truly ferocious,
+and I ought to have said that he was armed to the t——”</p>
+
+<p>“There, never mind his teeth,” interrupted the curate<span class="pagenum" id="Page_316">[Pg 316]</span>
+rudely; “there’s too much jaw about you altogether.
+Hurry up and have done.”</p>
+
+<p>“I was in a frightful funk,” continued the narrator,
+warily guarding his ear with his hand, “but just
+then the drawing-room window opened, and you and
+Aunt Maria came out—I mean emerged. The burglars
+vanished silently into the laurels, with horrid implications!”</p>
+
+<p>The curate looked slightly puzzled. The tale was well
+sustained, and certainly circumstantial. After all, the boy
+might really have seen something. How was the poor
+man to know—though the chaste and lofty diction might
+have supplied a hint—that the whole yarn was a free
+adaptation from the last Penny Dreadful lent us by the
+knife-and-boot boy?</p>
+
+<p>“Why did you not alarm the house?” he asked.</p>
+
+<p>“’Cos I was afraid,” said Harold sweetly, “that p’raps
+they mightn’t believe me!”</p>
+
+<p>“But how did you get down here, you naughty little
+boy?” put in Aunt Maria.</p>
+
+<p>Harold was hard pressed—by his own flesh and blood,
+too!</p>
+
+<p>At that moment Edward touched me on the shoulder
+and glided off through the laurels. When some ten yards
+away he gave a low whistle. I replied with another.
+The effect was magical. Aunt Maria started up with a
+shriek. Harold gave one startled glance around, and then
+fled like a hare, made straight for the back-door, burst in
+upon the servants at supper, and buried himself in the
+broad bosom of the cook, his special ally. The curate
+faced the laurels—hesitatingly. But Aunt Maria flung
+herself on him. “O Mr. Hodgitts!” I heard her cry,
+“you are brave! for my sake do not be rash!” He was<span class="pagenum" id="Page_317">[Pg 317]</span>
+not rash. When I peeped out a second later, the coast
+was entirely clear.</p>
+
+<p>By this time there were sounds of a household timidly
+emerging; and Edward remarked to me that perhaps we
+had better be off. Retreat was an easy matter. A
+stunted laurel gave a leg-up on to the garden wall, which
+led in its turn to the roof of an out-house, up which, at a
+dubious angle, we could crawl to the window of the box-room.
+This overland route had been revealed to us one
+day by the domestic cat, when hard pressed in the course
+of an otter-hunt, in which the cat—somewhat unwillingly—was
+filling the title <i lang="fr">rôle</i>; and it had proved distinctly
+useful on occasions like the present. We were snug in
+bed—minus some cuticle from knees and elbows—and
+Harold, sleepily chewing something sticky, had been carried
+up in the arms of the friendly cook, ere the clamour
+of the burglar-hunters had died away.</p>
+
+<p>The curate’s undaunted demeanour, as reported by
+Aunt Maria, was generally supposed to have terrified the
+burglars into flight, and much kudos accrued to him
+thereby. Some days later, however, when he had
+dropped in to afternoon tea, and was making a mild curatorial
+joke about the moral courage required for taking the
+last piece of bread-and-butter, I felt constrained to remark
+dreamily, and as it were to the universe at large:
+“Mr. Hodgitts! you are brave! for my sake, do not be
+rash!”</p>
+
+<p>Fortunately for me, the vicar also was a caller on that
+day; and it was always a comparatively easy matter to
+dodge my long-coated friend in the open.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class = "right">Kenneth Grahame, <cite>The Golden Age</cite>. Copyright<br>
+by Dodd, Mead and Company, Inc. By<br>
+permission of the publishers.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_318">[Pg 318]</span></p>
+
+<br>
+<p class="center"><span class="smcap">The Kitchen</span></p>
+
+<p class="center">JULIET SOSKICE</p>
+
+<p>The kitchen was at the end of a stone passage at the
+foot of a flight of stone steps. I liked to go there, but I
+was not really allowed to. I liked it best of all in the
+evening when the servants had finished supper, and sometimes
+the cook would let me sit on a chair in the corner
+near the stove. She was rather an ill-tempered cook,
+though she often used to laugh. She had been in the
+family ever since my mother was quite a little girl. She
+had a dark yellow face and brown eyes and black hair.
+It was quite straight like tape, and she scraped it back
+from her forehead and did it in a funny knob behind. It
+wasn’t black really, but she used an excellent hair dye,
+and said, what did it matter if it came off on the pillow
+cases? She said nobody need look their age if only they
+would take the trouble to look young. But she didn’t
+look young herself, because she was so bony and her
+face so dreadfully wrinkled. She looked very nice though
+when she laughed and showed her false white teeth.
+They looked whiter than other people’s false teeth, because
+her face was so yellow and her eyes so dark. Occasionally
+she flew into an awful temper and swore so
+dreadfully that it shocked every one who heard her. But
+at other times she was quite cheerful and told very funny
+stories.</p>
+
+<p>She had a treacherous friend who was a hunch-backed
+lady. They both loved the same gentleman, but he
+couldn’t marry them because he had a wife already. The
+hunch-backed lady used to come in the evening and sit
+down in the kitchen and say how ill the wife was, and
+that she couldn’t last much longer; but she did. The<span class="pagenum" id="Page_319">[Pg 319]</span>
+hunch-backed lady said that as soon as she was dead the
+gentleman they loved would want to marry the cook, and
+that he really loved her much better than his wife. The
+cook believed it, and she said if he had only known his
+mind when they were young together all the bother would
+have been saved.</p>
+
+<p>The hunch-backed lady wore a woolly black cloak, and
+a big fur on her shoulders to hide the hunch, a black
+velvet bonnet with strings and sparkling jet ornaments,
+and an expensive gold watch-chain. She had a very
+heavy face with her chin right on her chest, and light
+blue eyes and a handsome curly fringe. She used to
+drink quantities of tea out of a saucer, very hot, but the
+cook said she really liked whisky much better when she
+could get it.</p>
+
+<p>Once she ceased coming and the cook went to look for
+her, and she found out that the wife had really been dead
+all the while, and the hunch-backed lady had got married
+to the gentleman they loved. He didn’t want to be married,
+but she made him. She was afraid that if the cook
+had known his wife was dead she would have made him
+first.</p>
+
+<p>There was a page-boy in this house too, but not an
+anarchist. He wore no buttons, and he had to stop down
+in the kitchen and help the cook because of her “poor
+leg.”</p>
+
+<p>She got it through going out to buy three pounds of fish
+at the fishmonger’s and slipping on a piece of orange-peel
+outside the door. It used to give way just at the most
+awkward moments, and she said she almost believed it
+knew and did it on purpose. If she had a saucepan in
+her hand, or a piece of toast, or a leg of mutton it was
+all the same—she had to put it down on the floor and
+clutch herself round the knee to pull her leg straight<span class="pagenum" id="Page_320">[Pg 320]</span>
+again. Everybody knew about it, and the first thing
+they said when they came into the kitchen was, “Good-morning,
+cook, and how’s your poor leg?” and then she
+told them about it. When she sat down the boy used to
+arrange a chair in front of her for her to rest it on.</p>
+
+<p>He had a fat, red face, and he was always smiling. The
+cook said she wouldn’t have believed that any living
+mouth could stretch so far. It used to make people
+angry, because whenever they looked at him he smiled,
+even when there was nothing at all to smile at. My
+grandfather said he was like the man in Shakespeare who
+smiled and was a villain. He liked eating apples and a
+sweet-stuff called stick-jaw that glued his teeth together.
+The cook said he was the biggest liar that ever walked
+the earth. He always pretended he had a serious illness
+and he must go and see the doctor. But instead he
+went and played in Regent’s Park. Once he tied his face
+up in a bandage for two days and said that he was going
+to the dentist to have a double tooth out. And he borrowed
+a huge cart-horse from one of the stables in the
+mews and went for a ride on it, without a saddle, and
+with an old piece of rope instead of reins; and that was
+how he got found out. The horse insisted on going past
+the house when it wanted to return to its stable. He
+tugged at it as hard as he could to make it go home
+round the back way, but it refused, and the cook was on
+the area steps and saw him. She said she wouldn’t have
+been so certain if he hadn’t had an enormous apple in
+one hand. When he came next day, he said it was the
+dentist’s horse, and he had sent him for a ride on it to
+get rid of the effects of laughing gas. But we knew the
+very stable where it lived, and so he was dismissed.</p>
+
+<p>The housemaid was Irish, and she couldn’t read or
+write, but she believed in ghosts. She had been a long<span class="pagenum" id="Page_321">[Pg 321]</span>
+time in the family too, and she was very fat, with a big
+pink face and little beady eyes. She was the kindest
+person I ever knew. Whenever we liked anything she
+had she always wanted to give it to us, and it really
+grieved her if we wouldn’t have it. She gave away all
+her money to the beggars at the garden gate and if she
+heard of any of us being ill or punished it made her
+cry, just as if she herself were in trouble. She used to
+fall about a great deal. If there was any place she could
+fall into she always did. She said she had measured
+her length upon every free space of ground in the house,
+and bumped her head on every stair, and caught her foot
+in every rug and carpet. But she didn’t let it worry her.
+One night, when she was standing on the slippery little
+knob at the end of the bannisters to light the gas outside
+the studio door, she fell off and lay quite still with her leg
+doubled under her until the family had finished dinner,
+because she didn’t want to disturb them by calling out.
+Once she fell into the drawing-room with a great big tea-tray
+when there was a tea-party and alarmed the guests
+exceedingly. But my grandmother was not angry. She
+said nothing at all, but helped her to get up and pick the
+tea-things up again.</p>
+
+<p>She believed in ghosts most firmly. She said that her
+mother had seen so many in Ireland that she simply took
+no notice of them. They were in every room in the
+house and up and down the stairs. They used to ring
+the bells when nothing was wanted and knock people
+about when they got in their way, and whenever anybody
+died or anything was going to happen they made a horrible
+noise outside the windows in the night. Once, she
+said, she passed a woman nursing her own head on a
+stone by the roadside, and they just looked at one another,
+but neither of them spoke.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_322">[Pg 322]</span></p>
+
+<p>A gentleman in a nightshirt had hanged himself from
+a hook in the middle of the ceiling in the servants’ bedroom,
+before my grandfather came to the house, and the
+housemaid said his spirit haunted the top storey. She
+woke up one night and saw a figure standing in the middle
+of the room and looking at her. She knew it was the
+same gentleman, because he still wore his nightshirt and
+had the rope round his neck, and he was standing just
+underneath the place where the hook would have been
+had it not been taken down when the ceiling was whitewashed.
+He was looking at her fixedly. If he had
+looked the other way he might have noticed the cook in
+the other bed as well, and that would have been some
+relief. But he didn’t. He gazed and gazed as though
+his heart was going to break. She was so frightened that
+she shook the bed with trembling; and she shut her eyes
+and put her hand under the pillow and got out her rosary,
+and said five “Hail Mary’s.” And when she opened them
+again he was still there, only not quite so solid. After
+another five he had got so misty that she could see the
+furniture through him, and after the third five he had
+disappeared. But she was so terrified, she said, that she
+didn’t get a wink of sleep that night, and when she woke
+in the morning her nightdress and sheets were quite damp
+with terror.</p>
+
+<p>The cook didn’t believe it. She said it was pure popery.
+She was sure no ghost could possibly come in in the night
+like that without her noticing it, because she was such
+a light sleeper. But as a matter of fact, she snored so
+dreadfully that my grandfather once asked a builder for
+an estimate for padding the walls of the servants’ room
+all round so that she couldn’t be heard on the floor underneath,
+but she was so offended that it wasn’t padded.</p>
+
+<p>They sometimes used to laugh at the housemaid in the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_323">[Pg 323]</span>
+kitchen for being a Catholic. But she didn’t care. She
+stuck to her religion. She was so certain that the Virgin
+Mary was taking care of her, or she would have been
+worse hurt in the dreadful accidents she used to have.
+She said no living being could have stood it without divine
+protection. When she was doing something that she
+thought really might be dangerous, she just said, “Jesus,
+Mary, Joseph, help!” and took more care, and nothing
+happened.</p>
+
+<p>The cook said why she didn’t like Catholics was because
+she thought they were wicked for burning the
+Protestants alive on posts in the streets in the olden days
+when there were no police. I said that the Protestants
+burnt the Catholics first, but she was offended. She said
+that no Protestant would ever have thought of such a
+thing if it hadn’t been put into their heads by bad example.
+They argued so angrily about which burnt the
+other first that the housemaid put her apron over her
+head and sat down on a chair and began to cry aloud like
+the Irish do at funerals. But then she left off and went
+upstairs to do her work, and she tumbled about so badly
+in the bedroom over the studio that my grandfather got
+down from his painting chair to go upstairs and see what
+the matter was, and when he found out why she was crying
+he was very angry. He stumped right downstairs to
+the top of the kitchen flight and with his spectacles on top
+of his head, his palette in one hand and his paint-brush
+in the other. It was difficult for him to get downstairs
+because of his gout. But he did, and put his head over
+the bannisters and forbade the subject ever again to be
+mentioned in the kitchen. And it was not, and they were
+quite good friends again after that.</p>
+
+<p>The person who most hated Catholics was Mrs. Hall,
+the wife of the most pious cabman in the mews at the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_324">[Pg 324]</span>
+corner. She was the beautiful woman who sat in the
+barge and nursed the healthy baby that had been painted
+as twins. She was so beautiful that it was quite remarkable.
+Her hair was jet black, and when one day she sat
+down in a chair in the kitchen and let it down for us to
+see it trailed upon the floor. Her eyes were dark blue
+and extremely big and bright, but the doctor said that the
+brightness was unnatural, and that later she might go
+blind. She was very tall, and whenever she stood she
+used to look strong and composed and like the statues
+that stand round on pedestals in museums. Her husband
+used to say God punished her for her sins by not giving
+her a baby.</p>
+
+<p>The husband went to a chapel where any one who
+liked could get up and preach, and the others were obliged
+to listen. He preached every time he got a chance, and
+he said he never felt inclined to stop. He loved his fellow
+creatures so much that he felt compelled to save their
+souls. He always carried a bundle of tracts about in
+his pocket, and when any one paid him his fare he gave
+them some free of charge in exchange. My grandfather
+used to say to him, “It’s no good, Hall, I’m past all redemption,”
+because he didn’t want the tracts, but Mr.
+Hall stuffed a bundle into the pocket of his overcoat while
+he was helping him to get out of the cab. Mrs. Hall said
+that he wrestled with God for his soul in private. They
+were allowed to do that at his chapel.</p>
+
+<p>He was so religious that he thought both Catholics and
+Protestants were wicked. He said the mistake that
+everybody made was to think there was more than one
+door open into Heaven. He said, “Is there more than
+one door open into Heaven? No! And why is there not
+more than one door open into Heaven? Because if there<span class="pagenum" id="Page_325">[Pg 325]</span>
+was more than one door open into Heaven there would
+be a draught in Heaven. And would the Lord tolerate a
+draught in Heaven? No!” That was part of one of his
+sermons. It really meant that it was only the door of
+his chapel that led into Heaven, and that other people
+hadn’t got a chance.</p>
+
+<p>Some people said he was a handsome man, but I didn’t
+think so. He was small and his hair was such a bright
+yellow that it looked as if it had been painted. He had
+strawberry-coloured cheeks and his nose was deadly white.
+Whenever he met a very nice young girl he used to take
+her to prayer-meeting, because he loved her soul. He
+knew a great many. His wife was angry because he took
+so much trouble about their souls, and the more he loved
+them the more she hated them. She used to cry and tell
+the cook which particular one he was saving then, and the
+cook used to say “The saucy hussy! I’d save ’er, and
+’im too!”</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>The kitchen was really pleasantest of all in the evening
+when they were resting after supper. Sometimes there
+were quite a lot of people there. The charwoman used to
+unscrew her wooden leg and lean it up against her chair.
+She said you couldn’t think what a relief it gave her.
+But, of course, if she’d had to get up suddenly for anything
+before she’d had time to screw it on again she
+would certainly have fallen. The cook had her leg up on
+the chair in front of her and talked about them. But the
+charwoman talked most. She was a middle-sized woman
+with greasy greeny-greyish hair, and there always seemed
+to be perspiration on her face. She talked whatever she
+was doing. She talked so much that people could never<span class="pagenum" id="Page_326">[Pg 326]</span>
+understand how she got through all the work she did.
+At first it was disturbing, like rain pattering on a roof, but
+after a time you wouldn’t notice it.</p>
+
+<p>She said that her husband and her husband’s mother
+and her husband’s father had all got wooden legs. She
+said that it was fate, and when the doctor in the hospital
+had told her that her right must go it was hardly any
+shock to her. She had a little girl called Sarah, and whenever
+she had anything the matter with her the first thing
+she always did with her was to test her legs at once.
+Even if it was only a cold or something wrong at quite
+another end of her body she always did. The housemaid
+said that it was tempting Providence to talk like
+that, but she didn’t care.</p>
+
+<p>She talked most of all with Mrs. Catlin, the woman
+who did fine needlework and used to make my grandfather’s
+shirts. She was a caretaker in one of the great
+big houses in Ormonde Terrace, and she used to look so
+young and innocent that everybody called her the “little
+woman,” when she wasn’t there. When she had finished
+some work she used to bring it round in the evening after
+her babies were in bed, and then she’d stand near the
+dresser and talk, but she never sat down round the table
+with the others. She was rather plump and she always
+looked pink and clean as though she’d come straight out
+of a bath. She had nice fluffy hair and blue eyes, and
+her nose turned up just a little at the end, but gently and
+not suddenly like Tommy Haughty’s mother’s. She
+talked a good deal too, but she had a pretty tinkling
+voice. She said when you’d been shut up in a great big
+barracks of a place the whole day long you simply must
+let loose or burst. Sometimes she and the charwoman
+talked both at once for a long time. They seemed not
+to hear at all what the others said, but it made no difference.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_327">[Pg 327]</span>
+Cook said it was like pandemonium in a hailstorm
+when those two get together.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class = "right">From <cite>Chapters from Childhood</cite> by Juliet<br>
+Soskice. Harcourt, Brace and Company, Inc.</p>
+</div>
+
+<br>
+<p class = "center">SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY OF REMINISCENT NARRATIVE</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>The editors have found these additional selections very useful
+in teaching reminiscent narrative:</p>
+
+<p>Adams, Henry. <cite>The Education of Henry Adams</cite>, the early chapters.
+Houghton Mifflin Company.</p>
+
+<p>Burroughs, John. <cite>My Boyhood.</cite> Doubleday, Page &amp; Company.</p>
+
+<p>Hudson, W. H. <cite>Far Away and Long Ago.</cite> E. P. Dutton &amp; Company.</p>
+
+<p>Lubbock, Percy. <cite>Earlham</cite>, particularly the early chapters. Charles
+Scribner’s Sons.</p>
+
+<p>Muir, John. <cite>The Story of My Boyhood and Youth.</cite> Houghton
+Mifflin Company.</p>
+
+<p>Pater, Walter. <cite>The Child in the House.</cite></p>
+</div>
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_328">[Pg 328]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_IX">CHAPTER IX</h2>
+</div>
+<br>
+<p class = "center"><cite>Narratives of Adventure</cite></p>
+
+
+<p>Of all forms of narrative the account of adventure is,
+it is safe to say, the very oldest. It dates back, indeed,
+to the childhood of all races. Not only was it written
+on Egyptian papyrus four thousand years before Christ,
+but it was told and sung around camp and council fires
+long before written history begins.</p>
+
+<p>Nor has its popularity decreased with age and with the
+advance of civilization. Young and old alike still delight
+in accounts of physical prowess, in stories of danger
+and disaster, in tales of experiences in far-away places
+and among unfamiliar peoples. Boy scouts reluctantly
+leave their camp-fires to dream of hunting and trapping in
+the far north or in the African jungle; college students
+swap adventures upon their return in the fall; and the
+Arctic explorer speaks to houses crowded with all sorts
+and conditions of men.</p>
+
+<p>It is only natural, therefore, that the writing of accounts
+of adventure should appeal to a student perhaps
+more than the writing of any other form of narrative.
+Material lies close at hand, culled either from his own
+experience or from that of those whom he knows; and he
+is eager to present that material so that his readers or
+hearers may feel that same thrill of excitement which
+he has felt so often.</p>
+
+<p>And yet in order that that thrill of excitement may be<span class="pagenum" id="Page_329">[Pg 329]</span>
+experienced to the full, it is necessary that he understand
+how to tell his story in the best way, how to begin at
+once with no unnecessary preliminaries which will retard
+the action, how to keep and to increase suspense in his
+readers, how to make the most of his culminating and
+climactic incident, how to conclude his story impressively
+so that his readers may not lose their eager interest before
+the last word.</p>
+
+<p>The selections that follow illustrate some of the best
+methods of handling adventure material. In <cite>Wild Justice</cite>
+Mr. Townshend is recounting an incident so dramatic and
+stupendous in itself that he uses the simplest style possible
+in its portrayal. His sentences, for the most part,
+are short and direct; his words are simple and concrete.
+He realizes fully that description of scenery which is not
+absolutely necessary, or characterization of persons, except
+that given by their own behavior, are out of place
+in a narrative as absorbing as this one.</p>
+
+<p>The student must not think, however, that description
+is always out of place in an account of adventures. Sometimes,
+on the contrary, it immeasurably adds to the effectiveness
+of the narrative. In <cite>The Attack of the Tiger</cite>, for
+example, which depicts an incident of the jungle, a place
+in itself strange and exotic to us, Mr. Rosny increases the
+atmosphere which he would create of this “world of trees”
+by his beautiful use of description. Again, in the selection
+from Pierre Loti’s <cite>The Iceland Fisherman</cite>, the exquisite
+portrayal of the storm is used as the background
+against which, or perhaps better, as the setting <em>in</em> which,
+Yann and Sylvestre move. The elements of the storm,
+the clouds, the wind, the waves, became, in fact, the adventurers,
+as well as the men who contend against them.
+And what a charming effect is given by the refrain which
+Yann and Sylvestre sing through their white lips! Indeed,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_330">[Pg 330]</span>
+both of these selections show what artistic heights
+the writer of adventure narratives may reach, what purely
+æsthetic effects are possible in his work.</p>
+
+<p>The following suggestions may be of assistance to the
+student:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>1. Study the incident (or incidents) which you are to
+relate. If it seems to you to be so dramatic in itself that
+it needs little help from the style or diction, then choose
+the simplest and most direct manner of relating it. If,
+on the other hand, the environment in which the action
+takes place seems to you all-important, do not hesitate to
+employ means which will add atmosphere to your narrative.</p>
+
+<p>2. Do not waste time in getting started. Remember
+that preliminaries are dangerous in the writing of an account
+of adventure. Be as economical with them as
+possible.</p>
+
+<p>3. Be sure that your story <em>mounts</em> continually, that the
+suspense increases. Do not allow any digressions.</p>
+
+<p>4. Do not, however, be in too great a hurry to relate
+your climactic incident. You will increase the suspense
+by slowing down before you reach it, by giving <em>all</em> the
+details. Note how fully and clearly Mr. Townshend depicts
+every step of the proceeding between the verdict of
+guilty and the actual hanging. A less careful writer
+would have spoiled his narrative by being in too much of
+a hurry.</p>
+
+<p>5. Make your close as effective as possible, and <em>know
+when you have finished</em>. Note that <cite>Wild Justice</cite> really
+ends with the words, “The work was done.”</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="right">
+M. E. C.<br>
+</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_331">[Pg 331]</span></p>
+
+<br>
+<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Wild Justice</span></p>
+
+<p class="center">R. B. TOWNSHEND</p>
+
+<p>Returning to Denver, I parted company with Matthews;
+to tell the truth, I was a bit tired of his everlasting
+sneers, so often (as I thought) directed against better
+men than himself. Besides, I thought I was competent
+now to stand on my own feet instead of going around on
+a personally conducted tour. Naturally my first step was
+to buy a horse. For this I went to Billy and Hi Ford,
+who had brought some 1500 head of wild bronco stock—bronco
+is Spanish for unbroken—from California to Denver
+where they were selling them as rapidly as they could
+get them broken in. Ford Brothers soon took my measure
+and for I think $60 fitted me out with a little brown
+mare, who had been ridden several times. They put me
+very carefully on her, and I went down the Platte a few
+miles and put up at a ranch. Along the main freighting
+roads most ranches would take you in overnight and give
+you supper, bed and breakfast for $1.50, or if your horse
+had to be fed also, for $2.25. A snowstorm came on that
+night and I lay there two days till the weather improved.
+The little brown mare had done herself uncommonly well
+in the barn, and when I tried to climb on to her back on
+the third morning she began to play up. The friendly
+and much amused ranchman lent me a helping hand, however,
+and at last I got myself fixed in the saddle with my
+blanket roll padding me in well there and the ranchman
+hanging tight on to her head.</p>
+
+<p>“Do you think she’ll buck?” I asked nervously as he
+let her go.</p>
+
+<p>“Guess so,” said he.</p>
+
+<p>And buck she certainly did. But I was so well wedged<span class="pagenum" id="Page_332">[Pg 332]</span>
+in with my pack that I did manage to remain, though I
+can’t say I liked it, and the upshot of it was I rode back
+to Denver and traded her (plus $20 more) to Billy Ford
+for an ancient chestnut “bronc” who had got over all his
+youthful frivolities. I called him Methusalem, and he
+turned out an excellent travelling animal for a tenderfoot.
+On him I rode out to Kiowa Creek to visit an English
+ranchman I had met in Denver, and I stayed there a few
+days riding around the prairie and seeing what cattle was
+like. My friend had a nice American wife and a nice
+bunch of American cattle, which he milked, while she,
+like a good ranchwoman, made butter from the milk.
+Butter was worth, I think, 75 cents a pound. Of course
+these American dairy cattle, which were just like our ordinary
+English farm stock, were quite unlike the long-horned,
+long-legged animals of Spanish breed, of which
+drovers had just begun to bring up large herds from Texas.
+The older Colorado stock-men, owners of American stock,
+rather resented this intrusion, as the wild Texas brutes
+could be sold for less than half the prices they had been
+used to getting, and consequently their profits went down;
+but they had to put up with it. All the disgruntled owner
+of American stock could do was to chase the others off his
+range when they invaded it, but this he had no legal right
+to do, as the range was Government land, and he only did
+it at the risk of rough handling from the Texan cow-punchers,
+and I much enjoyed the good gallops on the
+prairie even though Methusalem was hardly fast enough
+to head a wild steer. But I did get my first taste of cow-punching
+and liked it well.</p>
+
+<p>Next I decided to wander down the Platte and see what
+that section was like. Ranches extended some fifty odd
+miles below Denver, about to the point where the South
+Platte River makes its big bend eastwards, and at this<span class="pagenum" id="Page_333">[Pg 333]</span>
+point a new town was just being started. It was named
+Evans in honour of the man who had been Governor of
+Colorado before McCook, and its <cite>raison d’être</cite> was that
+the first railroad into Colorado was now being opened so
+far for traffic. This railroad was the Denver Pacific R. R.
+running from Cheyenne to Denver, and Evans was the
+half-way house. The city was just three weeks old when
+I got there, and the site of it was on the north bank of
+the Platte, across which a bridge was going to be built.
+I put up at the ranch of a very friendly old ranchman,
+Godfrey, no relation to the other Godfrey down at
+Saguache; he had a bunch of American cattle, and a wife
+and son, the latter a very fine young fellow. Godfrey let
+me use his rifle, an old-fashioned small-bored muzzle-loader
+with a heavy octagon barrel nearly four feet long, I
+should say. Armed with this wondrous weapon I sallied
+out after antelopes, of which there were any number
+around there, and I got my first lessons in stalking.
+Stalking antelope, like everything else, was quite new to
+me, and I was as keen as possible to take lessons in whatever
+thing there was to be learnt. There was something,
+though, to be learnt in that little mushroom city of Evans
+which I most certainly did not anticipate. When I rode
+over there I found that it consisted of some forty or fifty
+houses of raw boards, mostly half-finished or with their
+roofs in process of being “shingled,” stuck down here
+and there on the bare prairie. The parched yellow
+bunch-grass, over which wild Texas cattle had grazed a
+month before, grew up to, and under, the little frame
+buildings which were raised for the most part six inches
+or a foot off the ground on stone or brick props; the earth
+was cut up in every direction by the ruts of waggon-wheels,
+and piles of newly sawn lumber lay about. In
+the middle of all snorted the locomotive, the earliest that<span class="pagenum" id="Page_334">[Pg 334]</span>
+ever ran on the plains of Colorado—for the railroad had
+come at last, and this was the end of the track, the first
+completed section of the iron road, in Colorado Territory.</p>
+
+<p>I was riding past a bar-room where there were some
+men with whisky bottles and glasses set out before them,
+when one of them sung out to me:</p>
+
+<p>“Come ’n hev’ a drink.”</p>
+
+<p>“No, thank you,” I replied without pulling up.</p>
+
+<p>In a moment out flashed a revolver pointed straight at
+my head.</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, you will,” said the same voice with emphasis, “or
+else——”</p>
+
+<p>What “else” meant was left to the imagination, but I
+didn’t find it hard to guess. My reply was:</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, certainly,” and I sprang from my saddle saying,
+“I’d rather drink than be shot any day.” And without
+more ado I took my dose. But I can’t say I liked my
+society.</p>
+
+<p>“I’ve looked to see ’em have a man for breakfast any
+morning,” said old Godfrey when I got back to the ranch
+and told him of it. “According to what I hear they’ve bin
+shooting at the lamps in the saloons and dancing on the
+bars, slinging their six-shooters round their heads, and
+raising Cain generally, every night. I’ve wondered there
+hasn’t been nobody shot yet, but I reckon they were each
+one of ’em kind of shy of being the first to begin. But
+now, if they’ve started in, likely they’ll have another
+Julesburg here if they ain’t interfered with.”</p>
+
+<p>Julesburg, as I have already said, was a spot that had
+been the end of the track on the Union Pacific Railroad
+for some months during its construction, and it had been,
+perhaps, the most debauched and the most blood-stained
+little moral pesthouse the Far West ever saw. A young
+man presently arrived at Godfrey’s where he also found<span class="pagenum" id="Page_335">[Pg 335]</span>
+quarters under that hospitable roof; he called himself a
+schoolmaster by trade, and his object was to see if by
+chance such a thing was wanted in this three-weeks’-old
+town. A town, even the newest, almost always had some
+families, and that generally meant some boys of school
+age, with, as the obvious and natural consequence, an
+opening for a schoolmaster. I can’t say that I was much
+impressed with my new friend’s scholastic qualifications,
+but I was out to learn all I could of this strange country,
+and at his invitation I rode with him down to the ford
+across the South Platte with a view to seeing what opening
+there might be in Evans. “Crack” came the sharp
+sound of a pistol shot as we rode through the icy ford, and
+we saw men running among the houses, and a couple of
+horsemen with rifles in their hands galloping after a man
+who was flying at top speed towards the brush in the
+Platte bottom.</p>
+
+<p>“The toughs from Cheyenne have been trying to run
+this town ever since it was started,” said my companion,
+“but they haven’t killed anyone so far. I wonder if that
+shot means the first man killed.”</p>
+
+<p>We rode through the fringe of willow brush and cottonwood
+trees that skirted the river, and up the bluff. We
+now got fairly into the town and saw all the population—all
+the male population, that is—swarming like bees in
+the middle of the main street. Horses and ox-teams
+stood here and there untended; the shingling hatchets and
+carpenter’s tools lay around the half-finished houses, just
+where they had been thrown down. The stores were
+open, but they were empty, for buyers and sellers had
+crowded, like all the rest, to the scene of action. There
+in the centre of the crowd was a sight to remember. Ten
+men shoulder to shoulder formed a ring, each man facing
+outwards, each man holding his cocked revolver, muzzle<span class="pagenum" id="Page_336">[Pg 336]</span>
+up, the hand that held it being on a level with his chest;
+the men’s set mouths and searching eyes, turning restlessly
+on the crowd around, showed them to be sharply
+on the watch for signs of an attempted rescue.</p>
+
+<p>A rescue, but of whom? It did not take long to recognize
+who was the object of their care. In the middle of
+the ring, bareheaded, with his arms bound, stood a prisoner,
+a sickly smile on his loose lips, and the colour coming
+and going in patches on his bloated face. By him was
+a guard, also pistol in hand like those who formed the
+ring, but his eyes were bent not on the crowd, but on the
+prisoner; and the pistol he held was pointed not toward
+the sky, but straight at the prisoner’s heart. Were a
+rescue attempted, it was clear the rescuers would recover
+only a corpse. That the toughs would try to set their
+friend free if they dared was certain; it was useless to
+try to secure him by locking him up in an extempore gaol,
+for there was no building in the town that could resist a
+determined assault for five minutes; but a bodyguard
+such as now held him could not be maintained for long.
+These men had their own business to attend to; and
+standing guard, pistol in hand, expecting to kill or be
+killed, is a dead loss of time and wages. However, it was
+not intended by those who were putting their energies,
+heart and soul, into the building of a new town to waste
+very much time over guarding a murderer. For it was
+murder that this wretched captive was held for, and stiff
+and stark, in a house hard by, with a bullet through his
+brain, lay the body of his victim. The sound of the loud
+weeping of the widowed wife and orphan daughters was
+heard at intervals across the vacant lots, and that agonized
+crying served to inflame the passions of the crowd.
+From the bystanders I gathered that old man Steel, a
+most respectable man who kept a boarding-house, had<span class="pagenum" id="Page_337">[Pg 337]</span>
+just been shot by a tough, and that it was more than
+probable that Judge Lynch would take cognizance of the
+case. The crying of the wretched widow and orphaned
+children sounded in the ears of the people, and called for
+vengeance. The one anxiety was, would the other railroad
+toughs try to rescue their hero?</p>
+
+<p>Presently an empty lumber waggon was run out a little
+way from the town on the bare prairie; from the box end
+of this a few nail kegs were arranged in a double row,
+perhaps eight feet apart, and boards were laid on them
+for seats. A man sprang up on the waggon, and said:</p>
+
+<p>“A crime has been committed here, and I move that a
+People’s Court be constituted to try the case. Those in
+favour will say ‘Aye.’”</p>
+
+<p>“Aye, aye,” came from all quarters, like a dropping fire.</p>
+
+<p>“Contrary, ‘No,’” the temporary chairman added, as
+if by an afterthought.</p>
+
+<p>I fancied I heard a few muttered remarks, but no man
+said “No” openly. Perhaps the railroad toughs were lying
+low for the present.</p>
+
+<p>Up jumped another man, so quick and pat that it
+dawned upon me that there was a prepared scheme being
+put in operation.</p>
+
+<p>“I move that Captain Sopris be elected judge of this
+court,” he said.</p>
+
+<p>As before, the “Ayes” had it.</p>
+
+<p>“Captain Sopris was a People’s Judge in Denver, and
+he hanged a heap of men there, too, time of the Pike’s
+Peak boom,” said an old-timer near me. “The captain
+knows the ropes.” There was a grim double meaning in
+the way he said “ropes.”</p>
+
+<p>Captain Sopris mounted the waggon box in his turn
+and took his seat, throwing a keen eye over the crowd.</p>
+
+<p>“Gentlemen,” he said, “I have been elected to try this<span class="pagenum" id="Page_338">[Pg 338]</span>
+case by you, the people. Is it your will that I should
+select a jury? Those who are in favour say ‘Aye!’”</p>
+
+<p>Once more the full-throated chorus of “Ayes!” arose
+from the crowd.</p>
+
+<p>“Contrary, ‘No,’” said the Judge to the crowd in
+matter-of-fact tones, turning at the same time to speak to
+a man beside him. It was his art, I think, to appear to
+take it all as mere matter of course, yet I am certain he
+and his supporters were sharply on the watch for any sign
+of opposition from the prisoner’s friends. But the “people”
+had got a leader now, and any who would have liked
+to interfere were cowed by the almost unanimous ‘Aye!’ of
+the majority. When the judge said “Contrary, ‘No!’”
+there may have been a murmur here and there, but no
+man durst answer “No,” square and bold.</p>
+
+<p>The people were rousing to their work. We were all
+packed tight round the court, for that farm waggon and
+the nail keg seats had become the Court of the People out
+there on the prairie under the open sky. I had dismounted
+and wedged myself in next the seats where my
+neighbour said the jury would be. Quickly a dozen jurors
+were chosen and took their places. A Bible was produced,
+and every juror was sworn to give an honest verdict.
+Each man as soon as he was sworn took his seat, on
+one or other of the impromptu benches, till there were six
+on one side and six on the other.</p>
+
+<p>“And now,” said the judge, “bring in the prisoner.”</p>
+
+<p>Accordingly the guards, with the prisoner in their midst,
+moved up to the open side of the court; but as they did
+so it was seen that something had occurred, for beside
+the prisoner stood little Pat Egan, who was believed to
+represent the majesty of the law in some sort of capacity
+or other.</p>
+
+<p>“Captain Sopris,” he began in somewhat plaintive accents,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_339">[Pg 339]</span>
+“this hyar thing ain’ regular at all. By rights this
+hyar man’s my prisoner, and I can’t consent to no proceedings
+of this sort.”</p>
+
+<p>The judge took no more notice of him than if he had
+been a piece of wood; less, indeed, for he did not appear
+to see him.</p>
+
+<p>“But,” continued the little Irishman, “I’m a county
+officer, I am, and I’m liable to be called in question for
+this business. And I can’t give up this man,” he went on
+piteously, “without some excuse, ye know I can’t.”</p>
+
+<p>The audience smiled audibly, but the judge, the jury
+and guards never looked at him, never heard him, never
+knew he was there, so to speak, but went on with their
+own business, arranging the order in which the witnesses
+should be called.</p>
+
+<p>Pat Egan continued his pitiful demands for an excuse.
