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Title: Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 28. July, 1873.

Author: Various

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Language: English

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LIPPINCOTT's MAGAZINE

OF

_POPULAR LITERATURE AND SCIENCE_.




Vol XII, No. 28.

JULY, 1873




TABLE OF CONTENTS
  THE NEW HYPERION [Illustrated] By EDWARD STRAHAN.
    I.--Preambulary.
  FROM PHILADELPHIA TO BALTIMORE [Illustrated] By ROBERT MORRIS COPELAND.
  CHARITY CROSS By MARGARET MASON.
  BERRYTOWN by REBECCA HARDING DAVIS.
    Chapter XI.
    Chapter XII.
    Chapter XIII.
    Chapter XIV.
    Chapter XV.
  STRANGE SEA INDUSTRIES AND ADVENTURES By WILL WALLACE HARNEY.
  POSEY'S NUGGET By LOUIS A. ROBERTS.
  FRANCESCA'S WORSHIP By MARGARET J. PRESTON.
  OUR HOME IN THE TYROL By MARGARET HOWITT.
    Chapter V.
    Chapter VI.
  WITH THE AMERICAN AMBULANCE CORPS AT PARIS By RALPH KEELER.
  THE HUMMING-BIRD By JAMES MAURICE THOMPSON.
  A PRINCESS OF THULE BY WILLIAM BLACK.
    Chapter X.--Fairy-land.
    Chapter XI.--The First Plunge.
  SOME PASSAGES IN SHELLEY'S EARLY HISTORY By JANUARY SEARLE.
  CHANGES By EMMA LAZARUS.
  OUR MONTHLY GOSSIP.
    A Sleeping-car Serenade By W.G.B.
    Fables For The Youth By SARSFIELD YOUNG.
    A Picture With A History.
    Hints For Novel-Writers.
  NOTES.
  LITERATURE OF THE DAY.
    Books Received.



ILLUSTRATIONS
  VIEW OF THE SCHUYLKILL RIVER AND WEST PHILADELPHIA.
  SHARON HILL.
  GLENOLDEN.
  RIDLEY PARK.
  CRUM LYNNE FALLS.
  DISTANT VIEW OF LANDSCAPE, SHOWING MILITARY INSTITUTE AT CHESTER.
  CROZER SEMINARY.
  VIEW OF CHESTER.
  RESIDENCE OF MR. F.O.C. DARLEY.
  VIEW OF DELAWARE RIVER NEAR CLAYMONT.
  VIEW AT CLAYMONT: CREEK AND BRIDGE.
  PRINCIPIO.
  BRIDGE OVER THE SUSQUEHANNA AT HAVRE DE GRACE.
  MOUNT ARARAT'S PROFILE ROCK.
  PORT DEPOSIT.
  FORT MCHENRY.
  THE BRITISH SHELL.




THE NEW HYPERION.

FROM PARIS TO MARLY BY WAY OF THE RHINE.

[The author's vignettes neatly copied by Gusatave Dore.]

I.--PREAMBULARY.


[Illustration]

The behavior of a great Hope is like the setting of the
sun. It splashes out from under a horizontal cloud, so diabolically
incandescent that you see a dozen false suns blotting the heavens with
purple in every direction. You bury your eyes in a handkerchief, with
your back carefully turned upon the west, and meantime the spectacle
you were waiting for takes place and disappears. You promise yourself
to nick it better to-morrow. The soul withdraws into its depths. The
stars arise (offering two or three thousand more impracticable suns),
and the night is ironical.

[Illustration]

Having already conquered, without boasting, a certain success before
the reading public, and having persuaded an author of renown to sign
his name to my bantling, my Expectation and Hope have long been to
surpass that trifling production. You may think it a slight thing to
prepare a lucky volume, and, tapping Fame familiarly on the shoulder,
engage her to undertake its colportage throughout the different
countries of the globe. My first little work of travel and geography
had exceeded my dreams of a good reception. It had earned me several
proposals from publishers; it had been annotated with "How true!" and
"Most profound!" by the readers in public libraries; its title had
given an imaginative air to the ledgers of book-sellers; and it had
added a new shade of moodiness to the collection of Mudie. The man
who hits one success by accident is always trying to hit another by
preparation. Since that achievement I have thought of nothing but the
creation of another impromptu, and I have really prepared a quantity
of increments toward it in the various places to which my traveling
existence has led me. That I have settled down, since these many years
past, at the centre and capital of ideas would prove me, even without
the indiscretions of that first little book, an American by birth. I
need not add that my card is printed in German text, Paul Fleming,
and that time has brought to me a not ungraceful, though a
sometimes practically retardating, circumference. Beneath a mask of
cheerfulness, and even of obesity, however, I continue to guard
the sensitive feelings of my earlier days. Yes: under this abnormal
convexity are fostered, as behind a lens, the glowing tendencies of my
youth. Though no longer, like the Harold described in Icelandic verse
by Regner Hairy-Breeches, "a young chief proud of my flowing locks,"
yet I still "spend my mornings among the young maidens," or such of
them as frequent the American Colony, as we call it, in Paris. I still
"love to converse with the handsome widows." Miss Ashburton, who
in one little passage of our youth treated me with considerable
disrespect, and who afterward married a person of great lingual
accomplishments, her father's late courier, at Naples, has been
handsomely forgiven, but not forgotten. A few intelligent ladies,
of marked listening powers and conspicuous accomplishments, are
habitually met by me at their residences in the neighborhood of the
Arc de Triomphe or at the receptions of the United States minister.
These fair attractions, although occupying, in practice, a
preponderating share of my time, are as nothing to me, however, in
comparison with that enticing illusion, my Book.

[Illustration]

The scientific use of the imagination in treating the places and
distances of Geography is the dream of my days and the insomnia of my
nights.

Every morning I take down and dust the loose sheets of my coming book
or polish the gilding of my former one. It is in my fidelity to these
baffling hopes--hopes fed with so many withered (or at least torn and
blotted) leaves--rather than in any resemblance authenticable by a
looking-glass, that I show my identity with the old long-haired and
nasal Flemming.

[Illustration]

Yet, though so long a Parisian, and so comfortable in my theoretic
pursuit of Progressive Geography, my leisure hours are unconsciously
given to knitting myself again to past associations, and some of my
deepest pleasures come from tearing open the ancient wounds. Shall
memory ever lose that sacred, that provoking day in the Vale of
Lauterbrunnen when the young mechanic in green serenaded us with his
guitar? It had for me that quite peculiar and personal application
that it immediately preceded my rejection by Miss Mary. The Staubbach
poured before our eyes, as from a hopper in the clouds, its Stream
of Dust. The Ashburtons, clad in the sensible and becoming fashion
of English lady-tourists, with long ringlets and Leghorn hats, sat
on either side of me upon the grass. And then that implacable youth,
looking full in my eye, sang his verses of insulting sagacity:

  She gives thee a garland woven fair;
          Take care!
  It is a fool's-cap for thee to wear;
          Beware! beware!
          Trust her not,
      She is fooling thee!

Meeting him two or three times afterward as he pursued his
apprentice-tour, I felt as though I had encountered a green-worm.
And I confess that it was partly on his account that I made a vow,
fervently uttered and solemnly kept, never again to visit Switzerland
or the Rhine. Miss Ashburton I easily forgave. The disadvantage, I
distinctly felt, was hers, solely and restrictedly hers; and I should
have treated with profound respect, if I had come across him, the
professional traveler who was good enough to marry her afterward.

But these bitter-sweet recollections are only the relief to my
studies. It is true they are importunate, but they are strictly kept
below stairs.

Nor would any one, regarding the stout and comfortable Flemming,
suspect what regrets and what philosophies were disputing possession
of his interior. For my external arrangements, I flatter myself that I
have shaped _them_ in tolerable taste.

My choice of the French capital I need not defend to any of my
American readers. To all of you this consummation is simply a matter
of ability. I heartily despise, as I always did, all mere pamperings
of physical convenience. Still, for some who retain some sympathy with
the Paul Flemming of aforetime, it may be worth while to mention the
particular physical conveniencies my soul contemns. I inhabit, and
have done so for eight years at least, a neat little residence of
the kind styled "between court and garden," and lying on the utmost
permissible circumference of the American quarter in Paris--say on the
hither side of Passy. For nearly the same period I have had in lease a
comical box at Marly, whither I repair every summer. My town-quarters,
having been furnished by an artist, gave me small pains. The whole
interior is like a suite of rooms in the Hotel Cluny. The only
trouble was in bringing up the cellar to the quality I desired and
in selecting domestics--points on which, though careless of worldly
comfort in general, I own I am somewhat particular.

[Illustration]

No gentleman valets for me--rude creatures presuming to outdress their
masters. What I wanted was the Corporal Trim style of thing--bald,
faithful, ancient retainer. After a world of vexation I succeeded in
finding an artless couple, who agreed for a stipulation to sigh when I
spoke of my grandfather before my guests, and to have been brought up
in the family.

But I am wandering, and neglecting the true vein of sentiment which
so abounds in my heart. All my pleasure is still in mournful
contemplation, but I have learned that the feelings are most refined
when freed from low cares and personal discomforts. I was going to
cite a letter I wrote to my oldest friend, the baron of Hohenfels. It
was sketched out first in verse, but in that form was a failure:

       *       *       *       *       *

                                                    "15th MARCH.

"The snow-white clouds beyond my window are piled up like Alps. The
shades of B. Franklin and W. Tell seem to walk together on those
Elysian Fields; for it was here (or sufficiently nigh for the purpose)
that in days gone by our pure patriot dwelt and flirted with Madame
Helvetius; and yonder clouds so much resemble the snowy Alps that they
remind me irresistibly of the Swiss. Noble examples of a high purpose
and a fixed will! Do B. and W. not move, Hyperion-like, on high? Were
_they_ not, likewise, sons of Heaven and Earth?

[Illustration]

"I wish I knew the man who called flowers 'the fugitive poetry of
Nature.' That was a sweet carol, which I think I have quoted to you,
sung by the Rhodian children of old in spring, bearing in their hands
a swallow, and chanting 'The swallow is come,' with some other
lines, which I have forgotten. A pretty carol is that, too, which the
Hungarian boys, on the islands of the Danube, sing to the returning
stork in spring, what time it builds its nests in the chimneys and
gracefully diverts the draft of smoke into the interior. What a
thrill of delight in spring-time! What a joy in being and moving!
Some housekeepers might object to that, and say that there was but
imperfect joy in moving; but I am about to propose to you, as soon as
I have taken a little more string, a plan of removal that will suit
both us and the season. My friend, the time of storms is flying
before the pretty child called April, who pursues it with his blooming
thyrsus. Breathing scent upon the air, he has already awakened some
of the trees on the boulevards, and the white locust-blossoms in the
garden of Rossini are beginning to hang out their bunches to attract
the nightingales. He calls to the swallows, and they arrive in clouds.

"He knocks at the hard envelope of the chrysalis, which accordingly
prepares to take its chance for a precarious metamorphosis--into the
wings of the butterfly or into the bosom of the bird. How very sweet!

"Strange is the lesson, my friend, which humanity teaches itself from
the larva. Even so do I, methinks, feed in life's autumn upon the
fading foliage of Hope, and, still feeding and weaving, turn it at
last into a little grave. A neat image that, which, by the by, I stole
from Drummond of Hawthornden. Do you recollect his verse?--but
of course I should be provoked if I thought you did--

  For, with strange thoughts possessed,
        I feed on fading leaves
        Of hope--which me deceives,
  And thousand webs doth warp within my breast.
  And thus, in end, unto myself I weave
  A fast-shut prison. No! but even a Grave!

"To pursue my subject: April, having thus balanced the affairs of the
bird and the worm, proceeds to lay over the meadows a tablecloth for
the bees. He opens all the windows of Paris, and on the streets shows
us the sap mounting in carnation in the faces of the girls.

"My dear Hohenfels, I invite you to the festival which Spring is
spreading just now in the village of Marly. My cabin will be gratified
to open in your honor. May it keep you until autumn! Come, and come at
once."

       *       *       *       *       *

[Illustration]

Having signed my missive, I tucked it into an envelope, which I
blazoned with my favorite seal, the lyre of Hyperion broken, and rang
for Charles. In his stead, in lieu of my faithful Charles, it was
Hohenfels himself who entered, fresh from the Hotel Mirabeau.

"Look alive, man! Can you lend me an umbrella?" said he briskly.

I looked out at the window: it was snowing.

The moment seemed inopportune for the delivery of my epistle:
I endeavored to conceal it--without hypocrisy and by a natural
movement--under the usual pile of manuscript on my table devoted
to Progressive Geography. But the baron had spied his name on the
address: "How is that? You were writing to me? There, I will spare you
the trouble of posting."

He read my sentences, turning at the end of each period to look out
at the snow, which was heavily settling in large damp flakes. He
said nothing at first about the discrepancy, but only looked forth
alternately with his reading, which was pointed enough. I said long
ago that the beauty of Hohenfels' character, like that of the precious
opal, was owing to a defect in his organization. The baron retains his
girlish expression, his blue eye, and his light hair of the kind that
never turns gray: he is still slender, but much bent. He went over to
the fireplace and crouched before the coals that were flickering there
still. Then he said, with that gentle, half-laughing voice, "Take
care, Paul, old boy! Children who show sense too early never grow,
they say: by parity of argument, men who are poetical too late in life
never get their senses."

"I have given up poetry," said I, "and you cannot scan that
communication in your hand."

"But it is something worse than poetry! It is prose inflated and
puffed and bubbled. You are falling into your old moony ways again,
and sonneteering in plain English. Are you not ashamed, at your age?"

"What age do you mean? I feel no infirmities of age. If my hair is
gray, 'tis not with years, as By--"

"If your hair is gray, it is because you are forty-eight, my old
beauty."

"Forty-five!" I said, with some little natural heat.

"Forty-five let it be, though you have said so these three years. And
what age is that to go running after the foot of the rainbow? Here you
are, my dear Flemming, breathing forth hymns to Spring, and inviting
your friends to picnics! Don't you know that April is the traitor
among the twelve months of the year? You are ready to strike for Marly
in a linen coat and slippers! Have you forgotten, my poor fellow, that
Marly is windy and raw, and that Louis XIV. caught that chill at Marly
of which he died? Ah, Paul, you are right enough. You are young, still
young. You are not forty-eight: you are sixteen--sixteen for the third
time."

Hohenfels, whose once fine temper is going a little, stirred the fire
and suddenly rose.

"Lend me an umbrella!" he repeated imperatively.

[Illustration]

"Are you in such a hurry to go? That is not very complimentary to me,"
I observed. "Have you done scolding me?"