+The crowd was jammed thick round the court, the foremost
+men leaning over the backs of the jury on both sides.
+Eager to catch every word, I had tied my horse to a post
+in the street and had squeezed myself in up to the very
+seat where the jury sat, so that I was within a couple of
+yards of Mr. Egan and the prisoner. Leaning on me was
+a great yellow-bearded giant in a slouch hat. He reached
+down to his hip and produced an enormous revolver, one
+of the old dragoon Colt’s, with a barrel about a foot long.
+Bearing on my shoulder with his left hand, he extended
+his long right arm over the heads of the jury till the pistol-muzzle
+was within a few inches of Pat’s head. Pat, with
+his face to the judge’s bench, was still volubly explaining
+that he was a county officer and couldn’t consent.</p>
+
+<p>“Mr. Egan,” breathed the giant with the big pistol, in
+the softest tones.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Egan was absorbed in his own ardent utterances,
+and didn’t hear.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_340">[Pg 340]</span></p>
+
+<p>“Mr. Egan,” a little louder.</p>
+
+<p>Pat turned round sharp and looked into the muzzle of
+the formidable weapon.</p>
+
+<p>“Mr. Egan, will that do ye for an excuse?” said the
+giant with an air of gentle sarcasm.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Egan recoiled several feet with an air of comic
+alarm.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, certainly, sir,” he responded with alacrity. “Certainly,
+certainly, quite sufficient; that will do.” And he,
+the sole representative of the lawful Government of Colorado,
+disappeared promptly and finally from the scene.</p>
+
+<p>And now the serious business of the court began.</p>
+
+<p>“Is there a lawyer in town?” asked the judge. “If so,
+fetch him. The prisoner can have a counsel.”</p>
+
+<p>There was a Mr. Tallboys, a lawyer, a very young one,
+who came. The people of this mushroom town had arrived
+with a rush from everywhere, and every profession
+was represented.</p>
+
+<p>“Understand,” said Sopris, leaning over from the waggon
+to the counsel for the accused, “this is a People’s
+Court. Any arguments you can use for your client will
+get a fair hearing. But you are not to object to the competence
+of the court. If you try to do so, I am deaf.”</p>
+
+<p>The lawyer, looking very uncomfortable, murmured
+some indistinct answer. He was in an extremely irregular
+and unpleasant position. But he saw that he must either
+accept it or go. He elected to stay. As counsel for
+the prisoner, he stood beside him in the centre of the
+court.</p>
+
+<p>“I shall now call on the prosecution to bring forward
+their witnesses,” said Captain Sopris. “We will hear their
+story first, and you, prisoner, can cross-examine them
+either by yourself or by your lawyer.”</p>
+
+<p>The first witness came forward and, after having been<span class="pagenum" id="Page_341">[Pg 341]</span>
+sworn on the Book to tell the truth, the whole truth, and
+nothing but the truth, began:</p>
+
+<p>“I was at dinner at old man Steel’s boarding-house. It
+was the first table and it was chock-full. This man come
+in—he was a boarder there too—and wanted to find a
+place, and growled because he couldn’t get none. Then
+one of Mr. Steel’s gals who was waiting at table told him
+he must wait till his turn, till there was room. Wal’, he
+says something sassy to her, and she up and slaps a cup
+of coffee she had in her hand right in his face. Then he
+begun to get up on his ear about it, and so two or three of
+the young fellows at table jest fired him out.”</p>
+
+<p>The judge, who was sitting reflectively on the waggon-box,
+with his head on his hand, here interposed.</p>
+
+<p>“Did they hit him or pound him at all?”</p>
+
+<p>“No,” answered the witness, “not nohow. They jest
+took him by the shoulders and jest naturally fired him
+out’n the door. He’d had a drink or two in him, you
+know, though he warn’t drunk.”</p>
+
+<p>“What did he do then?” asked one of the jury.</p>
+
+<p>“Went off, I reckon,” said the witness. “I didn’t see
+no more of him.”</p>
+
+<p>“Did Mr. Steel have anything to do with turning him
+out?” asked the judge.</p>
+
+<p>“No, sir. He warn’t thar’; he was in the inner room, I
+reckon.”</p>
+
+<p>“Did you see the shooting?” asked the judge.</p>
+
+<p>“No, sir, I went off to my work as soon as dinner was
+over,” was the reply.</p>
+
+<p>“Mr. Tallboys, do you wish to ask this witness any
+questions?” said the judge to the prisoner’s lawyer.</p>
+
+<p>The lawyer conferred a minute with his client, and then
+said to the court that he didn’t wish to cross-examine this
+man. The witness, a young carpenter, was accordingly<span class="pagenum" id="Page_342">[Pg 342]</span>
+told he could go, which he did with an air of very considerable
+relief, mingling at once with the crowd. Another
+man was now brought forward and sworn like the first.</p>
+
+<p>“Were you with Mr. Steel after dinner?” asked the
+judge.</p>
+
+<p>“Yes,” said the witness, “I was.”</p>
+
+<p>“Tell the jury what happened.”</p>
+
+<p>“Mr. Steel and I were unloading a load of lumber I’d
+brought for him. He was at one end of the pile, I was at
+the other, and we were lifting the boards off the waggon.
+Suddenly I saw the prisoner come up behind Mr. Steel,
+and I heard him say, ‘I want to talk to you.’”</p>
+
+<p>“Was the prisoner alone?” asked a juryman.</p>
+
+<p>“I didn’t see anyone, not to say actually with him.
+There were two or three men standing together across the
+street, but I don’t know for certain as they had anything
+to do with him.”</p>
+
+<p>“What did Mr. Steel say?” asked the judge.</p>
+
+<p>“He looks at him, and says he, ‘I can’t talk to you now:
+I’m busy. You must come around after working hours.’
+Then the prisoner says, ‘You’ve got to talk to me, and
+you’ve got to talk to me now.’ And Mr. Steel he says,
+‘Wal’, I ain’t agoin’ to,’ and turned round to take hold of
+the lumber again; and the prisoner, he reaches down and
+pulls out his pistol, and, before I could holler to him or
+do anything, he just put it close behind Mr. Steel’s head
+and fired. Mr. Steel dropped, and the prisoner he ran.
+I started round the waggon to grab him, but he ran t’other
+way. Then I picked up Mr. Steel; he was breathing, but
+he never spoke. The bullet went in at the back of his
+head, and come out over his right eye. Me and some
+more took him into the house.”</p>
+
+<p>“Mr. Tallboys, have you any question to ask this witness?”
+said Captain Sopris.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_343">[Pg 343]</span></p>
+
+<p>Mr. Tallboys consulted with the prisoner awhile, and
+announced that he had not. The witness, a teamster,
+was accordingly dismissed, like the former one. Three
+or four more were called, and repeated the story told by
+these two in much the same words. It was elicited that
+the prisoner had had no pistol on when he came to dinner
+and was put out-of-doors, so that he must have procured
+it in the interval before he came back. The case was so
+clear that there was no necessity to distress those poor,
+unhappy women by calling them.</p>
+
+<p>One of the men who captured the prisoner testified that
+he was at work near, and “happened to have a saddled
+horse near, and a Winchester handy.” Also that he had
+a friend similarly provided. Tenderfoot though I was, it
+dawned on me that these men must belong to an organized
+body who had made themselves ready beforehand.
+Evans had its Vigilantes. The two friends heard a shot,
+saw a man with a pistol running for the brush, heard the
+people crying murder, and at once set after him. He just
+got to cover as they caught him up, but he showed no
+fight; as soon as they covered him with the Winchesters,
+he threw up his hands and surrendered, and here he was.</p>
+
+<p>Here the lawyer saw his chance to put a few questions
+in cross-examination, asking whether they promised the
+prisoner his life when he surrendered, and so forth; but
+nothing came out that could help him. Things looked terribly
+black for the wretched man, and he began to cry.</p>
+
+<p>Nothing could have been more orderly than the behaviour
+of the court. While the witnesses were being examined,
+you might have heard a pin drop. Between
+whiles the crowd conversed among themselves, but in
+sober and hushed tones. There was no yelling of a mob
+for the blood of a victim, but a most evident deadly resolution
+to exact the uttermost penalty. I remember thinking<span class="pagenum" id="Page_344">[Pg 344]</span>
+to myself, “How I wish Carlyle were here” (he was
+still alive in those days), “to feel for himself the contrast
+between this and the revolutionary tribunals of Paris!
+This would seem to him more like some old Teuton gathering
+of freemen in the Northern forests.”</p>
+
+<p>And now the witnesses were all disposed of, and the
+trial drew to its close. The young lawyer was asked if he
+had any witnesses to call for the defence, but he intimated
+that there were none. I felt for the young man in his
+first case, with such a hopeless task before him as the defence
+of this red-handed criminal taken in the very act.
+I racked my brain to think of what I should say were I
+in his position. I thought of the words of Magna Charta
+(remember I had only just left Cambridge): “Against
+no man will we go, neither will we send, save by lawful
+judgment of his peers, and by the law of the land.”</p>
+
+<p>“The common law holds good in America,” I thought,
+“and surely they will have heard of Magna Charta.”
+Then I heard the judge’s grave tones addressing the
+lawyer.</p>
+
+<p>“Mr. Tallboys,” he said, “the evidence in this case is
+now before the court; but before the jury retire to consider
+their verdict you are at liberty to offer any remarks
+you have to make on it that you may think advisable.
+Understand, you are not to question in any way the competency
+of the court. This is a people’s court, sprung
+from and organized by the people themselves, and if you
+question its right, you put yourself out of court at once,
+and it will be my duty not to hear you. On the question
+of the prisoner’s guilt you are at full liberty to speak.”</p>
+
+<p>These words scattered to the winds my imaginary reference
+to Magna Charta and the field of Runnimede and
+the long tradition of Anglo-Norman law. They were all
+ruled out of court. The issue was narrowed down to the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_345">[Pg 345]</span>
+simple question, “Did the prisoner kill old man Steel or
+no?” and to that, after the testimony of several witnesses
+to a thing that had happened two hours before in
+broad daylight under the open sky, but one answer was
+possible.</p>
+
+<p>The lawyer got up and spoke a few words, but there
+really was nothing for him to say.</p>
+
+<p>“Gentlemen of the jury,” said Captain Sopris, “I think
+the case is complete, but before you retire to consider your
+verdict I will ask the prisoner personally to make any
+statement he thinks fit that might weigh with you.
+Prisoner, have you anything to say?”</p>
+
+<p>There was a great silence of the whole crowd for some
+minutes; all eyes were bent on the man addressed. He
+swallowed hard a few times, and choked back his tears,
+and at last whined out:</p>
+
+<p>“I didn’t mean to hurt him.”</p>
+
+<p>Didn’t mean to hurt him—when he had shot him through
+the head at two yards off! If it had not been a tragedy,
+there would have been a shout of laughter. But, instead,
+there was a grimmer silence than before. The prisoner
+had said all he had to say.</p>
+
+<p>The pause was broken by Captain Sopris.</p>
+
+<p>“Gentlemen of the jury, you have heard the evidence,
+and also what the prisoner has to say for himself. You
+will now retire to consider your verdict.”</p>
+
+<p>The jury rose and filed out, and standing off a little
+distance on the prairie talked together. The tension in
+the court was relaxed, and there was a hum of conversation.
+The prisoner whispered to his lawyer inaudibly.</p>
+
+<p>Presently the jury filed back into court and sat down.</p>
+
+<p>“Gentlemen,” said Captain Sopris, “have you decided
+on your verdict?”</p>
+
+<p>“We have,” answered one who acted as foreman.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_346">[Pg 346]</span></p>
+
+<p>“Are you unanimous?” again asked the judge.</p>
+
+<p>“We are,” was again the answer.</p>
+
+<p>“What is your verdict?”</p>
+
+<p>There was a breathless hush in the court as the foreman
+said in clear steady tones:</p>
+
+<p>“Guilty of murder in the first degree.”</p>
+
+<p>Again you might have heard a pin drop on the prairie
+grass.</p>
+
+<p>I saw the two men with the Winchesters slip on to their
+saddle-horses and take up their position on the side between
+the crowd on the prairie and the town.</p>
+
+<p>Sopris raised his eyes from the jury to the crowd.</p>
+
+<p>“Gentlemen,” he said, “the jury have found the prisoner
+guilty of murder in the first degree. It is for you,
+the people, to say what his punishment shall be. Those
+who are in favour of hanging will say ‘Aye.’”</p>
+
+<p>An answering roar of “Aye” went up to the sky above
+us.</p>
+
+<p>“Contrary, ‘No,’” said Sopris.</p>
+
+<p>There was a dead silence.</p>
+
+<p>Sopris waited to give any friend of the prisoner time
+to harden his heart and say “No.” None did.</p>
+
+<p>“Prisoner,” said the judge, turning to the wretched
+creature, who was now sobbing and unnerved, “the jury
+have found you guilty and the people have sentenced you
+to be hung. You will be hung in fifteen minutes to the
+nearest tree. If you have anything to say before then,
+you had better say it.”</p>
+
+<p>Then was heard a loud voice from the outskirts of
+the crowd. It came from a big man, sitting on a horse,
+with a sixteen-shot Winchester in his hand; two more
+horsemen, similarly armed, were by him.</p>
+
+<p>“Every man come down to the tree,” he said. “Let
+no man stay back. It’s one and all.”</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_347">[Pg 347]</span></p>
+
+<p>“One and all.” It was the motto, if I remember right,
+of the New Model Army in its struggle with the Rump,
+that terrible Cromwellian army that did not shrink from
+cutting off the head of a king. And indeed I asked myself
+how far was the court, presided over by Mr. President
+Bradshaw, which sentenced Charles I, more legal
+than this people’s court, with Captain Sopris as elected
+judge? “These Americans,” thought I, “are the real true-bred
+sons of those old Commonwealth men.”</p>
+
+<p>Slowly across the trampled grass the procession moved
+towards the fatal tree. The sun was sinking fast
+towards the west, where the great jagged wall of the
+Rocky Mountains stood dark against the clear sky. Just
+outside the town, on the edge of the bottom lands of
+the Platte, grew a big cottonwood tree, its leafless
+branches spreading wide. Here we halted. I had remounted
+my pony and, anxious to see the whole thing
+through, had wedged myself into the middle of the
+throng. One of the guards stepped up to me, and, holding
+up his pistol as he laid his hand on my bridle, said:</p>
+
+<p>“Get off that horse.”</p>
+
+<p>“What for?” I asked. “Why do you want him?”</p>
+
+<p>“Never mind,” was his answer, “you shall have him
+back again; but he’s wanted. You’ve got to get off.”</p>
+
+<p>His manner was peremptory. I dismounted. They
+took my picket rope, a nearly new one, three-quarters
+of an inch in diameter and forty feet long, and, making
+a noose in one end, tossed it over a limb twelve or fifteen
+feet up from the ground.</p>
+
+<p>“Will you tell us,” said the leader of the Vigilantes,
+addressing the condemned man, “who gave you the
+pistol?”</p>
+
+<p>I gathered from his manner that he had been trying
+to induce him to reveal his accomplices on the way to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_348">[Pg 348]</span>
+the tree. The wretch looked up at the rope swinging
+above him, and said:</p>
+
+<p>“Will you give me my life if I tell?”</p>
+
+<p>“We promise nothing,” said his questioner, a short,
+bullet-headed man with a singularly resolute face, “but,”
+he added, “it won’t be worse for you if you do.”</p>
+
+<p>“Then I won’t say,” answered the prisoner.</p>
+
+<p>“Have you any friends that you want to say good-bye
+to?” he asked again; and, the prisoner nodding assent,
+he called out to the crowd, “If there are any friends of
+this man here who wish to speak to him, they can do so,
+one at a time.”</p>
+
+<p>A dissolute-looking gambler in a very seedy frock-coat,
+with his hands in his pockets, slouched forward
+with uneasy swagger. The guards examined him to see
+that he had no concealed weapons, and then admitted
+him to the prisoner. He sauntered up to him with an
+ill-concealed nervousness which he tried to carry off as
+easy nonchalance.</p>
+
+<p>“Wal, Joe, old man,” he observed to his friend,
+“you’ve got to the jumping-off place this time, I guess.”</p>
+
+<p>The prisoner gave a ghastly grin.</p>
+
+<p>“Say, old man,” he continued, drawing one hand from
+his trousers’ pocket, and rubbing it on the unshaven
+cheek of the condemned man, where three or four days’
+stubbly growth of hair bristled, “You’d better ax ’em to
+let you shave this off. It might be in the way of the
+rope.”</p>
+
+<p>The prisoner only groaned at the disgusting pleasantry.</p>
+
+<p>“Take him away,” said the leader to the guards. “No
+more of this. Now,” he said to the doomed man, “do
+you want to pray? Will you have a minister?”</p>
+
+<p>No answer was returned; but there was a slight movement<span class="pagenum" id="Page_349">[Pg 349]</span>
+among the crowd—men looking to right and left as
+if searching for the sight of a black coat; but it was in
+vain—no one like a minister was to be found.</p>
+
+<p>“Do you wish to send a message to anybody?” asked
+the leader.</p>
+
+<p>“I’ve a wife in Philadelphia,” said the murderer
+through his sobs.</p>
+
+<p>A notebook was instantly produced.</p>
+
+<p>“Your name, your real name?” said the Vigilante.</p>
+
+<p>“Joe Carr.”</p>
+
+<p>“Her address?”</p>
+
+<p>The prisoner mumbled something I couldn’t hear. It
+was a hangman’s knot that had been tied in my rope,
+and now the noose was put over his head, and settled
+round his neck; the other end of the rope tossed over
+the bough was made fast with a turn round the trunk of
+the tree; the horse was brought alongside him.</p>
+
+<p>“Now say a prayer if you want to,” said the Vigilante.</p>
+
+<p>“I’ll be good God damned if I think a prayer of mine
+’ud go more’n seven feet high,” said the reprobate.</p>
+
+<p>In a moment he was hoisted on to the horse, the rope
+drawn taut, and a resounding smack given to the horse’s
+quarters. The animal bounded forward, and the
+murderer was left swinging.</p>
+
+<p>“Run him up! run him up!” was the cry, and twenty
+willing hands hauled on the rope till the body was swung
+aloft to within two feet of the bough, and the rope was
+again made fast.</p>
+
+<p>There was silence for a little space; then the leader
+of the Vigilantes took his stand beneath the fatal branch,
+and spoke short and plain.</p>
+
+<p>“There’s men here,” said he, “as guilty in intention as
+that man,” pointing to the body, “was in act. Let this
+be a warning to them. Let this be a sign that in this<span class="pagenum" id="Page_350">[Pg 350]</span>
+town the people don’t mean to tolerate any such goings
+on. We know there were men who encouraged this
+miserable wretch to do this thing that brought him to
+this—yes, and lent him the pistol to do it with. They
+may thank their stars they are not hanging beside him
+now. They are just as guilty as he was, and if they
+know what’s healthy for them, they’ll get out of this
+before daylight to-morrow. And I say the same to any
+more there are of the same kidney here, and who thought
+they were going to run this town. They’d better drop
+it. They’d better get. The people of this town are
+going to run this town themselves, and this here is the
+proof of it. Enough said.” And, turning away, he
+stepped back into the crowd and joined his friends.</p>
+
+<p>“It’s all over, boys,” said the big man on the horse,
+with the Winchester in his hand. “We can go back to
+our business now. Let no man interfere with that
+body,” he added. “It’ll be seen to to-night. No one’s
+to touch it without orders.”</p>
+
+<p>And the crowd broke up into knots and slowly dispersed.</p>
+
+<p>“Young man,” said one of the guards to me, leading
+up my pony, “here’s your bronco. You shall have your
+rope back in the morning; it’s occupied at present. No
+one will trouble you over this matter; it was taken from
+you by force, you understand.”</p>
+
+<p>And then I understood that the demonstration of holding
+up a pistol when I was told to dismount had been
+really for my benefit, to relieve me of responsibility, if
+by any chance the proper officers of the ordinary law
+of the territory should take any notice of this day’s
+work.</p>
+
+<p>I took my horse, mounted him, and later on, when the
+crowd had dispersed, rode down to the ford. The pony<span class="pagenum" id="Page_351">[Pg 351]</span>
+stopped in mid-channel to drink, and I shall not forget
+the scene. The sun was just setting behind the range
+of the Rocky Mountains, and in the foreground stood
+the withered cottonwood with its ghastly fruit. The
+work was done.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>So far as I know, the regular law took no notice.
+The effects of the action of the Vigilantes were, however,
+marked and immediate. That night many of the worst
+characters in town left it, some in their haste walking
+all the way to Denver to get clear of a spot so ominous
+to them. The rowdyism, the displaying of revolvers and
+shooting at lamps out of bravado, stopped instanter.
+There never was another man shot in the town of Evans
+for two years, and then the shooting was accidental,
+though, as the man who fired the rifle on that occasion
+happened to have had words with the man who was
+wounded—it was not a fatal shot—he was most terribly
+frightened, fully expecting the Vigilantes to get after
+him.</p>
+
+<p>This rapid and most surprising purification of the
+moral atmosphere of Evans City did, I admit, dispose me
+at the time to think favourably of the action of lynch
+law. But five years’ residence in the territory was
+enough to alter my opinion. During that time only one
+man was legally executed there, and he was a foreigner
+and a poor man; and, moreover, there is reason to believe
+that his crime only amounted to manslaughter.
+Yet during those years many crimes of violence were
+committed, and many lynchings occurred. Some of
+these were, I make no doubt, as well deserved as the one
+of which I was a witness; others very probably were not—for
+instance, two men, if not three, were lynched, on
+one of the creeks that run from the Divide, for killing<span class="pagenum" id="Page_352">[Pg 352]</span>
+a calf. But the general effect of the system upon the
+administration of the ordinary law was simply disastrous.
+Whenever atrocious murderers are hanged as soon as
+caught, there arises at once a strong presumption that
+a man-slayer, who is left to be dealt with by an ordinary
+jury, has probably much to excuse him. This feeling
+vastly increased the difficulty of getting juries to convict.
+Popular criminals are quite sure to get off, and the
+ordinary law became glaringly ineffective and sinks into
+something very like contempt, while the lynchers alone
+are really dreaded. And this very dread increases crime,
+because horse-thieves and cattle-thieves, when pursued,
+know they will probably be lynched, and never hesitate
+to shoot, thinking they may as well be hanged for killing
+a man as for killing a calf. Every thief becomes a
+potential murderer, and goes armed. Peaceful citizens
+arm themselves in defence of their lives and property,
+and, as collisions will occur, crimes of violence
+naturally abound. The remedy is worse than the disease.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class = "right">R. B. Townshend. <cite>A Tenderfoot in Colorado.</cite><br>
+Copyright by Dodd, Mead and Company, Inc.<br>
+By permission of the publishers.</p>
+</div>
+
+<br>
+<p class="center"><span class="smcap">The Blizzard</span></p>
+
+<p class="center">HERBERT QUICK</p>
+
+<p>Through these wrappings, a strange sound came to my
+ears—the sound of sleigh-bells; and in a moment, so
+close were they, there emerged from the whirl of snow,
+a team of horses drawing a swell-body cutter, in which
+sat a man driving, wrapped up in buffalo robes and
+blankets until the box of the sleigh was filled. The<span class="pagenum" id="Page_353">[Pg 353]</span>
+horses came to a stop in the lee of my house. There
+had been no such rig in the county before I had gone
+to the war.</p>
+
+<p>“Is this the Vandemark schoolhouse?” came from the
+man in the cutter.</p>
+
+<p>“No, Captain,” said I, for discipline is strong, “this
+is my farm.”</p>
+
+<p>“Ah, it’s you, Mr. Vandemark, is it?” said he. “Can
+you tell me the way to the schoolhouse?”</p>
+
+<p>Discipline flew off into the storm. I never for a moment
+harbored the idea that I was to allow Buck Gowdy
+to rescue Virginia from the blizzard, and carry her off
+into either danger or safety. There was none of my
+Dutch hesitation here. This was battle; and I behaved
+with as much prompt decision as I did on the field of
+Shiloh, where, I have the captain’s word for it in writing,
+I behaved with a good deal of it.</p>
+
+<p>“Never mind about the schoolhouse,” I said. “I’ll attend
+to that!”</p>
+
+<p>“The hell you will!” said he, in that calm way of his.
+“Let me see. Your house faces the north. These trees
+are on the section line.... The schoolhouse is.... I
+have it, now. Sorry to cut in ahead of you; but—get
+up, Susie—Winnie, go on!”</p>
+
+<p>But I had Susie and Winnie by the bits.</p>
+
+<p>“Vandemark,” he said, and as he shouted this to make
+me hear I could feel the authority I had grown to
+recognize in drill, “you forget yourself! Let go those
+horses!”</p>
+
+<p>“Not by a damned sight!”</p>
+
+<p>I found myself swearing as if I were in the habit of it.
+Now the man in any kind of rig with another holding his
+horses’ bits is in an embarrassing fix. He can’t do anything
+so long as he remains in the vehicle; and neither<span class="pagenum" id="Page_354">[Pg 354]</span>
+can his horses. He must carry the fight to the other
+man, or be made a fool of.</p>
+
+<p>Buck Gowdy was not a man to hesitate in such a case.
+He carried the fight to me—and I was glad to see him
+coming. I had waited for this a long time. I have no
+skill in describing fights, and I was too much engaged
+in this to remember the details. How many blows were
+exchanged; what sort of blows they were; how much
+damage they did until the last, more than a cut lip on
+my part, I can not tell. Why no more damage was done
+is clearer—we were both so wrapped up as to be unable
+to do much. I only know that at the last, I had
+Gowdy down in the snow right by my well-curb; and
+that without taking time to make any plan, I wrapped
+the well-rope around him so as to make it necessary for
+him to take a little time in getting loose; I wrote him a
+receipt for the team and rig, which N. V. Creede tells
+me would not have done me any good; and I went out,
+very much winded, shut the door behind me, and getting
+into the cutter, drove off into the blizzard with Gowdy’s
+team and sleigh, leaving him rolling around on the floor
+unwinding the well-rope, swearing like a trooper, and
+in a warm room where there was plenty to eat.</p>
+
+<p>“And in my opinion,” said N. V., “no matter how
+much girl there was at stake, the man that chose to go
+out into that storm when he could have let the job out
+was the fool in the case.”</p>
+
+<p>It was less than a mile to the schoolhouse, which I
+was lucky to find at all. I could not see it twenty feet
+away; but I was almost upset by a snow fort which the
+children had built, and taking this as the sure sign of a
+playground, I guessed my way the fifty or sixty feet that
+more by luck than judgment brought me to the back
+end of the house, instead of the front. I made my way<span class="pagenum" id="Page_355">[Pg 355]</span>
+around on the windward side of the building, hoping that
+the jingle of the bells might be heard as I passed the
+windows—for I dared not leave the horses again, as I
+had done during my contest with Gowdy. Nothing but
+the shelter in which they then found themselves had
+kept them from bolting—that and their bewilderment.</p>
+
+<p>I pulled up before the door and shouted Virginia’s
+name with all my might, over and over again. But I
+suppose I sat there ten or fifteen minutes before Virginia
+came to the door; and then, while she had all her wraps
+on, she was in her anxiety just taking a look at the
+weather, debating in her mind whether to try for the
+safety of the fireside, or risk the stay in the schoolhouse
+with no fuel. She had not heard the bells, or the
+trampling, or my holloing. More by my motions than
+anything else, she saw that I was inviting her to get in;
+but she knew no more than her heels who I was. She
+went back into the schoolhouse and got her dinner-basket—lucky
+or providential act!—and in she climbed.
+If I had been Buck Gowdy or Asher Bushyager or the
+Devil himself, she would have done the same. She
+would have thought, of course, that it was one of the
+neighbors come for her; and, anyhow, there was nothing
+else to do.</p>
+
+<p>As I turned back the rich robes and the jingle of the
+bells came to her ears, she started; but I drew her down
+into the seat, and pulled the flannel-lined coonskin robe
+which was under us, up over our laps; I wrapped the
+army blanket and the thick buffalo-robe over and under
+us; and as I did so, a little black-and-tan terrier came
+shivering out from under the coonskin robe and jumped
+into her lap. I started to put it down again, but she
+held it—and as she did she looked at my blue sleeve,
+and then up at the mass of wrappings I had over my<span class="pagenum" id="Page_356">[Pg 356]</span>
+face. I thought she snuggled up against me a little
+closer, then.</p>
+
+
+<p>IV</p>
+
+<p>I turned the horses toward her boarding-place, which
+was with a new family who had moved in at the head of
+the slew, near the pond for which poor Rowena was
+making the day of the prairie fire; and in doing so,
+set their faces right into the teeth of the gale. It
+seemed as if it would strip the scalps from our heads, in
+spite of all our capes and comforters and veils. Virginia
+pulled the robe up over her head. I had to face the
+storm and manage my team; but before I had gone
+forty rods, I saw that I was asking too much of them;
+and I let them turn to beat off with it. At that moment
+I really abandoned control, and gave it over to the wind
+and snow. But I thought myself steering for my own
+house. I was not much worried, having the confidence
+of youth and strength. The cutter was low and would
+not tip over easily. The horses were active and powerful
+and resolute. We were nested down in the deep
+box, wrapped in the warmest of robes; and it was not
+yet so very cold—not that cold which draws down into
+the lungs; seals the nostrils and mouth; and paralyzes
+the strength. That cold was coming—coming like an
+army with banners; but it was not yet here. I was not
+much worried until I had driven before the wind, beating
+up as much as I could to the east, without finding
+my house, or anything in the way of grove or fence to
+tell me where it was. I now remembered that I
+had not mounted the hill on which my house stood.
+In fact, I had missed my farm, and was lost, so
+far as knowing my locality was concerned: and the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_357">[Pg 357]</span>
+wind was growing fiercer and the cold more bitter.</p>
+
+<p>For a moment I quailed inwardly; but I felt Virginia
+snuggled down by me in what seemed to be perfect
+trust; and I brushed the snow from my eye-opening
+and pushed on—hoping that I might by pure accident
+strike shelter in that wild waste of prairie, and determined
+to make the fight of my life for it if I failed.</p>
+
+<p>It was getting dusk. The horses were tiring. We
+plunged through a deep drift under the lee of a knoll;
+and I stopped a few moments to let them breathe. I
+knew that stopping was a bad symptom, unless one had
+a good reason for it—but I gave myself a good reason.
+I felt Virginia pulling at my sleeve; and I turned back
+the robes and looked at her. She pulled my ear down
+to her lips.</p>
+
+<p>“I know you now,” she shouted. “It’s Teunis!”</p>
+
+<p>I nodded; and she squeezed my arm with her two
+hands. Give up! Not for all the winds and snows of
+the whole of the Iowa prairie! I disarranged the robes
+while I put my arm around her for a moment; while she
+patted my shoulder. Then, putting tendernesses aside,
+when they must be indulged in at the expense of snow
+in the sleigh, I put my horses into it again. A few
+minutes ago, I gave you the thoughts that ran through
+my mind as I conjured up the image of one lost in such
+a storm; but now I thought of nothing—only for a few
+minutes after that pressure on my arm—but getting on
+from moment to moment, keeping my sleigh from upsetting,
+encouraging those brave mares, and peering
+around for anything that might promise shelter. Virginia
+has always told of this to the children, when I was
+not present, to prove that I am brave, even if I am
+mortal slow; and if just facing danger from minute to
+minute without looking further, is bravery, I suppose I<span class="pagenum" id="Page_358">[Pg 358]</span>
+am—and there is plenty of good courage in the world
+which is nothing more, look at it how you will.</p>
+
+<p>So far, the cutter and team of which I had robbed
+Buck Gowdy, had been a benefit to us. They gave us
+transportation, and the warm sleigh in which to nest
+down. I began to wonder, now, as it began to grow
+dark, as the tempest greatened, as my horses disappeared
+in the smother, and as the frost began to penetrate
+to our bodies, whether I should not have done
+better to have stayed in the schoolhouse, and burned up
+the partitions for fuel; but the thought came too late;
+though it troubled me much. Two or three times, one
+of the mares fell in the drifts, and nothing but the courage
+bred into them in the blue-grass fields of Kentucky
+saved us from stalling out in that fearful moving flood
+of wind and frost and snow. Two or three times we
+narrowly escaped being thrown out into it by the overturn
+of the sleigh; and then I foresaw a struggle, in
+which there would be no hope; for in a storm in which
+a strong man is helpless, how could he expect to come
+out safe with a weak girl on his hands?</p>
+
+<p>At last, the inevitable happened: the off mare dove
+into a great drift; the nigh one pulled on: and they came
+to a staggering halt, one of them was kept from falling
+partly by her own efforts, and partly by the snow about
+her legs against which she braced herself. As they stood
+there, they turned their heads and looked back as if to
+say that so far as they were concerned, the fight was
+over. They had done all they could.</p>
+
+<p>I sat a moment thinking. I looked about, and saw,
+between gusts, that we were almost against a huge straw-pile,
+where some neighbor had threshed a setting of
+wheat. This might mean that we were close to a house,
+or it might not. I handed the lines to Virginia under<span class="pagenum" id="Page_359">[Pg 359]</span>
+the robes, got out, and struggled forward to look at my
+team. Their blood-shot eyes and quivering flanks told
+me that they could help us no longer; so I unhitched
+them, so as to keep the cutter as a possible shelter, and
+turned them loose. They floundered off into the drifts,
+and left us alone. Cuffed and mauled by the storm, I
+made a circuit of the stack, and stumbled over the
+tumbling-rod of the threshing-machine, which was still
+standing where it had been used. Leaning against the
+wheel was a shovel, carried for use in setting the separator.
+This I took with me, with some notion of building
+a snow-house for us; for I somehow felt that if there
+was any hope for us, it lay in the shelter of that straw.
+As I passed the side of the stack, just where the ground
+was scraped bare by the wind, I saw what seemed to be
+a hole under and into the great loose pile of dry straw.
+It looked exactly like one of those burrows which the
+children used to make in play in such places.</p>
+
+<p>Virginia was safe for the moment, sitting covered up
+snugly with her hands warmed by the little dog; but the
+cold was beginning to penetrate the robes. I could leave
+her for the moment while I investigated the burrow with
+the shovel. As I gained a little advantage over the snow
+which was drifted in almost as fast as I could shovel it
+out, my heart leaped as I found the hole opening out into
+the middle of the stack; and I plunged in on my hands
+and knees, found it dry and free from snow within ten
+feet of the mouth, and after enlarging it by humping
+up my back under it where the settling had made it too
+small, I emerged and went to Virginia; whom I took
+out with her dog, wrapped her in the robes so as to keep
+them from getting snowy inside, and backing into the
+burrow, hauled the pile of robes, girl and dog in after
+me, like a gigantic mouse engaged in saving her young.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_360">[Pg 360]</span>
+I think no mouse ever yearned over her treasures in
+such case more than I did.</p>
+
+<p>And then I went back to get the dinner-basket, which
+was already buried under the snow which had filled the
+cutter; for I knew that there was likely to be something
+left over of one of the bountiful dinners which a farmer’s
+wife puts up for the teacher. Then I went back into the
+little chamber of straw in which we had found shelter,
+stopping up the mouth with snow and straw as I went
+in. I drew a long breath. This was far better than I
+had dared hope for. There is a warmth generated in
+such a pile, from the slow fermentation of the straw
+juices, even when seemingly dry as this was; and far
+in the middle of the stack, vegetables might have been
+stored without freezing. The sound of the tempest did
+not reach us here; it was still as death, and dark as tar.
+I wondered that Virginia did not say anything; but she
+kept still because she did not understand where she was,
+or what I had done with her.</p>
+
+<p>Finally, when she spoke it was to say, “Unwrap me,
+Teunis! I am smothering with the heat!”</p>
+
+<p>I laughed a long loud laugh. I guess I was almost
+hysterical. The change was so sudden, so complete.
+Virginia was actually complaining of the heat!</p>
+
+<p>I unwrapped her carefully, and kissed her. Did ever
+any peril turn to any one a face so full of clemency and
+tenderness as this blizzard to me?</p>
+
+<p>“It takes,” says she, “a storm to move you to any
+speed faster than a walk.”</p>
+
+<p>The darkness in the burrow was now full of light for
+me. I made it soft as a mouse-nest, by pulling down
+the clean straw, and spreading it in the bottom, with
+the coonskin under her, and the buffalo-robe for a coverlid.
+There was scarcely room for two there, but we<span class="pagenum" id="Page_361">[Pg 361]</span>
+made it do, and found room for the little dog also.
+There was an inexpressible happiness in our safety from
+the awful storm, which we knew raged all about our
+nest; but to be together, and to feel that the things that
+stood between us had all been swept away at once—even
+the chaff that fell down our necks only gave us
+cause for laughter.</p>
+
+<p>“Your coat is all wet!” she exclaimed.</p>
+
+<p>“It was the snow, shoveling the way in,” I said. “It’s
+nothing.”</p>
+
+<p>But she began right there to take care of me. She
+made me take off the overcoat, and wrap myself in the
+blanket. The dampness went out into the dry straw;
+but when drowsiness came upon us, she would not let
+me take the chance of getting chilled, but made me wrap
+myself in the robes with her; and we lay there talking
+until finally, tired by my labors, I went to sleep with
+her arms about me, and her lips close to mine; and when
+I awoke, she was asleep, and I lay there listening to her
+soft breathing for hours.</p>
+
+<p>We were both hungry when she awoke, and in the
+total darkness we felt about for the dinner-basket, in
+which were the dinners of the children of the McConkey
+family with whom she had boarded, and who had gone
+home at noon, because the fuel was gone. We ate
+frozen pie, and frozen boiled eggs, and frozen bread and
+butter; and then lay talking and caressing each other
+for hours. We talked about the poor horses, for which
+Virginia felt a deep pity, out there in the fierce
+storm and the awful cold. We talked of the beautiful
+cutter; and finally, I explained the way in which I
+had robbed Gowdy of horses and robes and sleigh, and
+dog.</p>
+
+<p>“He can never have the dog back,” said she. “And<span class="pagenum" id="Page_362">[Pg 362]</span>
+to think that I am hiding out in a strawstack with a robber
+and a horse-thief!”</p>
+
+<p>Then she said she reckoned we’d have to join the
+Bunker gang, if we could find any of it to join. Certainly
+we should be fugitives from justice when the
+storm was over; but she for herself would rather be a
+fugitive always with me than to be rescued by “that
+man”—and it was lucky for him, too, she said, that I
+had licked him and shut him up in a house where he
+would be warm and fed; because he never would have
+been able to save himself in this awful storm as I had
+done. Nobody could have done so well as I had done.
+I had snatched her from the very jaws of death.</p>
+
+<p>“Then,” said I, “you’re mine.”</p>
+
+<p>“Of course I am,” she said. “I’ve been yours ever
+since we lived together so beautifully on the road, and
+in our Grove of Destiny. Of course I’m yours—and
+you are mine, Teunis—ain’t you?”</p>
+
+<p>“Then,” said I, “just as soon as we get out of here,
+we’ll be married.”</p>
+
+<p>It took argument to establish this point, but the jury
+was with me from the start; and finally nothing stood
+between me and a verdict but the fact that she must
+finish her term of school. I urged upon her that my
+house was nearer the school than was McConkey’s, and
+she could finish it if she chose. Then she said she didn’t
+believe it would be legal for Virginia Vandemark to
+finish a contract signed by Virginia Royall—and pretty
+soon I realized that she was making fun of me, and I
+her and kissed her until she begged my pardon.</p>
+
+<p>And all the time the storm raged. We finished the
+food in the dinner pail, and began wondering how long
+we had been imprisoned, and how hungry we ought to
+be by this time. I was not in the least hungry myself;<span class="pagenum" id="Page_363">[Pg 363]</span>
+but I began to feel panicky for fear Virginia might be
+starving to death. She had a watch, of course, as a
+teacher; but it had run down long ago, and even if
+it had not, we could not have lit a match in that place
+by which to look at it. Becoming really frightened as
+the thought of starvation and death from thirst came
+oftener and oftener into my mind, I dug my way to
+the opening of the burrow, and found it black night, and
+the snow still sweeping over the land; but there was
+hope in the fact that I could see one or two bright stars
+overhead. The gale was abating; and I went back with
+this word, and a basket of snow in lieu of water.</p>
+
+<p>Whether it was the first night out or the second, I did
+not know, and this offered ground for argument. Virginia
+said that we had lived through so much that it
+had probably made the time seem longer than it was;
+but I argued that the time of holding her in my arms,
+kissing her, telling her how much I loved her, and persuading
+her to marry me as soon as we could get to
+Elder Thorndyke’s, made it seem shorter—and this led
+to more efforts to make the time pass away. Finally, I
+dug out again, just as we both were really and truly
+hungry, and went back after Virginia. I made her wrap
+up warmly, and we crawled out, covered with chaff,
+rumpled, mussed up, but safe and happy; and found
+the sun shining over a landscape of sparkling frost, with
+sundogs in the sky and millions of bright needles of frost
+in the air, and a light breeze still blowing from the
+northwest, so bitingly cold that a finger or cheek was
+nipped by it in a moment’s exposure. And within forty
+rods of us was the farmstead of Amos Bemisdarfer; who
+stood looking at us in amazement as we came across the
+rippled surface of the snow to his back door.</p>
+
+<p>“I kess,” said Amos, “it mus’ have peen your team I<span class="pagenum" id="Page_364">[Pg 364]</span>
+put in de parn lass night. Come in. Preckfuss is
+retty.”</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class="right">From <cite>Vandemark’s Folly</cite>, by Herbert Quick.<br>
+Copyright 1922. Used by special permission of<br>
+the publishers, The Bobbs-Merrill Company.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<p class="center"><span class="smcap">The Attack of the Tiger</span><br>
+
+J. H. ROSNY</p>
+
+<p>Aoun woke when a third of the night had passed.
+The moon had gone down behind the western jungle,
+and its light reddened the vapours which were condensing
+on the branches. The moor was covered with pale
+grey shadows; the fire shed only a faint light near the
+seven bamboos.</p>
+
+<p>At first the warrior only saw the motionless vegetation,
+but his sense of smell warned him of a living
+presence. Then a shadow emerged, became detached
+from a clump of palm trees and approached cautiously
+towards him. Aoun knew it was the tiger from the moment
+he opened his eyes, and he watched it come with
+anxiety and anger. The daring spirit which worked in
+him like a storm on the waters dilated his chest. Although
+he knew the tiger’s superiority over man, and
+despite the secret horror which possessed him, he desired
+to fight. Had not Noah conquered the grey wolf
+and the tigress, had he not himself overcome the sabre-tooth,
+the victor of the rhinoceros? For a moment he
+felt giddy, but this soon passed, the prudence of his ancestors
+calmed his blood; he knew that neither Noah nor
+Faouhm nor the Hairy Men would have attacked the
+tiger unless their own lives had been in danger....</p>
+
+<p>Besides, one had awoken who would restrain him.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_365">[Pg 365]</span>
+The son of Earth became aware in his turn of the terrible
+presence. He looked at his companion, who had
+raised his club, and said, “The tiger has not found any
+prey.”</p>
+
+<p>“If he comes near us,” said the other in a quivering
+voice, “Aoun will fling his spear and harpoon.”</p>
+
+<p>“It is dangerous to wound the tiger. Its fury is
+greater than that of the lion,” was the reply.</p>
+
+<p>“And if it will not go away from our refuge?”</p>
+
+<p>“Aoun and Zouhr have provisions for two days.”</p>
+
+<p>“We have no water and the tigress may join him.”</p>
+
+<p>Zouhr did not reply. He had already thought of
+that. He knew that the wild beasts would sometimes
+take turns in watching a difficult prey. After
+hesitating a moment he replied, “The tiger has been
+alone since last night. Perhaps the tigress is far from
+here.”</p>
+
+<p>Aoun could not see sufficiently clearly into the future
+to insist; his attention was concentrated on the tiger,
+which had come within five ells of the bamboos.</p>
+
+<p>They could distinctly see the thick-set muzzle, fringed
+at the back with stiff hairs, the eyes shining more brightly
+than before. Aoun had a strange horror of their green
+light, and they made Zouhr tremble. At intervals
+growls could be heard on the moor. The tiger came
+closer; then it began to prowl up and down and round
+the shelter, with an awful and exasperating patience.
+It seemed as if it expected that the interstices would
+grow bigger or the interlaced creepers and bamboos become
+relaxed. Each time it came closer to them the
+two men trembled as if the wild beast’s hope was about
+to be realised.</p>
+
+<p>Finally it couched in the dry grass. From there it
+observed them patiently, and from time to time opened<span class="pagenum" id="Page_366">[Pg 366]</span>
+its great jaws, so that the dying light of the fire shone
+upon its fangs.</p>
+
+<p>“It will still be there in the morning,” said Aoun.</p>
+
+<p>Zouhr did not reply. He was looking at two little
+branches of the turpentine tree which he had exposed to
+the fire, for he always liked to have some dry wood
+ready. He split the thinnest one down its whole length
+and gathered some twigs.</p>
+
+<p>“Zouhr is not going to make a fire!” exclaimed the
+son of Urus reprovingly.</p>
+
+<p>“There is no wind; the ground of our refuge is bare;
+the bamboos are young,” said Zouhr striking the stone
+flint against the marcasite ... “Zouhr has only need
+of a little fire!”</p>
+
+<p>Aoun did not insist. He watched the sparks rise from
+the twigs, while his companion lighted the end of a
+turpentine stick. It soon threw out a bright light.
+Then, leaning towards one of the openings, the son of
+Earth flung the burning brand towards the tiger....</p>
+
+<p>The flame described a parabola and fell among the
+dry grass. It was the most arid part of the moor, where
+the nocturnal vapours had not yet formed....</p>
+
+<p>The tiger started up at sight of the glittering projectile,
+which disappeared among the tall grass stalks.
+Aoun laughed silently. Zouhr was carefully considering
+whether he should light another torch.</p>
+
+<p>Only a twinkling red glow remained among the vegetation.
+The tiger lay down again.</p>
+
+<p>After a moment’s hesitation Zouhr lit the second turpentine
+stick. The fire had just caught the point of it,
+when a livid jet appeared where the first had fallen,
+ran up the grass stalks, and made a line of light. The
+wild beast rose up with a roar, and was about to spring
+when Zouhr flung the second burning brand.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_367">[Pg 367]</span></p>
+
+<p>It struck the brute on the chest. Maddened, it turned
+round and round and bounded from side to side in zigzags.
+The fire, with a dry crackling sound, seemed to
+gallop its way through the tall grass; then it disseminated
+itself in sheafs and enveloped the wild beast.... The
+carnivore gave a cry of fury, plunged through the flames
+and fled.</p>
+
+<p>“It will not come back,” Zouhr asserted. “No beast
+returns to the place where it has been burnt.”</p>
+
+<p>His companion’s cunning delighted Aoun. His laugh
+was no longer silent but rang out over the moor, like a
+joyous war-cry.</p>
+
+<p>“Zouhr is more cunning than Goun of the Dry Bones,”
+he said enthusiastically.</p>
+
+<p>He laid his muscular hand on the shoulder of the
+son of Earth.</p>
+
+<p>The tiger did not return. Aoun and Zouhr slept till
+day-break. A mist covered the moor and the jungle;
+silence and stillness lasted till the full dawn. Then
+the day animals began to stir. A loud clamour rose
+from the river and the trees of the forest. The son
+of Urus came out of the refuge and studied the landscape.
+No suspicious odour alarmed his nostrils and
+some axis passed by, which reassured him still
+more.</p>
+
+<p>He went back to Zouhr and said, “We will continue
+our journey; but we will first go in a westerly direction
+so as not to meet the tiger.”</p>
+
+<p>They started before day had fully dawned. The mist
+slowly rolled away and was lost in the pale sky, which
+rapidly turned blue. At first there were few animals
+to be seen; then their numbers increased and the warriors
+conjectured that they had left the domain of the
+tiger behind them. Aoun however sniffed the air<span class="pagenum" id="Page_368">[Pg 368]</span>
+anxiously. Feverish heat hung over the foliage; red-headed
+flies tormented the two men; the sun’s rays shot
+through the branches and seemed to bite into their flesh
+like white ants; monkeys made faces at them, and parrots
+shrieked in strident and furious tones.</p>
+
+<p>“There will be thunder in the forest!” said the son
+of Earth.</p>
+
+<p>Aoun stopped to consider the western sky. They
+were at the entrance of a clearing and could see a long
+stretch of firmament, of the colour of lapis lazuli, without
+a single cloud. Notwithstanding this the two men
+felt a vague uneasiness, which seemed to pervade the
+air like an unseen terror.</p>
+
+<p>It lasted for a long time. Aoun and Zouhr turned
+aside towards the river, following the lines indicated by
+the various kinds of undergrowth. At mid-day the
+storm was still far off. They made no fire, but ate,
+without enjoyment, a slice of meat they had cooked on
+the previous day. Their rest was disturbed by the attacks
+of insects.</p>
+
+<p>When they resumed their journey, the first mists were
+appearing in the west. A milky colour spread itself
+among the blue; the uneasy belling of the swamp deer
+was heard, and the lowing of buffaloes; cobras slipped
+by among the grasses. For a moment the warriors
+hesitated to start, but their halting-place was not a
+favourable one; immense old trees lifted crests that were
+dangerously high; the ground was spongy at their feet;
+they could see no shelter against the thunder-bolts that
+would ravage the forest. At intervals gusts of air
+passed over the crests of the trees with a sound like that
+of a river, or rose up in spirals, brushing aside the
+foliage. This was followed by deep, heavy silence. A
+wall of vapour rose towards the zenith, black smoke that<span class="pagenum" id="Page_369">[Pg 369]</span>
+became phosphorescent towards the edge. Then furious
+livid gleams of light shot through the world of trees.
+They had their origin very far from where Zouhr and
+Aoun stood, so they did not add their clamour to the
+tumult of the storm. When the wall shrouded the
+middle of the firmament and began to descend towards
+the east, a growing terror took possession of all living
+things; here and there only a fugitive animal could be
+seen seeking its lair, or a frightened insect trying to
+reach some crack in the bark of a tree. The life of the
+creatures was enveloped by another life, that life which,
+subtly diffused, creates and nourishes the forest life, but
+which if it is unchained destroys alike trees, grass and
+animals.</p>
+
+<p>The wanderers had experienced these convulsions of
+nature. Aoun only thought of a refuge; Zouhr lifted his
+head from time to time possessed by the idea that monstrous
+wild beasts were raging in the clouds. Already
+their roars could be heard. Distance made them solemn,
+like the sound of lions’ voices lost among the hills. Then
+the thunder broke and the glare of the lightning became
+intolerable. A sound of running water was heard, which
+soon grew to the roar of rapids and of torrents. The
+jungle opened upon a lake which was preceded by
+marshes; no shelter was visible in the reeking ground;
+and the thunder rolled on at intervals. Under the arcades
+of a banyan tree where the two men stopped, a
+leopard crouched; sharp cries were heard from the
+monkeys in the branches above. Water flowed as if an
+ocean had broken through dykes in the sky; the smell of
+thunder and the scent of plants was borne on the squalls
+of wind.... In an hour the lake had risen; the marshy
+pools were full; one of them overflowed and began to
+invade the forest.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_370">[Pg 370]</span></p>
+
+<p>The wanderers were forced to retreat; but other waters
+came on with a roar which added to the noise of the
+storm. They were forced to flee as best they could
+towards the east. The raging waters harassed them.
+They had barely escaped from the flood on one side
+when it appeared unexpectedly on the other. Aoun
+galloped like a stallion, and Zouhr followed him, bent
+down and hardly lifting his feet, as was the custom of
+the Men-without-Shoulders. When they had put a space
+between themselves and the inundation, they continued
+their way towards the east, in the hope of reaching the
+river.</p>
+
+<p>They traversed moors, and threaded their way through
+bamboos, palms and creepers. A marsh which had overflowed
+obliged them to turn towards the North. The
+storm was abating, the gusts of wind howled less loudly,
+and they finally reached a clearing where a torrent
+formed by the rain was racing along....</p>
+
+<p>There they stopped, trying to estimate the depth of
+the water.</p>
+
+<p>The lightning struck a group of ebony trees; on the
+other bank the long body of a terrified animal rose in
+great bounds; Aoun and Zouhr recognised the tiger. It
+turned round and round for a time in terror, then it
+stopped and perceived the human beings....</p>
+
+<p>Aoun’s instinct told him that it was the one which
+had prowled round the refuge. Zouhr was certain of
+it when he saw that its chest was singed, and knew it
+must have been done by the burning grass.... More
+vaguely the tiger recognised the prey that had escaped
+him, made memorable by the fire, the barricade of
+creepers and the burning grass. He found them again
+at the moment when another fire struck the ebony tree.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_371">[Pg 371]</span>
+Their forms, thus associated in its mind with terrible
+things, made the wild beast hesitate.</p>
+
+<p>All three remained immovable for a time. There was
+too small a space between the men and the beast to
+make flight possible.</p>
+
+<p>Aoun had already got ready his spear, and Zouhr,
+fearing that flight might be followed by pursuit, also
+prepared himself to fight.</p>
+
+<p>It was he who first hurled his weapon. It whistled
+above the waters and hit the brute close to its right eye.
+With a terrible roar it made its spring, but blood impeded
+its sight; its bound had not that awful precision
+which condemned to death all within its reach. The
+long body fell into the torrent, turned round and round,
+and clung to the bank by its front paws. Aoun threw
+himself upon it, his spear struck its breast, missing the
+shoulder.... Maddened with rage the brute hoisted
+himself on to the bank and charged the men. It was
+lame, and it moved slowly; Zouhr pierced its side with
+a second spear, while the son of Urus wounded it on the
+neck....</p>
+
+<p>Then, holding their clubs in readiness, they waited.
+Aoun faced the attack and brought down his weapon on
+the tiger’s head, while the Wah attacked it from behind
+and aimed at the vertebrae.... One of its claws tore
+the Oulhamr’s body, but by stepping aside he made it
+slip, and the club, crashed down on the tiger’s nostrils,
+momentarily arrested its course.... Before it could
+spring again, Aoun’s club came down for the third time
+with such force that the tiger remained motionless, as
+if it slept. Then, without pausing for a moment, the
+two companions belaboured its vertebrae and legs with
+blows. The enormous body sank down, with terrible<span class="pagenum" id="Page_372">[Pg 372]</span>
+convulsions, and the son of Urus having put out its left
+eye, the wild beast was at the men’s mercy.</p>
+
+<p>A spear thrust let out its heart’s blood.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class = "right">From <cite>The Giant Cat</cite> by J. H. Rosny. By permission<br>
+of the publishers, Robert M. McBride<br>
+and Company.</p>
+</div>
+
+<br>
+<p class="center"><span class="smcap">The Storm</span></p>
+
+<p class="center">PIERRE LOTI</p>
+
+<p>... It had changed its aspect, also, and its colour, the
+sun of Iceland, and it opened this new day by a sinister
+morning. Completely rid of its veil, it gave out great
+rays which traversed the sky in jets, announcing impending
+storms.</p>
+
+<p>It had been too fine in the last few days and a change
+was due. The wind blew on this assembly of boats, as
+if it felt the need of scattering them, of ridding the sea
+of them; and they began to disperse, to flee like a routed
+army—simply before this menace written in the air,
+about which there could be no mistake.</p>
+
+<p>And it steadily increased in strength, until men and
+ships alike shivered at it.</p>
+
+<p>The waves, still small, began to chase one another, to
+group themselves. They had been marbled at first with
+a white foam which spread over them in slaver; but
+presently, with a sound of crackling, they gave out a
+smoke of spray; one would have said that the sea was
+boiling, that it was burning—and the shrill noise of it all
+augmented from minute to minute.</p>
+
+<p>There was no thought now for the fishing, but only
+for the management of the boats. The lines had been
+hauled in long before. All were hurrying to get away,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_373">[Pg 373]</span>
+some to seek a shelter in the fiords, striving to arrive in
+time; others, preparing to pass the southern point of Iceland,
+deeming it the safer course to take to the open sea
+and have free space in which to sail before the wind.
+They still saw one another a little; here and there, in the
+hollows of the waves, sails rose up, poor little things, wet,
+weary, fugitive—but keeping upright nevertheless, like
+those children’s toys of pith of elder-wood which one may
+lay flat by blowing on them, but which always raise
+themselves again.</p>
+
+<p>The great shag of clouds which had condensed on the
+western horizon with the aspect of an island began to
+break up at the top and the tatters coursed across the
+sky. It seemed inexhaustible, this shag: the wind
+stretched it, extended it, unravelled it, making issue from
+it an indefinite succession of dark curtains, which it outspread
+over the clear yellow sky, become now livid in
+its cold depths.</p>
+
+<p>And still the wind increased, agitating everything.</p>
+
+<p>The cruiser had made off towards the shelters of Iceland,
+the fishermen remained alone on this agitated sea,
+which now had an angry air and a dreadful colour.
+They made haste in their preparation for foul weather.
+The distance between them increased. Soon they were
+lost from sight of one another.</p>
+
+<p>The waves, curling in volutes, continued to chase
+one another, to unite, to join forces in order to become
+still higher, and, between them, the hollows deepened.</p>
+
+<p>In a few hours all was ploughed up, convulsed in this
+region which on the preceding evening had been so calm,
+and, in place of the silence of before, one was deafened
+with noise. Very quickly the scene had changed and
+all now was agitation, unconscious, useless. What was<span class="pagenum" id="Page_374">[Pg 374]</span>
+the object of it all?... What a mystery of blind
+destruction!...</p>
+
+<p>The clouds were completing their unfolding, coming
+always from the west, overlaying one another, hurrying,
+swift, obscuring everything. There remained now only
+a few yellow openings, by which the sun sent down its
+last rays in sheaves. And the water, greenish now, was
+veined more and more with white slaver.</p>
+
+<p>By midday, the <em>Marie</em> had assumed completely her
+foul-weather trim; with closed hatches and reefed sails,
+she bounded supple and light; amid the disorder that
+was commencing she had the air of playing as play the
+porpoises whom storms amuse. With only her foresail
+spread, she ran before the wind, according to the
+nautical expression which describes this particular trim.</p>
+
+<p>Above, the heavens had become completely overcast, a
+closed, oppressive vault—with darker shadings spread
+over it in shapeless smudges; the impression was almost
+of an immobile dome, and it was necessary to look close
+to realise that on the contrary it was in a very whirl of
+movement: great grey sheets, hastening to pass, and replaced
+without ceasing by others which came from below
+the horizon; funereal tapestries unwinding as if from an
+inexhaustible roll....</p>
+
+<p>She ran before the wind the <em>Marie</em>, ever more quickly—and
+the wind ran, too—before I know not what mysterious
+and terrible power. The wind, the sea, the <em>Marie</em>,
+the clouds, all were seized with the same madness of
+flight and speed in the same direction. That which ran
+ahead the fastest was the wind; then the great heavings
+of the water, more lumbering, slower, followed after it;
+then the <em>Marie</em>, dragged in the universal movement. The
+waves pursued her, with their pale crests, which rolled<span class="pagenum" id="Page_375">[Pg 375]</span>
+on in a perpetual crashing, and she—continually overtaken,
+continually outstripped—escaped them, none the
+less, thanks to a wake she skilfully left behind her, an
+eddy on which their fury broke.</p>
+
+<p>And in this movement of flight, the chief sensation was
+an illusion of lightness; without any difficulty, without
+an effort, one felt oneself leap. When the <em>Marie</em> rose on
+the waves she rose without shock as if the wind had lifted
+her, and her descent afterwards was like a sliding, causing
+those internal qualms one has in the simulated fallings of
+the switchback or in the imaginary descents of dreams.
+She slid backwards, as it were, the racing mountains slipping
+away from under her to continue their course, and
+then she plunged again in one of those deep troughs which
+raced in their turn; without taking hurt she touched the
+dreadful bottom of them, in a shower of spray which did
+not even wet her, but which sped on like everything else;
+which sped on and vanished ahead of her like smoke, like
+an intangible nothing....</p>
+
+<p>At the bottom of these troughs there was a deeper
+gloom, and as each wave passed, one saw behind another
+coming on; another larger still which rose up quite green
+by transparency, with furious writhings, with volutes that
+threatened to close, with an air of saying: “Now I have
+got you, now I will engulf you.”</p>
+
+<p>But, no; it raised you merely, as with a lifting of a
+shoulder one might raise a feather: and, almost gently,
+you felt it passing under you, with its rustling foam, its
+roar as of a cascade.</p>
+
+<p>And so it went on, continuously. But getting worse all
+the time. The waves followed one another, becoming
+ever more enormous, in long chains of mountains the
+valleys of which began to cause fear. And all this madness<span class="pagenum" id="Page_376">[Pg 376]</span>
+of movement became faster, under a sky that grew
+darker and darker, amid a noise that swelled until it became
+a roar.</p>
+
+<p>It was very heavy weather, indeed, and it was necessary
+to keep watch. But, then, there was so much free
+space before them, space in which to run! And it happened
+also, that this year the <em>Marie</em> had spent the season
+in the most western part of the Iceland fisheries; so that
+this headlong flight towards the coast was so much way
+made in their voyage home.</p>
+
+<p>Yann and Sylvestre were at the helm lashed by the
+waist. They were singing again the song of “Jean-François
+de Nantes”; drunk with movement and speed,
+they sang at the top of their voices, laughing to find they
+could not hear each other amid all this unloosing of noise,
+turning round in their high spirits, to sing against the
+wind and losing breath for their pains.</p>
+
+<p>“Hello, there! you youngsters, do you find it stuffy up
+there?” Guermeur asked them, putting his bearded face
+through the half-opened hatchway, like a devil ready to
+leap out of his box.</p>
+
+<p>No, there was no lack of air on deck, that was certain!</p>
+
+<p>They were not afraid, having a very exact notion of
+what was manageable, having confidence in the solidity
+of their boat, in the strength of their arms. And also in
+the protection of the faience Virgin who, during forty
+years of voyages to Iceland, had so often danced this
+same disagreeable dance, forever smiling between her
+bouquets of artificial flowers....</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Jean-François de Nantes,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent6">Jean-François.</div>
+    <div class="verse indent6">Jean-François!</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>In general, they could see but a short distance around
+them: some hundreds of yards away everything seemed<span class="pagenum" id="Page_377">[Pg 377]</span>
+to end in monstrous waves whose pale crests stood erect,
+shutting out the view. One seemed always to be, in the
+middle of a restricted scene, which, nevertheless, was perpetually
+changing; and, in addition, things were drowned
+in this kind of watery smoke, which scudded like a cloud,
+with an extreme swiftness, over all the surface of the
+sea.</p>
+
+<p>But, from time to time, a rift appeared in the northwest
+from which a sudden shift of wind would come; then,
+a glancing light arrived from the horizon; a trailing reflection,
+making the dome of the sky seem darker, shed
+itself on the white agitated crests. And this rift was sad
+to see; these glimpsed distances, these vistas oppressed the
+heart the more in that they made you realise only too well
+that there was the same chaos everywhere, the same fury—even
+beyond the great empty horizon, and infinitely
+beyond that again: the terror had no limits, and one was
+alone in the midst of it.</p>
+
+<p>A gigantic clamour issued from things like an apocalyptic
+prelude sounding the alarm of the end of the world.
+And thousands of voices could be distinguished in it;
+from above came whistling voices and deep voices, which
+seemed almost distant because they were immense: that
+was the wind, the mighty soul of this disorder, the invisible
+power directing the whole commotion. It was terrifying
+enough; but there were other noises, closer, more
+material, carrying a more imminent menace of destruction,
+which the tormented water gave out, spluttering as
+if on burning coals.</p>
+
+<p>And still the storm waxed fiercer.</p>
+
+<p>And, in spite of their close trim, the sea began to cover
+them, to “eat” them as they said: first, the spray lashing
+from behind, then water in masses, hurled with smashing
+force. The waves rose higher still, more madly high, and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_378">[Pg 378]</span>
+the higher they rose the more jagged they became; one
+saw large greenish tatters of them, rags of falling water
+which the wind scattered everywhere. Some of them fell
+in heavy masses on the deck, with a smacking sound, and
+then the <em>Marie</em> shook in her whole being as if in pain.
+Now one could distinguish nothing, on account of all this
+white scattering foam; when the blasts roared more
+fiercely one saw it rushing in thicker clouds—like the dust
+of the roads in summer. A heavy rain, which had begun,
+fell slant-wise also, almost horizontally, and these things
+together whistled, whipped, hurt like blows of a lash.</p>
+
+<p>They remained both at the helm, bound and holding
+firm, clothed in their oilskins, which were tough and
+glistening as the skins of sharks; they had tied them
+tight at the neck, by tarred laces, and tight at the wrists
+and ankles, so as to keep the water out; and everything
+streamed over them, who bowed their backs when it fell
+too thick, buttressing themselves well so as not to be borne
+completely over. The skin of their cheeks burnt, and at
+every minute they caught their breath. After each great
+mass of water had fallen, they looked at each other—and
+smiled to see the salt amassed in their beards.</p>
+
+<p>In time, nevertheless, it became an extreme weariness,
+this fury which did not abate, which remained always at
+its same exasperated paroxysms. The rage of men, the
+rage of beasts, exhausts itself and quickly subsides; one
+has perforce to suffer long the rage of inanimate things
+which is without cause and without aim, mysterious as
+life and as death.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Jean-François de Nantes,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent6">Jean-François.</div>
+    <div class="verse indent6">Jean-François!</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>Through their lips, which had become white, the refrain
+of the old song passed still, but like an aphonous thing,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_379">[Pg 379]</span>
+continued from time to time unconsciously. The excess
+of movement and noise had made them drunk; it was in
+vain that they were young, their smiles grimaced on their
+teeth which chattered in their trembling from the cold;
+their eyes, half-closed under burning, flickering eyelids,
+remained fixed in a grim atony. Lashed to the helm like
+two marble buttresses, they made, with their cramped,
+blue fingers, the efforts that were necessary, almost without
+thinking, by simple habit of the muscles. With
+streaming hair, and contracted mouths, they had become
+strange, and in them reappeared a whole background of
+primitive savagery.</p>
+
+<p>They could see no longer! They knew only that they
+were still there, side by side. At the moments of greatest
+danger, every time that behind them the new mountain
+of water rose up, overhanging, clamorous, horrible, dashing
+against their boat with a mighty thud, one of their
+hands moved involuntarily in the sign of the cross. They
+no longer thought of anything, not of Gaud, not of any
+women, nor of any marriage. It was lasting too long and
+they were past all thinking; their intoxication of noise, of
+weariness, of cold, obscured everything in their heads.
+They were now only two pillars of stiff flesh who kept the
+helm; only two vigorous beasts clinging there by instinct
+so that they should not die.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class = "right">From <cite>The Iceland Fisherman</cite> by Pierre Loti.<br>
+Published by Frederick A. Stokes Company.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<p class="center">SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY OF NARRATIVES
+OF ADVENTURE</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>The editors have found these additional selections very useful
+in teaching the writing of narratives of adventure.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_380">[Pg 380]</span></p>
+
+<p>Grenfell, Wilfred. <cite>Adrift on an Ice Pan.</cite> Houghton Mifflin Company.</p>
+
+<p>London, Jack. <cite>To Build a Fire</cite>, from <cite>Lost Face</cite>. The Macmillan
+Company.</p>
+
+<p>Paine, Ralph D. <cite>The Story of The Derelict Polly</cite>, from <cite>Lost
+Ships and Lonely Seas</cite>. The Century Company.</p>
+
+<p>Roosevelt, Theodore. <cite>A Book Lover’s Holidays in the Open</cite>, pages
+347-353. Charles Scribner’s Sons.</p>
+
+<p>Sharp, Dallas Lore. <cite>The Spirit of the Herd</cite>, from <cite>Where Rolls the
+Oregon</cite>. Houghton Mifflin Company.</p>
+
+<p>Stewart, Eleanor Rupert. <cite>Letters on an Elk Hunt</cite>, from <cite>The Letters
+of a Woman Homesteader</cite>. Houghton Mifflin Company.</p>
+</div>
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_381">[Pg 381]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_X">CHAPTER X</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class = "center"><cite>Narratives of Travel</cite></p>
+
+
+<p>For more than six hundred years, Marco Polo has been
+a name to conjure with, but if you will turn to a biographical
+dictionary you will find only the dates of his birth
+and death, and the words, “A Venetian traveler in China.”
+It is true that travel has grown both easier and commoner
+since his day, but the human delight in the open road, or,
+lacking that, in another’s account of it, has not disappeared.</p>
+
+<p>Accounts of travel fall broadly into two classes. The
+first are those records of explorations undertaken for the
+sake of scientific information. Such accounts are under
+obligation to be absolutely accurate in minor as well as in
+major matters, and are to be respected first and enjoyed
+afterward, if, by a rare chance, the scientist is an artist as
+well as a geographer.</p>
+
+<p>The second class consists of those accounts of travel
+which are read for pleasure and for general information
+rather than for exact data, which interest us in the
+traveler as much as in his travels, and which are distinctly
+literary because of the personal comments, reactions,
+and reflections of the author. This does not mean
+that such books are not accurate within the limits of their
+purpose, but, rather, that accuracy alone is not sufficient
+to qualify a book for a place on this list. The account
+must be true to the country described, but need not haggle
+over details in the experience of the writer. To alter<span class="pagenum" id="Page_382">[Pg 382]</span>
+geographical facts or details of climate would make the
+author ridiculous, but to open with the most picturesque
+approach to the spot whether or not that is the way in
+which he actually entered it for the first time is to serve
+the reader as he has a right to demand. To trail a frowsy
+party of tourists through many pages because they dogged
+the author’s footsteps is unkind, but to introduce a purely
+imaginary companion whose comments and store of information
+add pleasure is perfectly in keeping with the
+task in hand.</p>
+
+<p>It seems almost unnecessary to say that the first requirement
+for writing successful travel sketches is to be
+a good traveler. An honest pleasure and a swinging
+readiness in meeting the chances of the road must somehow
+become apparent in the writing, not, indeed, by
+protestations of delight, but rather through the tone of
+zestful appreciation of new flavors in living. A pessimist
+or a misanthrope may be endured among the comforts of
+home, but no one chooses him as a traveling companion
+either in the flesh or on paper. The distinguished
+foreigner whose record of his experiences with American
+trains is a tirade against the inconvenience of shaving on
+a Pullman exemplifies the lack of that urbanity, the
+presence of which so delights us in Mr. Street’s account
+of his adjustment to Japanese customs and conveniences.
+It is not necessary, of course, that all discomforts be
+denied or suppressed for the sake of a Polly-Anna-ish
+happiness—such experiences are a part of almost all
+travel, but they must be treated with that good grace with
+which all of us wish to endure the pin pricks of existence
+both at home and abroad.</p>
+
+<p>To write well of one’s travels, however, requires more
+than mere personal enjoyment, which so often ends in
+half articulate ejaculations of pleasure; it requires a gift<span class="pagenum" id="Page_383">[Pg 383]</span>
+for seizing upon the essential characteristics of any place,
+and a power of comparison and contrast that will enable
+one to convey his observations to another. Some people
+lack this ability; “They are,” says William McFee, “with
+agreeable reservations, very much like those seafarers
+who sail all over the world and tarry in magic harbors
+and beneath the glittering cupolas of marvelous cities and
+come home and say there is nothing in the world to see.
+They possess admirably incondite minds set upon trade
+and concessions and the women whose photographs adorn
+their dressing tables.” Once as a child on the treeless,
+drought burned prairies, I begged a neighbor to tell me
+of her girlhood on the rocky fjords of Norway under the
+midnight sun, and she answered, “Oh, it was just about
+like here.” A good traveler appreciates the innate character
+of a place as a good biographer does that of a person,
+and strives by every means within his power to set it
+forth, and so give to his reader a refreshing sense of a
+sojourn among new scenes and new faces.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">“It’s like a book, I think, this bloomin’ world,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Which you can read and care for just so long,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">But presently you feel that you will die</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Unless you get the page you’re readin’ done,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">An’ turn another—likely not so good</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">But what you’re after is to turn ’em all.”</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>The following suggestions may be helpful:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>1. Choose a place which is of interest to you for one
+definite characteristic: natural beauty, historical associations,
+picturesque squalor, or what you will. Make this
+point of central interest in your narrative, but do not
+neglect other possible additions. Observe that Mr. Morley’s
+“Up the Wissahickon” gives many other items of
+interest besides the picture of autumn beauty.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_384">[Pg 384]</span></p>
+
+<p>2. Limit your narrative to a period brief enough to be
+readily presented within the limits of your space. Though
+you may have known a place all your life, an account
+of a single visit may be a wise selection. A supposed
+traveler’s story of a day in your home town or city may
+reveal unexpected possibilities.</p>
+
+<p>3. Write of pleasant experiences or in a kindly mood.
+Do not chronicle the trip you wish you had never taken.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="right">
+F. del P.<br>
+</p>
+
+<br>
+<p class = "center"><span class="smcap">The Departure</span></p>
+
+<p class = "center">JULIAN STREET</p>
+
+<p>My last days in Japan were my best days, for I spent
+them in a Japanese home, standing amid its own lovely
+gardens in Mita, a residential district some twenty minutes
+by motor from the central part of Tokyo.</p>
+
+<p>Through the open shoji of my bedroom I could look
+out in the mornings to where, beyond the velvet lawns,
+the flowers and the treetops, the inverted fan of Fuji’s
+cone was often to be seen floating white and spectral in
+the sky, seventy miles away.</p>
+
+<p>After my bath in a majestic family tub I would breakfast
+in my room, wearing a kimono, recently acquired,
+and feeling very Japanese.</p>
+
+<p>While I was dressing, Yuki sometimes entered, but I
+had by this time become accustomed to her matutinal invasions
+and no longer found them embarrassing. She
+was so entirely practical, so useful. She knew where
+everything was. She would go to a curious little cupboard,
+which was built into the wall and had sliding doors
+of lacquer and silk, and get me a shirt, or would retrieve<span class="pagenum" id="Page_385">[Pg 385]</span>
+from their place of concealment a missing pair of trousers,
+and bring them to me neatly folded in one of those flat,
+shallow baskets which, with the Japanese, seem to take
+the place of bureau drawers.</p>
+
+<p>Thus, besides being my daughter’s duenna and my
+wife’s maid, she was in effect, my valet. Nor did her
+usefulness by any means end there. She was our interpreter,
+dragoman, purchasing-agent; she was our steward,
+major domo, seneschal; nay, she was our Prime Minister.</p>
+
+<p>The house had a large staff, and all the servants made
+us feel that they were <em>our</em> servants, and that they were
+glad to have us there. With the exception of a butler,
+an English-speaking Japanese temporarily added to the
+establishment on our account, all wore the native dress;
+and there were among them two men so fine of feature,
+so dignified of bearing, so elegant in their silks, that we
+took them, at first, for members of the family. One of
+them was a white-bearded old gentleman who would have
+made a desirable grandfather for anybody. If he had
+duties other than to decorate the hall with his presence I
+never discovered what they were. The other, a young
+man, was clerk of the household, and enjoyed the distinction
+of being Saki’s husband.</p>
+
+<p>Saki was the housekeeper, young and pretty. She and
+her husband lived in a cottage near by, and their home
+was extensively equipped with musical instruments, Saki
+being proficient on the samisen and koto, and also on an
+American melodeon which was one of her chief treasures.