What is called by some my growing worldliness teaches me to value
dryness in an old friend as I value dryness in a fine, cobwebbed,
crusty wine. It is from the merest Sybaritism that I surround myself
with comrades who, like Hohenfels, can fit their knobs into my
pattern, and receive my knobs in their own vacancy. My hint brought
him over at once into the leathern chair opposite the one I occupy.

"Paul, Paul," he said, "I only criticise you for your good. What have
you done with your three adolescences? You are getting stout, yet you
still write poetically. You have some wit, imagination, learning and
aptitude. You might make a name in science or art, but everything
you do lacks substance, because you live only in your old eternal
catchwords of the Past and the Future. You can sketch and paint,
yet have never exhibited your pictures except in ladies' albums.
You profess to love botany, yet your sole herbarium has been the
mignonette in sewing-girls' windows. You are inoffensive, you are
possessed of a competency, but in everything, in every vocation, you
rest in the state of amateur--amateur housekeeper, amateur artist,
amateur traveler, amateur geographer. And such a geographer as
you might be, with your taste for travel and the Hakluyt Society's
publications you have pored over for years!"

This chance allusion to my grand secret took me from my guard.
Hohenfels, blundering up and down in search of something to
anathematize, had stumbled upon the very fortress of my strength.
I deemed it time to let him into a part of my reserved intellectual
treasure--to whirl away a part at least of the sand in which my
patient sphinx had been buried.

"I have indeed been a reader," I said modestly. "When a youth at
Heidelberg, I perused, with more profit than would be immediately
guessed from the titles, such works as the Helden-Buchs and
the Nibelungen-Lieds, the Saxon Rhyme-Chronicles, the poems of
Minnesingers and Mastersingers, and Ships of Fools, and Reynard Foxes,
and Death-Dances, and Lamentations of Damned Souls. My study since
then has been in German chemistry from its renaissance in Paracelsus,
and physical science, including both medicine and the evolution of
life. Shall I give you a few dozen of my favorite writers?"

"Quite unnecessary," said the baron with some haste. "But I fancied
you were going to speak of geographical authors."

[Illustration]

"Are you fond of such writings yourself?" I asked.

"Immensely--that is, not too scientific, you know," said the baron,
who was out of his element here. "Bayard Taylor, now, or some such
fellows as the Alpine Club."

"My dear baron, the republications by the Hakluyt Society are but
a small part of the references I have taken down for my Progressive
Geography. You admire Switzerland?"

"Vastly. Steep jump, the Staubbach."

"But the Alps are only hillocks compared with the Andes of Peru, with
the Cordilleras, with Chimborazo! Ah, baron, Chimborazo! Well, my dear
boy, the system I elaborate makes it a matter of simple progression
and calculation to arrive at mountains much more considerable still."

"Such as--?"

"The Mountains of the Moon!"

I then, in a few dexterously involved sentences, allowed the plan of
my newly-invented theory to appear--so much of it, that is, as would
leave Hohenfels completely in the dark, and detract in no wise from
the splendor of my Opus when it should be published. As science,
however, truly considered, is the art of dilapidating and merging into
confused ruin the theories of your predecessors, I was somewhat
more precise with the destructive than the constructive part of my plan.

"Geographical Science, I am prepared to show, is that which modern
learning alone has neglected, to the point of leaving its discoveries
stationary. It is not so with the more assiduously cultivated
branches. What change, what advance, in every other department of
culture! In geology, the ammonite of to-day was for Chalmers a parody
facetiously made by Nature in imitation of her living conchology, and
for Voltaire a pilgrim's cockle dropped in the passes of the Alps. In
medicine, what progress has been made since ague was compared to the
flutter of insects among the nerves, and good Mistress Dorothy Burton,
who died but in 1629, cured it by hanging a spider round the patient's
neck "in a nutshell lapped in silk"! In chemistry, what strides! In
astronomy, what perturbations and changes! In history, what do we not
owe to the amiable authors who, dipping their pens in whitewash, have
reversed the judgments of ages on Nero and Henry VIII.! In genealogy,
what thanks must we pay to Darwin! Geographical Science alone, stolid
in its insolent fixity, has not moved: the location of Thebes and
Memphis is what it was in the days of Cheops and Rameses. And so poor
in intellect are our professors of geodesic lore that London continues
to be, just as it always was, in latitude 51 deg. 30' 48" N., longitude 0 deg.
5' 38" W., while the observatory of Paris contentedly sits in latitude
48 deg. 50' 12" N. and longitude 2 deg. 20' 22-1/2" E. from the observatory
of Greenwich! This disgracefully stationary condition of the science
cannot much longer be permitted."

"And how," said the baron, "will it be changed?" and he poked the
fire to conceal a yawn. Excellent man! his time latterly had been more
given to the investigation of opera than of the exact sciences.

"Through my theory of Progression and Proportion in geographical
statistics, by which the sources of the Nile can be easily determined
from the volume and speed of that current, while the height of the
mountains on the far side of the moon will be but a pleasing sum in
Ratio for a scholar's vacations. Nor will anything content me, my
dear Hohenfels, till this somewhat theoretical method of traveling
is displaced by bodily progression; till these easy excursions of the
mind are supplemented by material extensions; till the foot is pressed
where the brain has leaped; and till I, then for the first time a
traveler, stand behind the lunar rim, among the 'silent silver lights
and darks undreamed of!'"

"I am unable to appreciate your divagations," humbly observed
Hohenfels, "though I always thought your language beautiful. Meantime,
my hat is spoiled in coming hither, and you have the effrontery to
write bucolics to me during the most frightful weather of the year.
Once for all, do you refuse me an um--"

He did not finish his sentence. A world of sunshine burst like a
bomb into the chamber, and our eyes were dazzled with the splendor:
a sturdy beam shot directly into the fireplace, and the embers turned
haggard and gray, and quickly retired from the unequal contest. I
opened the window. A warm air, faint with the scent of earth and turf,
invaded the apartment, and the map-like patches of dampness on the
asphaltum pavement were rapidly and visibly drying away.

"I'm off!" said Hohenfels, with a rapid movement of retreat.

"But you are forgetting your--"

"What, my gloves?"

[Illustration]

"No, the umbrella." And I presented him the heaviest and longest and
oldest of my collection. He laughed: it was a hoary canopy which we
had used beside the Neckar and in Heidelberg--"a pleasant town," as
the old song says, "when it has done raining." We sealed a compact
over the indestructible German umbrella. I agreed to defer for a
fortnight my departure for Marly: on his side he made a solemn vow to
come there on the first of May, and there receive in full and without
wincing the particulars of my Progressive Geography. As he passed by
the window I took care that he should catch a glimpse of me seated
by accident in a strong light, my smoking-cap crowded down to my
spectacles, and my nose buried in my old geographers.

       *       *       *       *       *

[Illustration]

For the next few days the weather supported the side of Hohenfels. It
scattered rain, sunshine and spits of snow. At last the sun got the
upper hand and remained master. The wisterias tumbled their cataracts
of blue blossoms down the spouts; rare flowers, of minute proportions,
burst from the button-holes of the young horsemen going to the Bois;
the gloves of the American colony became lilac; hyacinths, daffodils
and pansies moved by wagon-loads over the streets and soared to
the windows of the sewing-girls. Overhead, in the steaming and
cloud-marbled blue, stood the April sun. "Apelles of the flowers," as
an old English writer has styled him, he was coloring the garden-beds
with his rarest enamels, and spreading a sheet of varied tints over
the steps of the Madeleine, where they hold the horticultural market.

[Illustration]

This sort of country ecstasy, this season at once stimulating and
enervating, tortured me. It disturbed my bibliophilist labors,
and gave a twang of musty nausea even to the sweet scent of old
binding-leather. I was as a man caught in the pangs of removing,
unattached to either home; and I bent from my windows over the throngs
of festal promenaders, taciturn and uneasy. I fancied that wings were
sprouting from my brown dressing-robe, and that they were the volatile
wings of the moth or dragon-fly. But to establish myself at Marly
before the baron, would not that be a breach of compact? Would he
not make it a _casus belli_? Luckily, we were getting through April:
to-morrow it would be the twenty-eighth.

On that memorable morning the sun rose strong and bright, and
photographed a brilliant idea upon my cerebellum.

I would undertake a pedestrian attack upon Marly by winding my way
around the suburbs of the capital. What more appropriate, for a
profound geographer and tourist, than to measure with my walking-stick
that enormous bed of gypsum, at the centre of which, like a bee in a
sugar-basin, Paris sits and hums?

[Illustration]

The notion gained upon me. Perhaps it was the natural reaction from
the Mountains of the Moon; but in my then state of mind no prospect
could appear more delicious than a long tramp among the quiet scenes
through which the city fringes itself off into rurality. Those suburbs
of blank convent walls! those curves of the Seine and the Marne,
blocked with low villages, whose walls of white, stained with tender
mould and tiled with brown, dipped their placid reflections into the
stream! those droll square boats, pushing out from the sedges to urge
you across the ferry! those long rafts of lumber, following, like
cunning crocodiles, the ins and outs of the shallow Seine! those banks
of pollard willows, where girls in white caps tended flocks of geese
and turkeys, and where, every silver-spangled morning, the shore was
a landscape by Corot, and every twilight a landscape by Daubigny! How
exquisite these pictures became to my mind as I thought them forth one
by one, leaning over a grimy pavement in the peculiar sultriness of
the year's first warmth!

"Quick, Charles! my tin botany-box."

I could be at Marly on the first of May at the dinner hour as
punctually as Hohenfels--before him, maybe. And after what a range of
delicious experience! How he would envy me!

"Is monsieur going to travel all alone?" said keen old Charles, taking
the alarm in a minute. "Why am I not to go along with monsieur?"

The accent of primitive fidelity was perfect. I observed casually, "I
am going on a little journey of thirty-six hours, and alone. You
can pack everything up, and go on to Marly as usual. You may go
to-morrow."

"Shall I not go along with monsieur, then?" repeated Charles, with a
turn for tautology not now for the first time manifested.

"What for? Am I a child?"

"Surely not--on the contrary. But, though Monsieur Paul has a sure
foot and a good eye, and is not to say getting old, yet when a person
is fifty it is not best for a person to run about the streets as if a
person was a young person."

It was Josephine who did me the honor to address me the last remark.

I confess to but forty-five years of age; Hohenfels, quite
erroneously, gives me forty-eight; Josephine, with that raw alacrity
in leaping at computations peculiar to the illiterate, oppressed me
with fifty. Which of us three knew best? I should like to ask. But it
is of little consequence. The Easterns generally vaunt themselves on
not knowing the day of their birth. And wisdom comes to us from the
East.

[Illustration]

I decided, for reasons sufficient to myself, to get out of Paris by
the opposite side. I determined to make my sortie by way of the Temple
Market and the Belleville abattoirs. On the thirtieth of April, at an
ambitiously early hour, wearing my gardening cap, with my sketch-book
sticking out of my pocket, my tin box in one hand and my stout stick
in the other, I emerged among the staring porters of the neighboring
houses, and it was in this equipment that I received the renewed
lamentations of Charles and Josephine.

[Illustration]

"Will you dare to go along the Boulevard looking like that, sir?" said
Josephine.

"A gentleman in a cap! They'll take you for a bricklayer--indeed they
will, sir," said Charles; "or rather for a milkman, with his tin can.
I can't stand that: I will carry it rather myself, though I feel my
rheumatics on these damp pavements."

"Monsieur Paul must take a cab--at least to the barrier: it will not
be pleasant to make a scandal in the street."

"Who will tend Monsieur Paul these two days, now?" This was uttered
with manly grief by Charles.

"And whoever will cook for him along the road?" It was Josephine who
asked the question with a heavy sigh.

To make an end of this charming scene of Old Virginia faithfulness,
I put my best leg out and departed with gymnastic sprightliness. An
instant after I turned my head.

Charles and Josephine were fixed on the doorstep, following me with
their regards, and I believed I saw a tear in the left eye of each.
What fidelity! I smiled in a sort of indulgent and baronial manner,
but I felt touched by their sensibility.

Come on! It is but a twenty-four hours' separation.

Go forth, then, as I remember saying long ago, without fear and with a
manly heart, to meet the dim and shadowy Future.

EDWARD STRAHAN.

       *       *       *       *       *

FROM PHILADELPHIA TO BALTIMORE.

In 1832 a few adventurous men obtained a charter for a railroad from
Baltimore to Port Deposit: other charters were granted by Delaware
and Pennsylvania in succeeding years, and at last in 1838 all were
consolidated as the Philadelphia, Wilmington and Baltimore Railroad
Company, and became a through all-rail line, interrupted only by
the Susquehanna and some minor water-courses, under one management,
beginning at Philadelphia and ending at Baltimore. But the country was
too young and weak to make this a strong road, either in capital
or business. It struggled along with a heavy debt, poor road-bed,
imperfect rail (in some parts the old strap rail), few locomotives and
cars, and inconvenient depots, making but little progress up to
1851, when Mr. Samuel M. Felton was brought from Boston to assume the
presidency.

Seeing the actual and future importance of the line, some Eastern men
bought up the stock, put in the necessary money and encouraged Mr.
Felton to begin an entire revolution in the road. The road-bed was
perfected and widened for a double track, new depots erected in
Baltimore and Philadelphia, new rails laid, new branches opened;
and whereas Mr. Felton found the road with only a single track, 25
locomotives and 308 cars, he left it with many miles of double track,
its depots rebuilt, 49 locomotives and 1145 cars. When he took the
road its locomotives traveled 312,840 miles per year, and earned
$718,010, at a cost of $252,184.54: when he left it, borne down by
disease, the locomotives traveled 780,537 miles per year, at a cost of
$1,960,649. The capital stock in 1851 was $3,850,000, and paid three
and a half per cent.: it is now $13,486,250, and pays eight per cent.

[Illustration: VIEW OF THE SCHUYLKILL RIVER AND WEST PHILADELPHIA.]

When the war broke out in 1862 this road was the key of the continent,
and the fact that it was officered and controlled by Northern and
energetic men saved it from destruction or becoming an engine in the
hands of our enemies. Over it hundreds of thousands of soldiers
and citizens were carried to the front, and millions of tons of
merchandise and supplies were poured into the quarter-master's,
commissary's and medical departments all along the line.

In 1864, worn out by disease, the able manager laid down his
authority, to be taken up by another vigorous New England man, who
in his turn has given almost life-blood to carry the road on to
greatness.