+She was all smiles and sweetness—a most obliging person.
+Indeed it was she who pretended to be asleep in a
+Japanese bed, in order that I might make the photograph
+which is one of the illustrations in this book.</p>
+
+<p>Four or five coolies, excellent fellows, wearing blue cotton
+coats with the insignia of our host’s family upon the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_386">[Pg 386]</span>
+backs of them, worked about the house and grounds; and
+several little maids were continually trotting through the
+corridors, with that pigeon-toed shuffle in which one
+comes, when one is used to it, actually to see a curious
+prettiness.</p>
+
+<p>Sometimes we felt that the servants were showing us
+too much consideration. We dined out a great deal and
+were often late in getting home (“Home” was the term
+we found ourselves using there), yet however advanced
+the hour, the chauffeur would sound his horn on entering
+the gate, whereupon lights would flash on beneath the
+porte-cochère, the shoji at the entrance of the house
+would slide open, and three or four domestics would come
+out, dragging a wide strip of red velvet carpet, over
+which we would walk magnificently up the two steps
+leading to the hall. But though I urged them to omit
+this regal detail, because two or three men had to sit up
+to handle the heavy carpet, and also because the production
+of it made me feel like a bogus prince, I could never
+induce them to do so. Always, regardless of the hour, a
+little group of servants appeared at the door when we
+came home.</p>
+
+<p>Even on the night when, under the ministrations of
+the all-wise and all-powerful head porter of the Imperial
+Hotel, our trunks were spirited away, to be taken to
+Yokohama and placed aboard the <i lang="la">Tenyo Maru</i>, even then
+we found it difficult to realize that our last night in Japan
+had come.</p>
+
+<p>The realization did not strike me with full force until
+I went to bed.</p>
+
+<p>I was not sleepy. I lay there, thinking. And the
+background of my thoughts was woven out of sounds
+wafted through the open shoji on the summer wind: the
+nocturnal sounds of the Tokyo streets.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_387">[Pg 387]</span></p>
+
+<p>I recalled how, on my first night in Tokyo, I had listened
+to these sounds and wondered what they signified.</p>
+
+<p>Now they explained themselves to me, as to a Japanese.</p>
+
+<p>A distant jingling, like that of sleigh-bells, informed me
+that a newsboy was running with late papers. A plaintive
+musical phrase suggestive of Debussy, bursting out
+suddenly and stopping with startling abruptness, told me
+that the Chinese macaroni man was abroad with his
+lantern-trimmed cart and his little brass horn. At last I
+heard a xylophone-like note, resembling somewhat the
+sound of a New York policeman’s club tapping the sidewalk.
+It was repeated several times; then there would
+come a silence; then the sound again, a little nearer. It
+was the night watchman on his rounds, guarding the
+neighbourhood not against thieves, but against fire, “the
+Flower of Tokyo.” In my mind’s eye I could see him
+hurrying along, knocking his two sticks together now and
+then, to spread the news that all was well.</p>
+
+<p>Then it was that I reflected: “Tomorrow night I shall
+not hear these sounds. In their place I shall hear the
+creaking of the ship, the roar of the wind, the hiss of the
+sea. Possibly I shall never again hear the music of the
+Tokyo streets.”</p>
+
+<p>My heart was sad as I went to sleep.</p>
+
+<p>Fortunately for our peace of mind, we had learned
+through the experience of American friends, visitors in
+another Japanese home, how <em>not</em> to tip these well-bred
+domestics—or rather, how not to try to tip them. On
+leaving the house in which they had been guests, these
+friends had offered money to the servants, only to have it
+politely but positively refused.</p>
+
+<p>Yuki cleared the matter up for us.</p>
+
+<p>“They should put <cite>noshi</cite> with money,” she explained in<span class="pagenum" id="Page_388">[Pg 388]</span>
+response to our questions. “That make it all right to
+take. It mean a present.”</p>
+
+<p>Without having previously known noshi by name, we
+knew immediately what she meant, for we had received
+during our stay in Japan enough presents to fill a large
+trunk, and each had been accompanied by a little piece
+of coloured paper folded in a certain way, signifying a
+gift.</p>
+
+<p>In the old days these coloured papers always contained
+small pieces of dried <em>awabi</em>—abelone—but with the years
+the dried awabi began to be omitted, and the little folded
+papers by themselves came to be considered adequate.</p>
+
+<p>Fortified with this knowledge I went, on the day before
+our departure, to the Ginza, where I bought envelopes
+on which the noshi design was printed. Money placed in
+these envelopes was graciously accepted by all the servants.
+Tips they would not have received. But these
+were not tips. They were gifts from friend to friend, at
+parting.</p>
+
+<p>The code of Japanese courtesy is very exact and very
+exacting in the matter of farewells to the departing guest.
+Callers are invariably escorted to the door by the host,
+such members of his family as have been present, and a
+servant or two, all of whom stand in the portal bowing as
+the visitor drives away.</p>
+
+<p>A house-guest is despatched with even greater ceremony.
+The entire personnel of the establishment will
+gather at the door to speed him on his way with profound
+bows and cries of “Sayonara!” Members of the family,
+often the entire family, accompany him to the station,
+where appear other friends who have carefully inquired in
+advance as to the time of departure. The traveller is
+escorted to his car, and his friends remain upon the platform<span class="pagenum" id="Page_389">[Pg 389]</span>
+until the train leaves, when the bowing and
+“Sayonaras” are repeated.</p>
+
+<p>Tokyo people often go to Yokohama with friends who
+are sailing from Japan, accompanying them to the ship,
+and remaining on the dock until the vessel moves into
+the bay. How Tokyo men-of-affairs can manage to go
+upon these time-consuming seeing-off parties is one of the
+great mysteries of Mysterious Japan, for such an excursion
+takes up the greater part of a day.</p>
+
+<p>To the American, accustomed in his friendships to take
+so much for granted, a Japanese farewell affords a new
+sensation, and one which can hardly fail to touch the
+heart.</p>
+
+<p>Departing passengers are given coils of paper ribbon
+confetti, to throw to their friends ashore, so that each may
+hold an end until the wall of steel parts from the wall of
+stone, and the paper strand strains and breaks. There is
+something poignant and poetic in that breaking, symbolizing
+the vastness of the world, the littleness of men and
+ships, the fragility of human contacts.</p>
+
+<p>The last face I recognized, back there across the water,
+in Japan, was Yuki’s. She was standing on the dock
+with the end of a broken paper ribbon in her hand. The
+other end trailed down into the water. She was weeping
+bitterly.</p>
+
+<p>Wishing to be sure that my wife and daughter had not
+failed to discover her in the crowd, I turned to them.
+But I did not have to point her out. Their faces told
+me that they saw her. They too were weeping.</p>
+
+<p>So it is with women. They weep. As for a man, he
+merely waves his hat. I waved mine.</p>
+
+<p>“Sayonara!”</p>
+
+<p>I turned away. There were things I had to see to in<span class="pagenum" id="Page_390">[Pg 390]</span>
+my cabin. Besides, the wind on deck was freshening.
+It hurt my eyes.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class = "right">Julian Street, <cite>Mysterious Japan</cite>. Doubleday,<br>
+Page &amp; Company, Publishers. By the kind permission<br>
+of the author.</p>
+</div>
+
+<br>
+<p class = "center"><span class="smcap">Up the Wissahickon</span></p>
+
+<p class = "center">CHRISTOPHER MORLEY</p>
+
+<p>The Soothsayer is a fanatical lover of Fairmount Park.
+His chief delight is to send his car spinning along the
+Lincoln Drive about the time the sun drops toward setting;
+to halt at a certain hostelry (if the afternoon be
+chilly) for what Charles Lamb so winningly describes as
+“hot water and its better adjuncts”; and then, his stormy
+soul for the moment at armistice with life, to roll in a
+gentle simmer down gracious byways while the Park
+gathers her mantle of dusk about her. Sometimes he
+halts his curricle in some favorite nook, climbs back into
+the broad, well-cushioned tonneau seat and lies there
+smoking a cigarette and watching the lights along the
+river. The Park is his favorite relaxation. He carries
+its contours and colors and sunsets in the spare locker of
+his brain, and even on the most trying day at his office he
+is a little happier because he knows the Wissahickon
+Drive is but a few miles away. Wise Soothsayer! He
+should have been one of the hermits who came from
+Germany with Kelpius in 1694 and lived bleakly on the
+hillsides of that fairest of streams, waiting the millennium
+they expected in 1700.</p>
+
+<p>The Soothsayer had long been urging me to come and
+help him worship the Wissahickon Drive, and when luck
+and the happy moment conspired, I found myself carried<span class="pagenum" id="Page_391">[Pg 391]</span>
+swiftly past the Washington Monument at the Park
+entrance and along the margin of the twinkling Schuylkill.
+At the first there was nothing of the hermit in the
+Soothsayer’s conversation. He was bitterly condemning
+the handicraft of a certain garage mechanic who had
+done something to his “clutch.” He included this fallacious
+artisan in the class of those he deems most degraded:
+The People Who Don’t Give a Damn. For
+intellectual convenience, the Soothsayer tersely ascribes
+all ills that befall him to Bolshevism. If the waitress is
+tardy in delivering his cheese omelet, she is a bolshevixen.
+If a motortruck driver skims his polished fender,
+he is a bolshevik. In other words, those who Don’t Give
+a Damn are bolsheviks.</p>
+
+<p>The Soothsayer lamented that I had not been in the
+Park with him two weeks ago, when the autumn foliage
+was a blaze of glowing color. But to my eye the tints
+(it was the first of November) were unsurpassably lovely.
+It was a keen afternoon, the air was sharp, the sky flushing
+with rose and massed with great banks of cloud the
+bluish hue of tobacco smoke. When we neared the
+corner of Peter’s Island the sun slid from under a cloudy
+screen and transfused the thin bronze-yellow of the trees
+with a pale glow which sparkled as the few remaining
+leaves fluttered in the wind. Most of the leafage had
+fallen and was being burnt in bonfires at the side of the
+road, where the gusts tossed and flattened the waving
+flames. But the trees were still sufficiently clothed to
+show a rich tapestry of russet and orange and brown,
+sharpened here and there by wisps and shreds of yellow.
+And where the boughs were wholly stripped (the silver-gray
+beeches, for instance) their delicate twigs were
+clearly traced against the sky. I think one hears too
+much of the beauty of October’s gold and scarlet and not<span class="pagenum" id="Page_392">[Pg 392]</span>
+enough of the sober, wistful richness of November buffs
+and duns and browns.</p>
+
+<p>The Wissahickon Drive is the last refuge of the foot
+and the hoof, for motors are not allowed to follow the
+trail up the ravine, which still remains a haunt of ancient
+peace—much more so, indeed, than in former years, when
+there must have been many and many a smart turnout
+spanking up the valley for supper at the Lotus Inn. Over
+the ruins of this hostelry the Soothsayer becomes sadly
+eloquent, recalling how in his salad days he used to drive
+out from town in a chartered hansom and sit placidly on
+a honeysuckled balcony over chicken and waffles served
+with the proper flourish by a colored servitor named
+Pompey. But we must take things as we see them, and
+though my conductor rebuked me for thinking the scene
+so lovely—I should have been there not only two weeks
+ago to see the autumn colors, but ten years ago to see
+Pompey and the Lotus Inn—still, I was marvelously content
+with the dusky beauty of the glades. The cool air
+was rich with the damp, sweet smell of decaying leaves.
+A tiny murmur of motion rose from the green-brown pools
+of the creek, ruffled here and there with a milky bubble
+of foam below some boulder. In the feathery tops of
+evergreen trees, blackly outlined against the clear arch of
+fading blue, some birds were cheeping a lively squabble.
+We stopped to listen. It was plainly an argument, of the
+kind in which each side accuses the other of partisanship.
+“Bolshevism!” said the Soothsayer.</p>
+
+<p>It is wonderfully still in the Wissahickon ravine in a
+pale November twilight. Overhead the sky darkened;
+the sherry-brown trees began to shed something of their
+rich tint. The soft earth of the roadway was grateful underfoot
+to those too accustomed to pavement walking.
+Along the drive came the romantic thud of hoofs; a party<span class="pagenum" id="Page_393">[Pg 393]</span>
+of girls on horseback perhaps returning from tea at Valley
+Green. What a wonderful sound is the quick drumming
+of horses’ hoofs! To me it always suggests highwaymen
+and Robert Louis Stevenson. We smoked our pipes
+leaning over the wooden fence and looking down at
+the green shimmer of the Wissahickon, seeing how the
+pallor of sandy bottom shone up through the clear
+water.</p>
+
+<p>And then, just as one is about to sentimentalize upon
+the beauty of nature and how it shames the crass work
+of man, one comes to what is perhaps the liveliest thing
+along the Wissahickon—the Walnut Lane Bridge. Leaping
+high in air from the very domes of the trees, curving
+in a sheer smooth superb span that catches the last western
+light on its concrete flanks, it flashes across the darkened
+valley as nobly as an old Roman viaduct of southern
+France. It is a thrilling thing, and I scrambled up the
+bank to note down the names of the artists who planned
+it. The tablet is dated 1906, and bears the names of
+George S. Webster, chief engineer; Henry H. Quimby,
+assistant engineer; Reilly &amp; Riddle, contractors. Many
+poets have written verses both good and bad about the
+Wissahickon, but Messers. Reilly &amp; Riddle have spanned
+it with a poem that will long endure.</p>
+
+<p>We walked back to the Soothsayer’s bolshevized car,
+which waited at the turning of the drive where a Revolutionary
+scuffle took place between American troops and a
+detachment of redcoats under a commander of the fine old
+British name of Knyphausen. As we whirred down to
+the Lincoln Drive and I commented on the lavender haze
+that overhung the steep slopes of the glen, the Soothsayer
+said: “Ah, but you should have seen it two weeks ago.
+The trees were like a cashmere shawl!”</p>
+
+<p>I shall have to wait fifty weeks before I can see the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_394">[Pg 394]</span>
+Wissahickon in a way that will content the fastidious
+Soothsayer.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class = "right">Christopher Morley, <cite>Travels in Philadelphia</cite>.<br>
+By permission of the author and David McKay<br>
+Company.</p>
+</div>
+
+<br>
+<p class = "center"><span class="smcap">Travels With a Donkey</span></p>
+
+<p class = "center">ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON</p>
+
+
+<p>I. OUR LADY OF THE SNOWS—FATHER APOLLINARIS</p>
+
+<p>Next morning (Thursday, 26th September) I took the
+road in a new order. The sack was no longer doubled,
+but hung at full length across the saddle, a green sausage
+six feet long with a tuft of blue wool hanging out of
+either end. It was more picturesque, it spared the
+donkey, and, as I began to see, it would insure stability,
+blow high, blow low. But it was not without a pang that
+I had so decided. For although I had purchased a new
+cord, and made all as fast as I was able, I was yet
+jealously uneasy lest the flaps should tumble out and
+scatter my effects along the line of march.</p>
+
+<p>My way lay up the bald valley of the river, along the
+march of Vivarais and Gévaudan. The Hills of Gévaudan
+on the right were a little more naked, if anything,
+than those of Vivarais upon the left, and the former had
+a monopoly of a low dotty underwood that grew thickly
+in the gorges and died out in solitary burrs upon the
+shoulders and the summits. Black bricks of fir-wood
+were plastered here and there upon both sides, and here
+and there were cultivated fields. A railway ran beside
+the river; the only bit of railway in Gévaudan, although
+there are many proposals afoot and surveys being made,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_395">[Pg 395]</span>
+and even, as they tell me, a station standing ready-built
+in Mende. A year or two hence and this may be another
+world. The desert is beleaguered. Now may some
+Languedocian Wordsworth turn the sonnet into <i lang="fr">patois</i>:
+“Mountains and vales and floods, heard Ye that whistle?”</p>
+
+<p>At a place called La Bastide I was directed to leave the
+river, and follow a road that mounted on the left among
+the hills of Vivarais, the modern Ardeche; for I was now
+come within a little way of my strange destination, the
+Trappist monastery of our Lady of the Snows. The sun
+came out as I left the shelter of a pine-wood, and I beheld
+suddenly a fine wild landscape to the south. High rocky
+hills, as blue as sapphire, closed the view, and between
+these lay ridge upon ridge, heathery, craggy, the sun glittering
+on veins of rock, the underwood clambering in the
+hollows, as rude as God made them at the first. There
+was not a sign of man’s hand in all the prospect; and
+indeed not a trace of his passage, save where generation
+after generation had walked in twisted foot-paths, in and
+out among the beeches, and up and down upon the channelled
+slopes. The mists, which had hitherto beset me,
+were now broken into clouds, and fled swiftly and shone
+brightly in the sun. I drew a long breath. It was grateful
+to come, after so long, upon a scene of some attraction
+for the human heart. I own I like definite form in what
+my eyes are to rest upon; and if landscapes were sold, like
+the sheets of characters of my boyhood, one penny plain
+and twopence coloured, I should go the length of twopence
+every day of my life.</p>
+
+<p>But if things had grown better to the south, it was
+still desolate and inclement near at hand. A spidery cross
+on every hill-top marked the neighbourhood of a religious
+house; and a quarter of a mile beyond, the outlook
+southward opening out and growing bolder with<span class="pagenum" id="Page_396">[Pg 396]</span>
+every step, a white statue of the Virgin at the corner of a
+young plantation directed the traveller to our Lady of the
+Snows. Here, then, I struck leftward, and pursued my
+way, driving my secular donkey before me, and creaking
+in my secular boots and gaiters, towards the asylum of
+silence.</p>
+
+<p>I had not gone very far ere the wind brought to me the
+clanging of a bell, and somehow, I can scarce tell why,
+my heart sank within me at the sound. I have rarely
+approached anything with more unaffected terror than
+the monastery of our Lady of the Snows. This it is to
+have had a Protestant education. And suddenly, on turning
+a corner, fear took hold on me from head to foot—slavish
+superstitious fear; and though I did not stop in
+my advance, yet I went on slowly, like a man who should
+have passed a bourne unnoticed, and strayed into the
+country of the dead. For there upon the narrow new-made
+road, between the stripling pines, was a mediæval
+friar, fighting with a barrowful of turfs. Every Sunday
+of my childhood I used to study the <cite>Hermits</cite> of Marco
+Sadeler—enchanting prints, full of wood and field and
+mediæval landscapes, as large as a county, for the imagination
+to go a-travelling in; and here, sure enough, was
+one of Marco Sadeler’s heroes. He was robed in white
+like any spectre, and the hood falling back, in the instancy
+of his contention with the barrow, disclosed a pate as bald
+and yellow as a skull. He might have been buried any
+time these thousand years, and all the lively parts of him
+resolved into earth and broken up with the farmer’s barrow.</p>
+
+<p>I was troubled besides in my mind as to etiquette.
+Durst I address a person who was under a vow of silence?
+Clearly not. But drawing near, I doffed my cap to him
+with a far-away superstitious reverence. He nodded<span class="pagenum" id="Page_397">[Pg 397]</span>
+back, and cheerfully addressed me. Was I going to the
+monastery? Who was I? An Englishman? Ah, an
+Irishman, then?</p>
+
+<p>“No,” I said, “a Scotsman.”</p>
+
+<p>A Scotsman? Ah, he had never seen a Scotsman before.
+And he looked me all over, his good, honest,
+brawny countenance shining with interest, as a boy might
+look upon a lion or an alligator. From him I learned
+with disgust that I could not be received at our Lady of
+the Snows; I might get a meal, perhaps, but that was all.
+And then, as our talk ran on, and it turned out that I
+was not a pedlar, but a literary man, who drew landscapes
+and was going to write a book, he changed his manner of
+thinking as to my reception (for I fear they respect persons
+even in a Trappist monastery), and told me I must
+be sure to ask for the Father Prior, and state my case to
+him in full. On second thoughts he determined to go
+down with me himself; he thought he could manage for
+me better. Might he say that I was a geographer?</p>
+
+<p>No; I thought in the interests of truth, he positively
+might not.</p>
+
+<p>“Very well, then” (with disappointment), “an author.”</p>
+
+<p>It appeared he had been in a seminary with six young
+Irishmen, all priests long since, who had received newspapers
+and kept him informed of the state of ecclesiastical
+affairs in England. And he asked me eagerly after
+Dr. Pusey, for whose conversion the good man had continued
+ever since to pray night and morning.</p>
+
+<p>“I thought he was very near the truth,” he said; “and
+he will reach it yet; there is so much virtue in prayer.”</p>
+
+<p>He must be a stiff ungodly Protestant who can take
+anything but pleasure in this kind and hopeful story.
+While he was thus near the subject, the good father asked
+me if I were a Christian; and when he found I was not,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_398">[Pg 398]</span>
+or not after his way, he glossed it over with great goodwill.</p>
+
+<p>The road which we were following, and which this stalwart
+father had made with his own two hands within the
+space of a year, came to a corner, and showed us some
+white buildings a little further on beyond the wood. At
+the same time, the bell once more sounded abroad. We
+were hard upon the monastery. Father Apollinaris (for
+that was my companion’s name) stopped me.</p>
+
+<p>“I must not speak to you down there,” he said.</p>
+
+<p>“Ask for the Brother Porter, and all will be well. But
+try to see me as you go out again through the wood, where
+I may speak to you. I am charmed to have made your
+acquaintance.”</p>
+
+<p>And then suddenly raising his arms, flapping his fingers,
+and crying out twice, “I must not speak, I must not
+speak!” he ran away in front of me, and disappeared into
+the monastery-door.</p>
+
+<p>I own this somewhat ghastly eccentricity went a good
+way to revive my terrors. But where one was so good
+and simple, why should not all be alike? I took heart of
+grace, and went forward to the gate as fast as Modestine,
+who seemed to have a disaffection for monasteries, would
+permit. It was the first door, in my acquaintance of her,
+which she had not shown an indecent haste to enter. I
+summoned the place in form, though with a quaking heart.
+Father Michael, the Father Hospitaller, and a pair of
+brown-robed brothers came to the gate and spoke with
+me awhile. I think my sack was the great attraction; it
+had already beguiled the heart of poor Apollinaris, who
+had charged me on my life to show it to the Father Prior.
+But whether it was my address, or the sack, or the idea
+speedily published among that part of the brotherhood
+who attend on strangers that I was not a pedlar after all,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_399">[Pg 399]</span>
+I found no difficulty as to my reception. Modestine was
+led away by a layman to the stables, and I and my pack
+were received into our Lady of the Snows.</p>
+
+
+<p>II. THE MONKS</p>
+
+<p>Father Michael, a pleasant, fresh-faced, smiling man,
+perhaps of thirty-five, took me to the pantry, and gave
+me a glass of liqueur to stay me until dinner. We had
+some talk, or rather I should say he listened to my prattle
+indulgently enough, but with an abstracted air, like a
+spirit with a thing of clay. And truly when I remember
+that I descanted principally on my appetite, and that it
+must have been by that time more than eighteen hours
+since Father Michael had so much as broken bread, I can
+well understand that he would find an earthly savour in
+my conversation. But his manner, though superior, was
+exquisitely gracious; and I find I have a lurking curiosity
+as to Father Michael’s past.</p>
+
+<p>The whet administered, I was left alone for a little in
+the monastery garden. This is no more than the main
+court, laid out in sandy paths and beds of party-coloured
+dahlias, and with a fountain and a black statue of the
+Virgin in the centre. The buildings stand around it four-square,
+bleak, as yet unseasoned by the years and
+weather, and with no other features than a belfry and
+a pair of slated gables. Brothers in white, brothers in
+brown, passed silently along the sanded alleys; and when
+I first came out, three hooded monks were kneeling on
+the terrace at their prayers. A naked hill commands the
+monastery upon one side, and the wood commands it on
+the other. It lies exposed to wind; the snow falls off and
+on from October to May, and sometimes lies six weeks
+on end; but if they stood in Eden, with a climate like<span class="pagenum" id="Page_400">[Pg 400]</span>
+heaven’s, the buildings themselves would offer the same
+wintry and cheerless aspect; and for my part, on this
+wild September day, before I was called to dinner, I felt
+chilly in and out.</p>
+
+<p>When I had eaten well and heartily, Brother Ambrose,
+a hearty conversable Frenchman (for all those who wait
+on strangers have the liberty to speak), led me to a little
+room in that part of the building which is set apart for
+<i lang="fr">MM. les retraitants</i>. It was clean and whitewashed, and
+furnished with strict necessaries, a crucifix, a bust of the
+late Pope, the <i lang="fr">Imitation</i> in French, a book of religious
+meditations, and the <cite>Life of Elizabeth Seton</cite>, evangelist,
+it would appear, of North America and of New England
+in particular. As far as my experience goes, there is a
+fair field for some more evangelisation in these quarters;
+but think of Cotton Mather! I should like to give him
+a reading of this little work in heaven, where I hope he
+dwells; but perhaps he knows all that already, and much
+more, and perhaps he and Mrs. Seton are the dearest
+friends, and gladly unite their voices in the everlasting
+psalm. Over the table, to conclude the inventory of the
+room, hung a set of regulations for <cite>MM. les retraitants</cite>:
+what services they should attend, when they were to tell
+their beads or meditate, and when they were to rise and
+go to rest. At the foot was a notable N.B.: “<i lang="fr">Le temps
+libre est employé à l’examen de conscience, à la confession,
+à faire de bonnes résolutions</i>,” etc. To make good
+resolutions, indeed! You might talk as fruitfully of making
+the hair grow on your head.</p>
+
+<p>I had scarce explored my niche when Brother Ambrose
+returned. An English boarder, it appeared, would like to
+speak with me. I professed my willingness, and the friar
+ushered in a fresh, young little Irishman of fifty, a deacon
+of the Church, arrayed in strict canonicals, and wearing<span class="pagenum" id="Page_401">[Pg 401]</span>
+on his head what, in default of knowledge, I can only call
+the ecclesiastical shako. He had lived seven years in retreat
+at a convent of nuns in Belgium, and now five at our
+Lady of the Snows; he never saw an English newspaper;
+he spoke French imperfectly, and had he spoken it like
+a native, there was not much chance of conversation where
+he dwelt. With this, he was a man eminently sociable,
+greedy of news, and simple-minded like a child. If I was
+pleased to have a guide about the monastery, he was no
+less delighted to see an English face and hear an English
+tongue.</p>
+
+<p>He showed me his own room, where he passed his
+time among breviaries, Hebrew bibles, and the Waverley
+novels. Thence he led me to the cloisters, into the
+chapter-house, through the vestry, where the brothers’
+gowns and broad straw hats were hanging up, each with
+his religious name upon a board,—names full of legendary
+suavity and interest, such as Basil, Hilarion, Raphael, or
+Pacifique; into the library, where were all the works of
+Veuillot and Chateaubriand, and the <i lang="fr">Odes et Ballades</i>, if
+you please, and even Molière, to say nothing of innumerable
+fathers and a great variety of local and general historians.
+Thence my good Irishman took me round the
+workshops, where brothers bake bread, and make cartwheels,
+and take photographs; where one superintends a
+collection of curiosities, and another a gallery of rabbits.
+For in a Trappist monastery each monk has an occupation
+of his own choice, apart from his religious duties and
+the general labours of the house. Each must sing in the
+choir, if he has a voice and ear, and join in the haymaking
+if he has a hand to stir; but in his private hours, although
+he must be occupied, he may be occupied on what he likes.
+Thus I was told that one brother was engaged with literature;
+while Father Apollinaris busies himself in making<span class="pagenum" id="Page_402">[Pg 402]</span>
+roads, and the Abbot employs himself in binding
+books. It is not so long since this Abbot was consecrated,
+by the way; and on that occasion, by a special grace, his
+mother was permitted to enter the chapel and witness the
+ceremony of consecration. A proud day for her to have
+a son a mitred abbot; it makes you glad to think they let
+her in.</p>
+
+<p>In all these journeyings to and fro, many silent fathers
+and brethren fell in our way. Usually they paid no more
+regard to our passage than if we had been a cloud; but
+sometimes the good deacon had a permission to ask of
+them, and it was granted by a peculiar movement of the
+hands, almost like that of a dog’s paws in swimming, or
+refused by the usual negative signs, and in either case
+with lowered eyelids and a certain air of contrition, as of
+a man who was steering very close to evil.</p>
+
+<p>The monks, by special grace of their Abbot, were still
+taking two meals a day; but it was already time for their
+grand fast, which begins somewhere in September and
+lasts till Easter, and during which they eat but once in
+the twenty-four hours, and that at two in the afternoon,
+twelve hours after they have begun the toil and vigil of
+the day. Their meals are scanty, but even of these they
+eat sparingly; and though each is allowed a small carafe
+of wine, many refrain from this indulgence. Without
+doubt, the most of mankind grossly overeat themselves;
+our meals serve not only for support, but as a hearty and
+natural diversion from the labour of life. Although excess
+may be hurtful, I should have thought this Trappist
+regimen defective. And I am astonished, as I look back,
+at the freshness of face and cheerfulness of manner of all
+whom I beheld. A happier nor a healthier company I
+should scarce suppose that I have ever seen. As a matter
+of fact, on this bleak upland, and with the incessant occupation<span class="pagenum" id="Page_403">[Pg 403]</span>
+of the monks, life is of an uncertain tenure, and
+death no infrequent visitor, at our Lady of the Snows.
+This, at least, was what was told me. But if they die
+easily, they must live healthily in the meantime, for they
+seemed all firm of flesh and high in colour; and the only
+morbid sign that I could observe, an unusual brilliancy of
+eye, was one that served rather to increase the general impression
+of vivacity and strength.</p>
+
+<p>Those with whom I spoke were singularly sweet-tempered,
+with what I can only call a holy cheerfulness in
+air and conversation. There is a note, in the direction to
+visitors, telling them not to be offended at the curt speech
+of those who wait upon them, since it is proper to monks
+to speak little. The note might have been spared; to a
+man the hospitallers were all brimming with innocent talk,
+and, in my experience of the monastery, it was easier to
+begin than to break off a conversation. With the exception
+of Father Michael, who was a man of the world, they
+showed themselves full of kind and healthy interest in
+all sorts of subjects—in politics, in voyages, in my
+sleeping-sack—and not without a certain pleasure in the
+sound of their own voices.</p>
+
+<p>As for those who are restricted to silence, I can only
+wonder how they bear their solemn and cheerless isolation.
+And yet, apart from any view of mortification, I
+can see a certain policy, not only in the exclusion of
+women, but in this vow of silence. I have had some experience
+of lay phalansteries, of an artistic, not to say a
+bacchanalian, character; and seen more than one association
+easily formed, and yet more easily dispersed. With
+a Cistercian rule, perhaps they might have lasted longer.
+In the neighbourhood of women it is but a touch-and-go
+association that can be formed among defenceless men;
+the stronger electricity is sure to triumph; the dreams of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_404">[Pg 404]</span>
+boyhood, the schemes of youth, are abandoned after an
+interview of ten minutes, and the arts and sciences, and
+professional male jollity, deserted at once for two sweet
+eyes and a caressing accent. And next after this, the
+tongue is the great divider.</p>
+
+<p>I am almost ashamed to pursue this worldly criticism
+of a religious rule; but there is yet another point in which
+the Trappist order appeals to me as a model of wisdom.
+By two in the morning the clapper goes upon the bell,
+and so on, hour by hour, and sometimes quarter by quarter,
+till eight, the hour of rest; so infinitesimally is the
+day divided among different occupations. The man who
+keeps rabbits, for example, hurries from his hutches to the
+chapel, the chapter-room, or the refectory, all day long;
+every hour he has an office to sing, a duty to perform;
+from two, when he rises in the dark, till eight, when he
+returns to receive the comfortable gift of sleep, he is upon
+his feet and occupied with manifold and changing business.
+I know many persons, worth several thousands in
+the year, who are not so fortunate in the disposal of their
+lives. Into how many houses would not the note of the
+monastery-bell, dividing the day into manageable portions,
+bring peace of mind and healthful activity of body?
+We speak of hardships, but the true hardship is to be a
+dull fool, and permitted to mismanage life in our own dull
+and foolish manner.</p>
+
+<p>From this point of view, we may perhaps better understand
+the monk’s existence. A long novitiate, and
+every proof of constancy of mind and strength of body is
+required before admission to the order; but I could not
+find that many were discouraged. In the photographer’s
+studio, which figures so strangely among the outbuildings,
+my eye was attracted by the portrait of a young fellow in
+the uniform of a private of foot. This was one of the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_405">[Pg 405]</span>
+novices, who came of the age for service, and marched
+and drilled and mounted guard for the proper time among
+the garrison of Algiers. Here was a man who had surely
+seen both sides of life before deciding; yet as soon as he
+was set free from services he returned to finish his novitiate.</p>
+
+<p>This austere rule entitles a man to heaven as by right.
+When the Trappist sickens, he quits not his habit; he lies
+in the bed of death as he has prayed and laboured in his
+frugal and silent existence; and when the Liberator comes,
+at the very moment, even before they have carried him
+in his robe to lie his little last in the chapel among continual
+chantings, joy-bells break forth, as if for a marriage,
+from the slated belfry, and proclaim throughout the
+neighbourhood that another soul has gone to God.</p>
+
+<p>At night, under the conduct of my kind Irishman, I
+took my place in the gallery to hear compline and <i lang="la">Salve
+Regina</i>, with which the Cistercians bring every day to a
+conclusion. There were none of those circumstances
+which strike the Protestant as childish or as tawdry in
+the public offices of Rome. A stern simplicity, heightened
+by the romance of the surroundings, spoke directly
+to the heart. I recall the whitewashed chapel, the hooded
+figures in the choir, the lights alternately occluded and
+revealed, the strong manly singing, the silence that ensued,
+the sight of cowled heads bowed in prayer, and
+then the clear trenchant beating of the bell, breaking in
+to show that the last office was over and the hour of
+sleep had come; and when I remember, I am not surprised
+that I made my escape into the court with somewhat
+whirling fancies, and stood like a man bewildered in the
+windy starry night.</p>
+
+<p>But I was weary; and when I had quieted my spirits
+with Elizabeth Seton’s memoirs—a dull work—the cold<span class="pagenum" id="Page_406">[Pg 406]</span>
+and the raving of the wind among the pines—for my room
+was on that side of the monastery which adjoins the
+woods—disposed me readily to slumber. I was wakened
+at black midnight, as it seemed, though it was really two
+in the morning, by the first stroke upon the bell. All the
+brothers were then hurrying to the chapel; the dead in
+life, at this untimely hour, were already beginning the
+uncomforted labours of their day. The dead of life—there
+was a chill reflection. And the words of a French
+song came back into my memory, telling of the best of
+our mixed existence:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">“Que t’as de belles filles,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent8">Giroflé!</div>
+    <div class="verse indent8">Girofla!</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Que t’as de belles filles,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0"><i lang="fr">L’Amour les comptera</i>:”</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>And I blessed God that I was free to wander, free to hope,
+and free to love.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class = "right">Robert Louis Stevenson, <cite>Travels with a Donkey</cite>.<br>
+By permission of Charles Scribner’s Sons,<br>
+the authorized publishers.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<p class = "center">SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY OF NARRATIVES OF TRAVEL</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>The editors have found these additional selections very useful
+in teaching the writing of travel narratives and sketches:</p>
+
+<p>Brooks, Charles S. <cite>I Ungum the Scholar’s Whiskers</cite>, from <cite>A
+Thread of English Road</cite>. Harcourt, Brace and Company.</p>
+
+<p>Gerould, Katharine Fullerton. <cite>Our Northwestern States</cite>, in
+<cite>Harper’s Magazine</cite>, March 1925; <cite>Reno</cite>, in <cite>Harper’s Magazine</cite>,
+June 1925.</p>
+
+<p>Hall, James Norman. <cite>An Autumn Sojourn in Iceland</cite>, in <cite>Harper’s
+Magazine</cite>, January 1924; <cite>The Narrative of a Journey</cite>, in <cite>Harper’s
+Magazine</cite>, December 1923.</p>
+
+<p>Morley, Christopher. <cite>Travels in Philadelphia</cite>. David McKay
+Company.</p>
+
+<p>Pratt, Alice D. <cite>The Round-Up</cite>, from <cite>The Homesteader’s Portfolio</cite>.
+The Macmillan Company.</p>
+</div>
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_407">[Pg 407]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XI">CHAPTER XI</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class = "center"><cite>Sketches</cite></p>
+
+
+<p>The phrase “a mere sketch,” which one often encounters,
+seems to indicate that the sketch is an inferior and
+undesirable type of writing. This expression probably
+reflects the greater popularity of the short-story with its
+complete plot and wealth of action; the sketch has, however,
+its own admirers, and is not under obligation to contest
+the popularity of the short story. Its charm lies not
+in action or in climax, but in the perfection with which it
+creates the atmosphere of a place or presents the portrait
+of a person, and at its best it produces an effect which is
+not easily forgotten.</p>
+
+<p>It is true that the sketch has action, but not the action
+of a logical succession of events leading inevitably to a
+definite climax. Rather, the sketch leads the reader
+through the normal succession of those hours or days of
+which we are so likely to say, “Nothing happens,” though
+the life may be rich in values and full of color and feeling.
+The action is leisurely, and the end of the sketch may
+leave the characters in much the same situation in which
+the beginning found them, but the reader has been enabled
+to enter into their lives to such an extent that they
+can never again be strangers to him. Stevenson’s “Lantern
+Bearers,” for example, is not told for the sake of any
+single event, contains no story suitable for the cinema,
+but by means of description and variety of incidents, it
+initiates the reader into the circle of the boyish lantern<span class="pagenum" id="Page_408">[Pg 408]</span>
+bearers. Likewise, in “Kermis Morning” there is no
+memorable occurrence, but a picture full of color and
+life and people, a picture which makes you a breathing
+spectator at the holiday celebration.</p>
+
+<p>If you have an interest in places or people as well as in
+events, choose one of your favorites, and invite the reader
+as a guest, not in the hope that he may witness thrilling
+events, but rather that he may know the reason for your
+delight, and share it with you.</p>
+
+<p>In writing a sketch, the beginner may find the following
+suggestions helpful:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>1. Choose a subject which is permeated by human feeling:
+sorrow, joy, love, devotion, or despair.</p>
+
+<p>2. Avoid long introductions. Let the subject explain
+itself.</p>
+
+<p>3. Remember that sense appeals, particularly the use of
+color and sound, are of great help in giving atmosphere,
+without which you cannot have a sketch.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="right">
+F. del P.<br>
+</p>
+
+
+<p class = "center"><span class="smcap">The Lantern Bearers</span></p>
+
+<p class = "center">ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON</p>
+
+<p>These boys congregated every autumn about a certain
+easterly fisher-village, where they tasted in a high degree
+the glory of existence. The place was created seemingly
+on purpose for the diversion of young gentlemen. A
+street or two of houses, mostly red and many of them
+tiled; a number of fine trees clustered about the manse
+and the kirkyard, and turning the chief street into a
+shady alley; many little gardens more than usually bright
+with flowers; nets a-drying, and fisher-wives scolding in<span class="pagenum" id="Page_409">[Pg 409]</span>
+the backward parts; a smell of fish, a genial smell of seaweed;
+whiffs of blowing sand at the street-corners; shops
+with golf-balls and bottled lollipops; another shop with
+penny pickwicks (that remarkable cigar) and the <em>London
+Journal</em>, dear to me for its startling pictures, and a few
+novels, dear for their suggestive names: such, as well as
+memory serves me, were the ingredients of the town.
+These, you are to conceive posted on a spit between two
+sandy bays, and sparsely flanked with villas—enough for
+the boys to lodge in with their subsidiary parents, not
+enough (not yet enough) to cocknify the scene: a haven
+in the rocks in front: in front of that, a file of gray islets:
+to the left, endless links and sand-wreaths, a wilderness
+of hiding-holes, alive with popping rabbits and soaring
+gulls: to the right, a range of seaweed crags, one rugged
+brow beyond another; the ruins of a mighty and ancient
+fortress on the brink of one; coves between—now charmed
+into sunshine quiet, now whistling with wind and clamorous
+with bursting surges; the dens and sheltered hollows
+redolent of thyme and southernwood, the air at the cliff’s
+edge brisk and clean and pungent of the sea—in front of
+all, the Bass Rock, tilted seaward like a doubtful bather,
+the surf ringing it with white, the solan-geese hanging
+round its summit like a great and glittering smoke. This
+choice piece of seaboard was sacred, besides, to the
+wrecker; and the Bass, in the eye of fancy, still flew the
+colors of King James; and in the ear of fancy the arches
+of Tantallon still rang with horseshoe iron, and echoed to
+the commands of Bell-the-Cat.</p>
+
+<p>There was nothing to mar your days, if you were a boy
+summering in that part, but the embarrassment of pleasure.
+You might golf if you wanted; but I seem to have
+been better employed. You might secrete yourself in the
+Lady’s Walk, a certain sunless dingle of elders, all mossed<span class="pagenum" id="Page_410">[Pg 410]</span>
+over by the damp as green as grass, and dotted here and
+there by the stream-side with roofless walls, the cold
+homes of anchorites. To fit themselves for life, and with
+a special eye to acquire the art of smoking, it was even
+common for the boys to harbor there; and you might have
+seen a single penny pickwick, honestly shared in lengths
+with a blunt knife, bestrew the glen with these apprentices.
+Again, you might join our fishing-parties, where we
+sat perched as thick as solan-geese, a covey of little anglers,
+boy and girl, angling over each other’s heads, to the
+much entanglement of lines and loss of podleys and consequent
+shrill recrimination—shrill as the geese themselves.
+Indeed, had that been all, you might have done this often;
+but though fishing be a fine pastime, the podley is scarce
+to be regarded as a dainty for the table; and it was a
+point of honor that a boy should eat all that he had taken.
+Or again, you might climb the Law, where the whale’s
+jawbone stood landmark in the buzzing wind, and behold
+the face of many counties, and the smokes and spires of
+many towns, and the sails of distant ships. You might
+bathe, now in the flaws of fine weather, that we pathetically
+call our summer, now in a gale of wind, with the
+sand scourging your bare hide, your clothes thrashing
+abroad from underneath their guardian stone, the froth
+of the great breakers casting you headlong ere it had
+drowned your knees. Or you might explore the tidal
+rocks, above all in the ebb of springs, when the very roots
+of the hills were for the nonce discovered; following my
+leader from one group to another; groping in slippery
+tangle for the wreck of ships, wading in pools after the
+abominable creatures of the sea, and ever with an eye cast
+backward on the march of the tide and the menaced line
+of your retreat. And then you might go Crusoeing, a
+word that covers all extempore eating in the open air; digging<span class="pagenum" id="Page_411">[Pg 411]</span>
+perhaps a house under the margin of the links, kindling
+a fire of the sea-ware, and cooking apples there—if
+they were truly apples, for I sometimes suppose the merchant
+must have played us off with some inferior and
+quite local fruit, capable of resolving, in the neighborhood
+of fire, into mere sand and smoke and iodine; or perhaps
+pushing to Tantallon, you might lunch on sandwiches and
+visions in the grassy court, while the wind hummed in the
+crumbling turrets; or clambering along the coast, eat
+geans (the worst, I must suppose, in Christendom) from
+an adventurous gean-tree that had taken root under a
+cliff, where it was shaken with an ague of east wind, and
+silvered after gales with salt, and grew so foreign among
+its bleak surroundings that to eat of its produce was an
+adventure in itself.</p>
+
+<p>There are mingled some dismal memories with so many
+that were joyous. Of the fisher-wife, for instance, who
+had cut her throat at Canty Bay; and of how I ran with
+the other children to the top of the Quadrant, and beheld
+a posse of silent people escorting a cart, and on the cart,
+bound in a chair, her throat bandaged, and the bandage
+all bloody—horror!—the fisher-wife herself, who continued
+thenceforth to hagride my thoughts, and even to-day
+(as I recall the scene) darkens daylight. She was lodged
+in the little old jail in the chief street; but whether or no
+she died there, with a wise terror of the worst, I never inquired.
+She had been tippling; it was but a dingy tragedy,
+and it seems strange and hard that, after all these
+years, the poor crazy sinner should be still pilloried on her
+cart in the scrap-book of my memory. Nor shall I readily
+forget a certain house in the Quadrant where a visitor
+died, and a dark old woman continued to dwell alone with
+the dead body; nor how this old woman conceived a
+hatred to myself and one of my cousins, and in the dread<span class="pagenum" id="Page_412">[Pg 412]</span>
+hour of the dusk, as we were clambering on the garden-walls,
+opened a window in that house of mortality and
+cursed us in a shrill voice and with a marrowy choice of
+language. It was a pair of very colorless urchins that
+fled down the lane from this remarkable experience! But
+I recall with a more doubtful sentiment, compounded out
+of fear and exultation, the coil of equinoctial tempests;
+trumpeting squalls, scouring flaws of rain; the boats with
+their reefed lugsails scudding for the harbor mouth, where
+danger lay, for it was hard to make when the wind had
+any east in it; the wives clustered with blowing shawls
+at the pier-head, where (if fate was against them) they
+might see boat and husband and sons—their whole
+wealth and their whole family—engulfed under their eyes;
+and (what I saw but once) a troop of neighbors forcing
+such an unfortunate homeward, and she squalling and
+battling in their midst, a figure scarcely human, a tragic
+Mænad.</p>
+
+<p>These are things that I recall with interest; but what
+my memory dwells upon the most, I have been all this
+while withholding. It was a sport peculiar to the place,
+and indeed to a week or so of our two months’ holiday
+there. Maybe it still flourishes in its native spot; for
+boys and their pastimes are swayed by periodic forces
+inscrutable to man; so that tops and marbles reappear in
+their due season, regular like the sun and moon; and the
+harmless art of knucklebones has seen the fall of the
+Roman empire and the rise of the United States. It may
+still flourish in its native spot, but nowhere else, I am
+persuaded; for I tried myself to introduce it on Tweedside,
+and was defeated lamentably; its charm being quite
+local, like a country wine that cannot be exported.</p>
+
+<p>The idle manner of it was this:—</p>
+
+<p>Toward the end of September, when school-time was<span class="pagenum" id="Page_413">[Pg 413]</span>
+drawing near and the nights were already black, we would
+begin to sally from our respective villas, each equipped
+with a tin bull’s-eye lantern. The thing was so well
+known that it had worn a rut in the commerce of Great
+Britain; and the grocers, about the due time, began to
+garnish their windows with our particular brand of luminary.
+We wore them buckled to the waist upon a cricket
+belt, and over them, such was the rigor of the game, a
+buttoned top-coat. They smelled noisomely of blistered
+tin; they never burned aright, though they would always
+burn our fingers; their use was naught; the pleasure of
+them merely fanciful; and yet a boy with a bull’s-eye
+under his top-coat asked for nothing more. The fishermen
+used lanterns about their boats, and it was from
+them, I suppose, that we had got the hint; but theirs were
+not bull’s-eyes, nor did we ever play at being fishermen.
+The police carried them at their belts, and we had plainly
+copied them in that; yet we did not pretend to be policemen.
+Burglars, indeed, we may have had some haunting
+thoughts of; and we had certainly an eye to past ages
+when lanterns were more common, and to certain storybooks
+in which we had found them to figure very largely.
+But take it for all in all, the pleasure of the thing was
+substantive; and to be a boy with a bull’s-eye under his
+top-coat was good enough for us.</p>
+
+<p>When two of these asses met, there would be an anxious
+“Have you got your lantern?” and a gratified “Yes!”
+That was the shibboleth, and very needful too; for, as it
+was the rule to keep our glory contained, none could recognize
+a lantern-bearer, unless (like the pole-cat) by the
+smell. Four or five would sometimes climb into the belly
+of a ten-man lugger, with nothing but the thwarts above
+them—for the cabin was usually locked, or choose out
+some hollow of the links where the wind might whistle<span class="pagenum" id="Page_414">[Pg 414]</span>
+overhead. There the coats would be unbuttoned and the
+bull’s-eye discovered, and in the checkering glimmer, under
+the huge windy hall of the night, and cheered by a
+rich steam of toasting tinware, these fortunate gentlemen
+would crouch together in the cold sand of the links or on
+the scaly bilges of the fishing-boat, and delight themselves
+with inappropriate talk. Woe is me that I may not give
+some specimens—some of their foresights of life, or deep
+inquiries into the rudiments of man and nature, these were
+so fiery and so innocent, they were so richly silly, so romantically
+young. But the talk, at any rate, was but a
+condiment; and these gatherings themselves only accidents
+in the career of the lantern-bearer. The essence of
+this bliss was to walk by yourself in the black night; the
+slide shut, the top-coat buttoned; not a ray escaping,
+whether to conduct your footsteps or to make your glory
+public: a mere pillar of darkness in the dark; and all the
+while, deep down in the privacy of your fool’s heart, to
+know you had a bull’s-eye at your belt, and to exult and
+sing over the knowledge.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class = "right">Robert Louis Stevenson, <cite>The Lantern Bearers</cite>.<br>
+By permission of Charles Scribner’s Sons, the<br>
+authorized publishers.</p>
+</div>
+
+<br>
+<p class = "center"><span class="smcap">Kermis Morning</span></p>
+
+<p class = "center">FELIX TIMMERMANS</p>
+
+<p>The mist was still hanging among the bushes and over
+the water when the bells of the churches began to ring.</p>
+
+<p>When Pallieter saw what fine weather the day had
+brought, he threw his cap into the air and went up to the
+belfry in the attic with a smiling face. He threw open
+the wooden shutters and let in the white daylight, dazzling<span class="pagenum" id="Page_415">[Pg 415]</span>
+at first to his eyes, and then he looked on to the undulating
+breadth of fresh fields spread out beneath him.
+Then he began to knock on the wooden handles; the wires
+tinkled, the wood creaked and squeaked, but above rose
+the clang of the bells, clear as crystal, into the pearly atmosphere.
+The joy of the bells vibrated through his
+heart, and he sang with them lustily.</p>
+
+<p>Out of the attic window he hung a new kermis flag, and
+the mild east wind rippled out its colors. As soon as he
+had had his breakfast of ham and eggs with Charlot, he
+strolled out of doors, smoking a good cigar. Yesterday’s
+rain had been like a salve to the ground, and made everything
+brighter, fresher, and more beautiful.</p>
+
+<p>Pallieter had been walked off his legs with all the
+preparations for the kermis; now he was as glad as a
+child to smell the quick scent of the fields. He laughed
+till it re-echoed, drank some beer, and played at bowls.
+When he came back he put the piebald horse into the
+covered cart and drove to the station.</p>
+
+<p>All the houses in the town had hung out flags, and the
+belfry of St. Gommarus Church was playing national airs
+above the roofs where pigeons were strutting. The sellers
+of balloons were already about the streets, and not far
+off a barrel organ was grinding.</p>
+
+<p>While Pallieter was away, Charlot was all in a worry
+with her cooking. “Come what may,” she said at last,
+“but the Lord’s business first.” And she nailed candle
+brackets on the front of the house with tall candles in, and
+next to the front door she set a table covered with a stiff
+white tablecloth, on which she placed the box with the
+image of the Virgin, a crucifix of boxwood, and all the
+relics from her own room.</p>
+
+<p>“They’ll all want to see our Lord,” she said. And all
+round and among these she placed glass vases of flowers,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_416">[Pg 416]</span>
+and old brass candlesticks with candles with paper twisted
+round.</p>
+
+<p>When she saw that all was in order she went back to
+the cooking.</p>
+
+<p>There in the peacefulness the birds sang, the flag fluttered,
+and the sun streamed through the leaves of the
+trees; it shone on the roses and the brasswork, and made
+the gold-brocaded mantle of the Holy Mother glitter.</p>
+
+<p>Pallieter loaded up the women into the cart, and when
+he saw Marieke his eyes grew big with surprise, and he
+said with a sigh:</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, what a fine gel!”</p>
+
+<p>The men came behind on foot.</p>
+
+<p>Inside, the cart was like a bunch of bright-colored flowers.
+The women all wore their heavy gold ornaments and
+the older ones had on their fine lace caps, and over them
+a straw hat tied down with a bright-colored ribbon.</p>
+
+<p>They wore silk patterned shawls; some were deep red,
+purple, or creamy-white ground, with crimson flowers on
+it. One woman had a suckling child with her.</p>
+
+<p>A quarter of an hour later they reached the Reinaert
+and were all agog, chattering and shaking hands with
+Charlot. Then all at once Marieke stood before her in a
+blue dress with white spots, fresh and sweet as a wild
+flower.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, what a pretty maid you’ve grown!” she cried, “Oh,
+Marieke, my dear!” And she kissed her again, and her
+tears splashed on to Marieke’s face.</p>
+
+<p>The men came up, ten of them, and Pallieter welcomed
+them all indoors, where they began at once to drink beer,
+and to light their pipes, and to talk about their land, their
+cattle, their children, and the weather. Other things
+were as strange to them as what is written in a book.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_417">[Pg 417]</span>
+They didn’t know or care about other things, yet Pallieter
+always said, “A farmer with his wits about him is the
+right sort of man!” Afterward they all went into the
+garden to wait for the procession. They drifted into
+groups, and the silk kerchiefs mixed prettily with the
+bright-green growing things. Some stayed to look at the
+fountain spouting its highest and dripping down on the
+backs of the quiet goldfish; others looked at the game
+fowls and all sorts of poultry; and everyone was amazed
+at the magnificent tail of the peacock.</p>
+
+<p>The pipes glowed, the gilt images glittered, and all
+around lay the world basking in the sun.</p>
+
+<p>All at once some reed-like notes of music sounded
+through the garden. It was Pallieter, who came along
+with Marieke, playing the oboe. When they came to the
+fountain Marieke held the palm of her hand open to catch
+the water drops, and Pallieter took the instrument from
+his mouth and said to her.</p>
+
+<p>“Now let me have a good look at ye!”</p>
+
+<p>He dropped his hands on to her shoulders and looked
+at her from head to foot. In her rosy-cheeked face shone
+two large brown eyes with little black points in them, her
+lips, apple red, curved just under the well shaped nose,
+and a dimple darted into her right cheek as she laughed.
+The chin curved prettily above the milk-white dainty
+throat, her young bosom was firm, and her hips well
+formed. Her hair was dark brown, and she had soft,
+pretty little hands. She was pretty! Her whole being
+breathed the breath of Mother Nature and the gay growth
+of young things. There she stood, as natural as water,
+and her face was an open book. The sun shone through
+the tips of her ears and made them rosy, it lighted a halo
+in her hair, and Pallieter exclaimed:</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_418">[Pg 418]</span></p>
+
+<p>“Ye need naught but wings!”</p>
+
+<p>She laughed, and her white teeth gleamed, and she
+looked down at her shoes.</p>
+
+<p>Pallieter continued to look at her and his heart swelled
+with longing, but she looked up again and said:</p>
+
+<p>“Play another tune.”</p>
+
+<p>So he began to play again and they walked away together.</p>
+
+<p>Just then the ringing of many bells filled the air. Pallieter
+cried out: “It’s here! It’s coming! Come on,
+folks!”</p>
+
+<p>And everyone hurried to be standing at the door.</p>
+
+<p>As they all moved round behind the decorated table
+Pallieter lighted the candles and strewed the sandy road
+with flowers and paper snippets.</p>
+
+<p>From behind the quaint gables of the houses came the
+triumphal beat of drums, a flourish, and then a slow,
+triumphal march on a brass band.</p>
+
+<p>“There ’tis!” cried the children and the townspeople
+who had come to look. They crowded on to the grass between
+the high tree trunks, so as to leave the sandy road
+free. The peasant women took their paternoster out of
+their pockets and began to recite prayers.</p>
+
+<p>And there came the procession through the wide gateway
+on to the shady convent courtyard.</p>
+
+<p>It was the tall sexton, Samdieke, who headed the procession,
+in his red cassock and white surplice. The light
+shone on his smooth cranium with a thin lock of black
+hair combed over it. He carried a tall thin crucifix, and
+his eyes were bent on the ground.</p>
+
+<p>On each side of him walked a little choir boy carrying
+a heavy silver candlestick, with a lighted candle. The
+orphans of the Marolle followed in three long rows; they
+were dressed neatly in black, above which their faces<span class="pagenum" id="Page_419">[Pg 419]</span>
+looked pale, with their prim, straight-cut black cape, and
+thin from sitting indoors. There were little tots not five
+years old among them, who kept their eyes on the ground
+as piously as the elder ones. There were many children
+of drunken fathers among them. Behind them walked
+the severe-looking nuns in wide black cloaks, and white
+caps with broad wings to them. They were all thin and
+straight; only the Mother Superior was a short, plump
+figure.</p>
+
+<p>Then came a stout farmer in a red cassock, carrying
+the blue velvet banner of St. Begga. Then a dazzling
+company of young girls, little children all in starched
+white frocks, with small flags and gilt cornucopias filled
+with flowers, ears of corn, and sweet herbs.</p>
+
+<p>Their faces shone with excitement, and they stepped
+along proudly with their straight young legs in time with
+the music, and their white skirts rustled about them like
+a sea.</p>
+
+<p>The musicians were old men; they blew with all their
+might, and their clothes smelled a bit musty.</p>
+
+<p>Next followed four novices, in their white dresses, with
+sleeves that were too long. Together they carried on a
+tray, that rested with leather-covered supports on their
+shoulders, a blue-painted Madonna. It had been washed
+ashore in the time of the Spaniards and was now treated
+with honor, all the country round, for many long years.
+This was the “Honeysweet Virgin from Holland, washed
+ashore here by the waves and brought to our country.”</p>
+
+<p>Then came all the women members of the congregation,
+old and young, all reciting rapidly in undertones the response,
+“Ore pro nobis,” to the harsh litany voice of a stalwart
+nun. They all had their prayer books in their
+hands, and the blue ribbon with the medal round their
+necks.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_420">[Pg 420]</span></p>
+
+<p>Charlot was among these, and she took up room enough
+for three, but she did not even raise her eyes to look at
+Pallieter and Marieke and her relations.</p>
+
+<p>Little boys dressed in red and purple coats followed
+with staves and lanterns.</p>
+
+<p>Twelve nuns in white sheets were weighed down with
+the heavy silver reliquary of St. Begga. Its golden rays
+shone like the sun.</p>
+
+<p>And then, all dressed in white linen from head to foot,
+there followed the orphans of St. Begga in long rows of
+five. They looked like ghosts; they sang hymns in Latin,
+in their shrill, hungry young voices.</p>
+
+<p>Then a rustling movement of variegated silk and velvet
+banners, clatter of silver and brass, and flashing of
+high-held lighted lanterns and torches. Among these,
+with tall, shabby, white silk hats and clean neckties,
+walked all the old almsmen from the convent, each with
+a smoking torch of an arm’s thickness. The three blind
+men were there, too.</p>
+
+<p>After this, amid a dazzling glitter of sun-lighted gold,
+surrounded by chanting and bell-ringing and sweet smell
+of incense, came the Monstrance.</p>
+
+<p>All the onlookers fell on their knees and folded their
+hands.</p>
+
+<p>Four men in red held the canopy beneath which the
+priest in his gold chasuble held up before his face the
+shining Monstrance with the Holy Wafer.</p>
+
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">His eyes were closed, his shiny bald head obtruded a</span><br>
+little above the high stiff cap, and his long white hair
+waved round his ears.
+
+<p>Visitors from other towns who had joined the procession
+followed behind.</p>
+
+<p>Slowly the procession wound its way under the luxuriant
+trees of the ramparts. The sun shone on it all till the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_421">[Pg 421]</span>
+colors glittered. The breeze flapped the flags and swayed
+the dresses. The band played, the bells tinkled, the
+church bells clanged out the great festival through the
+air.</p>
+
+<p>Pallieter was so moved by all the simple show under
+which so great a faith lay hidden, so touched, that a lump
+rose in his throat.</p>
+
+<p>“Come!” he said. “Let’s all follow.”</p>
+
+<p>And the peasants, with Marieke, joined the procession,
+and Pallieter was last with a lighted candle in his hand.</p>
+
+<p>The Monstrance went on glittering in the distance
+through the trees. Two nightingales began to call to each
+other and the incense still hung blue and fragrant under
+the boughs; an odor of sanctity hovered over the earth.</p>
+
+<p>There was not a soul to be seen in the quiet Sabbath
+fields.</p>
+
+<p>The procession was over. Pallieter was walking about
+the ramparts with the visitors and Charlot was busy cooking
+indoors. Suddenly from the convent garden came
+the chatter and shouting of children, and out of the gateway
+streamed a crowd of the white-muslin girls and the
+purple-vested boys, dancing and jumping, carrying a
+parcel of sweets. They trooped all together into the field,
+calling and laughing with joy, and sucking sweets. There
+were about forty of them, all rustling and flashing with
+color. They jumped over the brooks, chased one another
+about, and gathered armfuls of flowers and rushes.</p>
+
+<p>Then three nuns came out to scold them and send them
+off home, but the children laughed at them and made a
+ring round them, dancing and singing.</p>
+
+<p>The nuns joined in directly, and seemed to enjoy the
+fun, and then all the novices who were walking on the
+ramparts came down and joined in the fun. The priest
+appeared and beckoned to them with his finger. Pallieter<span class="pagenum" id="Page_422">[Pg 422]</span>
+went and stood behind him, and waved his arm to the
+nuns to come and fetch the priest. They understood at
+once, and led him into the crowd of merrymakers, whether
+he would or not. They made a ring and danced round
+him, singing:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">“Is the priest at home to-night?</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">I’d like to get my sins put right</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Before the day is dawning!”</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>And the priest sang the answer with a shaky voice,
+beating time with his forefinger:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">“They say I’m poor as Job himself;</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">I’ve neither cent nor gear nor pelf.”</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>When Pallieter saw and heard this he caught hold of
+Marieke’s hand and pulled her into the crowd, and they
+whirled round with the rest. They sang and twirled, and
+feet stamped and skirts swung, and the priest held his
+sides with laughing. Pallieter started another song, threw
+his legs up as high as his head, and would not hear of
+stopping.</p>
+
+<p>On the convent rampart, the country folks, the older
+nuns, and the men from the almshouse all stood laughing
+and chuckling, and Charlot at the kitchen window laughed
+till the tears ran down her face.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class = "right">Felix Timmermans, <cite>Pallieter</cite>. Harper &amp;<br>
+Brothers. By kind permission of the author,<br>
+the translator, C. B. Bodde, and the Publishers.</p>
+</div>
+
+<br>
+<p class = "center"><span class="smcap">The Forger</span></p>
+
+<p class = "center">GRACE E. POLK</p>
+
+<p>It was spring, one of those gusty March days whose
+blasts, reminiscent of winter, are succeeded by a mood so
+soft and wooing that the senses ache with the swift prescience<span class="pagenum" id="Page_423">[Pg 423]</span>
+of growing things. It was the sort of day that
+sends young lambs on shaky legs cavorting over the
+meadows, and lures young boys out of their white beds, to
+sleep in the open fields or any chicken-coop or ash-barrel.
+Such a boy now walked along the street peddling handbills.</p>
+
+<p>He was fourteen, and since his mother died the year before,
+he had supported himself. Since, to do this, he must
+elude the truant officers, he had become crafty. And since
+he had twice been caught by them, and had gone without
+eating for two days before he discovered that he could
+quite easily run away from school and lose himself in the
+city, he had also become bitter. But he was neither crafty
+nor bitter as he walked along, sniffing the spring, and
+shivering when the bitterer gusts smote his small person.</p>
+
+<p>So, with his eyes upon nothing at all, but alert as a
+young fox’s, he perceived in the gutter a stamped envelope,
+saw that it was addressed, and picked it up.
+Without examining it, he thrust it quickly into his pocket,
+and then, with our ancient instinct for an alibi, he began
+whistling jauntily, peddling his bills, meanwhile, with an
+almost ferocious exactness. Two blocks away he halted
+before an alley and looked quickly up and down: then
+scurried along it and dodged into a doorway. Jerking
+the envelope from his pocket he tore it open. A check for
+seventy-five dollars, drawn to Peter Googan, confronted
+him.</p>
+
+<p>The boy knew perfectly well what he had found. The
+year before, in school, he had himself written dozens of
+checks, all the way from twenty-five cents to a million
+and a half dollars; and this stupendous capital, enough
+to float the war, with careless abandon he had passed
+around to his companions, receiving I.O.U.’s in juvenile
+penmanship and strictly legal phraseology.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_424">[Pg 424]</span></p>
+
+<p>But this check was different. He stared at it. It
+meant real money—seventy-five real dollars. The gust
+died down; the thrill of spring swept over him. He
+snatched off his hat and threw it into a puddle. Then he
+leaned up against the brick wall, and across the back of
+the check he wrote “Peter Googan.” He wrote it quickly
+and neatly.</p>
+
+<p>The need of an accomplice now became immediate and
+imperative. Another boy came up the alley. He was
+picking up cigarette stubs, examining them with minute
+interest, and stuffing part of them into his pocket.</p>
+
+<p>“Swiggey, come here.”</p>
+
+<p>Swiggey came, with the ready obedience that ten accords
+to fourteen.</p>
+
+<p>“Take this to John’s grocery and get it cashed and
+bring me the money.”</p>
+
+<p>“Where did you get it?” asked Swiggey suspiciously.</p>
+
+<p>“He gave it to me: he owes my father money.”</p>
+
+<p>“Why don’t you do it yourself, then?”</p>
+
+<p>“I got those bills to peddle. Can’t you see for yourself?
+Ah, gwan, Swiggey. I’ll give you a dollar, if you
+will.”</p>
+
+<p>“Give me half,” said Swiggey.</p>
+
+<p>Without a word the young forger doubled up his fist
+and brought it up swiftly toward Swiggey’s jaw. But
+Swiggey’s jaw was no longer where it had been. Swiggey
+ducked under the oncoming fist, gave a couple of leaps,
+and stood on the opposite side of the alley, poised like
+Hermes, for immediate flight, if caution dictated.</p>
+
+<p>But Swiggey was in no danger. With a look of scorn
+that was meant to annihilate him altogether, the young
+forger folded up the check and put it into his own pocket.
+Then he picked up his hand-bills and walked leisurely out<span class="pagenum" id="Page_425">[Pg 425]</span>
+of the alley, whistling as he went. Swiggey waited until
+he had turned the corner, then stuffed his last cigarette
+stub into his blouse and trotted after him.</p>
+
+<p>Once more on the street, the boy again began to distribute
+the bills, this time, very honorably, one to a doorway.
+In this way, he worked his way for two blocks,
+until he stood before a grocery. He lifted up a basket of
+potatoes; with a sudden quick movement of his foot, he
+kicked off another basket, threw his handbills into it, and
+replaced the basket of potatoes. A man passing by
+smiled at the small cheat, and the boy smiled back,
+the guileless smile of childhood. Then he went into the
+store.</p>
+
+<p>There was a crowd inside and no one paid any attention
+to him. But the Fabian policy had long been his.
+He inspected the apples, the various kinds of jawbreakers,
+also the cigarettes, with interest.</p>
+
+<p>Presently a clerk came up to him.</p>
+
+<p>He held out the check. “I want to pay Peter Googan’s
+bill.”</p>
+
+<p>The clerk eyed him sharply.</p>
+
+<p>He smiled his frank smile. “How much is Peter Googan’s
+bill?” he asked.</p>
+
+<p>“How much did he tell you?” said the clerk, inspecting
+the check.</p>
+
+<p>“He said you’d know,” said the boy.</p>
+
+<p>The clerk consulted the books, then handed the boy
+forty dollars.</p>
+
+<p>The boy received the money and turned to confront
+Swiggey. Swiggey’s face wore a grin, and Swiggey’s hand
+was out. A boy or a dog always knows his friend. The
+boy knew that his eyes looked into the eyes of an enemy,
+and a cunning one.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_426">[Pg 426]</span></p>
+
+<p>“If you snitch, I’ll kill you,” he said. “I’ve got a gun
+and I’ll kill you dead.”</p>
+
+<p>It was a threat for the waste places, but not for a
+crowded store. Swiggey’s hand shut tight on the forger’s
+blouse.</p>
+
+<p>“Dibs,” he said.</p>
+
+<p>The other boy twisted his hand loose and brushed past
+him.</p>
+
+<p>“He stole it,” Swiggey shrieked. “I seen him put the
+writing on it: I seen him. Up Mack’s alley, by the pool-room.
+I seen him do it.”</p>
+
+<p>But the accused was gone. A survey of the street revealed
+no scurrying boy.</p>
+
+<p>An hour later a policeman walked down to the front
+row of a movie house and touched a boy on the shoulder.
+Bill Hart was just leaping the chasm on his sported pinto.
+The boy did not move. The policeman took hold of his
+arm and shook him.</p>
+
+<p>He looked up. “I ain’t done nothing.” Then, behind
+the burly form he saw the grinning face of Swiggey. “I’ll
+kill you, you dirty little snitcher,” he said. And the
+sleepy afternoon audience was given a mild diversion,
+not noted on the programme, as two small boys and a
+policeman climbed the aisle.</p>
+
+<p>Outside Swiggey watched the two go up the street
+toward the courthouse. As they disappeared, from
+the pocket of his blouse he drew a handfull of stubs,
+selected the longest, and lit it. And now, he too, become
+a culprit, became suddenly fugitive and dived into an
+alley.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class = "right">Grace E. Polk. By kind permission of <cite>The Atlantic<br>
+Monthly</cite> and of the author.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_427">[Pg 427]</span></p>
+
+
+<p class = "center"><span class="smcap">Quality</span></p>
+
+<p class = "center">JOHN GALSWORTHY</p>
+
+<p>I knew him from the days of my extreme youth, because
+he made my father’s boots; inhabiting with his
+elder brother two little shops let into one, in a small by-street—now
+no more, but then most fashionably placed
+in the West End.</p>
+
+<p>That tenement had a certain quiet distinction; there
+was no sign upon its face that he made for any of the
+Royal Family—merely his own German name of Gessler
+Brothers; and in the window a few pairs of boots. I remember
+that it always troubled me to account for those
+unvarying boots in the window, for he made only what
+was ordered, reaching nothing down, and it seemed so
+inconceivable that what he made could ever have failed
+to fit. Had he bought them to put there? That, too,
+seemed inconceivable. He would never have tolerated in
+his house leather on which he had not worked himself.
+Besides, they were too beautiful—the pair of pumps, so
+inexpressibly slim, the patent leathers with cloth tops,
+making water come into one’s mouth, the tall brown riding
+boots with marvellous sooty glow, as if, though new,
+they had been worn a hundred years. Those pairs could
+only have been made by one who saw before him the
+Soul of Boot—so truly were they prototypes incarnating
+the very spirit of all foot-gear. These thoughts, of course,
+came to me later, though even when I was promoted to
+him, at the age of perhaps fourteen, some inkling haunted
+me of the dignity of himself and brother. For to make
+boots—such boots as he made—seemed to me then, and
+still seems to me, mysterious and wonderful.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_428">[Pg 428]</span></p>
+
+<p>I remember well my shy remark, one day, while stretching
+out to him my youthful foot:</p>
+
+<p>“Isn’t it awfully hard to do, Mr. Gessler?”</p>
+
+<p>And his answer, given with a sudden smile from out of
+the sardonic redness of his beard: “Id is an Ardt!”</p>
+
+<p>Himself, he was a little as if made from leather, with
+his yellow crinkly face, and crinkly reddish hair and
+beard, and neat folds slanting down his cheeks to the
+corners of his mouth, and his guttural and one-toned
+voice; for leather is a sardonic substance, and stiff and
+slow of purpose. And that was the character of his face,
+save that his eyes, which were grey-blue, had in them
+the simple gravity of one secretly possessed by the Ideal.
+His elder brother was so very like him—though watery,
+paler in every way, with a great industry—that sometimes
+in early days I was not quite sure of him until the interview
+was over. Then I knew that it was he, if the words,
+“I will ask my brudder,” had not been spoken; and that,
+if they had, it was his elder brother.</p>
+
+<p>When one grew old and wild and ran up bills, one somehow
+never ran them up with Gessler Brothers. It would
+not have seemed becoming to go in there and stretch out
+one’s foot to that blue iron-spectacled glance, owing him
+for more than—say—two pairs, just the comfortable reassurance
+that one was still his client.</p>
+
+<p>For it was not possible to go to him very often—his
+boots lasted terribly, having something beyond the temporary—some,
+as it were, essence of boot stitched into
+them.</p>
+
+<p>One went in, not as into most shops, in the mood of:
+“Please serve me, and let me go!” but restfully, as one
+enters a church; and, sitting on the single wooden chair,
+waited—for there was never anybody there. Soon, over
+the top edge of that sort of well—rather dark, and smelling<span class="pagenum" id="Page_429">[Pg 429]</span>
+soothingly of leather—which formed the shop, there
+would be seen his face, or that of his elder brother, peering
+down. A guttural sound, and the tip-tap of bast slippers
+beating the narrow wooden stairs, and he would
+stand before one without coat, a little bent, in leather
+apron, with sleeves turned back, blinking—as if awakened
+from some dream of boots, or like an owl surprised in daylight
+and annoyed at this interruption.</p>
+
+<p>And I would say: “How do you do, Mr. Gessler?