[Illustration]

Since 1864 the advance in earnings has not been so great as in the
four preceding years, because of the necessary reduction in travel
and transportation since the war. But enormous improvements have been
made, thousands of steel rails have been laid, locomotives, freight
cars and passenger cars of the most beautiful description have
been added to the stock, new depots made (some of the finest in the
country), a new line planned and executed, carrying the road from the
meadows and marshes of the Delaware through the valleys and beautiful
rolling uplands of Delaware county to Chester, avoiding all danger
from floods, and going over or under twenty-seven streets to enter the
city without possible peril to life or limb. A whole railroad system
subsidiary to this road has been developed in Delaware, and to-day,
with the best road-bed, double tracks, steel rails, the best
locomotives, the best passenger cars in the country, supplied with all
the modern improvements of brake, platform and signal, and a perfectly
drilled corps of subordinates, this road may challenge the attention
of the country, and be pointed out as one of the best evidences of the
growth and prosperity of Philadelphia.

[Illustration: SHARON HILL.]

[Illustration: GLENOLDEN.]

The depot in Philadelphia, at the corner of Broad street and
Washington avenue, is a large and spacious building, which does not
pretend to be a model of domestic architecture, but is roomy and
reasonably well ventilated. The bell rings, we take our seats and move
out through the usual coal-yards and shanties and suburbs, passing the
United States Arsenal, until we reach Gray's Ferry, where we see the
Schuylkill, beautiful at high tide, the high banks opposite once a famous
estate, now the seat of the Almshouse, where four thousand paupers
live in the winter and about fifteen hundred in the summer. So mild and
pleasant is this climate that the majority of the paupers creep out, like
the blue bottleflies, with the coming of spring, preferring to sleep in
barns or under the green trees all the summer, rather than endure the
hard beds, discipline and regular habits of the Almshouse. The rains of
summer may fill their old bones with rheumatism for winter, but there are
charms in the life of the stroller, who feeds to-day at a farm-house,
or works a few hours to-morrow for a trifle to get whisky and tobacco,
but has no notes to pay, no house to maintain, no servants to support.

[Illustration: RIDLEY PARK.]

[Illustration: CRUM LYNNE FALLS]

Gray's Ferry is an old historic name, for here Washington and the
men of the Revolution crossed again and again. The old rope ferry was
succeeded by the old horse ferry, and now there are three railroads
here--the Darby Improvement, the Junction (which goes to West
Philadelphia and makes the connection for the great Southern
Air-line), and the old line, which leads us out, through the old
Bartram Gardens, where an enthusiastic botanist made the first and
best collection of trees and plants in this country, on to the marshes
of the Delaware. The mighty river, widening into a bay, flows on to
the ocean, its bosom furrowed by thousands of keels and whitened by
myriad sails. We look over wide acres of marshes, now green with the
tender colors of spring, the corn-fields of the higher portion giving
by their brown earth beautiful contrasts of color, the rows of corn
just coming into sight. All over these meadows stand huge oak trees
and elms, amongst whose branches the vessels seem to glide. But
beautiful as the scene is, it is a bad place for a railroad, for when
the great river rushes down swollen by some freshet, and is met by the
incoming tide, the water sets back over the marshes and threatens to
sweep away the track or put out the fires of the locomotives; and to
cross streams and tideways many draw-bridges, with their attendant
dangers, must be maintained. To avoid all these difficulties, Mr.
Hinckley planned the change which is known as the Darby Improvement,
carrying the road from Gray's Ferry to Chester over and through the
high lands of Darby and Ridley. We shall no longer hear the brakeman
shout out "Gibson's," "Lazaretto,", "Tinicum" (called by the Indians
_Tenecunck_), "Crum Creek." We shall no longer wonder that the train
should be stopped for so few passengers to get on or off, for in
future our car will take us over a road-bed so perfectly laid with
steel rails that a full glass of water will not spill as the train
hurries on through a thickly settled country. Look quickly from the
window at the country you are traversing: see the beautiful station
at Bonnaffon, and the magnificent oak tree, worth a hundred stations,
that stands in a field just beyond. We cannot enumerate all the
beauties and objects of interest that line the road: every valley
opens a pleasant view, every hill is covered with handsome houses,
comfortable farmeries or superb trees. Before the road was made, these
lands, lying on a ridge high above the river, perfectly healthy and
offering the most desirable homes for city people, were inaccessible,
but now they can be reached, and have been already appreciated. Most
of the land has grown too valuable for farming, and has been bought up
and laid out with different degrees of care for suburban residences.

[Illustration: DISTANT VIEW OF LANDSCAPE, SHOWING MILITARY INSTITUTE
AT CHESTER.]

Darby is one of the oldest towns in the State, and contributes largely
to the business of the road. Mills were built here in 1696, and it was
divided into Upper and Lower Darby in 1786. The first of the new towns
is Sharon Hill, where a large amount of land has been laid out in the
rectangular method, and already many of the lots are sold to actual
settlers: a machine-shop has been established, and the railroad has
built a very nice station for passengers.

Next to Sharon Hill comes Glenolden, where hill and dale, wood and
meadow and a beautiful stream, offer all the picturesqueness that
can charm an enthusiastic or artistic eye, together with good
building-sites and every advantage that fertile and forest-clad land
can give to one who would exchange the heat and pavements of a city
for rural life. From Glenolden it is but a short distance to Norwood
and to Moore's Crossing, where the company are erecting turnouts,
engine-houses, etc., and from here, eight miles from the city,
numerous trains will run to Philadelphia to accommodate the workingmen
who, it is believed, will come out to live on these cool and breezy
uplands.

[Illustration: CROZER SEMINARY.]

From Moore's we soon get to Ridley Park, which was described at length
in a former Number. The two stations at Ridley are models of beauty in
their way: the principal station spans the road-bed, wide enough here
for four tracks, and is probably the most picturesque in the country,
as well as very convenient. Crum Lynne Station is remarkable for
the beautiful sculpture of the capitals of the pilasters to the
architraves of the windows, the architect having designed each one for
this building, using the flowers and fruits and birds and animals of
the region for his ornamental work, instead of the usual cornice and
frieze and capital of Grecian architecture.

But the train sweeps us away from Ridley limits, past Leiperville with
its primeval railway, and on to Chester. As we round the curve and
rush through the woods we see on the left the broad river with its
three-masted schooners, ships and steamers, and on the right the
spires and houses of the town; and first and predominant the Military
School of Colonel Hyatt. This school was incorporated by act of
Legislature in 1862, and is devoted to both civil and military
education. The studies and drill are so combined as to secure good
mental and physical culture; and to ensure good military instruction
the State and the United States have contributed arms of all kinds.
Scholars come from all parts of the country, and even the West Indies;
and as the standard of scholarship is high, the graduates compare
favorably with those from other institutions.

Chester is one of the oldest towns on the line of the road by actual
years, but one of the youngest in growth. First called by the Indians
_Mackaponacka_, and then by the settlers _Upland_, it had a justice of
the peace court in 1676. Its court-house was built in 1724. Its first
newspaper was published in 1819. For many years Chester dozed away in
dignified quiet as the county-town: its court-house and jail gave it
all the honor it required. But the streams made good mill-sites, the
deep waterfront along the river offered splendid wharfage and chances
for shipbuilding, and, as good luck would have it, a rivalry awoke
which ended in loading Media with the county buildings and relieving
Chester. Since then it has doubled and trebled: mills and factories
are on all sides, and its shipyards are not easily surpassed. Roach's
shipyard covers twenty-three acres. The firm make their own engines
and everything required in iron shipbuilding from keel to topmast.
They have six vessels now on the stocks, and employ eleven hundred
men, and have room for sixteen hundred. They have built for every
trade from the coaster to the East Indiaman, varying in size from six
hundred to four thousand tons, and their vessels pass unchallenged
amongst the best in the world.

[Illustration: VIEW OF CHESTER.]

Nor is trade the only feature of the town. About half a mile from the
depot, on a gentle eminence, is the Crozer Theological Seminary. The
approach from Chester for the pedestrian, along the shrub-, vine- and
tree-clad banks of Chester Creek into and across the wide lawn, is a
delightful walk. The principal building was erected by John P. Crozer
for a normal school. During the war he gave it to the government for a
hospital, and when he died in 1866 left it to his sons, desiring
them to devote it to some benevolent use. They have responded in a
munificent manner by establishing a school for training young men for
the ministry, with accommodations for a hundred students, houses for
the professors, a church, a library building, lecture-halls and all
the required conveniences for a great and successful school. They
have added an endowment fund of two hundred and twenty-eight thousand
dollars, the whole gift being about three hundred and ninety thousand
dollars, and one of the family has since given twenty-five thousand
dollars as a library fund. The seminary was opened in 1868 with
fifteen students: there are now fifty from all parts of the Union.

[Illustration: RESIDENCE OF MR. F.O.C. DARLEY.]

But the most complaisant conductor of the most accommodating special
train could not wait any longer for us, and we must hurry on through
Lamokin, where the Baltimore Central, a tributary road, turns off
and traverses a most picturesque country, round by Port Deposit to
Perryville, where it again reaches the main road. At Lamokin are
works where steel of a peculiar kind is manufactured under a European
patent. From here the road again clings to the shore of the Delaware,
and until we reach Wilmington the river, with its sails and its blue
water, is on the left--on the right a high ridge, which ends in the
valley of the Shell Pot and Brandywine at Wilmington.

[Illustration: VIEW OF DELAWARE RIVER NEAR CLAYMONT.]

We flash past Linwood to stop a moment at Claymont, where the ridge
comes nearer the river and offers superb sites for buildings. Why
Claymont has not grown more no one seems to know. There are schools
and churches, fine rolling land, noble river-views, and all that can
make a country home delightful. That the place has attractions for
lovers of the picturesque may be inferred from the fact that it counts
among its residents an artist of such wide and well-founded celebrity
as Mr. F.O.C. Darley, whose delineations of American life and scenery,
especially in the form of book-illustrations, have been familiar to
the public for the past thirty years. With so many years of fame, Mr.
Darley counts but fifty-two of life, and in the enjoyment of vigorous
health still continues the practice of his art, executing many
commissions from Europe, where his genius is as highly appreciated as
at home.

[Illustration: VIEW AT CLAYMONT: CREEK AND BRIDGE.]

[Illustration: PRINCIPIO.]

But we must stick to our train, which carries us through the Red
Bank Cut to Ellerslie Station, where occurred the first accident of a
serious character which has happened on this road for eighteen years,
and which was due only to a willful violation of orders by an old and
very trusted conductor. At Ellerslie are the Edgemoor Iron-works of
Messrs. William Sellers & Co., where every known improvement in the
manufacture of iron is being tested and applied. The next curve in the
road shows us the meadows of the Shell Pot and the Brandywine, with
Wilmington in the distance. The Brandywine, famous in our history,
runs through as picturesque a valley as there is in America, combining
all that the climate of Delaware permits in trees, shrubs, vines
and flowers with the wildness and variety of the valley of the
Pemigewasset or the wild Ammonoosuck. In this rare valley are mills as
old as the settlement of the country, and quaint hamlets that seem to
belong to Europe rather than America.

At Wilmington the system of the Delaware railroads begins: it spreads
out over the peninsula of Delaware and the Eastern Shore of Maryland
like a huge left hand. The thumb touches Chestertown and Centreville,
the fore finger Oxford, the middle finger Cambridge, the ring finger
Crisfield, the little finger Lewes; and this hand gathers into the
main road every year millions of baskets of peaches, and millions more
of oysters in baskets and sacks, and crates of berries, and car-loads
of hardwood and lumber. Under the influence of these roads the sleepy
peninsula is beginning a new career.

We cannot go down the peninsula, so let us keep on to Baltimore,
pausing, however, for a moment as we cross Mason and Dixon's line near
Elkton. Little did Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon dream, as they set
that tangent point for the determination of the boundary-lines of
the three States, how famous they would become. But there the simple
monument stands in the open fields, and there it must remain so long
as the three States need a boundary.

[Illustration: BRIDGE OVER THE SUSQUEHANNA AT HAVRE DE GRACE.]

Soon after leaving Mason and Dixon we strike the first of the great
estuaries of the Delaware and Susquehanna, which are the delight
of the sportsman, the naturalist and the tourist. No matter at what
season of the year you approach North-east, Principio, the Susquehanna
River or Stemmer's Run--no matter at what time of the day--the views
are always fine. The water spreads out in huge widening bays, and
loses itself in the forest or hides behind some projecting headland;
and when, as is often the case, the surface of the water is actually
darkened with large flocks of wild fowl, the variety as well as
beauty of the scene could not be heightened. Such shooting-ground
for sportsmen exists nowhere else on this coast easily accessible.
At Perryville, Havre de Grace, Bush River and many other places
the chance sportsman can find every accommodation, while clubs of
gentlemen have leased many of the best points, and established little
houses where they may be comfortable when the day's sport is over, and
where they can leave from season to season boats, decoys and all the
paraphernalia of the sport. To recount the names of canvas-backs, red
heads, bald pates and innumerable other ducks, to tell of the tens,
fifties, hundreds shot in a single day, would add nothing to the
excitement of any sportsman who has seen from the cars the huge flocks
of birds rise and sweep out to sea when scared by some passing train
or boat.

[Illustration: MOUNT ARARAT--PROFILE ROCK.]

If every passenger could stop once, and study the Susquehanna bridge
crossing the river between Perryville and Havre de Grace, he would
have a most profound respect for its projectors and builders. For many
years all transport by cars was interrupted here, and travelers and
merchandise were transported by ferry-boat, causing wearisome delays
and extra expense. But now a bridge 3273 feet long and with 1000 feet
of trestling, resting on thirteen huge piers built on foundations in
water from twenty-seven to sixty feet deep, and costing a million and
a half of dollars, carries all safely over, and defies floods and ice.
This bridge, one of the triumphs of engineering and a just source
of pride to the road, has already saved in time and trouble a large
percentage of its cost. It was threatened the past winter by the
ice-pack which filled the river back to Port Deposit, and which seemed
to promise for some time the destruction of that well-named little
town. It is hard to believe that in a country so extensive as ours,
with all kinds of lands and town-sites, any one could begin to build a
town in such a situation. It clings to the broken and rocky shores
and hillsides as lichens adhere to rocks and to the bark of trees or
swallows' nests to the eaves of a barn. There it is, however, and,
judging from its costly houses, churches and business appearance, its
inhabitants have found it a profitable place to stay in. Port Deposit
last winter, when the river was filled with ice from shore to shore
and for miles in both directions, fissured and cracked and covered
with mud, logs and debris, seemed on the verge of destruction; and
it was easy to believe that if the river did rise suddenly the moving
mass of ice, like some huge glacier, would sweep away all evidences
of humanity, leaving behind only the glacial scratches and the _roches
moutonnees_. Overhanging the railroad is a very remarkable profile
rock which has attained some celebrity, and is shown in one of our
sketches.