+Could you make me a pair of Russia leather boots?”</p>
+
+<p>Without a word he would leave me, retiring whence he
+came, or into the other portion of the shop, and I would
+continue to rest in the wooden chair, inhaling the incense
+of his trade. Soon he would come back, holding in his
+thin, veined hand a piece of gold-brown leather. With
+eyes fixed on it, he would remark: “What a beautiful
+biece!” When I, too, had admired it, he would speak
+again. “When do you wand dem?” And I would answer:
+“Oh! As soon as you conveniently can.” And
+he would say: “To-morrow fordnighd?” Or if he were
+his elder brother: “I will ask my brudder!”</p>
+
+<p>Then I would murmur: “Thank you! Good-morning,
+Mr. Gessler.” “Goot-morning!” he would reply, still
+looking at the leather in his hand. And as I moved to the
+door, I would hear the tip-tap of his bast slippers restoring
+him, up the stairs, to his dream of boots. But if
+it were some new kind of foot-gear that he had not yet
+made me, then indeed he would observe ceremony—divesting
+me of my boot and holding it long in his hand,
+looking at it with eyes at once critical and loving, as if
+recalling the glow with which he had created it, and rebuking
+the way in which one had disorganized this
+masterpiece. Then, placing my foot on a piece of paper,
+he would two or three times tickle the outer edges with<span class="pagenum" id="Page_430">[Pg 430]</span>
+a pencil and pass his nervous fingers over my toes, feeling
+himself into the heart of my requirements.</p>
+
+<p>I cannot forget that day on which I had occasion to say
+to him: “Mr. Gessler, that last pair of town walking-boots
+creaked, you know.”</p>
+
+<p>He looked at me for a time without replying, as if expecting
+me to withdraw or qualify the statement, then
+said:</p>
+
+<p>“Id shouldn’d ’ave greaked.”</p>
+
+<p>“It did, I’m afraid.”</p>
+
+<p>“You goddem wed before dey found demselves?”</p>
+
+<p>“I don’t think so.”</p>
+
+<p>At that he lowered his eyes, as if hunting for memory
+of those boots, and I felt sorry I had mentioned this grave
+thing.</p>
+
+<p>“Zend dem back!” he said; “I will look at dem.”</p>
+
+<p>A feeling of compassion for my creaking boots surged
+up in me, so well could I imagine the sorrowful long
+curiosity of regard which he would bend on them.</p>
+
+<p>“Zome boods,” he said slowly, “are bad from birdt. If
+I can do noding wid dem, I dake dem off your bill.”</p>
+
+<p>Once (once only) I went absent-mindedly into his shop
+in a pair of boots bought in an emergency at some large
+firm’s. He took my order without showing me any
+leather, and I could feel his eyes penetrating the inferior
+integument of my boot. At last he said:</p>
+
+<p>“Dose are nod my boods.”</p>
+
+<p>The tone was not one of anger, nor of sorrow, not even
+of contempt, but there was in it something quiet that
+froze the blood. He put his hand down and pressed a
+finger on the place where the left boot, endeavouring to
+be fashionable, was not quite comfortable.</p>
+
+<p>“Id ’urds you dere,” he said. “Dose big virms ’ave no
+self-respect. Drash!” And then, as if something had<span class="pagenum" id="Page_431">[Pg 431]</span>
+given way within him, he spoke long and bitterly. It was
+the only time I ever heard him discuss the conditions and
+hardships of his trade.</p>
+
+<p>“Dey get id all,” he said, “dey get id by adverdisement,
+nod by work. Dey dake it away from us, who lofe our
+boods. Id gomes to this—bresently I haf no work.
+Every year id gets less—you will see.” And looking at
+his lined face I saw things I had never noticed before,
+bitter things and bitter struggle—and what a lot of grey
+hairs there seemed suddenly in his red beard!</p>
+
+<p>As best I could, I explained the circumstances of the
+purchase of those ill-omened boots. But his face and
+voice made so deep impression that during the next few
+minutes I ordered many pairs. Nemesis fell! They
+lasted more terribly than ever. And I was not able
+conscientiously to go to him for nearly two years.</p>
+
+<p>When at last I went I was surprised to find that outside
+one of the two little windows of his shop another
+name was painted, also that of a bootmaker—making, of
+course, for the Royal Family. The old familiar boots,
+no longer in dignified isolation, were huddled in the single
+window. Inside, the now contracted well of the one little
+shop was more scented and darker than ever. And it was
+longer than usual, too, before a face peered down, the
+tip-tap of the bast slippers began. At last he stood before
+me, and, gazing through those rusty iron spectacles,
+said:</p>
+
+<p>“Mr. ——, isn’d it?”</p>
+
+<p>“Ah! Mr. Gessler,” I stammered, “but your boots are
+really <em>too</em> good, you know! See, these are quite decent
+still!” And I stretched out to him my foot. He looked
+at it.</p>
+
+<p>“Yes,” he said, “beople do nod wand good boods, id
+seems.”</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_432">[Pg 432]</span></p>
+
+<p>To get away from his reproachful eyes and voice I
+hastily remarked: “What have you done to your shop?”</p>
+
+<p>He answered quietly: “Id was too exbensif. Do you
+wand some boods?”</p>
+
+<p>I ordered three pairs, though I had only wanted two,
+and quickly left. I had, I do not know quite what feeling
+of being part, in his mind, of a conspiracy against
+him; or not perhaps so much against him as against his
+idea of boot. One does not, I suppose, care to feel like
+that; for it was again many months before my next visit
+to his shop, paid, I remember, with the feeling: “Oh!
+well, I can’t leave the old boy—so here goes! Perhaps
+it’ll be his elder brother!”</p>
+
+<p>For his elder brother, I knew, had not character enough
+to reproach me, even dumbly.</p>
+
+<p>And, to my relief, in the shop there did appear to be
+his elder brother, handling a piece of leather.</p>
+
+<p>“Well, Mr. Gessler,” I said, “how are you?”</p>
+
+<p>He came close, and peered at me.</p>
+
+<p>“I am breddy well,” he said slowly, “but my elder
+brudder is dead.”</p>
+
+<p>And I saw that it was indeed himself—but how aged
+and wan! And never before had I heard him mention his
+brother. Much shocked, I murmured: “Oh! I am
+sorry!”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes,” he answered, “he was a good man, he made a
+good bood; but he is dead.” And he touched the top of
+his head, where the hair had suddenly gone as thin as it
+had been on that of his poor brother, to indicate, I suppose,
+the cause of death. “He could nod ged over losing
+de oder shop. Do you wand any boods?” And he held
+up the leather in his hand: “Id’s a beaudiful biece.”</p>
+
+<p>I ordered several pairs. It was very long before they
+came—but they were better than ever. One simply could<span class="pagenum" id="Page_433">[Pg 433]</span>
+not wear them out. And soon after that I went abroad.</p>
+
+<p>It was over a year before I was again in London. And
+the first shop I went to was my old friend’s. I had left
+a man of sixty, I came back to one of seventy-five,
+pinched and worn and tremulous, who genuinely, this
+time, did not at first know me.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh! Mr. Gessler,” I said, sick at heart; “how splendid
+your boots are! See, I’ve been wearing this pair nearly
+all the time I’ve been abroad; and they’re not half worn
+out, are they?”</p>
+
+<p>He looked long at my boots—a pair of Russia leather,
+and his face seemed to regain steadiness. Putting his
+hand on my instep, he said:</p>
+
+<p>“Do dey vid you here? I ’ad drouble wid dat bair, I
+remember.”</p>
+
+<p>I assured him that they had fitted beautifully.</p>
+
+<p>“Do you wand any boods?” he said. “I can make dem
+quickly; id is a slack dime.”</p>
+
+<p>I answered: “Please, please! I want boots all round—every
+kind!”</p>
+
+<p>“I will make a vresh model. Your food must be bigger.”
+And with utter slowness, he traced round my foot,
+and felt my toes, only once looking up to say:</p>
+
+<p>“Did I dell you my brudder was dead?”</p>
+
+<p>To watch him was painful, so feeble had he grown; I
+was glad to get away.</p>
+
+<p>I had given those boots up, when one evening they
+came. Opening the parcel, I set the four pairs out in a
+row. Then one by one I tried them on. There was no
+doubt about it. In shape and fit, in finish and quality of
+leather, they were the best he had ever made me. And
+in the mouth of one of the Town walking-boots I found
+his bill. The amount was the same as usual, but it gave
+me quite a shock. He had never before sent it in till<span class="pagenum" id="Page_434">[Pg 434]</span>
+quarter day. I flew down-stairs, and wrote a cheque,
+and posted it at once with my own hand.</p>
+
+<p>A week later, passing the little street, I thought I would
+go in and tell him how splendidly the new boots fitted.
+But when I came to where his shop had been, his name
+was gone. Still there, in the window, were the slim
+pumps, the patent leathers with cloth tops, the sooty riding
+boots.</p>
+
+<p>I went in, very much disturbed. In the two little shops—again
+made into one—was a young man with an English
+face.</p>
+
+<p>“Mr. Gessler in?” I said.</p>
+
+<p>He gave me a strange, ingratiating look.</p>
+
+<p>“No, sir,” he said, “no. But we can attend to anything
+with pleasure. We’ve taken the shop over. You’ve
+seen our name, no doubt, next door. We make for some
+very good people.”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, yes,” I said: “but Mr. Gessler?”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh!” he answered; “dead.”</p>
+
+<p>“Dead! But I only received these boots from him last
+Wednesday week.”</p>
+
+<p>“Ah!” he said; “a shockin’ go. Poor old man starved
+’imself.”</p>
+
+<p>“Good God!”</p>
+
+<p>“Slow starvation, the doctor called it! You see he
+went to work in such a way! Would keep the shop on;
+wouldn’t have a soul touch his boots except himself.
+When he got an order, it took him such a time. People
+won’t wait. He lost everybody. And there he’d sit,
+goin’ on and on—I will say that for him—not a man in
+London made a better boot! But look at the competition!
+He never advertised! Would ’ave the best leather,
+too, and do it all ’imself. Well, there it is. What could
+you expect with his ideas?”</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_435">[Pg 435]</span></p>
+
+<p>“But starvation——!”</p>
+
+<p>“That may be a bit flowery, as the sayin’ is—but I
+know myself he was sittin’ over his boots day and night,
+to the very last. You see I used to watch him. Never
+gave ’imself time to eat; never had a penny in the house.
+All went in rent and leather. How he lived so long I
+don’t know. He regular let his fire go out. He was a
+character. But he made good boots.”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes,” I said, “he made good boots.”</p>
+
+<p>And I turned and went out quickly, for I did not want
+that youth to know that I could hardly see.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class = "right">John Galsworthy, <em>The Inn of Tranquillity</em>.<br>
+By permission of Charles Schribner’s Sons, the<br>
+authorized publishers.</p>
+</div>
+
+<br>
+<p class = "center">SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY OF SKETCHES</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>The editors have found these additional selections useful in
+teaching the writing of sketches:</p>
+
+<p>Audoux, Marguerite. <cite>The Queen’s Barge; Foals.</cite> <cite>Everybody’s
+Magazine</cite>, August 1912, Vol. 27.</p>
+
+<p>Belloc, Hilaire. <cite>The Path to Rome.</cite> Longmans Green &amp; Company.</p>
+
+<p>Daudet, Alphonse. <cite>Aged Folk</cite>, in <cite>Modern Short Stories</cite>, edited by
+Margaret Ashmun. The Macmillan Company.</p>
+
+<p>Gay, Robert M. <cite>Stray Notes of a Somewhat Dogged Tendency.
+The Atlantic Monthly</cite>, June 1925.</p>
+
+<p>Hearn, Lafcadio. <cite>Chita.</cite> Harper &amp; Brothers.</p>
+
+<p>Irving, Washington. <cite>Christmas Sketches; Bracebridge Hall.</cite></p>
+</div>
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_436">[Pg 436]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XII">CHAPTER XII</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class = "center"><cite>Stories</cite></p>
+
+
+<p>Stories are sometimes called <em>Artistic Narrative</em> in contrast
+to the other and various kinds illustrated in the preceding
+chapters, all of which are known as <em>Informational
+Narrative</em>. The reason for this distinction in terms is
+readily seen by one who has examined the form and the
+subject matter of the story. Reminiscent, biographical,
+expository narrative, the sketch, the account of travel
+present alike incidents, situations, circumstances, persons,
+objects, landscapes, reflections—all in an orderly and a
+pleasing manner, to be sure, but without giving any especial
+heightening or stress to what might well have been an
+exceptional situation with significant causes and most interesting
+consequences. This singling out a situation, this
+simplifying of a mass of unrelated material to a few
+weighty details all bearing upon one another, this presentation
+of causes with their inevitable results, this selection of
+a few outstanding characters whose lives and fortunes have
+been for a short time in conflict over a great matter or in
+collision over a small one—these are within the province
+of the story-teller; and because such work demands a sense
+of form in the arrangement of material to the best advantage,
+a sympathetic understanding of character, and
+a perception of what certain surroundings and circumstances
+may mean to persons in a given situation, the
+story-teller is called upon to exhibit a kind of art which
+is not demanded of the writer of informational narrative.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_437">[Pg 437]</span></p>
+
+<p>Mr. Bliss Perry in <cite>A Study of Prose Fiction</cite> defines a
+story-teller as one who “shows how certain persons do
+certain things under certain circumstances.” In this definition
+there are clearly suggested three possible and entirely
+distinct sources of interest in a story: the author
+may be concerned most of all in the behavior of his characters,
+in the series of actions and events which make up
+the plot; or, instead, he may wish above everything else
+to depict some one character who seems to him outstanding
+and unusual enough to command the attention of any
+reader; or, again, he may be one who sees behavior or
+character entirely in the light of environment, to whom
+setting is a great, even an overwhelming force in a person’s
+life.</p>
+
+<p>If the first of these sources of interest is of paramount
+importance to him, then he will write a story in which
+plot is uppermost, in which the action is more significant
+than the portrayal of character or than setting, a story in
+which “things happen.” This Mr. H. C. Bunner has
+done in “A Sisterly Scheme.” Here, although the setting
+of the story is well and clearly given, although the two
+sisters and Mr. Morpeth are capitally portrayed, it is the
+<em>action</em> of the story which holds our attention and our
+curiosity to the end. Indeed, the reader will easily see
+that no setting is given except that which is absolutely
+necessary and that the characters are almost entirely depicted
+by what they do or by what happens to them.</p>
+
+<p>In the story called “Two Friends” by M. Guy de Maupassant,
+however, character portrayal is uppermost. The
+plot action is relegated to little more than an incident;
+and yet M. Morissot and M. Sauvage, in their quiet dependence
+upon each other, in their common love of fishing,
+which makes them forget “the rest of the world,” and
+finally in their splendid and pathetic heroism are imperishable.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_438">[Pg 438]</span>
+Here, too, at the close is illustrated a device valuable
+to the writer of the character story in the contrast
+which is afforded by the picture of the Prussian officer,
+and which serves to accentuate the simplicity, the kindness,
+and the valor of the two little Frenchmen.</p>
+
+<p>And Mr. Francis Buzzell in “Lonely Places” has given
+us a story of almost pure setting. To be sure, there is
+action in plenty; to be sure, the characters of Abbie Snover
+and of Old Chris are clearly and beautifully portrayed; and
+yet the reader is every moment conscious that the action
+rises out of and because of the setting, that the environment
+has been and still is responsible for the careless
+cruelty of the children, for the attitude of their parents,
+and for the pathetic consequences which Old Chris and
+Abbie must undergo.</p>
+
+<p>These three stories, however, distinct as they are in their
+respective and single impressions and effects, all contain
+plot <em>in some measure</em>, even though the action may seem
+subordinate to the portrayal of character in one of them
+and to the depiction of the setting in another. Most
+stories, in fact, contain more or less of the plot element.
+Yet there are those narratives which possess too many of
+the features of a story to be called an incident or a sketch,
+and too little of the form which we have come to think necessary
+to the well-constructed short-story. Sometimes
+they are called stories without plot. Such a story is Miss
+Willa Cather’s “The Sculptor’s Funeral.” It is, in form,
+little more than an incident and the circumstances attendant
+upon it; and yet there are few stories anywhere that
+surpass it in brilliancy of characterization, in strength and
+vividness of setting, and in the consistent art of its atmosphere.</p>
+
+<p>A study of the four stories which follow will illustrate<span class="pagenum" id="Page_439">[Pg 439]</span>
+better than any precept can do the impressions which the
+story writer must seek to attain after he has made his
+choice of a subject and after he has decided upon his way
+of approach and of treatment.</p>
+
+<p class="right">
+M. E. C.<br>
+</p>
+
+<br>
+<p class = "center"><span class="smcap">A Sisterly Scheme</span></p>
+
+<p class = "center">H. C. BUNNER</p>
+
+<p>Away up in the very heart of Maine there is a mighty
+lake among the mountains. It is reached after a journey
+of many hours from the place where you “go in.” That
+is the phrase of the country, and when you have once
+“gone in,” you know why it is not correct to say that you
+have gone <em>through</em> the woods, or, simply, <em>to</em> your destination.
+You find that you have plunged into a new world—a
+world that has nothing in common with the world
+that you live in; a world of wild, solemn, desolate grandeur,
+a world of space and silence; a world that oppresses
+your soul—and charms you irresistibly. And after you
+have once “come out” of that world, there will be times,
+to the day of your death, when you will be homesick for
+it, and will long with a childlike longing to go back to it.</p>
+
+<p>Up in this wild region you will find a fashionable summer
+hotel, with electric bells and seven-course dinners,
+and “guests” who dress three times a day. It is perched
+on a little flat point, shut off from the rest of the mainland
+by a huge rocky cliff. It is an impertinence in that
+majestic wilderness, and Leather-Stocking would doubtless
+have had a hankering to burn such an affront to
+Nature; but it is a good hotel, and people go to it and
+breathe the generous air of the great woods.</p>
+
+<p>On the beach near this hotel, where the canoes were<span class="pagenum" id="Page_440">[Pg 440]</span>
+drawn up in line, there stood one summer morning a
+curly-haired, fair young man—not so very young, either—whose
+cheeks were uncomfortably red as he looked first
+at his own canoe, high and dry, loaded with rods and
+landing net and luncheon basket, and then at another
+canoe, fast disappearing down the lake wherein sat a
+young man and a young woman.</p>
+
+<p>“Dropped again, Mr. Morpeth?”</p>
+
+<p>The young man looked up and saw a saucy face laughing
+at him. A girl was sitting on the stringpiece of the
+dock. It was the face of a girl between childhood and
+womanhood. By the face and the figure, it was a woman
+grown. By the dress, you would have judged it a
+girl.</p>
+
+<p>And you would have been confirmed in the latter
+opinion by the fact that the young person was doing
+something unpardonable for a young lady, but not inexcusable
+in the case of a youthful tomboy. She had
+taken off her canvas shoe, and was shaking some small
+stones out of it. There was a tiny hole in her black stocking,
+and a glimpse of her pink toe was visible. The girl
+was sunburnt, but the toe was prettily pink.</p>
+
+<p>“Your sister,” replied the young man with dignity, “was
+to have gone fishing with me; but she remembered at the
+last moment that she had a prior engagement with Mr.
+Brown.”</p>
+
+<p>“She hadn’t,” said the girl. “I heard them make it up
+last evening, after you went upstairs.”</p>
+
+<p>The young man clean forgot himself.</p>
+
+<p>“She’s the most heartless coquette in the world,” he
+cried, and clinched his hands.</p>
+
+<p>“She is all that,” said the young person on the stringpiece
+of the dock, “and more too. And yet, I suppose,
+you want her all the same?”</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_441">[Pg 441]</span></p>
+
+<p>“I’m afraid I do,” said the young man miserably.</p>
+
+<p>“Well,” said the girl, putting her shoe on again, and
+beginning to tie it up, “I’ll tell you what it is, Mr. Morpeth.
+You’ve been hanging around Pauline for a year,
+and you are the only one of the men she keeps on a string
+who hasn’t snubbed me. Now, if you want me to, I’ll
+give you a lift.”</p>
+
+<p>“A—a—<em>what</em>?”</p>
+
+<p>“A lift. You’re wasting your time. Pauline has no
+use for devotion. It’s a drug in the market with her—has
+been for five seasons. There’s only one way to get
+her worked up. Two fellows tried it, and they nearly got
+there; but they weren’t game enough to stay to the bitter
+end. I think you’re game, and I’ll tell you. You’ve
+got to make her jealous.”</p>
+
+<p>“Make her jealous of me?”</p>
+
+<p>“No,” said his friend, with infinite scorn; “make her
+jealous of the other girl. <em>Oh!</em> but you men are stupid!”</p>
+
+<p>The young man pondered a moment.</p>
+
+<p>“Well, Flossy,” he began, and then he became conscious
+of a sudden change in the atmosphere, and perceived that
+the young lady was regarding him with a look that might
+have chilled his soul.</p>
+
+<p>“Miss Flossy—Miss Belton—” he hastily corrected
+himself. Winter promptly changed to summer in Miss
+Flossy Belton’s expressive face.</p>
+
+<p>“Your scheme,” he went on, “is a good one. Only—it
+involves the discovery of another girl.”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes,” assented Miss Flossy cheerfully.</p>
+
+<p>“Well,” said the young man, “doesn’t it strike you that
+if I were to develop a sudden admiration for any one of
+these other young ladies whose charms I have hitherto
+neglected, it would come tardy off—lack artistic verisimilitude,
+so to speak?”</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_442">[Pg 442]</span></p>
+
+<p>“Rather,” was Miss Flossy’s prompt and frank response;
+“especially as there isn’t one of them fit to flirt
+with.”</p>
+
+<p>“Well, then, where am I to discover the girl?”</p>
+
+<p>Miss Flossy untied and retied her shoe. Then she
+said, calmly:——</p>
+
+<p>“What’s the matter with—” a hardly perceptible hesitation—“<em>me</em>?”</p>
+
+<p>“With <em>you</em>?” Mr. Morpeth was startled out of his
+manners.</p>
+
+<p>“Yes!”</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Morpeth simply stared.</p>
+
+<p>“Perhaps,” suggested Miss Flossy, “I’m not good-looking
+enough?”</p>
+
+<p>“You are good-looking enough,” replied Mr. Morpeth,
+recovering himself, “for <em>anything</em>—” and he threw a convincing
+emphasis into the last word as he took what was
+probably his first real inspection of his adored one’s junior—“but—aren’t
+you a trifle—young?”</p>
+
+<p>“How old do you suppose I am?”</p>
+
+<p>“I know. Your sister told me. You are sixteen.”</p>
+
+<p>“Sixteen!” repeated Miss Flossy, with an infinite and
+uncontrollable scorn, “yes, and I’m the kind of sixteen
+that stays sixteen till your elder sister’s married. I was
+eighteen years old on the 3d of last December—unless
+they began to double on me before I was old enough to
+know the difference—it would be just like mamma to play
+it on me in some such way,” she concluded, reflectively.</p>
+
+<p>“Eighteen years old!” said the young man. “The
+deuce!” Do not think that he was an ill-bred young
+man. He was merely astonished, and he had much more
+astonishment ahead of him. He mused for a moment.</p>
+
+<p>“Well,” he said, “what’s your plan of campaign? I am
+to—to discover you.”</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_443">[Pg 443]</span></p>
+
+<p>“Yes,” said Miss Flossy calmly, “and to flirt with me
+like fun.”</p>
+
+<p>“And may I ask what attitude you are to take when
+you are—discovered?”</p>
+
+<p>“Certainly,” replied the imperturbable Flossy. “I am
+going to dangle you.”</p>
+
+<p>“To—to dangle me?”</p>
+
+<p>“As a conquest, don’t you know? Let you hang around
+and laugh at you.”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, indeed?”</p>
+
+<p>“There, don’t be wounded in your masculine pride.
+You might as well face the situation. You don’t think
+that Pauline’s in love with you, do you?”</p>
+
+<p>“No!” groaned the young man.</p>
+
+<p>“But you’ve got lots of money. Mr. Brown has got lots
+more. You’re eager. Brown is coy. That’s the reason
+that Brown is in the boat and you are on the cold, cold
+shore, talking to Little Sister. Now if Little Sister jumps
+at you, why, she’s simply taking Big Sister’s leavings;
+it’s all in the family, anyway, and there’s no jealousy, and
+Pauline can devote her whole mind to Brown. There,
+<em>don’t</em> look so limp. You men are simply childish. Now,
+after you’ve asked me to marry you——”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, I’m to ask you to marry me?”</p>
+
+<p>“Certainly. You needn’t look frightened, now. I
+won’t accept you. But then you are to go around like a
+wet cat, and mope, and hang on worse than ever. Then
+Big Sister will see that she can’t afford to take that sort
+of thing from Little Sister, and then—there’s your
+chance.”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, there’s my chance, is it?” said Mr. Morpeth. He
+seemed to have fallen into the habit of repetition.</p>
+
+<p>“There’s your <em>only chance</em>,” said Miss Flossy, with decision.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_444">[Pg 444]</span></p>
+
+<p>Mr. Morpeth meditated. He looked at the lake, where
+there was no longer sign or sound of the canoe, and he
+looked at Miss Flossy, who sat calm, self-confident, and
+careless on the springpiece of the dock.</p>
+
+<p>“I don’t know how feasible—” he began.</p>
+
+<p>“It’s feasible,” said Miss Flossy, with decision. “Of
+course Pauline will write to mamma, and of course
+mamma will write and scold me. But she’s got to stay
+in New York and nurse papa’s gout; and the Miss Redingtons
+are all the chaperons we’ve got up here, and they
+don’t amount to anything—so I don’t care.”</p>
+
+<p>“But why,” inquired the young man, and his tone suggested
+a complete abandonment to Miss Flossy’s idea,
+“why should you take so much trouble for <em>me</em>?”</p>
+
+<p>“Mr. Morpeth,” said Miss Flossy solemnly, “I’m two
+years behind the time-table, and I’ve got to make a strike
+for liberty, or die. And besides,” she added, “if you are
+<em>nice</em>, it needn’t be such an <em>awful</em> trouble.”</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Morpeth laughed.</p>
+
+<p>“I’ll try to make it as little of a bore as possible,” he
+said, extending his hand. The girl did not take it.</p>
+
+<p>“Don’t make any mistake,” she cautioned him, searching
+his face with her eyes; “this isn’t to be any little-girl
+affair. Little Sister doesn’t want any kind, elegant,
+supercilious encouragement from Big Sister’s young man.
+It’s got to be a <em>real</em> flirtation—devotion no end, and ten
+times as much as ever Pauline could get out of you—and
+you’ve got to keep your end ’way—’way—’way up!”</p>
+
+<p>The young man smiled.</p>
+
+<p>“I’ll keep my end up,” he said; “but are you certain
+that you can keep yours up?”</p>
+
+<p>“Well, I think so,” replied Miss Flossy. “Pauline will
+raise an awful row; but if she goes too far, I’ll tell my age,
+<em>and hers, too</em>.”</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_445">[Pg 445]</span></p>
+
+<p>Mr. Morpeth looked in Miss Flossy’s calm face. Then
+he extended his hand once more.</p>
+
+<p>“It’s a bargain, so far as I’m concerned,” he said.</p>
+
+<p>This time a soft and small hand met his with a firm,
+friendly, honest pressure.</p>
+
+<p>“And I’ll refuse you,” said Miss Flossy.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>Within two weeks, Mr. Morpeth found himself entangled
+in a flirtation such as he had never dreamed of.
+Miss Flossy’s scheme had succeeded only too brilliantly.
+The whole hotel was talking about the outrageous behavior
+of “that little Belton girl” and Mr. Morpeth, who
+certainly ought to know better.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Morpeth had carried out his instructions. Before
+the week was out, he found himself giving the most lifelike
+imitation of an infatuated lover that ever delighted
+the old gossips of a summer resort. And yet he had only
+done what Flossy told him to do.</p>
+
+<p>He got his first lesson just about the time that
+Flossy, in the privacy of their apartments, informed her
+elder sister that if she, Flossy, found Mr. Morpeth’s
+society agreeable, it was nobody’s concern but her own,
+and that she was prepared to make some interesting
+additions to the census statistics if any one thought differently.</p>
+
+<p>The lesson opened his eyes.</p>
+
+<p>“Do you know,” she said, “that it wouldn’t be a bit of
+a bad idea to telegraph to New York for some real nice
+candy and humbly present it for my acceptance? I <em>might</em>
+take it—if the bonbonnière was pretty enough.”</p>
+
+<p>He telegraphed to New York, and received, in the
+course of four or five days, certain marvels of sweets in
+a miracle of an upholstered box. The next day he found<span class="pagenum" id="Page_446">[Pg 446]</span>
+her on the veranda, flinging the bonbons on the lawn for
+the children to scramble for.</p>
+
+<p>“Awfully nice of you to send me these things,” she
+said languidly, but loud enough for the men around her
+to hear,—she had men around her already: she had been
+discovered,—“but I never eat sweets, you know. Here,
+you little mite in the blue sash, don’t you want this pretty
+box to put your doll’s clothes in?”</p>
+
+<p>And Maillard’s finest bonbonnière went to a yellow-haired
+brat of three.</p>
+
+<p>But this was the slightest and lightest of her caprices.
+She made him send for his dogcart and his horses, all the
+way from New York, only that he might drive her over
+the ridiculous little mile and a half of road that bounded
+the tiny peninsula. And she christened him “Muffets,”
+a nickname presumably suggested by “Morpeth”; and
+she called him “Muffets” in the hearing of all the hotel
+people.</p>
+
+<p>And did such conduct pass unchallenged? No.
+Pauline scolded, raged, raved. She wrote to mamma.
+Mamma wrote back and reproved Flossy. But mamma
+could not leave papa. His gout was worse. The Miss
+Redingtons must act. The Miss Redingtons merely wept,
+and nothing more. Pauline scolded; the flirtation went
+on; and the people at the big hotel enjoyed it immensely.</p>
+
+<p>And there was more to come. Four weeks had passed.
+Mr. Morpeth was hardly on speaking terms with the elder
+Miss Belton; and with the younger Miss Belton he was
+on terms which the hotel gossips characterized as “simply
+scandalous.” Brown glared at him when they met, and
+he glared at Brown. Brown was having a hard time.
+Miss Belton the elder was not pleasant of temper in those
+trying days.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_447">[Pg 447]</span></p>
+
+<p>“And now,” said Miss Flossy to Mr. Morpeth, “it’s
+time you proposed to me, Muffets.”</p>
+
+<p>They were sitting on the hotel veranda, in the evening
+darkness. No one was near them, except an old lady in
+a Shaker chair.</p>
+
+<p>“There’s Mrs. Melby. She’s pretending to be asleep,
+but she isn’t. She’s just waiting for us. Now walk me
+up and down and ask me to marry you so that she can
+hear it. It’ll be all over the hotel inside of half an hour.
+Pauline will just <em>rage</em>.”</p>
+
+<p>With this pleasant prospect before him, Mr. Morpeth
+marched Miss Flossy Belton up and down the long veranda.
+He had passed Mrs. Melby three times before
+he was able to say, in a choking, husky, uncertain
+voice:——</p>
+
+<p>“Flossy—I—I—I <em>love</em> you!”</p>
+
+<p>Flossy’s voice was not choking nor uncertain. It rang
+out clear and silvery in a peal of laughter.</p>
+
+<p>“Why, of course you do, Muffets, and I wish you didn’t.
+That’s what makes you so stupid half the time.”</p>
+
+<p>“But—” said Mr. Morpeth vaguely; “but I——”</p>
+
+<p>“But you’re a silly boy,” returned Miss Flossy; and
+she added in a swift aside: “<em>You haven’t asked me to
+marry you!</em>”</p>
+
+<p>“W-W-W-Will you be my wife?” stammered Mr. Morpeth.</p>
+
+<p>“No!” said Miss Flossy, emphatically, “I will not.
+You are too utterly ridiculous. The idea of it! No, Muffets,
+you are charming in your present capacity; but you
+aren’t to be considered seriously.”</p>
+
+<p>They strolled on into the gloom at the end of the great
+veranda.</p>
+
+<p>“That’s the first time,” he said, with a feeling of having<span class="pagenum" id="Page_448">[Pg 448]</span>
+only the ghost of a breath left in his lungs, “that I ever
+asked a woman to marry me.”</p>
+
+<p>“I should think so,” said Miss Flossy, “from the way
+you did it. And you were beautifully rejected, weren’t
+you? Now—look at Mrs. Melby, will you? She’s scudding
+off to spread the news.”</p>
+
+<p>And before Mr. Morpeth went to bed, he was aware of
+the fact that every man and woman in the hotel knew
+that he had “proposed” to Flossy Belton, and had been
+“beautifully rejected.”</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>Two sulky men, one sulky woman, and one girl radiant
+with triumphant happiness started out in two canoes,
+reached certain fishing grounds known only to the elect,
+and began to cast for trout. They had indifferent luck.
+Miss Belton and Mr. Brown caught a dozen trout; Miss
+Flossy Belton and Mr. Morpeth caught eighteen or nineteen,
+and the day was wearing to a close. Miss Flossy
+made the last cast of the day, just as her escort had
+taken the paddle. A big trout rose—just touched the
+fly—and disappeared.</p>
+
+<p>“It’s this wretched rod!” cried Miss Flossy; and she
+rapped it on the gunwale of the canoe so sharply that the
+beautiful split bamboo broke sharp off in the middle of
+the second joint. Then she tumbled it overboard, reel
+and all.</p>
+
+<p>“I was tired of that rod, anyway, Muffets,” she said;
+“row me home, now; I’ve got to dress for dinner.”</p>
+
+<p>Miss Flossy’s elder sister, in the other boat, saw and
+heard this exhibition of tyranny; and she was so much
+moved that she stamped her small foot, and endangered
+the bottom of the canoe. She resolved that mamma
+should come back, whether papa had the gout or not.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_449">[Pg 449]</span></p>
+
+<p>Mr. Morpeth, wearing a grave expression, was paddling
+Miss Flossy toward the hotel. He had said nothing
+whatever, and it was a noticeable silence that Miss Flossy
+finally broke.</p>
+
+<p>“You’ve done pretty much everything that I wanted
+you to do, Muffets,” she said; “but you haven’t saved
+my life yet, and I’m going to give you a chance.”</p>
+
+<p>It is not difficult to overturn a canoe. One twist of
+Flossie’s supple body did it, and before he knew just what
+had happened, Morpeth was swimming toward the shore,
+holding up Flossy Belton with one arm, and fighting for
+life in the icy water of a Maine lake.</p>
+
+<p>The people were running down, bearing blankets and
+brandy, as he touched bottom in his last desperate struggle
+to keep the two of them above water. One yard
+further, and there would have been no strength left in
+him.</p>
+
+<p>He struggled up on shore with her, and when he got
+breath enough, he burst out:——</p>
+
+<p>“Why did you do it? It was wicked! It was cruel!”</p>
+
+<p>“There!” she said, as she reclined composedly in his
+arms, “that will do, Muffets. I don’t want to be scolded.”</p>
+
+<p>A delegation came along, bringing blankets and brandy,
+and took her from him.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>At five o’clock of that afternoon, Mr. Morpeth presented
+himself at the door of the parlor attached to the
+apartments of the Belton sisters. Miss Belton, senior,
+was just coming out of the room. She received his inquiry
+after her sister’s health with a white face and a
+quivering lip.</p>
+
+<p>“I should think, Mr. Morpeth,” she began, “that you
+had gone far enough in playing with the feelings of a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_450">[Pg 450]</span>
+m-m-mere child, and that—oh! I have no words to express
+my <em>contempt</em> for you!”</p>
+
+<p>And in a most unladylike rage Miss Pauline Belton
+swept down the hotel corridor.</p>
+
+<p>She had left the door open behind her. Morpeth heard
+a voice, weak, but cheery, addressing him from the far
+end of the parlor.</p>
+
+<p>“You’ve got her!” it said. “She’s crazy mad. She’ll
+make up to you to-night—see if she don’t.”</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Morpeth looked up and down the long corridor.
+It was empty. He pushed the door open, and entered.
+Flossy was lying on the sofa, pale, but bright-eyed.</p>
+
+<p>“You can get her,” she whispered, as he knelt down beside
+her.</p>
+
+<p>“Flossy,” he said, “don’t you know that that is all
+ended? Don’t you know that I love you and you only?
+Don’t you know that I haven’t thought about any one
+else since—since—oh, Flossy, don’t you—is it possible
+that you don’t understand?”</p>
+
+<p>Flossy stretched out two weak arms, and put them
+around Mr. Morpeth’s neck.</p>
+
+<p>“Why have I had you in training all summer?” said
+she. “Did you think it was for Pauline?”</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class = "right">Henry C. Bunner, <cite>Short Sixes</cite>. By permission<br>
+of Charles Scribner’s Sons, the authorized publishers.</p>
+</div>
+
+<br>
+<p class = "center"><span class="smcap">Lonely Places</span></p>
+
+<p class = "center">FRANCIS BUZZELL</p>
+
+<p>She was not quite forty years old, but so aged was she
+in appearance that another twenty-five years would not
+find her perceptibly older. And to the people of Almont<span class="pagenum" id="Page_451">[Pg 451]</span>
+she was still Abbie Snover, or “that Snover girl.” Age
+in Almont is not reckoned in years, but by marriage, and
+by children, and grandchildren.</p>
+
+<p>Nearly all the young men of Abbie’s generation had
+gone to the City, returning only in after years, with the
+intention of staying a week or two weeks, and leaving at
+the end of a day, or two days. So Abbie never married.</p>
+
+<p>It had never occurred to Abbie to leave Almont because
+all the young men had gone away. She had been
+born in the big house at the foot of Tillson Street; she
+had never lived anywhere else; she had never slept
+anywhere but in the black walnut bed in the South bedroom.</p>
+
+<p>At the age of twenty-five, Abbie inherited the big house,
+and with it hired-man Chris. He was part of her inheritance.
+Her memory of him, like her memory of the
+big house, went back as far as her memory of herself.</p>
+
+<p>Every Winter evening, between seven and eight o’clock,
+Abbie lighted the glass-handled lamp, placed it on the
+marble-topped table in the parlor window, and sat down
+beside it. The faint light of this lamp, gleaming through
+the snow-hung, shelving evergreens, was the only sign
+that the big house was there, and occupied. When the
+wind blew from the West she could occasionally hear a
+burst of laughter from the boys and girls sliding down
+Gidding’s Hill; the song of some young farmer driving
+home. She thought of the Spring, when the snow would
+disappear, and the honeysuckle would flower, and the
+wrens would again occupy the old tea-pots hung in the
+vines of the dining-room porch.</p>
+
+<p>The things that made the people of Almont interesting
+to each other and drew them together meant nothing to
+Abbie Snover. When she had become too old to be asked
+in marriage by any one, she had stopped going to dances<span class="pagenum" id="Page_452">[Pg 452]</span>
+and to sleigh-rides, and no one had asked her why. Then
+she had left the choir.</p>
+
+<p>Except when she went to do her marketing, Abbie was
+never seen on the streets.</p>
+
+<p>For fifteen years after Amos Snover died, Abbie and
+Old Chris lived alone in the big house. Every Saturday
+morning, as her mother had done before her, Abbie went
+to the grocery store, to the butcher shop, and to “Newberry’s.”
+She always walked along the East side of
+Main Street, Old Chris, with the market-basket, following
+about three feet behind her. And every Saturday night
+Old Chris went down-town to sit in the back of Pot Lippincott’s
+store and visit with Owen Frazer, who drove in
+from the sixty acres he farmed as a “renter” at Mile
+Corners. Once every week Abbie made a batch of
+cookies, cutting the thin-rolled dough into the shape of
+leaves with an old tin cutter that had been her mother’s.
+She stored the cookies in the shiny tin pail that stood on
+the shelf in the clothes-press of the down-stairs bedroom,
+because that was where her mother had always kept
+them, to be handy and yet out of reach of the hired help.
+And when Jennie Sanders’s children came to her door on
+their way home from school she gave them two cookies
+each, because her mother had always given her two.</p>
+
+<p>Once every three months “the Jersey girls,” dressed in
+black broadcloth, with black, fluted ruffles around their
+necks, and black-flowered bonnets covering their scanty
+hair, turned the corner at Chase’s Lane, walked three
+blocks to the foot of Tillson Street, and rang Abbie
+Snover’s door-bell.</p>
+
+<p>As Old Chris grew older and less able, Abbie was compelled
+to close off first one room and then another; but
+Old Chris still occupied the back chamber near the upstairs<span class="pagenum" id="Page_453">[Pg 453]</span>
+woodroom, and Abbie still slept in the South bedroom.</p>
+
+<p>Early one October afternoon, Jim East, Almont’s express
+agent and keeper of the general store, drove his
+hooded delivery cart up to the front steps of the big
+house. He trembled with excitement as he climbed down
+from the seat.</p>
+
+<p>“Abbie Snover! Ab—bie!” he called. “I got somethin’
+for you! A package all the way from China! Just
+you come an’ look!”</p>
+
+<p>Jim East lifted the package out of the delivery cart,
+carried it up the steps, and set it down at Abbie’s feet.</p>
+
+<p>“Just you look, Abbie! That there crate’s made of
+little fishin’ poles, an’ what’s inside’s all wrapped up in
+Chinee mats!”</p>
+
+<p>Old Chris came around from the back of the house.
+Jim East grabbed his arm and pointed at the bamboo
+crate.</p>
+
+<p>“Just you put your nose down, Chris, an’ smell. Ain’t
+that foreign?”</p>
+
+<p>Abbie brought her scissors. Carefully she removed the
+red and yellow labels.</p>
+
+<p>“There’s American writin’ on ’em, too,” Jim East hastened
+to explain, “cause otherwise how’d I know who it
+was for, hey?”</p>
+
+<p>Abbie carried the labels into the parlor and looked for
+a safe place for them. She saw the picture-album and
+put them in it. Then she hurried back to the porch.
+Old Chris opened one end of the crate.</p>
+
+<p>“It’s a plant,” Jim East whispered; “a Chinee plant.”</p>
+
+<p>“It’s a dwarf orange-tree,” Old Chris announced.
+“See, it says so on that there card.”</p>
+
+<p>Abbie carried the little orange-tree into the parlor.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_454">[Pg 454]</span>
+Who could have sent it to her? There was no one she
+knew, away off there in China!</p>
+
+<p>“You be careful of that bamboo and the wrappings,”
+she warned Old Chris. “I’ll make something decorative-like
+out of them.”</p>
+
+<p>Abbie waited until Jim East drove away in his delivery
+cart. Then she sat down at the table in the parlor and
+opened the album. She found her name on one of the
+labels—ABBIE SNOVER, ALMONT, MICHIGAN,
+U. S. A. It seemed queer to her that her name had come
+all the way from China. On the card that said that the
+plant was a dwarf orange-tree she found the name—Thomas
+J. Thorington. Thomas? Tom? Tom Thorington!
+Why, the last she had heard of Tom had been
+fifteen years back. He had gone out West. She had received
+a picture of him in a uniform, with a gun on his
+shoulder. She dimly recollected that he had been a guard
+at some penitentiary. How long ago it seemed! He
+must have become a missionary or something, to be away
+off in China. And he had remembered her! She sat for
+a long time looking at the labels. She wondered if the
+queer Chinese letters spelled ABBIE SNOVER, ALMONT,
+MICHIGAN. She opened the album again and
+hunted until she found the picture of Tom Thorington in
+his guard’s uniform. Then she placed the labels next to
+the picture, closed the album, and carefully fastened the
+adjustable clasp.</p>
+
+<p>Under Abbie’s constant attention, the little orange-tree
+thrived. A tiny green orange appeared. Day by day
+she watched it grow, looking forward to the time when it
+would become large and yellow. The days grew shorter
+and colder, but she did not mind; every week the orange
+grew larger. After the first snow, she moved the tree<span class="pagenum" id="Page_455">[Pg 455]</span>
+into the down-stairs bedroom. She placed it on a little
+stand in the South window. The inside blinds, which she
+had always kept as her mother liked them best—the lower
+blinds closed, the top blinds opened a little to let in the
+morning light—she now threw wide open so that the tree
+would get all of the sun. And she kept a fire in the small
+sheet-iron stove, for fear that the old, drafty wood furnace
+might not send up a steady enough heat through the
+register. When the nights became severe, she crept down
+the narrow, winding stairs, and through the cold, bare
+halls, to put an extra chunk of hardwood into the stove.
+Every morning she swept and dusted the room; the ashes
+and wood dirt around the stove gave her something extra
+to do near the orange-tree. She removed the red and
+white coverlet from the bed, and put in its place the fancy
+patch-quilt with the green birds and yellow flowers, to
+make the room look brighter.</p>
+
+<p>“Abbie Snover loves that orange-tree more’n anything
+in the world,” Old Chris cautioned the children when they
+came after cookies, “an’ don’t you dare touch it, even
+with your little finger.”</p>
+
+<p>The growing orange was as wonderful to the children
+as it was to Abbie. Instead of taking the cookies and
+hurrying home, they stood in front of the tree, their eyes
+round and big. And one day, when Abbie went to the
+clothes-press to get the cookie-pail, Bruce Sanders snipped
+the orange from the tree.</p>
+
+<p>The children were unnaturally still when Abbie came
+out of the clothes-press. They did not rush forward to
+get the cookies. Abbie looked quickly at the tree; the
+pail of cookies dropped from her hands. She grabbed the
+two children nearest and shook them until their heads
+bumped together. Then she drove them all in front of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_456">[Pg 456]</span>
+her to the door and down the path to the gate, which she
+slammed shut behind them.</p>
+
+<p>Once outside the gate the children ran, yelling: “Ab-bie
+Sno-ver, na—aa—ah! Ab-bie Sno-ver, na—aa—ah!”</p>
+
+<p>Abbie, her hands trembling, her eyes hot, went back
+into the house. That was what came of letting them take
+fruit from the trees and vines in the yard; of giving them
+cookies every time they rang her door-bell. Well, there
+would be no more cookies, and Old Chris should be told
+never to let them come into the yard again.</p>
+
+<p>That evening, when the metallic hiccough of the well
+pump on the kitchen porch told her that Old Chris was
+drawing up fresh water for the night, Abbie went out
+into the kitchen to make sure that he placed one end of
+the prop under the knob of the kitchen door and the
+other end against the leg of the kitchen table.</p>
+
+<p>“It’ll freeze afore mornin’,” said Old Chris.</p>
+
+<p>“Yes,” Abbie answered.</p>
+
+<p>But she did not get up in the night to put an extra
+chunk of wood in the stove of the down-stairs bedroom.</p>
+
+<p>“Ab-bie Sno-ver, na—aa—ah! Ab-bie Sno-ver, na—aa—ah!”</p>
+
+<p>Old Chris stopped shoveling snow to shake his fist at
+the yelling children.</p>
+
+<p>“Your Mas’ll fix you, if you don’t stop that screechin’!”</p>
+
+<p>And they answered: “Ab-bie Sno-ver, an’ old Chris!
+Ab-bie Sno-ver, an’ old Chris!”</p>
+
+<p>Every day they yelled the two names as they passed
+the big house. They yelled them on their way to and
+from school, and on their way to Giddings’s Hill to slide.
+The older boys took it up, and yelled it when they saw
+Abbie and Old Chris on Main Street Saturday mornings.
+And finally they rimed it into a couplet,</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_457">[Pg 457]</span></p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">“Ab-bie Sno-ver, an’ Old Chris—</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">We saw Chris an’ Ab-bie kiss!”</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>It was too much. Abbie went to Hugh Perry’s mother.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Perry defended her young son. “He couldn’t
+have done it,” she told Abbie. “He ain’t that kind of a
+boy, and you can just tell that Old Chris I said so. I
+guess it must be true, the way you’re fussin’ round!”</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Perry slammed the door in Abbie’s face. Then
+she whipped her young son, and hated Abbie and Old
+Chris because they were responsible for it.</p>
+
+<p>“That Abbie Snover came to my house,” Mrs. Perry
+told Mrs. Rowles, “an’ said my Hugh had been a-couplin’
+her name with Old Chris’s in a nasty way. An’ I told
+her——”</p>
+
+<p>“The idea! the idea!” Mrs. Rowles interrupted.</p>
+
+<p>“An’ I told her it must be so, an’ I guess it is,” Mrs.
+Perry concluded.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Rowles called upon Pastor Lucus’s wife.</p>
+
+<p>“Abbie Snover an’ Old Chris was seen kissin’.”</p>
+
+<p>“It’s scandalous,” Mrs. Lucas told the pastor. “The
+town shouldn’t put up with it a minute longer. That’s
+what comes of Abbie Snover not coming to church since
+her Ma died.”</p>
+
+<p>On Saturday mornings when Abbie went down-town
+followed by Old Chris, the women eyed her coldly, and
+the faces of the men took on quizzical, humorous expressions.
+Abbie could not help but notice it; she was disturbed.
+The time for “the Jersey girls” to call came
+around. Every afternoon Abbie sat in the window and
+watched for them to turn the corner at Chase’s Lane.
+She brought out the polished apples which she kept in
+the clothes-press all ready for some one, but “the Jersey
+girls” did not come.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_458">[Pg 458]</span></p>
+
+<p>“You haven’t heard of anybody being sick at the Jersey
+house, have you, Chris?”</p>
+
+<p>“Um? Nope!”</p>
+
+<p>“Haven’t seen Josie or Em Jersey anywhere lately?”</p>
+
+<p>“Seen ’em at the post-office night afore last.”</p>
+
+<p>“H’mp!”</p>
+
+<p>Abbie pushed the kettle to the front of the kitchen
+stove, poked up the fire, and put in fresh sticks of wood.
+When the water boiled she poured it into a blue-lacquered
+pail with yellow bands around the rim, carried it up the
+steep stairs, and got out fresh stockings.</p>
+
+<p>An hour later Old Chris saw her climbing up Tillson
+Street. He scratched his head and frowned.</p>
+
+<p>Abbie turned the corner at Chase’s Lane. The snow,
+driven by the wind, blinded her. She almost bumped
+into Viny Freeman.</p>
+
+<p>“My, Viny! What you doing out on such a day?”</p>
+
+<p>“Seems she didn’t see me,” Abbie muttered. “What
+can she be doing away down here on such a day? Must
+be something special to bring her out of her lonely old
+house with her lame side. My! I almost bumped that
+hand she’s always holding up her pain with. My!”</p>
+
+<p>Abbie turned into the Jersey gate and climbed the icy
+steps, hanging onto the railing with both hands. She saw
+Em Jersey rise from her chair in the parlor and go into
+the back sitting-room. Abbie pulled the bell-knob and
+waited. No one answered. She pulled it again. No
+answer. She rapped on the door with her knuckles.
+Big Mary, the Jersey hired girl, opened the door part
+way.</p>
+
+<p>“They ain’t to home.”</p>
+
+<p>“Ain’t to home?” exclaimed Abbie. “My land!
+Didn’t I just see Em Jersey through the parlor window?”</p>
+
+<p>“No’m, you never did. They ain’t to home.”</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_459">[Pg 459]</span></p>
+
+<p>“Well, I never! And their Ma and mine was cousins!
+They ain’t sick or nothing? Well!”</p>
+
+<p>The snow melted; the streets ran with water and then
+froze. Old Chris no longer came into the parlor in the
+evening to sit, his hands clasped over his thin stomach,
+his bald head bent until his chin rested upon the starched
+neckband of his shirt.</p>
+
+<p>They ate in silence the meals which Abbie prepared:
+Old Chris at one end of the long table, and Abbie at the
+other end.</p>
+
+<p>In silence they went about their accustomed tasks.</p>
+
+<p>Abbie, tired with a new weariness, sat in her chair beside
+the marble-topped table. The village was talking
+about her; she knew it; she felt it all around her. Well,
+let them talk!</p>
+
+<p>But one day Almont sent a committee to her. It was
+composed of one man and three women. Abbie saw
+them when they turned in at her gate—Pastor Lucus,
+Lorina Inman, Antha Ewell, and Aunt Alphie Newberry.</p>
+
+<p>Abbie walked to the center of the parlor and stood
+there, her hands clenched, her face set. The door-bell
+rang; for a moment her body swayed. Then she went
+into the bay window and drew the blinds aside. Antha
+Ewell saw her and jerked Pastor Lucus’s arm. Pastor
+Lucus turned and caught sight of Abbie; he thought that
+she had not heard the bell, so he tapped the door panel
+with his fingers and nodded his head at her invitingly, as
+if to say:</p>
+
+<p>“See, we’re waiting for you to let us in.” Abbie’s expression
+did not change. Pastor Lucus tapped at the
+door again, this time hesitantly, and still she looked at
+them with unseeing eyes. He tapped a third time, then
+turned and looked at the three women. Aunt Alphie
+Newberry tugged at his arm, and the committee of four<span class="pagenum" id="Page_460">[Pg 460]</span>
+turned about without looking at Abbie, and walked down
+the steps.</p>
+
+<p>A few minutes later Abbie heard the door between the
+parlor and dining-room open. Old Chris came in. For a
+moment or two neither spoke. Old Chris fingered his
+cap.</p>
+
+<p>“Abbie, I lived here forty-two years. I was here when
+you was born. I carried you around in my arms a little
+bit of thing an’ made you laugh.”</p>
+
+<p>Abbie did not turn away from the window.</p>
+
+<p>“I know what they came for,” Old Chris continued.
+“Your Ma—your Ma, she’d never thought I’d have to go
+away from here.”</p>
+
+<p>Abbie could not answer him.</p>
+
+<p>“I don’t know who’ll keep the furnace a-goin’ when
+I’m gone, nor fill the up-stairs woodroom.”</p>
+
+<p>Still no answer.</p>
+
+<p>“I’m old now—I’ll go to Owen Frazer’s farm—down to
+Miles Corners. He’ll have some work I can do.”</p>
+
+<p>Old Chris stroked his baggy cheeks with trembling
+hands. Abbie still looked out of the window.</p>
+
+<p>“I’m a-goin’ down to the post-office now,” said Old
+Chris, as he turned and went to the door. “Be there
+anything you want?”</p>
+
+<p>Abbie shook her head; she could not find words. As
+Old Chris went down the hall she heard him mumble,
+“I don’t know what she’ll do when I’m gone.”</p>
+
+<p>That night Abbie sat in the parlor window longer than
+usual. It was a white night; wet snow had been falling
+heavily all day. Some time between eight and nine
+o’clock she arose from her chair and went into the long,
+narrow dining-room. The pat-pat of her slippered feet
+aroused Old Chris from his nodding over the <cite>Farm
+Herald</cite>. Finding that the hot air was not coming up<span class="pagenum" id="Page_461">[Pg 461]</span>
+strong through the register over which he sat, the old man
+slowly pushed his wool-socked feet into felt-lined overshoes
+and tramped down into the cellar, picking up the
+kitchen lamp as he went. Abbie followed as far as the
+kitchen. The pungent dry-wood smell that came up the
+stairs when Old Chris swung open the door of the wood
+cellar made her sniff. She heard the sounds as he loaded
+the wheelbarrow with the sticks of quartered hardwood;
+the noise of the wheel bumping over the loose boards as
+he pushed his load into the furnace-room. She went back
+into the parlor and stood over the register. Hollow
+sounds came up through the pipe as Old Chris leveled
+the ashes in the fire-box and threw in the fresh sticks.</p>
+
+<p>When Old Chris came up from the cellar and went out
+onto the porch to draw up fresh water for the night, Abbie
+went back into the kitchen.</p>
+
+<p>“It’s snowin’ hard out,” said Old Chris.</p>
+
+<p>“Yes,” Abbie answered.</p>
+
+<p>She led the way back into the dining room. Old Chris
+placed the kitchen lamp on the stand under the fruit
+picture and waited. For a few moments they stood in
+the blast of hot air rising from the register. Then Abbie
+took up the larger of the two lamps. Through the
+bare, high-ceilinged rooms she went, opening and closing
+the heavy doors; on through the cold, empty hall, up the
+stairs, into the South bedroom. While she was closing
+the blinds she heard Old Chris stumble up the back
+stairs and into the chamber he had occupied ever since
+she could remember.</p>
+
+<p>The night after Old Chris had gone, Abbie took the
+brass dinner-bell from the pantry shelf and set it on the
+chair beside her bed. Over the back of the chair she
+placed her heavy, rabbit-lined coat; it would be handy if
+any one disturbed her. Once or twice when she heard<span class="pagenum" id="Page_462">[Pg 462]</span>
+sounds, she put out her hand and touched the bell; but
+the sounds did not recur. The next night she tried sleeping
+in the down-stairs bedroom. The blue-and-gray
+carpet, the blue fixings on the bureau and commode, the
+blue bands around the wash-bowl and pitcher—all faded
+and old-looking—reminded her of her mother and father,
+and would not let her sleep. On the wall in front of her
+was a picture in a black frame of a rowboat filled with
+people. It was called “From Shore to Shore.” Trying
+not to see it, her eyes were caught by a black and white
+print in a gilt frame, called “The First Steps.” How she
+had loved the picture when she was a little girl; her
+mother had explained it to her many times—the bird
+teaching its little ones to fly; the big, shaggy dog encouraging
+its waddling puppies; the mother coaxing her
+baby to walk alone.</p>
+
+<p>At midnight Abbie got out of bed, picked up the dinner-bell
+by the clapper, and went back up-stairs to the South
+bedroom.</p>
+
+<p>The tall, bare walls of the big house, the high ceilings
+with their centerpieces of plaster fruits and flowers, the
+cold whiteness, closed her in. Having no one to talk to,
+she talked to herself: “It’s snowin’ hard out—why! that
+was what Old Chris said the night before he went away.”
+She began to be troubled by a queer, detached feeling;
+she knew that she had mislaid something, but just what
+she could not remember. Forebodings came to her, distressing,
+disquieting. There would never be any one for
+her to speak to—never! The big house grew terrible; the
+rooms echoed her steps. She would have given everything
+for a little house of two or three small low-ceilinged
+rooms close to the side-walk on a street where people
+passed up and down.</p>
+
+<p>A night came when Abbie forgot that Old Chris had<span class="pagenum" id="Page_463">[Pg 463]</span>
+gone away. She had been sitting in her chair beside the
+marble-topped table, staring out into the night. All day
+the wind had blown; snow had piled high around the
+porch. Her thoughts had got back to her childhood.
+Somehow they had centered around the old grandfather
+who, years before, had sat in the same window. She saw
+him in his chair; heard his raspy old voice, “I married
+Jane sixty-eight an’ a half years ago, an’ a half year in a
+man’s life is something, I’ll bet you. An’ I buried her
+thirty years ago, an’ that’s a long time, too. We never
+tore each other’s shirts. Jane wanted to live a quiet life.
+She wanted one child, an’ she was tenacious ’bout that.
+She never wanted any more, an’ she had three, an’ one
+of ’em was your Ma. She never wanted to be seen out
+with a baby in her arms, Jane didn’t. I made her get
+bundled up once or twice, an’ I hitched up the horse an’
+took her ridin’ in my phaeton that cost two hundred dollars.—You’ll
+be in your dotage some day, Abbie. I’ve
+been in my dotage for years now.—Oh, I altered my life
+to fit Jane’s. I expected I had a wife to go out and see
+the neighbors with. By gosh! we never went across the
+street—I’ll take on goodness some day, Abbie. By goll!
+that’s all I’m good for to take on now.—Oh, it beat all
+what a boy I was. I and Mother broke our first team
+of oxen. When you get children, Abbie, let them raise
+themselves up. They’ll do better at it than a poor father
+or mother can. I had the finest horses and the best
+phaeton for miles around, but you never saw a girl a-ridin’
+by the side of me.—Some men can’t work alone, Abbie.
+They got to have the women around or they quit. Don’t
+you get that kind of a man, Abbie.—Oh, she was renowned
+was my old mare, Kit. You never got to the
+end of her. She lived to be more’n thirty year, an’ she
+raised fourteen colts. She was a darned good little thing<span class="pagenum" id="Page_464">[Pg 464]</span>
+she was. I got her for a big black mare that weighed
+fourteen hundred pound, an’ I made ’em give me ten dollars,
+too, an’ I got her colt with her——”</p>
+
+<p>Abbie suddenly realized that she was shivering; that
+her feet were cold; that it was long after nine o’clock.
+Old Chris must have fallen asleep in his chair. She
+went to the dining-room door and opened it; the dining-room
+was dark. Why?—why, of course! Old Chris had
+been gone for more than three weeks. She took hold of
+the door to steady herself; her hands shook. How
+could she have forgotten? Was she going crazy? Would
+the loneliness come to that?</p>
+
+<p>Abbie went to bed. All night she lay awake, thinking.
+The thoughts came of themselves. What the town had
+to say didn’t matter after all; the town had paid her no
+attention for years; it was paying her no attention now.
+Why, then, should she live without any one to speak to?
+“I’ll go and get Old Chris, that’s what I’ll do. I won’t
+live here alone any longer.” And with this decision she
+went to sleep.</p>
+
+<p>In the morning when Abbie opened the kitchen door
+and stepped out onto the porch, frost lay thick upon the
+well pump.</p>
+
+<p>She drew her shawl close around her and took hold of
+the pump-handle with her mittened hands. When she
+had filled the pail she went back into the kitchen. The
+sound of the wind made her shiver. To walk all the way
+to Mile Corners on such a day required green tea, so
+Abbie drank three cupfuls. Then, as on the day when
+she went out to call upon “the Jersey girls,” she carried
+hot water up-stairs and got out fresh stockings.</p>
+
+<p>About nine o’clock three women of Pastor Lucus’s
+church, standing on the front steps of Aunt Alphie Newberry’s<span class="pagenum" id="Page_465">[Pg 465]</span>
+house, saw Abbie struggling through a drift.</p>
+
+<p>“Why, there’s Abbie Snover,” said Jennie Chipman.</p>
+
+<p>“She’s turnin’ down the road to Mile Corners,” added
+Judie Wing.</p>
+
+<p>Aunt Alphie Newberry opened the door to the three
+women:</p>
+
+<p>“Whatever’s the matter to be bringin’ you callin’ so
+early?”</p>
+
+<p>“Ain’t you heard yet?”</p>
+
+<p>“We come to tell you.”</p>
+
+<p>“My! my! my! What can have happened?” Aunt
+Alphie exclaimed.</p>
+
+<p>“Old Chris died last night——”</p>
+
+<p>“Just after bein’ middlin’ sick for a day an’——”</p>
+
+<p>“An’ they say,” Judie Wing interrupted, “that it was
+’cause Abbie Snover turned him out.”</p>
+
+<p>Abbie reached the end of the town sidewalk. Lifting
+her skirts high, she waded through the deep snow to the
+rough-rutted track left by the farmer’s sleighs. Every
+little while she had to step off the road into the deep snow
+to let a bob-sled loaded high with hay or straw pass on its
+way into town. Some of the farmers recognized her; they
+spoke to her with kindly voices, but she made no answer.
+Walking was hard; Owen Frazer’s farm was over the hill;
+there was a steep climb ahead of her. And besides, Owen
+Frazer’s house was no place for Old Chris. No one knew
+anything about Owen Frazer and that woman of his; they
+hadn’t been born in Almont. How could she have let Old
+Chris go down there, anyway?</p>
+
+<p>“Whoa up! Hey! Better climb in, Abbie, an’ ride
+with me. This ain’t no day for walkin’. Get up here on
+the seat. I’ll come down an’ help you.”</p>
+
+<p>Abbie looked up at Undertaker Hopkins. In the box<span class="pagenum" id="Page_466">[Pg 466]</span>
+of his funeral wagon was a black coffin with a sprinkling
+of snow on its top. Abbie shook her head, but did not
+speak.</p>
+
+<p>“Guess I shouldn’t have asked you,” Undertaker Hopkins
+apologized. “Sorry! Get along as fast as you can,
+Abbie. It’s gettin’ mighty, all-fired cold. It’ll be a little
+sheltered when you get over the hill.”</p>
+
+<p>Undertaker Hopkins drove on. Abbie tried to keep her
+feet in the fresh track made by the runners. She reached
+the top of the hill. Owen Frazer’s red barn stood up
+above the snow. Undertaker Hopkins and his funeral
+wagon had disappeared.</p>
+
+<p>“He must have turned down the Mill Road,” Abbie
+muttered.</p>
+
+<p>She reached the gate in front of the low, one-story
+farmhouse. A shepherd dog barked as she went up the
+path. She rapped at the front door. A woman appeared
+at the window and pointed to the side of the house.
+Abbie’s face expressed surprise and resentment. She
+backed down the steps and made her way to the back
+door. The woman, Owen Frazer’s wife, let her into the
+kitchen.</p>
+
+<p>“Owen! Here be Abbie Snover!”</p>
+
+<p>Owen Frazer came in from the front of the house.</p>
+
+<p>“Good day! Didn’t expect you here. Pretty cold out,
+ain’t it? Have a chair.”</p>
+
+<p>Abbie did not realize how numb the cold had made her
+body until she tried to sit down.</p>
+
+<p>“Maggie, give her a cup of that hot tea,” Owen Frazer
+continued. “She’s been almost froze, an’ I guess she’ll
+have a cup of tea. Hey! Miss Snover?”</p>
+
+<p>“I want to talk to Old Chris.”</p>
+
+<p>“Talk to Old Chris! Talk to Old Chris, you want to?”</p>
+
+<p>Owen Frazer looked at his wife. Abbie Snover didn’t<span class="pagenum" id="Page_467">[Pg 467]</span>
+know, yet she had walked all the way to Mile Corners in
+the cold. He couldn’t understand it.</p>
+
+<p>“What’d you come for, anyhow, Abbie Snover?”</p>
+
+<p>“Now, Owen, you wait!” Owen Frazer’s wife turned
+to Abbie:</p>
+
+<p>“Got lonesome, did you, all by yourself in that big barn
+of a house?”</p>
+
+<p>“I want to talk to Old Chris,” Abbie repeated.</p>
+
+<p>“Was you so fond of him, then?”</p>
+
+<p>Abbie made no answer. Owen Frazer went over to the
+sink and looked out of the window at the bed-tick smoldering
+on the rubbish heap. Owen Frazer’s wife pushed
+open the door of the sitting-room, then stood back and
+turned to Abbie:</p>
+
+<p>“You may be fine old family, Abbie Snover, but we’re
+better. You turned Old Chris out, an’ now you want to
+talk to him. All right, talk to him if you want to. He’s
+in the parlor. Go on in now. Talk to him if you want
+to—go on in!”</p>
+
+<p>The animosity in Mrs. Frazer’s voice shook Abbie; she
+was disturbed; doubt came to her for the first time. As
+she went through the sitting-room, fear slowed her steps.
+Perhaps they had turned Old Chris away from her and
+she would have to go back alone, to live alone, for all the
+remaining years of her life, in that big house.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p class = "right">Francis Buzzell. Reprinted from <cite>Pictorial Review</cite><br>
+by the kind permission of the author.</p>
+</div>
+
+<br>
+<p class = "center"><span class="smcap">Two Friends</span><a id="FNanchor_2" href="#Footnote_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a></p>
+
+<p class = "center">GUY DE MAUPASSANT</p>
+
+<p>Paris was besieged, starving, exhausted. The sparrows<span class="pagenum" id="Page_468">[Pg 468]</span>
+were growing scarce on the roofs and the rats in
+the sewers. People ate whatever they could get.</p>
+
+<p>As he walked listlessly along the outer boulevard on a
+clear January morning, his hands in the pockets of his
+uniform, and his stomach empty, Monsieur Morissot, a
+watchmaker by trade and a militiaman by necessity,
+stopped short in front of a colleague in whom he recognized
+a friend. It was Monsieur Sauvage, an acquaintance
+made at the waterside.</p>
+
+<p>Before the war, Morissot used to start every Sunday
+at daybreak, a bamboo fishing rod in his hand, a tin box
+on his back. He took the Argenteuil train, stopped at
+Colombes, then walked to Marante Island. No sooner
+had he reached this ideal spot than he began to fish, and
+he went on fishing till nightfall.</p>
+
+<p>Every Sunday, he found there a plump and jolly little
+man, Monsieur Sauvage, a haberdasher in Notre-Dame de
+Lorette Street, also a born fisherman. They would often
+spend hours, side by side, their rods in their hands, their
+feet hanging over the running water; and a friendship
+had sprung up between them.</p>
+
+<p>Sometimes they remained silent. Sometimes, they
+talked. But they understood each other perfectly, without
+saying a word, having identical tastes and feelings.</p>
+
+<p>On spring mornings, about ten o’clock, when the sun
+would draw from the still river a thin mist which ran along
+the water and poured upon the backs of the obstinate
+fishermen the welcome warmth of the new season, Morissot
+would say to his neighbor: “Isn’t it mild though?”
+and Monsieur Sauvage would reply: “There isn’t anything
+like it!” And they needed nothing more for perfect
+understanding and mutual esteem.</p>
+
+<p>In the autumn, towards nightfall, when the sky, blood
+red from the setting sun, reflected the shapes of the scarlet<span class="pagenum" id="Page_469">[Pg 469]</span>
+clouds in the water, tinted the whole river, set the
+horizon ablaze, made even the two friends as red as the
+flames, and turned to gold the brown trees, shivering
+with a wintry chill, Monsieur Sauvage would smile at
+Morissot, and say: “How wonderful!” And Morissot,
+with deep admiration, would reply, without lifting his eyes
+from his cork: “It’s better than the city, isn’t it?”</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>As soon as they recognized each other, they shook hands
+heartily, much excited at meeting again under such altered
+circumstances. Monsieur Sauvage sighed and murmured:
+“What strange happenings!” Morissot, much
+depressed, groaned: “And such weather! This is the
+first fine day this year.”</p>
+
+<p>In fact, the sky was quite blue and full of light.</p>
+
+<p>They walked on, side by side, thoughtful and gloomy.
+Morissot continued: “And our fishing, eh? What a
+pleasant memory!”</p>
+
+<p>Monsieur Sauvage asked: “When shall we ever do it
+again?”</p>
+
+<p>They went into a little cafe and drank an absinthe, then
+resumed their walk on the boulevard.</p>
+
+<p>Morissot stopped suddenly: “Let’s have another
+‘verte’, eh?” Monsieur Sauvage agreed: “Just as you
+say.” And they went into another restaurant.</p>
+
+<p>When they came out they were quite dazed, and ill at
+ease as people are who take alcohol on an empty stomach.
+It was very mild. A soft breeze brushed their faces.</p>
+
+<p>Monsieur Sauvage, whom the balmy air intoxicated
+still more, stopped: “Let’s go!”</p>
+
+<p>“Where?”</p>
+
+<p>“Fishing, of course.”</p>
+
+<p>“But where?”</p>
+
+<p>“To our island. The French outposts are near Colombes.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_470">[Pg 470]</span>
+I know Colonel Dumoulin; he will let us through.”</p>
+
+<p>Morissot was thrilled: “All right, that’s settled.”
+And they separated to get their fishing tackle.</p>
+
+<p>An hour later, they were walking along the highway.
+When they reached the villa where the colonel was quartered,
+he smiled at their request and granted it. They
+departed, with a pass.</p>
+
+<p>They were soon beyond the outposts, then they walked
+through deserted Colombes, and reached the small vineyards
+which slope toward the Seine. It was about eleven
+o’clock.</p>
+
+<p>On the opposite bank, Argenteuil seemed abandoned.
+The heights of Orgemont and Sannois towered above the
+whole countryside. The long plain which extends as far
+as Nanterre was empty, quite empty, with its leafless cherry
+trees and grayish soil.</p>
+
+<p>Monsieur Sauvage, pointing to the hills, murmured:
+“The Prussians are up there!” And a sudden dismay
+chilled the two friends at sight of this lonely place.</p>
+
+<p>The Prussians! They had never seen any, but they
+had felt their presence for months, around Paris, pillaging,
+massacring, starving France, invisible and all powerful.
+And a sort of superstitious terror added to their hatred of
+these unknown and victorious enemies.</p>
+
+<p>Morissot mumbled: “Say!... Suppose we should
+meet some of them?”</p>
+
+<p>Monsieur Sauvage replied, with the irrepressible drollery
+of the Parisian:</p>
+
+<p>“We might offer them a fish fry.”</p>
+
+<p>Still they hesitated to venture out into the open country,
+awed by the all-pervading silence.</p>
+
+<p>Finally, Monsieur Sauvage made up his mind: “Come,
+let’s go on, but cautiously.” They crept down through
+a vineyard, bending low, crawling, keeping under cover<span class="pagenum" id="Page_471">[Pg 471]</span>
+of some bushes, their eyes watchful, their ears alert.</p>
+
+<p>There remained a strip of bare ground between them
+and the river. They ran, and as soon as they reached the
+bank, they crouched among the dry reeds.</p>
+
+<p>Morissot put his ear to the ground to listen for footsteps.
+He heard nothing. They were alone, all alone.</p>
+
+<p>They took heart and began to fish.</p>
+
+<p>In front of them, Marante Island, also deserted, hid
+them from the other bank. The little restaurant
+was closed and looked as if it had been abandoned for
+years.</p>
+
+<p>Monsieur Sauvage took the first gudgeon. Morissot
+caught the next one, and every little while they would lift
+their rods with a small silvery object squirming at the
+end of the line; it was a miraculous catch.</p>
+
+<p>They placed the fish carefully in a fine-meshed bag
+which lay at their feet in the water, and they were filled
+with a peculiar joy which comes on finding again some long
+lost pleasure.</p>
+
+<p>The warm sun shone on their shoulders; they were no
+longer listening or thinking, they ignored the rest of the
+world, they were fishing.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly a dull sound which seemed to come from
+underground shook the earth. The cannon was thundering
+again.</p>
+
+<p>Morissot turned, and over the edge of the bank, he saw
+yonder, on the left, the great profile of Mont-Valerien, with
+a white plume on its brow, the haze of gunpowder which
+it had just belched forth.</p>
+
+<p>And instantly a second puff of smoke arose from the
+crest of the fortress; and a few minutes later another shot
+roared.</p>
+
+<p>Then more followed, and from time to time there gushed
+from the mountain a death laden breath, milky vapors<span class="pagenum" id="Page_472">[Pg 472]</span>
+which rose slowly and formed a cloud above it under the
+calm sky.</p>
+
+<p>Monsieur Sauvage shrugged his shoulders: “They are
+at it again,” said he.</p>
+
+<p>Morissot, who was intently watching the bobbing of his
+float, was suddenly seized with a peaceful man’s fury
+against those madmen who were fighting thus, and
+he growled: “How stupid to kill one another like
+that.”</p>
+
+<p>Monsieur Sauvage replied: “They are worse than animals!”</p>
+
+<p>And Morissot who had just caught a bleak, exclaimed:
+“And to think it will always be the same as long as there
+are governments....”</p>
+
+<p>Monsieur Sauvage stopped him: “The Republic would
+not have declared war....”</p>
+
+<p>Morissot interrupted him: “With a king there is war
+abroad; with a republic, there is war at home.”</p>
+
+<p>And tranquilly, they began to discuss, solving deep
+political problems with the sane reason of gentle and
+limited minds, agreeing on this one point: one would never
+be free. And Mont-Valerien thundered ceaselessly, its
+shells tearing down French homes, pounding out lives,
+crushing human beings, putting an end to many dreams,
+many expected joys, much longed for happiness, creating
+in the hearts of wives, in the hearts of daughters, in the
+hearts of mothers, over there, and in other countries, a grief
+that would never end.</p>
+
+<p>“That’s life,” declared Monsieur Sauvage.</p>
+
+<p>“It’s death, you mean,” retorted Morissot, laughing.</p>
+
+<p>They started with fear, suddenly aware that someone
+had just walked behind them; looking back, they saw,
+standing quite close to them four men, four big fellows,
+armed and bearded, dressed like servants in livery and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_473">[Pg 473]</span>
+wearing flat caps, who were pointing their guns at them.</p>
+
+<p>The fishing rods dropped from their hands and drifted
+down the river.</p>
+
+<p>In a few seconds they were seized, carried off, thrown
+into a boat and brought to the island.</p>
+
+<p>And behind the house which they had thought deserted,
+they saw a score of German soldiers.</p>
+
+<p>A kind of hairy giant, who sat, astride a chair, smoking
+a long porcelain pipe, asked them in excellent French:
+“Well, gentlemen, how was the fishing?”</p>
+
+<p>Then a soldier laid at the feet of the officer the net full
+of fish which he had been thoughtful enough to bring
+along. The Prussian smiled: “Ha! ha! I see you did
+pretty well. But that is not the point. Listen carefully
+and don’t get excited.</p>
+
+<p>“In my opinion you are spies sent to watch me. I’ve
+got you and you are to be shot. You were pretending to
+fish in order to hide your plans more thoroughly. You
+have fallen into my hands; so much the worse for you;
+c’est le guerre.”</p>
+
+<p>“But as you came through the outposts you must certainly
+have the password for your return. Give me this
+password and I shall pardon you.”</p>
+
+<p>The two friends, pallid, side by side, their hands shaking
+with a slight nervous twitching, remained silent.</p>
+
+<p>The officer continued: “No one will ever know. You
+shall return in peace. The secret will disappear with you.