[Illustration: PORT DEPOSIT.]

[Illustration: FORT McHENRY.]

From Port Deposit to Baltimore the country is more rolling than from
Perryville to Wilmington, and there are many picturesque points. One
could find at Gunpowder River and Stemmer's Run several beautiful
points of view, but by the time he reaches these places the traveler
begins to get impatient for the great city, the terminus of his
wanderings, which soon begins to announce itself by more thickly
congregated houses, and roads cut straight through hill and valley,
regardless of cost or the destruction of local charms of hill and
dale.

[Illustration: THE BRITISH SHELL.]

If one were to judge by the streets, he would think Baltimorians
lived only on oysters, for the new streets seem wholly built of
their shells, making them very white, glaring and offensive to the
unaccustomed eye. But the attention is soon diverted from houses and
roads, to the bay and to Fort McHenry, which lies before the town like
a sleeping lion. Few forts in the country are more interesting or
have played a more important part in our military history; but all
its military reputation is less interesting than the fact that
whilst confined to a British vessel, one of the fleet unsuccessfully
bombarding the fort, Francis Key wrote the "Star-Spangled Banner,"
now a national hymn. A bomb thrown into the fort at that time by the
British has been preserved on a pillar ever since--almost the only
local reminder of the facts of the bombardment.

At Baltimore we leave the Philadelphia, Wilmington and Baltimore
Railroad, sorry to part from so good a road and one so important to
the welfare of the country. It is a link in the great system, and one
kept very bright and well polished by its managers. Their course has
been to pay only a moderate dividend, and use the rest of the earnings
to improve the road and its belongings, and to foster the interests
of the people who use it. Such wise policy must build it strongly into
the affections and interests of those who live along it, and ensure
its being each year a better and better-paying road.

ROBERT MORRIS COPELAND.

       *       *       *       *       *





CHARITY CROSS.


  Tinted are her cheeks with rose
  She is waiting in the snows
  Of the falling apple-blows.

  Tinklings of a drowsy rill
  Come from the upland orchard hill,
  Niches in her dreams to fill.

  Dotted is her rustic shawl
  With the apple-leaves that fall:
  Twilight splendors cover all.

  Deeper lined than earthly grace,
  Rest of heaven doth in her face
  Rejoice in its abiding-place.

  Charity Cross, it groweth late:
  Household duties for you wait,
  Just beyond the garden-gate.

  Leave the apple-blooms to fall,
  Far-off brook to vainly call:
  Lightly climb the orchard wall.

  All your dreamings softly fold:
  Let them drift away untold
  In the dying sunset's gold.

  Down the path that leads between
  Ferns and mosses, shaded green,
  The gabled house is dimly seen.

  Winds, with poplar trees at play,
  Chafe with tossing boughs all day
  Weather-beaten walls of gray.

  Open wide the trellised door:
  Sunset glories go before,
  Fall upon the kitchen floor,

  Turn to gold the swinging loom
  Standing in the corner's gloom
  Of the low brown-raftered room.

  Brazen dogs that ever sleep
  Silently the entrance keep
  Of the fireplace huge and deep.

  Charity, stop no more to dream:
  Covers lift with puffing steam;
  Waiting stands the risen cream.

  Change to white your apron gray,
  Sprinkled clothes to fold away,
  Ready for another day.

  Quickly now the table spread
  With its homespun cloth of red,
  Savory meats and snowy bread.

  On the shelf a pink-lipped shell,
  That for ever tries to tell
  Ocean music, learned so well.

  Tiptoe on the cricket stand:
  Take it in your sun-browned hand--
  Shell from eastern tropic land.

  Let your clear voice through it ring,
  Homeward the hired help to bring
  From the distant meadow-spring.

  Far away they hear the call:
  Look! they come by orchard wall,
  Where the apple-blossoms fall.

  One that foremost leads the plough
  Sees you in the doorway now--
  Breaks a bending apple-bough;

  Waves it by the meadow creek:
  Answering blushes on your cheek
  Tell the words you do not speak.

  Out upon the rippling river
  Purple lights of sunset quiver,
  Rustling leaves reflected shiver.

  Shell in hand, she goes to greet
  Her lover, where the turf-grown street
  And the meadow pathway meet.

  Insect voices far away,
  Hushed in silence through the day,
  Whisper in the night of May,

  While in vain the pink-lipped shell,
  Murmuring in its hollow cell,
  Would its own love-story tell.

  Through the drifting apple-snow,
  Where the four-leafed clovers grow,
  Hand in hand they homeward go;

  And they vow, whate'er the weather,
  Mid the brier, through the heather,
  They will walk life's way together.

  Parting when the day grows late,
  If a moment at the gate
  One alone is left to wait,

  Yet each other they will greet
  Where life's shadeless, dusty street
  And the heavenly pathway meet.

MARGARET MASON.




BERRYTOWN.

CHAPTER XI.


Catharine sprang from her bed at daybreak that morning. She could
scarcely stop singing in the bath. She had so much to do, so much to
do! The air blew briskly, the factory bells were clanging, the bees
buzzed, the pretty white curtains were flapping. It was a busy world,
and she was busiest of all. Had she not Hugh Guinness's fate in hand?
She felt like a lad when he comes of age or makes his first venture
in business. Jane heard her singing noisily for a while, but when
breakfast was ready she did not come down.

She was standing in front of her glass, staring at it as though the
chubby, insignificant face there were the Sphinx and could answer the
riddles of life. McCall's remark had suddenly recurred to her: "What
is Hugh Guinness to you? You belong to another man." With a flash, Mr.
Muller, natty and plump, had stood before her, curiously unfamiliar,
mildly regarding her through his spectacles. _Her husband!_ Why had
she never understood that until this morning? Her crossed hands lay on
her wide blue-veined shoulders. She almost tore the flesh from them.
"I belong to no man!" she cried.

She could not shake off the thought of him, as she usually did.
He stood beside her, do what she would--the fat body and legs, the
finical dress, the wearisome platitudes, a regiment of blue-coated,
thick-lipped children behind him.

"If the best were done for them that could be hoped, they would but
grow up miniature Mullers; and to think of _that!_" said Kitty. She
had given her life to him. If she lived to be gray-headed, he alone
owned her, mind and body. "If I were dead in my coffin, he would put
his mild, fat little hand on me, and look forward to owning me in
heaven! Oh-h!" This last was the one unendurable pang to Catharine.

Jane at the moment thrust her black face in: "He's come. Hurry up,
honey! Mr. Muller, ob course. Shell I do up your hair, chile?"

Kitty shook her head and smiled. She would have had a kind smile for
Jane and her like if she had been held by thumbscrews. Stooping to
button her gaiters, she caught sight of her face in the glass. There
were dark hollows under the eyes: they had the look of an older,
graver woman than she had ever been before. Kitty hung up the green
dress she had meant to wear, and took down a rose-colored one. Mr.
Muller was talking down stairs. There was reality. There was her work
and her husband. Why, she had the account-books of the school in her
upper bureau-drawer at that moment, and in the lower ones her wedding
things. Dresses and cloaks all made; and such lovely linen! As for
Hugh Guinness, he was, after all, but a perplexing shadow, a riddle
that turned from her the more she tried to make him real. She went
down.

"Why, Catharine!" He held her hand, patting it between his own, which
were warm and moist. "I really could not deny myself a glimpse of you,
though I was sent on an errand by Maria to the station. But all roads
end for me in the Book-shop. That is natural--he! he!"

"Yes, it is natural."

"It must be only a glimpse, though. I begged of Jane a cup of hot tea,
to take off the chill of this morning air. Ah, here it is: thank you,
my good girl. Only a glimpse, for Maria's business was urgent: Maria's
business always is urgent. But I was to intercept Doctor McCall on his
way to the cars."

"Is he going this morning?"

"Yes. Not to return, it appears."

"Not to return?" Her voice seemed hardly to have the energy of a
question in it.

"But I," with a shrug and significant laugh, "am not to allow him to
go. Behold in me an emissary of Love! You; would not have suspected
a Mercury in your William, Catharine?" Within the last month he had
begun to talk down in this fashion to her, accommodating himself to
her childish tastes.

"What is Mercury's errand?"

"Aha! you curious little puss! How a woman does prick her ears at the
mention of a love-story! Though, I suppose, this one is wellnigh its
end. Maria made no secret of it. Doctor McCall, I inferred from what
she said, had been pouring out his troubles in her ear, and she sent
me to bring him back to her with the message that she had found a
way of escape from them. Eh? Did you speak? You did not know _what_,
dear?"

"I did not know that Maria had the right to bring him back. They
are--"

"Engaged? Oh, certainly. At least--It is an old attachment, and Maria
is such a woman to manage, you know! Is that the tea-pot, Jane? Just
fill my cup again. Oh yes, I suppose it is all settled."

Catharine was standing by the window. The wind blew in chilly and
strong, while Mr. Muller behind her sipped his tea and ambled in his
talk. Crossing the meadow, going down the road, she saw the large
figure of a man in a loose light overcoat, who swung in his gait and
carried his hat in his hand as a boy would do. Even if he had loved
her, she could not, like Maria, have gone a step to meet him, nor
intoned the Song of Solomon. But he did not love her.

She turned to her companion: "There is something I wished to say."

"In one moment, my dear." He was sweetening his tea. Hanging the
silver tongs on the lid, he looked up: "Good God, Catharine! what is
it?"

"I wished to tell you--no, don't touch me, please--this is a mistake
which we have made, and it is better to let it go no farther. It ought
to end now."

"End? Now?" But he was not surprised. The pale face staring at her
over the half-emptied cup looked as if it had been waiting to hear
this; so that they began the subject, as it were, in the middle. So
much had already been said between them without words. He set the
cup down, even in that moment folding his napkin neatly with shaking
fingers. Kitty did not laugh. She never laughed at him afterward.
Something in that large, loose figure yonder, going away from her to
the woman he loved, had whetted her eyesight and her judgment. She saw
the man at last under Muller's weak finical ways, and the manly look
he gave her.

"You mean that there must be no--no marriage?"

"No. I'm very sorry. It has been my fault. But I thought--"

"You thought you loved me, and you do not. Don't cry, Kitty."

A long silence followed, which seemed to Catharine like that of death.
It was noticeable that he did not make a single effort to change her
resolution or to keep her. It seemed as if he must have been waiting
for her to waken some day and see the gulf between them.

"Don't cry, Kitty," he said again, under his breath. He stood by the
empty fireplace, resting his dainty foot on the fender and looking
down on it: he took out his handkerchief, shook out its folds and
wiped his face, which was hot and parched. Kitty was sorry, as she
said--sorry and scared, as though she had been called on to touch the
corpse of one dear to her friends, but whose death cost her nothing.
That she was breaking an obligation she had incurred voluntarily
troubled her very little.

"Yes, I thought you would say this one day," he said at last. "I think
you are right to take care of yourself. I was too old a man for you
to marry. But I would have done all I could. I have been very fond of
you," looking at her.

"Yes. You never seemed old to me sir."

"And your work for the poor children? I thought, dear, you felt that
the Lord called you to that?"

"So I did. But I don't think I feel it so much to-day." Catharine's
eyes were wide with this new terror. Was she, then, turning her back
on her God?

She was, after all, he thought, nothing but a frightened, beautiful
child.

"I should have been too rough for you," he said. How was he to
suspect the heights from which she had looked down on his softness and
flippancy?

She observed that he said not a word of the preparations he had made,
the house furnished, the expectant congregation, or the storm of
gossip and scandal which would follow him as a jilted lover. Was the
real wound, then, so deep? Or did he overlook such trifles, as men do?

"I did not forget the new dresses and underclothes," thought Kitty,
mean and mortified.

He roused himself as Jane came in: "No, Jane, no more tea. Yes, that
is my cup on the mantel-shelf."

"Dah's a gen'leman, Miss Kitty. I took him in the Book-shop. 'T mought
be Spellissy 'bout de oats. Tink it is Spellissy."

"You had better go, Catharine," taking up his hat.

"It is not important." The door closed after Jane. She came close to
him, irresolute. What could she say? She thought, with the heat of
childishness, that she would give the blood out of her body, drop by
drop, to comfort him. She wished that she had gone on and married him.
"But I cannot say that I love him." This was a matter for life and
death--even Kitty's polite soul recognized that--and not for a civil
lie.

Again the man asserted himself before the woman: "No, there is nothing
for you to say, Catharine," smiling. "There are some things it is
better not to varnish over with words." He took up his hat after a
pause, and turned a feeble, uncertain face to the window: "I--I might
as well go now: I have a prayer-meeting this afternoon."

"And when you go you mean never to come back again?" cried Kitty, pale
and red in a moment. "That's to be the end of it all?"

"What more can there be? It's all said." Yet after he had walked to
the door he stood on the steps, looking about the room which had grown
so familiar and dear to him. At Kitty he did not look.

"Will you have a rose?" breaking one hastily from the trailing
branches at the window. "To remember the old Book-shop." She had never
given him anything before.

He threw it down: "I do not need a rose to make me remember,"
bitterly. "It _is_ all said, child? You have nothing to tell me?"
looking furtively at her.

For a long time she did not speak: "No, nothing."

"Good-bye, Kitty."

Kitty did not answer him. The tears ran hot and salt over her round
cheeks as she watched the little man disappear through the walnuts.
She went up stairs, and, still crying, chose one or two maudlin
sonnets and a lock of black hair as mementoes to keep of him. She did
keep them as long as she lived, and used frequently to sigh over them
with a sentimental tenderness which the real Muller never had won from
her.




CHAPTER XII.


Miss Muller's message was never delivered, but Doctor McCall did not
leave Berrytown that morning. Going down the road, he had caught sight
of the old Book-house, and Kitty in her pink wrapper at the window. He
overheard Symmes, the clerk at the station, say to some lounger that
Peter Guinness would be at home that day or the next. He took his
valise to the baggage-room.

"My business is not pressing," he said to Symmes. "No need to be off
until this evening."

Perhaps he could see the old man, himself unseen, he thought with a
boyish choking in his throat. He could surely give one more day to the
remembrance of that old sweet, hearty boy's life without wronging the
wretched ghost of a wife whose hand clutched so much away from him.

Miss Muller, seeing him on the bridge from the windows of her room,
supposed her message had been given: "He has stayed to know how he
may win me." For the first time she faced the riddle squarely. In the
morning she had only wished weakly to keep him beside her.

He was married. Popular novels offered recipes by the score for the
cure of such difficulties in love. But Maria was no reader of novels.
Out of a strict Calvinistic family she and her brother had leaped
into heterodoxy--William to pause neatly poised on the line where
Conventionalism ended; Maria to flounder in an unsounded quagmire,
which she believed the well of Truth. Five years ago she would have
felt her chance of salvation in danger if she had spoken to a woman
who persisted in loving a married man. But five years work strange
changes in the creeds of young women now-a-days; and Maria's heart was
choosing her creed for her to-day, according to the custom of her sex.

She saw Doctor McCall idly leaning over the foot-bridge of the creek
while he smoked. Passion and brilliancy unknown to them before came
into her dark eyes: she stretched out her hands as though she would
have dragged him to her: "Must I give him up because of this wife whom
he long ago cast off?"

If she tempted him to marry her? She knew what name her old church,
her old friends, even her father, who was still living, would apply to
her. Some of these people with whom she had lately cast in her lot had
different views on the subject of marriage. Hitherto, Maria had kept
clear of them. "The white wings of her Thought," she had said, "should
not be soiled by venturing near impurity." Now she remembered their
arguments against marriage as profound and convincing.

"I could not suggest to him myself this way of escape," she thought,
the red dying her face and neck. "I could not." But there was to be
a meeting that very evening of the "Inner Light Club," in which Maria
was a M.H.G. (Most Honorable Guide), and the subject for discussion
would be, "Shall marriage in the Advanced Consolidated Republic be for
life or for a term of years?" The profoundest thinkers in the society
would bring to this vital question all their strength and knowledge,
and, as they had all made up their minds beforehand against bondage
and babies, the verdict was likely to be unanimous.

She would contrive that McCall should be one of the audience: the
wisdom and truth of the arguments would shine in like a great light
on his life, and he would start up a new man, throwing aside this
heaviest yoke of social slavery. She would be there ("with a
black lace mantilla and veil--so much better than a bonnet," she
breathlessly resolved), and at the sight of her he would feel the
divine force of true love bringing them together, and claim her as his
own.

The modern Cleopatra fights upon the rostrum, in lieu of "sixty sail,"
and uses as weapons newspaper and club, instead of purple robe and
"cloyless sauce of epicurean cook," but the guerdon of the battle is
none the less Mark Antony.

At sundown that evening Doctor McCall was piloted by little Herr Bluhm
to his office; the Herr, according to his wont, sternly solemn, McCall
disposed to be hilarious, as suited the pleasant temperature of the
evening.

"Club, eh? Inner Light? Oh yes, I've no objections. One picks up good
ideas here, there, anywhere. Meets in your office?"

"Yes--a shabby, vulgar place to the outer eye, but so many noble souls
have there struggled out of darkness into light, such mighty Truths
have been born there which will guide the age, that to me it is the
very Holy Ground of Ideas."

"So?" McCall looked at the little man out of the corner of his eye,
and nodded gravely.

"It is a Woman's Club, though men take part in it. But we have such
faith in the superior integrity and purity of woman's mind when
brought to bear on great but hackneyed questions that we willingly
stand back until she has given her verdict. The magnet, sir, pointing
out with inexplicable intelligence the true path to humanity."

"Well, I don't know about that. Though it's very likely, very likely,"
hurriedly. McCall had no relish for argument about it. He was more
secure of his intellect in the matter of peaches than inner lights.
Cowed and awed as he could have been by no body of men, he followed
Bluhm up a dirty flight of stairs into the assemblage of Superior
Women. The office was by nature a chamber with gaudy wall-paper of
bouquets and wreaths. Viewed as an office, it was well enough, but in
the aesthetic, light of a Holy Ground of Ideas it needed sweeping.
The paper, too, hung in flaps from the damp walls: dusty files of
newspapers, an empty bird-cage, old boots, a case of medical books, a
pair of dilapidated trousers filled up one side of the room. A pot of
clove-pinks in the window struggled to drown with spicy fragrance the
odor of stale tobacco smoke. There was a hempen carpet, inch deep with
mud and dust, on the floor. Seated round an empty fireplace, on cane
chairs and in solemn circle, were about forty followers of the Inner
Light. McCall perceived Maria near the window, the dusky twilight
bringing out with fine effect her delicate, beautiful face. He turned
quickly to the others, looking for the popular type of the Advanced
Female, in loose sacque and men's trousers, with bonnet a-top, hair
cut short, sharp nose and sharper voice. She was not there. A third
of the women were Quakers, with their calm, benign faces for the
most part framed by white hair--women who, having fought successfully
against slavery, when that victory was won had taken up arms against
the oppressors of women with devout and faithful purpose. The rest
McCall declared to himself to be "rather a good-looking lot--women who
had," he guessed shrewdly, "been in lack of either enough to eat or
somebody to love in the world, and who fancied the ballot-box would
bring them an equivalent for a husband or market-money."

A little dish-faced woman in rusty black, and with whitish curls
surmounted by a faded blue velvet bonnet laid flat on top of her head,
had the floor: "Mr. Chairman--I mean Miss Chairman--the object of
our meeting this evening is, Shall marriage in the Consolidated
Republic--"

"I object!" Herr Bluhm sprang to his feet, wrapping a short mantle
like a Roman toga across his chest, and wearing a portentous frown
upon his brow, "There is business of the last meeting which is not
finished. Shall the thanks of this club be presented to the owners of
the Berrytown street-cars for free passes therein? That is the topic
for consideration. I move that a vote of thanks be passed;" and he sat
down gloomily.

"I do _not_ second that motion." A tall woman, with the magisterial
sweep of shawl and wave of the arm of a cheap boarding-house keeper,
rose. "I detect a subtle purpose in that offer. There is a rat behind
that arras. There is a prejudice against us in the legislature,
and the car company wish no mention of Woman Suffrage to be made
in Berrytown until their new charter is granted. Are we so cheaply
bought?--bribed by a dead-head ticket!"

"The order of the day," resumed the little widow placidly, "is, Shall
marriage in the Consol--"

"Legislature!" piped a weak voice in the crowd. "They only laugh at us
in the legislature."

"Let them laugh: they laughed at the slave." The speaker hurled this
in a deep bass voice full at McCall. She was a black-browed, handsome
young woman, wrapped in a good deal of scarlet, who sat sideways on
one chair with her feet on the rung of another. "How long will the
world dare to laugh?" fixing him fiercely with her eye.

"Upon my word, madam, I don't know," McCall gasped, and checked
himself, hot and uncomfortable.

A fat, handsomely-dressed woman jolted the chair in front of her to
command attention: "On the question of marriage--"

"Address the chair," growled Bluhm.

"Miss Chairman, I want to say that I ought to be qualified to speak on
marriage, being the mother of ten, to say nothing of twice twins."

"The question before the house is the street-car passes," thundered
Bluhm. "I move that we at least thank them for their offer. When a cup
of tea is passed me, I thank the giver: when the biscuits are handed,
I do likewise. It is a simple matter of courtesy."

"I deny it," said the black-browed female with a tone of tragedy.
"What substantial tea has been offered? what biscuits have been baked?
It is not tea: it is bribery! It is not biscuits: it is corruption!"

"I second Herr Bluhm's motion."

"Miss Chairman, put the question on its passage."

A mild old Quakeress rose, thus called on: "Thee has made a motion,
Friend Bluhm, and Sister Carr says she seconds it; so it seems to
me--Indeed I don't understand this parliamentary work."

"You're doing very nicely."

"All right!" called out several voices.

"Why should we have these trivial parliamentary forms?" demanded the
Tragic Muse, as McCall called her. "Away with all worn-out garments of
a degraded Past! Shall the rebellious serf of man still wear his old
clothes?"

"But," whispered McCall to Bluhm, "when will the great thinkers you
talked of begin to speak on those mighty truths--"

"Patience! These are our great thinkers. The logical heads some
of them have! Woman," standing up and beginning aloud, apropos to
nothing--"Woman is destined to purify the ballot-box, reform the
jury, whiten the ermine of the judge. [Applause.] When her divine
intuitions, her calm reason, are brought into play--" Prolonged
applause, in the midst of which Bluhm, again apropos to nothing,
abruptly sat down.

"The order of the day," said the little woman in black, "is, Shall
marriage--"

"What about the car company?"

"Let's shelve that."

"The question of marriage," began Bluhm, up again with a statelier
wrap of his toga, "is the most momentous affecting mankind. It demands
free speech, the freest speech. Are we resolved to approach it in
proud humility, giving to the God within ourselves and within our
neighbor freedom to declare the truth?"

"Ay!" "Ay!" from forty voices. Maria, pale and trembling, watched
McCall.

"Free speech is our boast," piped the widow. "If not ours, whose?"

"Before you go any farther," said the Muse with studied politeness,
"I have a question to put to Herr Bluhm. Did you did you not, sir,
in Toombs's drug-store last week, denominate this club a caravan of
idiots?" A breathless silence fell upon the assembly. Bluhm gasped
inarticulately. "His face condemns him," pursued his accuser. "Shall
such a man be allowed to speak among us? Ay, to take the lead among
us?"

Cries of "No!" "No!"

"What becomes of your free speech?" cried Bluhm, red and stammering
with fury. "I was angry. I am rough, perhaps, but I seek the truth,
as those do not who"--advancing and shaking his shut hand at the
Muse--"who 'smile and smile, and are a villain still.'"

"The order of the day"--the widow's voice rose above the din
tranquilly--"_is_ Shall marriage in the Consolidated Republic be
contracted for life or for a term of years?"

The next moment Maria felt her arm grasped. "Come out of this,"
whispered McCall, angry and excited. "This is no place for you, Maria.
Did you hear what they are going to discuss?"

"Yes," as he whisked her out of the door.

"Then I'm sorry for it. Such things oughtn't to be mentioned in a
lady's presence. If I had a sister, she should not know there was
such a thing as bigamy. Good God!" wiping his forehead with his
handkerchief, "if women are not pure and spotless, what have we to
look up to? And these shallow girls, who propose to reform the world,
begin by dabbling with the filth of the gutter, if they do no worse?"

"Shallow girls?" He was so big and angry that she felt like a wren or
sparrow in his hold. But the stupidity of him! the blind idiocy!
She eyed him from head to foot with a bitterness and contempt
unutterable--a handsome six-foot animal, with his small brain filled
with smaller, worn-out prejudices! The way of escape had been set
before him, and he had spurned it--and her!

"I don't see what it can matter to you," she said politely,
disengaging herself, "whether I make friends with these people and am
stained with the filth of the gutter or not?" She had a half-insane
consciousness that she was playing her last card.

"Why, to be sure it matters. You and I have been good friends always,
Maria, and I don't like to see you fellowship
with that lot. What was it Bluhm called them?" laughing. "That was
rough in Bluhm--rough. They're women."

"You are going?"

"In the next train, yes, I waited to see a--a friend, but he did not
come. It's just as well, perhaps," his face saddened. "Well, good-bye,
Maria. Don't be offended at me for not approving of your friends. Why,
bless my soul! such talk is--it's not decent;" and with a careless
shake of the hand he was gone.

Maria told herself that she despised a man who could so dismiss the
great social problem and its prophets with a fillip of his thumb. She
turned to go in to the assemblage of prophets. They were all that was
left her in life. But she did not go in. She went to her bare chamber,
and took Hero up on her lap and cried over him. "_You_ love me,
doggy?" she said.

She had an attack of syncope that night, for which no pack or sitz
proved a remedy; and it was about that time that the long and
painful affection of the ulnar nerve began which almost destroyed her
usefulness as a surgeon.




CHAPTER XIII.


That evening, as Miss Muller sat alone with Hero in her room (just as
the neuralgia was beginning), the door opened and Miss Vogdes entered.
The girl turned a harassed, worn countenance toward Maria, and
stumbled awkwardly over her words. It was not, certainly, because
she was conscious that she had used William Muller cruelly. She had
forgotten that William Muller lived.

She had been thinking of Maria all day. She was the woman whom Doctor
McCall loved. By the time night came Kitty had a maddening desire to
see again this woman that he loved--to touch her, hear her speak. She
had been used to regard her as a disagreeable bore, but now she looked
on her as a woman set apart from all the world. She had made a poor
excuse to come up to the Water-cure: now that she was there she half
forgot it. Maria's delicate face, her quick grace of motion, her
clear, well-bred voice, were so many stabs to Kitty, each of which
touched the quick. Maria's hair hung loosely over her shoulders:
it was very soft and thick. She wondered if Doctor McCall had ever
touched it. "Though what right have _I_ to know?" For some reason this
last was the pang that tugged hardest at Kitty's heart.

"I brought a message for Doctor McCall," she said, fumbling in her
pocket--"that is, for you to deliver to him, Maria."

Miss Muller turned her shoulder to her: "Doctor McCall is gone--I
don't know where."

She started forward: "Gone? To come again, you mean?"

"No--never to come back!" vehemently.

Kitty stood by her silent a moment: "William told me that you sent for
him, that he loved you, Maria--that you would be married some of these
days."

Miss Muller hesitated: there was no use in revealing her humiliation
to this girl: "There was an obstacle in the way. Doctor McCall is
peculiarly hedged in by circumstances."

"And you could not find the way of escape?"

"No." She did not see the flash of triumph on the girl's face, or
notice when she went out.

Kitty was human. "At least," she muttered going down the hill, "I
shall not have to see _her_ his wife." When she had reached the
Book-shop she took from her pocket a coarse yellow envelope containing
a telegram directed to Hugh Guinness in his father's care. She turned
it over. This was a bond between them which even Maria did not share:
she alone knew that he was Hugh Guinness.

"What am I to do with this?"

Doctor McCall was gone, never to come back. It was like touching his
hand far off to read this message to him. Besides, Kitty was curious.
She opened the envelope.

"Come to me at once. You will soon be free," without any signature
but an initial. The melodramatic mystery of it would have cautioned
knowing women, but Kitty was not knowing.

"If he had received this an hour ago, the 'way of escape' would have
been found. He would have been free to marry Maria." So much she
understood. She sat down and was quiet for half an hour. It was the
first wretched half hour of her life--so wretched that she forgot to
cry.

"It would make him very happy to marry Maria," she said, getting
up and speaking aloud. Then she opened the door and went up to her
chamber, her thoughts keeping time with her swift motions. It seemed
to her that she still spoke aloud. "If I were a man I could go to this
house in Philadelphia and receive this message, which will set him
free" (beginning to fold the dresses in her closet). "It will never
reach him otherwise. I could find and bring him to Maria. But I
never was five miles from Berrytown in my life, _I_ never could go"
(dragging out a great trunk and packing the dresses into it). "It
would be a friendly thing for some man to do for him. Maria could not
do so much" (cramming in undergarments enough for a year's wear). "If
I were a man! He'd not snub me then as he does now, when I am only
Kitty. If this could be done it would bring happiness for life to
him." (The trunk was packed as she had seen her mother's. She was
on her knees, trying to force down the lid, but her wrists were too
weak.) "He would come back at once. How lovely Maria looked in that
black lace mantilla! He would kiss her mouth and smooth her hair."
(Kitty, still kneeling, was staring at the wall with pale cheeks
and distended eyes. The lock snapped as it shut. She rose and began
putting on her gray hat and veil.) "No woman could go to the city
through that dark; and there is a storm coming. If I did it, what
would he care for me? I am only Kitty. I would sit in the window here
alone year after year, growing into a neglected old maid, and watch
him go by with his happy wife and children. I need not interfere. I
can throw the telegram into the fire and let them both go their ways.
What are they to me?" She had buttoned her sacque and gloves, and now
went up to the glass. It was a childish face that she looked at, but
one now exceptionally grave and reserved.