+If you refuse, it means death, immediate death. Choose.”</p>
+
+<p>They stood motionless, not saying a word.</p>
+
+<p>The Prussian, as cool as ever, pointing to the river,
+went on: “Remember that in five minutes you will be at
+the bottom of this stream. In five minutes! You must
+have some relatives?”</p>
+
+<p>Mont-Valerien was still thundering.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_474">[Pg 474]</span></p>
+
+<p>The two fishermen stood silent.</p>
+
+<p>The German gave orders in his own tongue. Then he
+moved his chair so as not to be too close to the prisoners;
+and twelve men came and stood twenty feet away, their
+guns at rest.</p>
+
+<p>The officer continued: “I give you one minute, not a
+second more.”</p>
+
+<p>Then he got up suddenly, came to the two men, took
+Morissot by the arm, drew him away and said to him in
+a low voice: “Hurry, give me the password. Your companion
+won’t know. I’ll pretend I am relenting.”</p>
+
+<p>Morissot did not reply.</p>
+
+<p>Then the Prussian took aside Monsieur Sauvage and
+asked him the same question.</p>
+
+<p>Monsieur Sauvage said nothing.</p>
+
+<p>They were again side by side.</p>
+
+<p>And the officer began to give orders. The soldiers
+leveled their guns.</p>
+
+<p>Then Morissot happened to glance at the net full of
+gudgeons, lying in the grass, a few feet.</p>
+
+<p>A sunbeam was shining on the mass of quivering fish.
+A feeling of faintness came over him. In spite of his efforts
+his eyes filled with tears.</p>
+
+<p>He stammered: “Good-bye, Monsieur Sauvage.”</p>
+
+<p>Monsieur Sauvage replied: “Good-bye, Monsieur
+Morissot.”</p>
+
+<p>They shook hands, trembling from head to foot, uncontrollably.</p>
+
+<p>The officer shouted: “Fire!”</p>
+
+<p>The twelve shots sounded like one.</p>
+
+<p>Monsieur Sauvage fell flat on his nose. Morissot, taller,
+tottered, pivoted, and dropped sidewise across the body
+of his companion, his face turned to the sky, while streams
+of blood gushed over the front of his uniform.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_475">[Pg 475]</span></p>
+
+<p>The German gave more orders.</p>
+
+<p>His men scattered, then returned with ropes and some
+stones which they fastened to the feet of the bodies; then
+they carried them to the bank.</p>
+
+<p>Mont-Valerien did not stop roaring; it was now capped
+with a mountain of smoke.</p>
+
+<p>Two soldiers took Morissot by the head and the feet;
+two others seized Monsieur Sauvage in the same way.
+The bodies, being violently swung for an instant, described
+a curve, then plunged upright into the river, the stones
+pulling the feet down.</p>
+
+<p>The water splashed, bubbled, shivered, then grew still,
+while tiny wavelets spread slowly to the shore.</p>
+
+<p>A little blood floated.</p>
+
+<p>The officer, still serene, said calmly: “Let the fish have
+their turn now.”</p>
+
+<p>Then he started towards the house.</p>
+
+<p>And suddenly he saw the fishnet in the grass. He
+picked it up, examined it, and called: “Wilhelm!”</p>
+
+<p>A white-aproned soldier ran to him. And the Prussian,
+throwing him the murdered men’s catch, said: “Fry
+these little things right away, while they are still alive.
+They will be delicious.”</p>
+
+<p>And he resumed his pipe.</p>
+
+<br>
+<p class = "center"><span class="smcap">The Sculptor’s Funeral</span></p>
+
+<p class = "center">WILLA CATHER</p>
+
+<p>A group of the townspeople stood on the station siding
+of a little Kansas town, awaiting the coming of the night
+train, which was already twenty minutes overdue. The
+snow had fallen thick over everything; in the pale starlight
+the line of bluffs across the wide, white meadows<span class="pagenum" id="Page_476">[Pg 476]</span>
+south of the town made soft, smoke-coloured curves
+against the clear sky. The men on the siding stood first
+on one foot and then on the other, their hands thrust deep
+into their trousers pockets, their overcoats open, their
+shoulders screwed up with the cold; and they glanced from
+time to time toward the southeast, where the railroad
+track wound along the river shore. They conversed in
+low tones and moved about restlessly, seeming uncertain
+as to what was expected of them. There was but one of
+the company who looked as if he knew exactly why he was
+there, and he kept conspicuously apart; walking to the
+far end of the platform, returning to the station door, then
+pacing up the track again, his chin sunk in the high collar
+of his overcoat, his burly shoulders drooping forward, his
+gait heavy and dogged. Presently he was approached by
+a tall, spare, grizzled man clad in a faded Grand Army
+suit, who shuffled out from the group and advanced with
+a certain deference, craning his neck forward until his
+back made the angle of a jack-knife three-quarters open.</p>
+
+<p>“I reckon she’s a-goin’ to be pretty late agin tonight,
+Jim,” he remarked in a squeaky falsetto. “S’pose it’s
+the snow?”</p>
+
+<p>“I don’t know,” responded the other man with a shade
+of annoyance, speaking from out an astonishing cataract
+of red beard that grew fiercely and thickly in all directions.</p>
+
+<p>The spare man shifted the quill toothpick he was chewing
+to the other side of his mouth. “It ain’t likely that
+anybody from the East will come with the corpse, I
+s’pose,” he went on reflectively.</p>
+
+<p>“I don’t know,” responded the other, more curtly than
+before.</p>
+
+<p>“It’s too bad he didn’t belong to some lodge or other. I
+like an order funeral myself. They seem more appropriate<span class="pagenum" id="Page_477">[Pg 477]</span>
+for people of some repytation,” the spare man
+continued, with an ingratiating concession in his shrill
+voice, as he carefully placed his toothpick in his vest
+pocket. He always carried the flag at the G. A. R. funerals
+in the town.</p>
+
+<p>The heavy man turned on his heel, without replying,
+and walked up the siding. The spare man rejoined the
+uneasy group. “Jim’s ez full ez a tick, ez ushel,” he
+commented commiseratingly.</p>
+
+<p>Just then a distant whistle sounded, and there was a
+shuffling of feet on the platform. A number of lanky
+boys, of all ages, appeared as suddenly and slimily as
+eels wakened by the crack of thunder; some came from
+the waiting-room, where they had been warming themselves
+by the red stove, or half asleep on the slat benches;
+others uncoiled themselves from baggage trucks or slid
+out of express wagons. Two clambered down from the
+driver’s seat of a hearse that stood backed up against the
+siding. They straightened their stooping shoulders and
+lifted their heads, and a flash of momentary animation
+kindled their dull eyes at that cold, vibrant scream, the
+world-wide call for men. It stirred them like the note of
+a trumpet; just as it had often stirred the man who was
+coming home tonight, in his boyhood.</p>
+
+<p>The night express shot, red as a rocket, from out the
+eastward marsh lands and wound along the river shore
+under the long lines of shivering poplars that sentinelled
+the meadows, the escaping steam hanging in grey masses
+against the pale sky and blotting out the Milky Way.
+In a moment the red glare from the headlight streamed
+up the snow-covered track before the siding and glittered
+on the wet, black rails. The burly man with the dishevelled
+red beard walked swiftly up the platform toward
+the approaching train, uncovering his head as he<span class="pagenum" id="Page_478">[Pg 478]</span>
+went. The group of men behind him hesitated, glanced
+questioningly at one another, and awkwardly followed his
+example. The train stopped, and the crowd shuffled up
+to the express car just as the door was thrown open, the
+man in the G. A. R. suit thrusting his head forward with
+curiosity. The express messenger appeared in the doorway,
+accompanied by a young man in a long ulster and
+travelling cap.</p>
+
+<p>“Are Mr. Merrick’s friends here?” inquired the young
+man.</p>
+
+<p>The group on the platform swayed uneasily. Philip
+Phelps, the banker, responded with dignity: “We have
+come to take charge of the body. Mr. Merrick’s father
+is very feeble and can’t be about.”</p>
+
+<p>“Send the agent out here,” growled the express messenger,
+“and tell the operator to lend a hand.”</p>
+
+<p>The coffin was got out of its rough-box and down on
+the snowy platform. The townspeople drew back enough
+to make room for it and then formed a close semicircle
+about it, looking curiously at the palm leaf which lay
+across the black cover. No one said anything. The
+baggage man stood by his truck, waiting to get at the
+trunks. The engine panted heavily, and the fireman
+dodged in and out among the wheels with his yellow
+torch and long oil-can, snapping the spindle boxes. The
+young Bostonian, one of the dead sculptor’s pupils who
+had come with the body, looked about him helplessly.
+He turned to the banker, the only one of that black uneasy,
+stoop-shouldered group who seemed enough of an
+individual to be addressed.</p>
+
+<p>“None of Mr. Merrick’s brothers are here?” he asked
+uncertainly.</p>
+
+<p>The man with the red beard for the first time stepped
+up and joined the others. “No, they have not come yet;<span class="pagenum" id="Page_479">[Pg 479]</span>
+the family is scattered. The body will be taken directly
+to the house.” He stooped and took hold of one of the
+handles of the coffin.</p>
+
+<p>“Take the long hill road up, Thompson, it will be
+easier on the horses,” called the liveryman as the undertaker
+snapped the door of the hearse and prepared to
+mount to the driver’s seat.</p>
+
+<p>Laird, the red-bearded lawyer, turned again to the
+stranger: “We didn’t know whether there would be any
+one with him or not,” he explained. “It’s a long walk,
+so you’d better go up in the hack.” He pointed to a
+single battered conveyance, but the young man replied
+stiffly: “Thank you, but I think I will go up with the
+hearse. If you don’t object,” turning to the undertaker,
+“I’ll ride with you.”</p>
+
+<p>They clambered up over the wheels and drove off in
+the starlight up the long, white hill toward the town.
+The lamps in the still village were shining from under
+the low, snow-burdened roofs; and beyond, on every
+side, the plains reached out into emptiness, peaceful and
+wide as the soft sky itself, and wrapped in a tangible,
+white silence.</p>
+
+<p>When the hearse backed up to a wooden sidewalk before
+a naked, weather-beaten frame house, the same
+composite, ill-defined group that had stood upon the
+station siding was huddled about the gate. The front
+yard was an icy swamp, and a couple of warped planks,
+extending from the sidewalk to the door, made a sort of
+rickety foot-bridge. The gate hung on one hinge, and
+was opened wide with difficulty. Steavens, the young
+stranger, noticed that something black was tied to the
+knob of the front door.</p>
+
+<p>The grating sound made by the casket, as it was drawn
+from the hearse, was answered by a scream from the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_480">[Pg 480]</span>
+house; the front door was wrenched open, and a tall,
+corpulent woman rushed out bareheaded into the snow
+and flung herself upon the coffin, shrieking: “My boy,
+my boy! And this is how you’ve come home to me!”</p>
+
+<p>As Steavens turned away and closed his eyes with a
+shudder of unutterable repulsion, another woman, also
+tall, but flat and angular, dressed entirely in black, darted
+out of the house and caught Mrs. Merrick by the
+shoulders, crying sharply: “Come, come, mother; you
+mustn’t go on like this!” Her tone changed to one of
+obsequious solemnity as she turned to the banker: “The
+parlour is ready, Mr. Phelps.”</p>
+
+<p>The bearers carried the coffin along the narrow boards,
+while the undertaker ran ahead with the coffin-rests.
+They bore it into a large, unheated room that smelled of
+dampness and disuse and furniture polish, and set it down
+under a hanging lamp ornamented with jingling glass
+prisms and before a “Rogers group” of John Alden and
+Priscilla, wreathed with smilax. Henry Steavens stared
+about him with the sickening conviction that there had
+been a mistake, and that he had somehow arrived at the
+wrong destination. He looked at the clover-green Brussels,
+the fat plush upholstery, among the hand-painted
+china <a id="tn_480">plaques</a> and panels and vases, for some mark of
+identification,—for something that might once conceivably
+have belonged to Harvey Merrick. It was not until he
+recognized his friend in the crayon portrait of a little boy
+in kilts and curls, hanging above the piano, that he felt
+willing to let any of these people approach the coffin.</p>
+
+<p>“Take the lid off, Mr. Thompson; let me see my boy’s
+face,” wailed the elder woman between her sobs. This
+time Steavens looked fearfully, almost beseechingly into
+her face, red and swollen under its masses of strong, black,
+shiny hair. He flushed, dropped his eyes, and then,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_481">[Pg 481]</span>
+almost incredulously, looked again. There was a kind
+of power about her face—a kind of brutal handsomeness,
+even; but it was scarred and furrowed by violence, and
+so coloured and coarsened by fiercer passions that grief
+seemed never to have laid a gentle finger there. The long
+nose was distended and knobbed at the end, and there
+were deep lines on either side of it; her heavy, black
+brows almost met across her forehead, her teeth were
+large and square, and set far apart—teeth that could
+tear. She filled the room; the men were obliterated,
+seemed tossed about like twigs in an angry water, and
+even Steavens felt himself being drawn into the whirlpool.</p>
+
+<p>The daughter—the tall, raw-boned woman in crepe,
+with a mourning comb in her hair which curiously lengthened
+her long face—sat stiffly upon the sofa, her hands,
+conspicuous for their large knuckles, folded in her lap, her
+mouth and eyes drawn down, solemnly awaiting the opening
+of the coffin. Near the door stood a mulatto woman,
+evidently a servant in the house, with a timid bearing
+and an emaciated face pitifully sad and gentle. She was
+weeping silently, the corner of her calico apron lifted to
+her eyes, occasionally suppressing a long, quivering sob.
+Steavens walked over and stood beside her.</p>
+
+<p>Feeble steps were heard on the stairs, and an old man,
+tall and frail, odorous of pipe smoke, with shaggy, unkept
+grey hair and a dingy beard, tobacco stained about
+the mouth, entered uncertainly. He went slowly up to
+the coffin and stood rolling a blue cotton handkerchief between
+his hands, seemingly so pained and embarrassed by
+his wife’s orgy of grief that he had no consciousness of
+anything else.</p>
+
+<p>“There, there, Annie, dear, don’t take on so,” he
+quavered timidly, putting out a shaking hand and awkwardly<span class="pagenum" id="Page_482">[Pg 482]</span>
+patting her elbow. She turned and sank upon
+his shoulder with such violence that he tottered a little.
+He did not even glance toward the coffin, but continued
+to look at her with a dull, frightened, appealing expression,
+as a spaniel looks at the whip. His sunken cheeks
+slowly reddened and burned with miserable shame.
+When his wife rushed from the room, her daughter strode
+after her with set lips. The servant stole up to the coffin,
+bent over it for a moment, and then slipped away to the
+kitchen, leaving Steavens, the lawyer, and the father to
+themselves. The old man stood looking down at his
+dead son’s face. The sculptor’s splendid head seemed
+even more noble in its rigid stillness than in life. The
+dark hair had crept down upon the wide forehead; the
+face seemed strangely long, but in it there was not that
+repose we expect to find in the faces of the dead. The
+brows were so drawn that there were two deep lines above
+the beaked nose, and the chin was thrust forward defiantly.
+It was as though the strain of life had been so
+sharp and bitter that death could not at once relax the
+tension and smooth the countenance into perfect peace—as
+though he were still guarding something precious,
+which might even yet be wrested from him.</p>
+
+<p>The old man’s lips were working under his stained
+beard. He turned to the lawyer with timid deference:
+“Phelps and the rest are comin’ back to set up with
+Harve, ain’t they?” he asked. “Thank ’ee, Jim, thank
+’ee.” He brushed the hair back gently from his son’s
+forehead. “He was a good boy, Jim; always a good boy.
+He was ez gentle ez a child and the kindest of ’em all—only
+we didn’t none of us ever onderstand him.” The
+tears trickled slowly down his beard and dropped upon
+the sculptor’s coat.</p>
+
+<p>“Martin, Martin! Oh, Martin! come here,” his wife<span class="pagenum" id="Page_483">[Pg 483]</span>
+wailed from the top of the stairs. The old man started
+timorously: “Yes, Annie, I’m coming.” He turned
+away, hesitated, stood for a moment in miserable indecision;
+then reached back and patted the dead man’s hair
+softly, and stumbled from the room.</p>
+
+<p>“Poor old man, I didn’t think he had any tears left.
+Seems as if his eyes would have gone dry long ago. At
+his age nothing cuts very deep,” remarked the lawyer.</p>
+
+<p>Something in his tone made Steavens glance up.
+While the mother had been in the room, the young man
+had scarcely seen any one else; but now, from the moment
+he first glanced into Jim Laird’s florid face and
+blood-shot eyes, he knew that he had found what he had
+been heartsick at not finding before—the feeling, the understanding,
+that must exist in some one, even here.</p>
+
+<p>The man was red as his beard, with features swollen
+and blurred by dissipation, and a hot, blazing blue eye.
+His face was strained—that of a man who is controlling
+himself with difficulty—and he kept plucking at his
+beard with a sort of fierce resentment. Steavens, sitting
+by the window, watched him turn down the glaring lamp,
+still its jangling pendants with an angry gesture, and then
+stand with his hands locked behind him, staring down
+into the master’s face. He could not help wondering
+what link there had been between the porcelain vessel
+and so sooty a lump of potter’s clay.</p>
+
+<p>From the kitchen an uproar was sounding; when the
+dining-room door opened, the import of it was clear. The
+mother was abusing the maid for having forgotten to
+make the dressing for the chicken salad which had been
+prepared for the watchers. Steavens had never heard
+anything in the least like it; it was injured, emotional,
+dramatic abuse, unique and masterly in its excruciating
+cruelty, as violent and unrestrained as had been her grief<span class="pagenum" id="Page_484">[Pg 484]</span>
+of twenty minutes before. With a shudder of disgust the
+lawyer went into the dining-room and closed the door
+into the kitchen.</p>
+
+<p>“Poor Roxy’s getting it now,” he remarked when he
+came back. “The Merricks took her out of the poor-house
+years ago; and if her loyalty would let her, I guess
+the poor old thing would tell tales that would curdle your
+blood. She’s the mulatto woman who was standing in
+here a while ago, with her apron to her eyes. The old
+woman is a fury; there never was anybody like her. She
+made Harvey’s life a hell for him when he lived at home;
+he was so sick ashamed of it. I never could see how he
+kept himself sweet.”</p>
+
+<p>“He was wonderful,” said Steavens slowly, “wonderful;
+but until tonight I have never known how wonderful.”</p>
+
+<p>“That is the eternal wonder of it, anyway; that it can
+come even from such a dung heap as this,” the lawyer
+cried, with a sweeping gesture which seemed to indicate
+much more than the four walls within which they stood.</p>
+
+<p>“I think I’ll see whether I can get a little air. The
+room is so close I am beginning to feel rather faint,” murmured
+Steavens, struggling with one of the windows.
+The sash was stuck, however, and would not yield, so he
+sat down dejectedly and began pulling at his collar. The
+lawyer came over, loosened the sash with one blow of his
+red fist and sent the window up a few inches. Steavens
+thanked him, but the nausea which had been gradually
+climbing into his throat for the last half hour left him
+with but one desire—a desperate feeling that he must get
+away from this place with what was left of Harvey Merrick.
+Oh, he comprehended well enough now the quiet
+bitterness of the smile that he had seen so often on his
+master’s lips!</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_485">[Pg 485]</span></p>
+
+<p>Once when Merrick returned from a visit home, he
+brought with him a singularly feeling and suggestive bas-relief
+of a thin, faded old woman, sitting and sewing
+something pinned to her knee; while a full-lipped, full-blooded
+little urchin, his trousers held up by a single gallows,
+stood beside her, impatiently twitching her gown to
+call her attention to a butterfly he had caught. Steavens,
+impressed by the tender and delicate modelling of the
+thin, tired face, had asked him if it were his mother. He
+remembered the dull flush that had burned up in the
+sculptor’s face.</p>
+
+<p>The lawyer was sitting in a rocking-chair beside the
+coffin, his head thrown back and his eyes closed.
+Steavens looked at him earnestly, puzzled at the line of
+the chin, and wondering why a man should conceal a
+feature of such distinction under that disfiguring shock of
+beard. Suddenly, as though he felt the young sculptor’s
+keen glance, Jim Laird opened his eyes.</p>
+
+<p>“Was he always a good deal of an oyster?” he asked
+abruptly. “He was terribly shy as a boy.”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, he was an oyster, since you put it so,” rejoined
+Steavens. “Although he could be very fond of people, he
+always gave one the impression of being detached. He
+disliked violent emotion; he was reflective, and rather
+distrustful of himself—except, of course, as regarded his
+work. He was sure enough there. He distrusted men
+pretty thoroughly and women even more, yet somehow
+without believing ill of them. He was determined, indeed,
+to believe the best; but he seemed afraid to investigate.”</p>
+
+<p>“A burnt dog dreads the fire,” said the lawyer grimly,
+and closed his eyes.</p>
+
+<p>Steavens went on and on, reconstructing that whole
+miserable boyhood. All this raw, biting ugliness had<span class="pagenum" id="Page_486">[Pg 486]</span>
+been the portion of the man whose mind was to become
+an exhaustless gallery of beautiful impressions—so sensitive
+that the mere shadow of a poplar leaf flickering
+against a sunny wall would be etched and held there for
+ever. Surely, if ever a man had the magic word in his
+finger tips, it was Merrick. Whatever he touched, he revealed
+its holiest secret; liberated it from enchantment
+and restored it to its pristine loveliness. Upon whatever
+he had come in contact with, he had left a beautiful
+record of the experience—a sort of ethereal signature; a
+scent, a sound, a colour that was his own.</p>
+
+<p>Steavens understood now the real tragedy of his
+master’s life; neither love nor wine, as many had conjectured;
+but a blow which had fallen earlier and cut
+deeper than anything else could have done—a shame
+not his, and yet so unescapably his, to hide in his heart
+from his very boyhood. And without—the frontier warfare;
+the yearning of a boy, cast ashore upon a desert of
+newness and ugliness and sordidness, for all that is chastened
+and old, and noble with traditions.</p>
+
+<p>At eleven o’clock the tall, flat woman in black announced
+that the watchers were arriving, and asked them
+to “step into the dining-room.” As Steavens rose the
+lawyer said dryly: “You go on—it’ll be a good experience
+for you. I’m not equal to that crowd tonight;
+I’ve had twenty years of them.”</p>
+
+<p>As Steavens closed the door after him he glanced back
+at the lawyer, sitting by the coffin in the dim light, with
+his chin resting on his hand.</p>
+
+<p>The same misty group that had stood before the door of
+the express car shuffled into the dining-room. In the
+light of the kerosene lamp they separated and became individuals.
+The minister, a pale, feeble-looking man with
+white hair and blond chin-whiskers, took his seat beside<span class="pagenum" id="Page_487">[Pg 487]</span>
+a small side table and placed his Bible upon it. The
+Grand Army man sat down behind the stove and tilted
+his chair back comfortably against the wall, fishing his
+quill toothpick from his waistcoat pocket. The two
+bankers, Phelps and Elder, sat off in a corner behind the
+dinner-table, where they could finish their discussion of
+the new usury law and its effect on chattel security loans.
+The real estate agent, an old man with a smiling hypocritical
+face, soon joined them. The coal and lumber dealer
+and the cattle shipper sat on opposite sides of the hard
+coal-burner, their feet on the nickel-work. Steavens took
+a book from his pocket and began to read. The talk
+around him ranged through various topics of local interest
+while the house was quieting down. When it was clear
+that the members of the family were in bed, the Grand
+Army man hitched his shoulders and, untangling his long
+legs, caught his heels on the rounds of his chair.</p>
+
+<p>“S’pose there’ll be a will, Phelps?” he queried in his
+weak falsetto.</p>
+
+<p>The banker laughed disagreeably, and began trimming
+his nails with a pearl-handled pocket-knife.</p>
+
+<p>“There’ll scarcely be any need for one, will there?” he
+queried in his turn.</p>
+
+<p>The restless Grand Army man shifted his position
+again, getting his knees still nearer his chin. “Why, the
+ole man says Harve’s done right well lately,” he chirped.</p>
+
+<p>The other banker spoke up. “I reckon he means by
+that Harve ain’t asked him to mortgage any more farms
+lately, so as he could go on with his education.”</p>
+
+<p>“Seems like my mind don’t reach back to a time when
+Harve wasn’t bein’ edycated,” tittered the Grand Army
+man.</p>
+
+<p>There was a general chuckle. The minister took out
+his handkerchief and blew his nose sonorously. Banker<span class="pagenum" id="Page_488">[Pg 488]</span>
+Phelps closed his knife with a snap. “It’s too bad the
+old man’s sons didn’t turn out better,” he remarked with
+reflective authority. “They never hung together. He
+spent money enough on Harve to stock a dozen cattlefarms,
+and he might as well have poured it into Sand
+Creek. If Harve had stayed at home and helped nurse
+what little they had, and gone into stock on the old man’s
+bottom farm, they might all have been well fixed. But
+the old man had to trust everything to tenants and was
+cheated right and left.”</p>
+
+<p>“Harve never could have handled stock none,” interposed
+the cattleman. “He hadn’t it in him to be sharp.
+Do you remember when he bought Sander’s mules for
+eight-year olds, when everybody in town knew that
+Sander’s father-in-law give ’em to his wife for a wedding
+present eighteen years before, an’ they was full-grown
+mules then?”</p>
+
+<p>The company laughed discreetly, and the Grand Army
+man rubbed his knees with a spasm of childish delight.</p>
+
+<p>“Harve never was much account for anything practical,
+and he shore was never fond of work,” began the coal
+and lumber dealer. “I mind the last time he was home;
+the day he left, when the old man was out to the barn
+helpin’ his hand hitch up to take Harve to the train,
+and Cal Moots was patchin’ up the fence; Harve, he
+come out on the step and sings out, in his lady-like voice:
+‘Cal Moots, Cal Moots! please come cord my trunk.’”</p>
+
+<p>“That’s Harve for you,” approved the Grand Army
+man. “I kin hear him howlin’ yet, when he was a big
+feller in long pants and his mother used to whale him
+with a rawhide in the barn for lettin’ the cows git
+foundered in the cornfield when he was drivin’ ’em home
+from pasture. He killed a cow of mine that-a-way onct—a
+pure Jersey and the best milker I had, an’ the old<span class="pagenum" id="Page_489">[Pg 489]</span>
+man had to put up for her. Harve, he was watchin’
+the sun set acrost the marshes when the anamile got
+away.”</p>
+
+<p>“Where the old man made his mistake was in sending
+the boy East to school,” said Phelps, stroking his goatee
+and speaking in a deliberate, judicial tone. “There was
+where he got his head full of nonsense. What Harve
+needed, of all people, was a course in some first-class Kansas
+City business college.”</p>
+
+<p>The letters were swimming before Steaven’s eyes. Was
+it possible that these men did not understand, that the
+palm on the coffin meant nothing to them? The very
+name of their town would have remained for ever buried
+in the postal guide had it not been now and again mentioned
+in the world in connection with Harvey Merrick’s.
+He remembered what his master had said to him on the
+day of his death, after the congestion of both lungs had
+shut off any probability of recovery, and the sculptor had
+asked his pupil to send his body home. “It’s not a
+pleasant place to be lying while the world is moving and
+doing and bettering,” he had said with a feeble smile,
+“but it rather seems as though we ought to go back to the
+place we came from, in the end. The townspeople will
+come in for a look at me; and after they have had their
+say, I shan’t have much to fear from the judgment of
+God!”</p>
+
+<p>The cattleman took up the comment. “Forty’s young
+for a Merrick to cash in; they usually hang on pretty well.
+Probably he helped it along with whiskey.”</p>
+
+<p>“His mother’s people were not long lived, and Harvey
+never had a robust constitution,” said the minister mildly.
+He would have liked to say more. He had been the boy’s
+Sunday-school teacher, and had been fond of him; but he
+felt that he was not in a position to speak. His own sons<span class="pagenum" id="Page_490">[Pg 490]</span>
+had turned out badly, and it was not a year since one of
+them had made his last trip home in the express car, shot
+in a gambling-house in the Black Hills.</p>
+
+<p>“Nevertheless, there is no disputin’ that Harve frequently
+looked upon the wine when it was red, also
+variegated, and it shore made an oncommon fool of him,”
+moralized the cattleman.</p>
+
+<p>Just then the door leading into the parlour rattled
+loudly and every one started involuntarily, looking relieved
+when only Jim Laird came out. The Grand Army
+man ducked his head when he saw the spark in his blue,
+blood-shot eye. They were all afraid of Him; he was a
+drunkard, but he could twist the law to suit his client’s
+needs as no other man in all western Kansas could do,
+and there were many who tried. The lawyer closed the
+door behind him, leaned back against it and folded his
+arms, cocking his head a little to one side. When he
+assumed this attitude in the court-room, ears were always
+pricked up, as it usually foretold a flood of withering sarcasm.</p>
+
+<p>“I’ve been with you gentlemen before,” he began in a
+dry, even tone, “when you’ve sat by the coffins of boys
+born and raised in this town; and, if I remember rightly,
+you were never any too well satisfied when you checked
+them up. What’s the matter, anyhow? Why is it that
+reputable young men are as scarce as millionaires in Sand
+City? It might almost seem to a stranger that there
+was some way something the matter with your progressive
+town. Why did Ruben Sayer, the brightest young
+lawyer you ever turned out, after he had come home from
+the university as straight as a die, take to drinking and
+forge a check and shoot himself? Why did Bill Merrit’s
+son die of the shakes in a saloon in Omaha? Why was<span class="pagenum" id="Page_491">[Pg 491]</span>
+Mr. Thomas’s son, here, shot in a gambling-house? Why
+did young Adams burn his mill to beat the insurance
+companies and go to the pen?”</p>
+
+<p>The lawyer paused and unfolded his arms, laying one
+clenched fist quietly on the table. “I’ll tell you why.
+Because you drummed nothing but money and knavery
+into their ears from the time they wore knickerbockers;
+because you carped away at them as you’ve been carping
+here tonight, holding our friends Phelps and Elder up to
+them for their models, as our grandfathers held up George
+Washington and John Adams. But the boys were young,
+and raw at the business you put them to, and how could
+they match coppers with such artists as Phelps and
+Elder? You wanted them to be successful rascals; they
+were only unsuccessful ones—that’s all the difference.
+There was only one boy ever raised in this borderland between
+ruffianism and civilization who didn’t come to grief,
+and you hated Harvey Merrick more for winning out than
+you hated all the other boys who got under the wheels.
+Lord, Lord, how you did hate him! Phelps, here, is fond
+of saying that he could buy and sell us all out any time
+he’s a mind to; but he knew Harve wouldn’t have given
+a tinker’s damn for his bank and all his cattlefarms put
+together; and a lack of appreciation, that way, goes hard
+with Phelps.</p>
+
+<p>“Old Nimrod thinks Harve drank too much; and this
+from such as Nimrod and me!</p>
+
+<p>“Brother Elder says Harve was too free with the old
+man’s money—fell short in filial consideration, maybe.
+Well, we can all remember the very tone in which brother
+Elder swore his own father was a liar, in the county
+court; and we all know that the old man came out of
+that partnership with his son as bare as a sheared lamb.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_492">[Pg 492]</span>
+But maybe I’m getting personal, and I’d better be driving
+ahead at what I want to say.”</p>
+
+<p>The lawyer paused a moment, squared his heavy
+shoulders, and went on: “Harvey Merrick and I went
+to school together, back East. We were dead in earnest,
+and we wanted you all to be proud of us some day. We
+meant to be great men. Even I, and I haven’t lost my
+sense of humour, gentlemen, I meant to be a great man.
+I came back here to practise, and I found you didn’t in
+the least want me to be a great man. You wanted me to
+be a shrewd lawyer—oh, yes! Our veteran here wanted
+me to get him an increase of pension, because he had
+dyspepsia; Phelps wanted a new county survey that
+would put the widow Wilson’s little bottom farm inside
+his south line; Elder wanted to lend money at 5 per cent
+a month, and get it collected; and Stark here wanted to
+wheedle old women up in Vermont into investing their
+annuities in real estate mortgages that are not worth the
+paper they are written on. Oh, you needed me hard
+enough, and you’ll go on needing me!</p>
+
+<p>“Well, I came back here and became the damned
+shyster you wanted me to be. You pretend to have
+some sort of respect for me; and yet you’ll stand up
+and throw mud at Harvey Merrick, whose soul you
+couldn’t dirty and whose hands you couldn’t tie. Oh,
+you’re a discriminating lot of Christians! There have
+been times when the sight of Harvey’s name in some
+Eastern paper has made me hang my head like a whipped
+dog; and, again, times when I liked to think of him off
+there in the world, away from all this hog-wallow, climbing
+the big, clean up-grade he’d set for himself.</p>
+
+<p>“And we? Now that we’ve fought and lied and
+sweated and stolen, and hated as only the disappointed<span class="pagenum" id="Page_493">[Pg 493]</span>
+strugglers in a bitter, dead little Western town know how
+to do, what have we got to show for it? Harvey Merrick
+wouldn’t have given one sunset over your marshes for all
+you’ve got put together, and you know it. It’s not for
+me to say why, in the inscrutable wisdom of God, a genius
+should ever have been called from this place of hatred
+and bitter waters, but I want this Boston man to know
+that the drivel he’s been hearing here tonight is the only
+tribute any truly great man could have from such a lot
+of sick, side-tracked, burnt-dog, land-poor sharks as the
+here-present financiers of Sand City—upon which town
+may God have mercy!”</p>
+
+<p>The lawyer thrust out his hand to Steavens as he passed
+him, caught up his overcoat in the hall, and had left the
+house before the Grand Army man had had time to lift
+his ducked head and crane his long neck about at his
+fellows.</p>
+
+<p>Next day Jim Laird was drunk and unable to attend
+the funeral services. Steavens called twice at his office,
+but was compelled to start East without seeing him. He
+had a presentiment that he would hear from him again,
+and left his address on the lawyer’s table; but if Laird
+found it, he never acknowledged it. The thing in him that
+Harvey Merrick had loved must have gone under ground
+with Harvey Merrick’s coffin; for it never spoke again,
+and Jim got the cold he died of driving across the
+Colorado mountains to defend one of Phelps’s sons who
+had got into trouble out there by cutting government
+timber.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>From <cite>Youth and the Bright Medusa</cite> by Willa
+Cather. By permission of and special arrangement
+with Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., the authorized
+publishers.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_494">[Pg 494]</span></p>
+
+<br>
+<p class = "center">SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY OF SHORT STORIES</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+
+<p>The editors have found the following collections of Short Stories
+the best for use in class:</p>
+
+<p><cite>Modern Short Stories</cite>, edited by Margaret Ashmun. The Macmillan
+Company.</p>
+
+<p><cite>The Best Short Stories of 1917</cite>, edited by Edward J. O’Brien.
+Small, Maynard &amp; Company.</p>
+
+<p><cite>Atlantic Narratives</cite>, First and Second Series, edited by Charles
+Swain Thomas. The Atlantic Monthly Press.</p>
+
+<p><cite>The Harper Prize Short Stories</cite>, edited by Bliss Perry. Harper &amp;
+Brothers.</p>
+
+<p><cite>The O. Henry Memorial Award Stories</cite>, edited by Blanche Colton
+Williams and published yearly by Doubleday, Page &amp; Company.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="FOOTNOTES">FOOTNOTES:</h2>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_1" href="#FNanchor_1" class="label">[1]</a> Abu-Lubabah,—It is remarkable that the name should have
+suffered no corruption in the chronicles.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_2" href="#FNanchor_2" class="label">[2]</a> Translation by Marguerite Guinotte.</p>
+
+</div>
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+
+<div class="chapter"></div>
+<p class="transnote">
+
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE</span><br>
+<br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Obvious typographical errors and punctuation errors have been</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">corrected after careful comparison with other occurrences within</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">the text and consultation of external sources.</span><br>
+<br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Some hyphens in words have been silently removed, some added,</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">when a predominant preference was found in the original book.</span><br>
+<br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Except for those changes noted below, all misspellings in the text,</span><br>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">and inconsistent or archaic usage, have been retained.</span><br>
+<br>
+<span class="pad05"><a href="#tn_19">p19</a>: ‘they are expectd’ changed to ‘they are expected’</span><br>
+<span class="pad05"><a href="#tn_59">p59</a>: ‘this lad who coud’ changed to ‘this lad who could’</span><br>
+<span class="pad05"><a href="#tn_284">p284</a>: ‘tallish fellow with’ changed to ‘tallish fellow with a’</span><br>
+<span class="pad05"><a href="#tn_480">p480</a>: ‘china placques’ changed to ‘china plaques’</span><br>
+</p>
+
+
+<div style='text-align:center'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78424 ***</div>
+</body>
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