She walked quickly down and tapped at the kitchen door: "When the
porter comes for my trunk, Jane, give it to him. Tell my mother when
she comes it was necessary for me to leave home to help a friend. I
shall be back in a few days--if I am alive."

"De Lord be good to us, honey!" Jane stood aghast. Kitty came suddenly
up to the old woman and kissed her. She felt quite alone in the world
in beginning this desperate undertaking. The next moment she passed
the window and was gone.

Miss Muller, with a satchel and shawl-strap, would have started coolly
at an hour's notice alone for the Yosemite or Japan. But Kitty, with
the enormous trunk, which was her sole idea of travel, set out through
the night and storm, feeling death clutching at her on every side.

An hour after nightfall that evening the Eastern express-train reached
the station beyond Berrytown, bringing home Peter and his wife,
triumphant. Her money had covered a larger extent of muslins and laces
than she hoped for--enough to convert the raw school-girl Kitty, when
she was married, into a leader of church-going fashion.

Mrs. Guinness leaned back in the plush car-seat, planning the
wedding-breakfast. That was now her only care. Out in the world of
shops and milliners her superstitious dread of a man long since dead
had seemed to her absurd.

"I have had some unreasonable fears about Kitty," she said to Peter,
who was beginning to nod opposite to her. "But all will be well when
she is Muller's wife."

Another train passed at the moment they reached the station. Her eye
ran curiously over the long line of faces in the car-windows to find
some neighbor or friend.

She touched Peter's arm: "How like that is to Kitty!" nodding toward
a woman's head brought just opposite to them. The train began to move,
and the woman turned her face toward them: "Merciful Heaven, it _is_
Kitty!"

The engine sent out its shrill foreboding whistle and rushed on,
carrying the girl into the darkness. Behind her in the car as it
passed her mother saw the face of Hugh Guinness.




CHAPTER XIV.


Doctor McCall had been five minutes too late for the first train,
and so had been delayed for the express in which Kitty started on her
adventure. Commonplace accidents determine commonplace lives, was a
favorite maxim of the Berrytown Illuminati. The Supreme Intelligence
whom they complimented with respect could not be expected to hold such
petty trifles or petty lives in His controlling hand.

Doctor McCall had seen Catharine when she first entered the station.
Her very manner had the air of flight and secresy. Puzzled and
annoyed, he sat down in the rear of the car, himself unseen. When they
reached Philadelphia it was not yet dawn. The passengers rushed out
of the cars: Kitty sat quiet. She had never slept outside of the
Book-house before. She looked out at the dim-lighted depot, at the
slouching dark figures that stole through it from time to time, the
engines, with their hot red eyes, sweeping back and forward in the
distance, breaking the night with portentous shrieks. Where should she
go? She had never been in a hotel in her life: she had no money. If
she ventured into the night she would be arrested, no doubt, as a
vagrant. She had a gallant heart to take care of Hugh Guinness's
life, but her poor little woman's body was quaking in deadly fear for
herself. In a moment a decent mulatto woman, whom McCall had sent,
came from the waiting-room into the deserted car.

"There is a room for ladies, where you can be comfortable until
daybreak, madam," she said respectfully.

"I am much obliged to you," said Catharine.

When she saw how young she was, the mulatto, a motherly body, took her
into a little inner snuggery used to store packages: "You can turn the
key, and sleep if you will until morning."

"I'll not close my eyes until my errand is done," thought Kitty, and
sat down in a rocking-chair, placing her satchel beside her. In five
minutes she was fast asleep. McCall, pacing up and down the platform,
could see her through the open window. He forgot to wonder why she had
come. There was a certain neatness and freshness about her which he
thought he had never observed in other women. After her night's travel
her dress fell soft and gray as though just taken from the fold, her
petticoat, crisp and white, peeped in one place to sight. How dainty
and well-fitting were the little boots and gloves! Where the hair was
drawn back, too, from her forehead he could see the blue veins and
pink below the skin, like a baby's. He did not know before what keen
eyes he had. But this was as though a breath of the old home when
he had been a child, one of the dewy Bourbon roses in his father's
garden, had followed him to the stifling town. It made the station
different--even the morning. Fresh damp winds blew pleasantly from the
reddening sky. The white marble steps and lintels of the street shone
clean and bright; the porters going by to the freight depot gave him
good-day cheerfully. In the window the old mulatto had some thriving
pots of ivy and fragrant geraniums. Even a dog that came frisking up
the sidewalk rubbed itself in a friendly fashion against his legs.

McCall suddenly remembered a journey he had made long ago, and a
companion whose breath was foul with opium as her head at night rested
on his shoulder.

But there was no need that one woman's breath should sicken him even
now with the whole world; and again he stopped in his walk to look at
Kitty.

The fresh wind blowing on her wakened her presently. The mulatto was
anxious to serve her: it was always the case with people of her class
after Kitty had once spoken to them.

"I should like fresh water and towels," she said coolly, as though
toilet appurtenances were to be found at every street corner. The
woman paused, and then with a queer smile brought them. In a a few
moments McCall saw her come out fresher than before.

"Where is this house?" showing a name and number to the mulatto, who
read it once or twice, and then looked steadily at Kitty.

"Are you going alone to that place?"

"Certainly."

The woman gave her the directions without further parley, adding that
it was about six miles distant, and turned away. Catharine followed
her to thank her, and put a dollar note in her hand. It was all the
money she had.

She walked on down the rapidly filling streets--for miles, as she
thought. The hurry and rush of the day had begun. The sense of
nothingness in the midst of this great multitude came upon Kitty. The
fear, the excitement began to tell on her: yesterday she had eaten
but little in her pity for Muller. "Which was very foolish of me,"
she said to herself. "Now I've no money to buy anything to eat. I have
acted in this matter without common sense." The sun lighted up the
yellow leaves of the maples along the sidewalk. The wind blew strongly
up from the rivers. She passed a stand with some withered apples and
stale cakes, and put her hand in her pocket, then with a wistful look
went on.

It was late in the morning before she reached her journey's end.
Showing her paper now and then, she had noticed the curious inquiring
look which both men and women gave her on reading it. She found
herself at last under a long gray stone wall pierced by an
iron-knobbed gate. By the side of it a man was setting out on an
eating-stand a half-eaten ham, chaffy rolls and pies yellow with
age. The man was an old, cleanly shaven fellow, whose aquiline nose
reminded her with a twinge of conscience of Mr. Muller.

"Am I near to this house?" showing her paper.

"Here," nodding back at the stone wall, cutting his pies.

"This! What is this place, sir?"

"Moyamensing Prison." He finished cutting the pies carefully, and
then, wiping the knife, looked up at her, and suddenly came from
behind the stand:

"You're not well?" pushing a seat toward her. "Here's some water. Or
coffee?"

She sat down: "Oh, it's nothing. Only I've traveled a long way, and I
did not know it was a prison I was coming to."

"Won't you have some coffee? You don't look rugged."

"No, thank you."

"Well, it's not what you've been used to, of course. But hot." He
put the water within her reach and drew aside, looking at her now and
then. He was used to the pale faces and tears of women at that gate.
"Though she's different from them as has friends here," he thought,
silencing one or two noisy customers by a look. Presently he came up
to her: "You're afeard to go in there alone, young lady?"

"Yes, I am. What shall I do?"

"I thought as much. Yonder comes the chaplain. I'll speak to him,"
going to meet two gentlemen who crossed the street.

"You wished to see a prisoner?" one of them said, coming up to her.

Kitty was herself again. She stood up and bowed with her
old-fashioned, grave politeness: "I do not know. It was this that
brought me here," handing him the telegram.

"Ah? I remember," glancing at it. "Number 243 sent it, you recollect?"
to his companion. "But this is addressed to Hugh Guinness?" turning
inquiringly to Kitty.

"I am a--a member of his family. He was not at home, and I came to
receive the message for him."

"Will you go in with us, doctor?" The chaplain turned to his
companion.

"Presently. There is a man coming up the street I want to see."

The chaplain motioned her to follow him, casting a curious glance back
at her. They passed up into the long stone corridors, tier over tier,
with the lines of square iron doors, each with its slate dangling
outside, with a name scrawled on it. He stopped at one, opened it and
drew back, motioning her to enter.

Kitty caught sight of the damp wall of a cell, and stopped.

"Shall I go in with you?" seeing her shiver.

"No: Mr. Guinness might wish the message kept as private as possible."

"It is very probable. The prisoner is very ill, or you could not have
a private interview."

She went in, and the door closed behind her. It was a moment before
she could distinguish any object in the dimly lighted cell. Then she
saw the square window, the cobwebbed walls, and close at hand a narrow
pallet, on which lay a woman in a coarse and soiled night-dress.
She was tall and gaunt: one arm was thrown over her head, framing a
heavy-jawed, livid face, with dull black eyes fixed on Catharine.

"Who are you?" she said.

Kitty went straight up to her. The foul smell made her head reel. But
this was only a woman, after all; and one in great bodily need--dying,
she thought. Kitty was a born nurse. She involuntarily straightened
the wretched pillows and touched the hot forehead before she spoke: "I
came instead of Hugh Guinness. You had a message for him."

"I don't know. It doesn't matter for that," her eyes wandering. The
soft touch and the kind face bending over her were more to her just
now than all that had gone before in her life. "It is here the pain is,"
moving Kitty's hand to her side. The pain filled the dull eyes with tears.
"This is a poor place to die in," trying to smile.

"Oh, you are not going to die," cheerfully. "Let me lift you up higher
on the pillows. Put your arm about me--so. You're not too heavy for me
to lift."

The woman, when she was arranged, took Kitty's fingers and feebly
held them to her side. "It is so long since anybody took care of me. I
sha'n't live till to-morrow. Don't leave me--don't go away."

"I'll not go away," said Kitty.

       *       *       *       *       *

The man whom the prison physician had waited to meet was Doctor
McCall. He had followed Kitty so far, unwilling to interfere by
speaking to her. But when he saw her enter Moyamensing he thought that
she needed a protector. "Ha, Pollard, is this you?" stopping to shake
hands. They were old acquaintances, and managed, in spite of their
profession, to see something of each other every year. McCall ran
up to town once or twice through the winter, and stayed at Pollard's
house, and Pollard managed to spend a week or two with him in peach
season.

"I thought I knew your swing, McCall, two squares off. Looking for
me?"

"No: I followed a lady, a friend of mine, who has just gone in at the
gate."

"You know her, eh?" eagerly. "A most attractive little girl, I
thought: She went in with the chaplain to see one of the prisoners."

McCall paused, his hand on the gate. A horrible doubt stopped his
heart-beating for an instant. But how utterly absurd it was! Only
because this black shadow pursued him always could such a fancy have
come to him. "The prisoner is a woman?" with forced carelessness.

"Yes. A poor wretch brought here last spring for shoplifting. Her
term's out next week. She has had a sharp attack of pneumonia, and
has not much strength to bear it: she is a miserable wreck from
opium-eating."

"Opium-eating? Can I go in?" said McCall.

"Certainly."

When the woman heard their steps on the corridor she said to
Catharine, "I hear my husband coming now."

"That will be pleasant for you," kindly, wondering to herself what
sort of a ruffian had chosen this creature for a mate and had the
burden of her to carry.

"Yes, I know his step," turning dully to the door. It opened, and Hugh
Guinness stood on the threshold.

He halted one brief moment. It seemed to Catharine that he was an
older man than she had known him.

"It is you, then, Louise?" he said calmly, going up to the bed and
looking down on her, his hands clasped, as usual, behind him.

"Yes, it is I. I thought you would like to see me and talk things over
before I died, Hugh." She held out her hand, but he did not touch it.
Looking at her a moment from head to foot as she lay in her unclean
garments, he turned to where the other woman stood, a ray of light
from the window shining on her fair hair and innocent face: "Do you
know that I am Hugh Guinness, Kitty?"

"I knew that long ago."

"_This_," nodding down at the pallet, "is my wife. Now do you know why
I could not go home to my father or to you?"

"God help us!" ejaculated Pollard. The next moment, remembering
himself, he put his hand on McCall's shoulder: "I understand. When you
were a boy, eh? Never mind: every man has his own trouble to carry."

"I've been a very real trouble to you, Hugh," whined Louise. "But I
always loved you: I always meant to come back to you."

"When her later husbands had abandoned her." McCall laughed savagely,
turning away.

She started up on the pallet, clenching her bony, dirty hands: "There
were faults on both sides. I never would have been the woman I am if
you had loved me. What will you do with me now?"

There was a dead silence in the cell, broken only by the heavy
breathing of the woman. McCall stood dumb, looking first at Catharine
and then at his wife.

"This is what he will do," said Kitty's clear, quiet tones. "You shall
be washed and dressed, and taken home as his wife, to live or die as
suits God's will."

"Never," muttered McCall.

"How soon can she leave this--this place?" she said, turning as if he
had not spoken to Pollard.

"As soon as she is able to be moved. But," hesitating, with a doubtful
look at McCall, "is that plan best?"

"Why, she's his wife!" with her innocent eyes wide. "He has no right
to desert her. She will die if she is not properly cared for," turning
to McCall.

"Do you stay with me: don't leave me," holding Kitty's sleeve. "If you
would nurse me, I should get well."

"It is impossible that the lady should nurse you," said Pollard.

Kitty sat down: she began to tremble and turn white. "She has nobody
but me. I'll stay," she said quietly.

McCall beckoned his fellow-physician out into the corridor.

"My dear fellow--" Pollard began.

"No: I know you sympathize with me. But we will not talk of this
matter. Is that woman dying?"

"I'm afraid--that is, I think not. She is decidedly better to-day than
she was last night. With care she may recover."

Kitty came out and stood with them in the corridor. McCall looked at
her with amazement. The shy, silly school-girl, afraid to find her
way about Berrytown, bore herself in this desperate juncture like the
sagest of matrons.

"Is there no hospital to which she can be taken?" she said to Pollard.

"Yes, of course, of course."

"I'll go with her there, then. You know," laying her hand on McCall's
arm, "you _did_ marry her. You ought to try to help her poor body and
soul as long as she lives."

"Would you have me take her as my wife again?"

"Not for an hour!" cried Kitty vehemently. She went into the cell, but
came back in a moment: "Will you bring me some breakfast? I shall not
be of much use here until it comes."

"She has more of the angel in her than any woman I ever knew,"
muttered McCall.

"She has a good deal of common sense, apparently," rejoined Pollard.

       *       *       *       *       *

Kitty went with McCall's wife to the hospital, and helped to nurse her
for a week. Pains and chills and nausea she could help, but for the
deeper disease of soul, for the cure of which Kitty prayed on her
knees, often with tears, there was little hope in her simple remedies,
unless the cure and its evidence lay deep enough for only God's eye to
see.

The woman's nature, of a low type at birth, had grown more brutal
with every year of drunkenness and vice. She died at last, alone with
Kitty.

"She said, the last thing, 'God be merciful to me a sinner!'"
Kitty told the chaplain. "But I am afraid she hardly understood the
meaning."

"He understood, my dear child. We can leave her with Him, You must
go home now: you have done all you could. Doctor McCall will go with
you?"

"No, I shall go alone: I came alone."

"He will follow you home to Berrytown, then?" for the chaplain was but
a man, and his curiosity was roused to know the exact relation between
McCall and this old-fashioned, lovable girl.

Kitty hesitated: "I think he will come to Berrytown again. There is
some business there which his wife's death will leave him free now to
attend to."

She went to a sofa and sat down: "I shall be glad to be at home,"
beginning to cry. "I want to see father."

"Broke down utterly," the chaplain told his wife, "as soon as her
terrible work was done."

As for Kitty, it seemed to her that her work in life and death was
over for ever.

"You must come back," she said when McCall put her in the cars,
looking like a ghost of herself. "Your father will be wanting to see
you. And--and Maria."

"Maria? What the deuce is Maria to me?"

It was no ghost of Kitty that came home that evening. The shy, lively
color came and went unceasingly, and her eyes sparkled.

"Poor Maria!" she whispered to her pillow as she went to bed--"poor
Maria!"




CHAPTER XV.


It was a long time before he came. Months afterward, one evening when
the express-train rushed into the depot, Catharine went down through
the walnut trees into the garden. She stopped in the shadow as a man's
figure crossed the fields. The air was cool--it was early spring. The
clouds in the west threw the Book--house into shadow. Hugh Guinness,
coming home, could see the narrow-paned windows twinkling behind the
walnut boughs. It was just as he had left it when he was a boy. There
was the cow thrusting her head through a break in the fence he had
made himself; the yellow-billed ducks quacked about the pond he had
dug in the barnyard; the row of lilacs by the orchard fence were just
in blossom: they were always the latest on the farm, he remembered. He
saw Kitty, like the heart of his old home, waiting for him. Her white
dress and the hair pushed back from her face gave her an appearance of
curious gentleness and delicacy.

When he came to her he took both her hands in his.

"You will come to your father now?" she said, frightened and pale.

They walked side by side down the thick rows of young saplings. There
was a cool bank overgrown with trumpet-creeper. Inside, he caught
sight of a little recess or cave, and a gray old bench on which was
just room for two.

"Will you stop here and sit down one moment?" she said.

It was nothing to him but a deserted spring-house. It was the one
enchanted spot of Kitty's life.

Half an hour afterward they found old Peter playing on his violin at
the doorstep. Kitty had often planned an effective bringing back of
Hugh to him, but she forgot it all, and creeping up put her hands
about his neck. "Father! look there, father!" she whispered.

The Book-house still stands among its walnuts in Berrytown. But a
shrewd young fellow from New York has charge of it now, who deals
principally in school-books and publications relative to Reforms
and raspberries. Old Peter Guinness still holds an interest in it,
although his chief business is that of special agent for libraries in
buying rare books and pamphlets. He comes down for two or three weeks
in winter to look into matters. But since his wife died he makes his
home in Delaware with his son, who married, as all Berrytown knows,
Kitty Vogdes after she behaved so shamefully to Mr. Muller.

Mrs. Guinness died in high good-humor with her son-in-law. "Doctor
McCall," she assured her neighbors, "was exactly the man she should
have chosen for Catharine. She had known him from a boy, and knew
that his high social position and wealth were only his deserts. A
member--vestryman indeed--of St. Luke's Church, the largest in Sussex
county."

The farm-people in the sleepy, sunny Delaware neighborhood have
elected Kitty a chief favorite. "A gentle, good-natured little woman,
with no opinions of her own. A bit too fond of dress perhaps, and a
silly, doting mother, but the most neighborly, lovable creature alive,
after all."

Miss Muller was down in St. George's lecturing last fall, and made
her mark, as she always does. But the Guinness men were now hopelessly
conservative. She made her home with Kitty.

"A fine woman," old Peter said the morning after she was gone.

"Never knew a woman with a finer mind," said Hugh. "Nor many men."

"She nurses that dog as if it were a baby," said Kitty sharply. "It's
silly! It's disgusting!"

Peter twanged his bow on the porch, looking down over the great
farm-slopes stretching away in the morning light.

"We have everything to make life good to us, Hugh," he said after
Kitty had gone. "And the best thing, to my notion, is an old-fashioned
woman in the house, with no notion of ruling, like that Muller girl
and her set."

Hugh was romping with his boy: "Do you know your first business in
this world, sir? To take care of your mother," glancing at the garden,
where Kitty, in her pretty white dress, was clipping chrysanthemums.

She rules him and the house and their lives absolutely, with but
little regard for justice. But he has never suspected it. She hardly
knows herself that she does it.

REBECCA HARDING DAVIS.




STRANGE SEA INDUSTRIES AND ADVENTURES.


The wrecker on the Florida reefs, who steps from the Peninsula into
the marine world, will tell you there is nothing so like the land as
the water. The crystal atmosphere of this land of meridional spring,
the masses of tawny green in forests of the pine, and the deeper
foliage of the live-oak and wild-orange, even that fire of flower in
phaenogamous plants peculiar to the Peninsula, have their fellowship
and counterparts in the lustrous scenery of the submarine world. Even
the beauty of moon-like lakes and river springs is realized in the
salt envelope of the under-world. Washing the keel of the submerged
vessel, or bursting with a sudden chill through the tepid waters of
the Gulf, with a sensible difference to feeling and to sight, the
diver recognizes a river in the strata, a wayside spring in the
mid-sea fountain.

As the huge volume of many Florida springs, and their peculiar
characteristic of sudden sinking, give them a distinguishable quality,
so the like may be recognized in the fresh-water outbursts of the
neighboring seas. Silver Spring in Marion county tosses out three
hundred million gallons per day; Manatee Spring discharges a less
volume, but is noted for the presence of the sea-cow (_Trichecus
muriatus_); Santa Fe, Econfinna, Chipola and Oscilla are rivers which,
like classic Acheron, descend and disappear with a full head--lost
rivers, as they are aptly named. Pass to the marine world, and
south-west of Bataban, in the Gulf of Xagua (Cuba), a river-fountain
throws up a broad white disk like a flower of water on a liquid
stem, visible on the violet phosphorescence of the Caribbean Sea. Its
impetuous force makes it dangerous to unwary crafts; and, to add to
its recognizable characteristics, in its pure waters is to be found
the sea-cow--found there and in Manatee Bay and Spring alone. To
the geologist such rivers are not mysteries. The lower strata of the
limestone formation are hollowed out into vast cavernous channels
and chambers, through which rolls for ever the hoarse murmur of
multitudinous waters. It would require the conception of a Milton or
the stern Florentine who pictured Malebolge to depict those hollow
passages and lofty galleries, wrought into fantastic shapes by carbon
chisels, and all pure snow-white, yet unrecognizable in the sublime
horror of great darkness.

It is to the animal and vegetable coral the sea owes its arborescent
and floriform scenery, the counterpart of the forest and phaenogamous
beauty that adorns the land. The home of these wonderful creatures
must be visited to realize the beauty of their dwellings and the
wonderful structures they produce. A diver who explored the serene sea
about the Hayti banks gives a beautiful description of the splendors
of the under-world. The white, chalky bottom is visible from the
surface at a depth of one hundred feet. Over that brilliant floor the
filtered sunshine spreads a cloth of gold continually flecked with
sailing shadows and fluctuating tints. The singular clearness of
the medium removes that lovely violet drapery which surrounds like a
pavilion the submarine palace, and allows a wider scope of vision. But
the scene here is not the play of sunbeams or the magic glory of the
prismal waters. Form adds its grace to the loveliness of color and
the play of light and shadow. The structures, the work of astraea,
madrepores, andreas and meandrinas, bear a singular resemblance to
fabrications of the architect. One massive dome or archway, a hundred
feet in diameter, rises to the surface. Its front is carved in
elaborate tracery and crusted with serpulae, looking like the fret-and
flower-work that covers Saracenic architecture. Looking through
this into the violet ambuscade, the eye falls upon colonnades,
light slender shafts a foot in diameter, that seem to support the
paly-golden, lustrous roof. It is curiously like a vast temple,
spreading every way in vault and colonnade, on which religious
enthusiasm or barbaric royalty has worked with a reckless waste of
art and labor. Nor is it the cold and shapely beauty of the stone: it
seems to be a temple built of many-colored glass. To understand the
magnificence of the wonderful structure, the reader must have in
mind the laws affecting light in transmission through water--the
frangibility of the rays, the frequent alternations in dispersion,
reflection, interference and accidental and complementary color. He
must recollect that every indentation, every twist of stony serpulae
or fluting of the zoophyte catches the light and divides and splinters
it into radiance, burning with a fringe of silver fire or flashing
steel. When the mind has conceived of that, there is to add the vivid
beauty of the living coral, its hue of molten colored glass spreading
a radiant mucus over the stony skeleton.

But he has not yet entered into an entire conception of its
loveliness. The arborescent and phaenogamous forms of the coral are to
be noticed. Here is a plant: it has a pale, gray-blue stalk, and all
over it are delicate green leaves, fronds or tentacles, as you please
to call them. There is a fan-shaped shrub whose starry fronds recall
the _Chaemerops serrulata_ of the adjacent shore. The ament, so to
speak, of the _Parasmilia centralis_, the catkin of the sea, recalls
its terrene counterpart. There are other flowers in fascicles and
corymbs. The rose is not lacking, but glows with the radiant beauty of
its petaliferous sister; the columnar trunks of stony trees, covered
with green, flossy mosses, are scattered about; and fresh fountains
gush from the rocks, the white water as clearly distinguishable from
the ultramarine as in the upper atmosphere.[1]

But some varieties of beauty in the coral belong to calmer seas: among
others, the Red Sea is noticed for the exquisite loveliness of its
coralline formations. An American explorer, well known in submarine
diving, once visited that gulf sacred in history, and for a purpose
certainly as singular as anything he found there. It was, to use his
own words, "to fish for Pharaoh's golden chariot-wheels," lost in that
famous pursuit. Is it possible, in the nature of things, for such an
expedition to be made by any but an American? It takes a strong Bible
faith, allied to a simple but strong self-confidence, to start a man
on such an adventure. The curious transforming magic of the sea had
its effect on the Arab dragoman he had engaged to assist him. Having
settled on the exact spot, the swart Arabian descended, but signaled
to return almost immediately, and was brought to the surface in
open-eyed wonder. With all the hyperbole of Oriental imagination he
swore positively to the finding of the chariot-wheels, and added the
jewelry of Pharaoh's household. He was so earnest and so exact in the
matter of the golden wheel, set with precious stones, that, though the
captain dryly asked if he did not meet King Pharaoh himself, taking a
moist throne and keeping court with the fishes, he none the less
had the line attached and drew up--the rude wheel of a Tartar wagon,
transformed under water, but plain and ugly enough above.

"The djin did it," explained the Arab. "It is a palace of the djins,
howadji."

Though the adventurous explorer failed in his design on the defunct
Egyptian, he was rewarded by some compensating views and discoveries.
He saw there the _Xenia elongata_, a shrub-like coral distinguished
for the beauty of its colors, having stellar tentacles, rose-colored,
blue and lilac, an inch in diameter, and looking like flowers of
living jewelry; another with a long cue, like a tress of hair, and
others of allied beauty.

The coral-stone is seen and admired on centre-tables and in jewelry,
but this is really the least pleasing beauty in the organism. The
animal, subjected to exposure, is a brown mucus that dissipates in
the sun and air, but clothed in its native element this glutinous
substance is instinct with radiant life, the bodies being rose-color
and the arms a pure white. Sometimes they grow in clusters and
corymbs, gleaming with a pure, translucent color that fluctuates and
changes in the light

            Like colors of a shell,
  That keep the hue and polish of the wave.

Our searcher found one unexpected verification of the story in Exodus.
The passage in the Bible does not leave altogether in mystery the
natural means by which the transit was effected. We are told of the
strong east wind and the wall of waters. At the point near Suez a
shoal extends quite across the sea. For several days this wind had
borne back the shallow waters, descending as it did from the rugged
mountain-slopes, and opening or sweeping back the deep as it were.
Then the tide came, thrust forward in accumulated volume, until it
made a real wall of waters that stood up in a huge crested, angry
foam. It was sufficiently like to cause the explorer to apprehend
the possibility of finding Pharaoh by traveling the same watery road.
Another question that has puzzled scholars found a solution in the
American's observation. Smith's _Bible Dictionary_ discusses learnedly
the name of this curious gulf, written [Greek: ae eruthra thalassa]
in the Septuagint. The _Dictionary_ surmises that the name was derived
from the red western mountains, red coral zoophytes, etc., and appears
to give little weight to the real and natural reason which came under
our American's notice. On one occasion the diver observed, while
under sea, that the curious wavering shadows, which cross the lustrous
golden floor like Frauenhofer's lines on the spectrum, began to change
and lose themselves. A purple glory of intermingled colors darkened
the violet curtains of the sea-chambers, reddening all glints and
tinges with an angry fire. Instead of that lustrous, golden firmament,
the thallassphere darkened to crimson and opal. The walls grew purple,
the floor as red as blood: the deep itself was purpled with the venous
hue of deoxidized life-currents.

The view on the surface was even more magnificent. The sea at first
assumed the light tawny or yellowish red of sherry wine. Anon this
wine-color grew instinct with richer radiance: as far as eye could
see, and flashing in the crystalline splendor of the Arabian sun, was
a glorious sea of rose. The dusky red sandstone hills, with a border
of white sand and green and flowered foliage, like an elaborately
wrought cup of Bohemian glass enameled with brilliant flowers,
held the sparkling liquid petals of that rosy sea. The surface, on
examination, proved to be covered with a thin brickdust layer of
infusoriae slightly tinged with orange. Placed in a white glass
bottle, this changed to a deep violet, but the wide surface of the
external sea was of that magnificent and brilliant rose-color. It was
a new and pleasing example of the lustrous, ever-varying beauty of the
ocean world. It was caused by diatomaceae, minute algae, which under
the microscope revealed delicate threads gathered in tiny bundles, and
containing rings, like blood-disks, of that curious coloring-matter in
tiny tubes.

This miracle of beauty is not without its analogies in other seas.
The medusae of the Arctic seas, an allied existence, people the
ultramarine blue of the cold, pure sea with vivid patches of living
green thirty miles in diameter. These minute organisms are doubly
curious from their power of astonishing reproduction and the strange
electric fire they display. Minute as these microscopic creatures
are, every motion and flash is the result of volition, and not a mere
chemic or mechanic phosphorescence. The _Photocaris_ lights a flashing
cirrus, on being irritated, in brilliant kindling sparks, increasing
in intensity until the whole organism is illuminated. The living
fire washes over its back, and pencils in greenish-yellow light its
microscopic outline. Nor do these little creatures lack a beauty
of their own. Their minute shields of pure translucent silex are
elaborately wrought in microscopic symbols of mimic heraldry. They are
the chivalry of the deep, the tiny knights with lance and cuirass, and
oval bossy shield carved in quaint conceits and ornamental fashion.
Nor must we despise them when we reflect upon their power of
accretion. The _Gallionellae_, invisible to the naked eye, can, of
their heraldic shields and flinty armor, make two cubic feet of
Bilin polishing slate in four days. By straining sea-water, a web of
greenish cloth of gold, illuminated by their play of self-generated
electric light, has been collected. Humboldt and Ehrenberg speak of
their voracity, their power of discharging electricity at will, and
their sporting about, exhibiting an intelligent enjoyment of the life
God has given to them. Man and his works perish, but the monuments of
the infusoriae are the flinty ribs of the sea, the giant bones of huge
continents, heaped into mountain-ranges over which the granite and
porphyry have set their stony seal for ever. Man thrives in his little
zone: the populous infusoriae crowd every nook of earth from the
remote poles to the burning equatorial belt.

As the coral, in its soft, milky chalk, gives a name to tropical seas,
so also it is a question to my simplicity if the Yellow Sea, Black Sea
and White Sea do not owe their color and name, in part at least, to
microscopic infusoriae. One of these, the Yellow Sea, is very similar
in many characteristics to our beautiful southern gulf, and there
is connected with it an incident or two illustrative of submarine
adventure which is the partial purpose of this desultory sketch.

About the time our American was investing in Pharaoh's golden
chariot-wheels an East Indiaman was trading its way from the English
docks, eighteen weary weeks' sail by seamen's law, and more tedious by
delays. They exchanged for bullion on the Gold Coast; for bullion
and bad Cape brandy at Good Hope to sell to the Mohammedans, who are
forbidden to drink it. At Bombay and Calcutta they exchanged bullion
and brandy for opium to sell to the Chinese, who are forbidden to buy
or use it. Whether the coolie trade was included in its iniquities
or not, I cannot say. Very possibly that was the return cargo. From
Ceylon they proceed to Siam, and thence to Hong-Kong, where they drop
anchor in the offing, and by a special custom the cargo is sold and
paid for in sycee silver before disfreighting, and the bullion is in
the safe of the huge smuggler, although the opium has not yet been
removed. The Chinese restrictive laws are very severe; but when we
note that ninety thousand gallons of confiscated whisky were seized in
godly Massachusetts in one year, we can infer the difficulties in the
Maine law of the Celestials. The custom is for a hong, a smuggler in a
Chinese junk, to draw up beside the English contrabandist and transfer
the cargo in the outer harbor.

It is afternoon, and the great slumbering ocean breathes, but not with
the quick, palpitating tide of the Atlantic. The smuggler sits on the
oleaginous sea, tinged to ochreous yellow, waiting for evening and the
confederate junk. The tropic twilight comes on swift red-golden wings
that fan the vivid stars to brightness, and the rising tide breaks the
surface into wrinkles of phosphorescent fire. High over head is the
wide, unbroken canopy of the Pacific sky, and the gush of a larger
moon than ours fills all the sphere with splendor as the huge ship
stirs lazily in its Narcissus poise over its own reflection. There
is a reddish glow in the western horizon over Hong-Kong, a fainter
glimmer west by south over Macao, and farther west and north the
reflected glories of the sacred city of Canton. The three make a
semicircular crescent, like a great floating moon, on the horizon. A
coral islet juts out between the cities under which the huge smuggler
affects to play "I spy"--only affects, for she does not care for the
authorities she bribes nor the laws she despises.

But the wind draws up the curtain of cloud by strands of rainy
cordage, and men aloft are loosing the reefed topsail, bracing the
after-yards and setting them for a run in on the larboard tack. They
handle gaskets, bunt-lines, leech-lines, fix her best bib and spencer,
like a country girl for a run up to town. Men are swarming about the
yards and rigging. That is not all: Lascars, stevedores, supercargoes,
the hong merchants, agents, are all busy breaking bulk. The India
opium is covered with petals of the plant and stowed in chests lined
with hides and covered with gunny; and these cases are locked in by
stays, spars and bulkheads to prevent jamming. Helter-skelter and
confusion alow and aloft, on the yards, rigging, deck, between decks
and under hatches. The captain and purser are gloating over the sycee
silver, for the Chinese government is as jealous of its exportation
as of the importation of opium; and the sky and the sea are dark and
angry. In a slovenly way the sails are trimmed, and she edges clumsily
around the point with the bullion and opium, the full freight and
gains of a year's voyaging and trading. Half an hour or an hour hence
she will be free, and the junk dropping down to sea with the drugs in
her. All at once a shriek or yell of "Hard aport!" and a great
iron outward-bound steamer from Hong-Kong bursts into the unwieldy
Chinaman, goes crunching through her like ripping pasteboard; tears
her open; snarls through steamy nostrils and cindery fiery mouth, and
growls over her wreck. And the sodden, stupefied merchantman, as if
drunk with opium, goes yelling and staggering with her sleepy drugs to
the bottom, and stays there, sycee silver and all.

From pricking his way across the Tartar plains, and probing in the
Dead Sea and eating its fruits, just to know that living crustaceae
could be found in one and pulpy flesh in the other, our Launfal,
looking for the Sangreal in chariot-wheels, wound his devious way to
the Flowery Kingdom, having tried a stroke or two at pearl-diving, and
given some valuable hints, that were wasted, in Red Sea fishing and
the Suez Canal. The sleepy Celestial seasons had gone flowering their
way to paradise, and the opium-smuggler and her sycee silver lay safe
and swallowed in ribs and jowl of quicksand. Our American proposed to
have it up by the locks. Two things said Nay--the coral insect, which
was using it in its architectural designs, and the hungry quicksand.
Worst of all, the American could not find it. They hid the bulky
vessel in hills of sand, and after two months' labor in submarine
armor the speculator was beaten. "Get a coolie," said a resident China
merchant, and he did.

Every seaport city of China is a twin. It is two cities--one inland,
narrow-streeted, paved with rubble stones; the other at sea, floating
on bamboo reeds. The amphibious inmates of the marine town never
go ashore, but are a species of otter or seal. Besides, they are
first-class thieves, as well as cowardly, cruel pirates and wreckers.
They will steal the sheathing from a copper-bottomed vessel in broad
daylight, and at night a guard-boat is necessary for protection. They
will defy a sentry on shipboard--steal his ship from under him while
he is wondering what he is set to guard. They are all expert divers,
as familiar with the sea-bottom as with their own ugly little hovels.
Such a native was found, and for a dollar spotted the submerged vessel
in her matrix of sand and coral.

"Now set a guard-boat," said the Englishman, "or he will steal the
line, to get another dollar for finding the smuggler again."

But the want of experts defeated the plan, after all. It was necessary
to use a petard to lay bare the treasure, and no one had the necessary
skill. When the American consented to lost time and defeat the cyclone
threw another spoil in his way. The East like the West Indies is the
brooding-place of storms, which in gyratory coils, like a lasso thrown
wide and large, go twisting north by west. It caught a French frigate
in the loop, and flung her poor bones on the coral reefs, and the
hungry sand absorbed her. It is a peculiarity of those seas. But she
was found, and the petard, like a huge axe wielded by a giant's arms,
cut into her treasure-house and rescued it. The American's expenses
for a journey round the world were paid.

I have heard a sufficiently incredible story of a man submerged in
a Chinese junk and under water twelve hours, yet taken out alive. A
Chinese junk is the nightmare of marine architecture. It is owned
in partnership by a company, but there is this difference from an
ordinary charter-party. Each man owns his share or allotment of the
vessel, and it is divided off into actual compartments or boxes made
water-proof; and each one of these pigeon-holes the hong or merchant
owns and stocks to suit himself. All open out upon the upper deck,
and are battened down--sometimes with a glass skylight if used as a
chamber. The structure in junk form is the thing's proper registry,
since any departure from the ancient model would subject her to heavy
taxation as an alien vessel. [2] It is a very effectual mode of
preventing any improvement in shipbuilding among the Chinese.

One of these clumsy arks went on the rocks in a typhoon, and was
covered over her deck, leaving, however, the projecting skylight on
or near a level with the surface. The hong was in this cuddy-hole,
frantic between personal loss and personal peril. Suddenly there was a
jar and a crash, and the sea beat over her. Fortunately, the skylight
was closed water-tight, but, unfortunately, some of the spars and
rigging blocked up the exit, even if he had dared the venture. The
bolts of the sea barred him in.

But Chinese wreckers and Chinese thieves are on the alert. Wattai, or
some such queer piratical Celestial with devilish propensities, went
for the spoil, settling the salvage by arithmetic of his own. The
wreck was removed from the skylight, and under the water, in that
dense chamber, stagnant with mephitic air, the bruised, stupefied hong
was found.

As is apparent from a previous example, the tendency of the sea-sand
to absorb and conceal a sunken vessel is one of those difficulties
that beset the explorer. But for that the recovery of treasure would
be more frequent, the profession or business more lucrative. The
number of vessels sunk annually, we learn from Lloyd's statistics, is
one hundred thousand tons to the English commercial marine; and out of
551 vessels lost to the royal navy, 391 were sunk. Sir Charles Lyell
estimates that there might be collected in the sea more evidences of
man's art and industry than exist at any one time on the surface of
the earth. But while the sea preserves, it hides. An example of the
kind occurred in the wreck of the Golden Gate, a California steamer
heavy with bullion. It occurred during the war, and the only expert
diver within reach was an expatriated rebel. He had been a man of
fortune, but, venturing too rashly in the Confederacy, he lost by
confiscation and perhaps persecution. However, he was the man for the
insurance companies, and a treaty was concluded, allowing him sixty
per cent. salvage.

The vessel had gone down in tide water. The persistent sea had rocked
and rocked it, and washed the tenacious quicksands about it, and
finally concealed it. The search for it was long and tedious, and
once given up or nearly given up. But as the disappointed diver was
preparing to ascend his foot touched something firm, which proved to
be a part of the wooden frame of the ship.

But even when found the difficulties had only begun. The tenacious,
elastic sand defied all tools or leverage: no petard could blast so
fickle and treacherous a substance. Wit and ingenuity can devise where
ordinary art or engineering has failed. The diver took a lesson from
the neighboring gold-miner, whose hydrostatic pump chisels away the
mountain-side to lay bare the mother quartz. Fitted with such an
engine, he swept the silted sand from the deck of the prize, and dug
it out of the elastic matrix after the fashion of Macduff's birth.

By a great misfortune, incipient jealousies and the eager spirit of
covetousness now showed themselves. It was at first whispered, and
then asseverated, that if the bullion was once recovered the rebel
might whistle for his sixty per cent. salvage. It was a bitter, bad
time--a time of mistrust and suspicion--and the plan of defrauding
the diver was only too feasible. He would be involved in a suit with
a wealthy company at a time when prejudice, if not the form of law,
regarded him as having forfeited a citizen's right. It placed him in
a difficult position--more difficult because he could get no safe
assurance, and was evidently suspected and watched. The diver
concluded that his only way to secure his sixty per cent. salvage was
to take it.

So it was that, with something of the feelings of the
resurrectionists, a bold, dark party went to rob the charnel-house of
the sea, to spoil it of its golden bones and wedgy ingots of silver.
They chose a mirky night, when the thick air seemed too clotted and
moist to break into hurly-burly of storm, and yet too heavy and
dank to throw off the black envelope of fog and cloud. The black,
oleaginous water seemed to slope from the muffled oar in a gluey,
shining wave, and the heavy ripple at the bow of their boat parted in
a long, adhesive roll, sloping away, but not breaking into froth or
glisten of electric fire. The air and the sea seemed brooding in a
heavy, hopeless misery, and the strange sense of plundering, not the
living, but the dead, as if the sunken vessel was a huge coffin, was
upon them. With that cautious sense of superstitious dread choking
their muttered whispers, they reached the spot and prepared to
descend. The task of sinking through that pitchy consistence, into the
intricacy of that black, coffin-like hold, among the drowned corpses,
to do a deed of doubtful right, must have intensified the horror of
great darkness and that sublimity of silence that in the under-sea
peoples the void shadows with horrible existences and fills the
concave with voices. But it was done; and with trembling eagerness the
weighty ingots, the unalloyed bars, were safely shipped, loading down
the boat. Then louder and louder came the dash of oars. For a few
moments they felt the way with muffled stroke into the shrouding
shadows. But practiced ears caught the softened roll in the rollocks,
and keen eyes marked the shadowy boat in the deepening gloom. It must
be the skilled oar and adroit steering that saves them now, but
not far away lie the long shadows of the shelving coast and its
black-bearded forest. The swing of the oars became bold, open and
exciting, and angry challenges passed. But the burden of the heavy
gold fought against them, like the giant's harp calling Master!
Master! on the shoulders of flying Jack of the Bean-stalk. The light,
trim craft of the pursuers edged upon them, and the shadow of an angry
struggle in the pitchy, reeking night gloomed over them. "No, no,"
said the leader: "no bloodshed for the cursed stuff! Here, give me a
lift;" and with a heave and plunge the massy rouleaux splashed into
the water, and the boat rose lighter with an easier conscience. The
sea shut close-fisted over its own, while the pursuing boat paused and
eddied about it, as if held to the treasure by invisible, impalpable
strands. The pursuit was abandoned, and the betrayed or treacherous
diver escaped. But busy rumor reports that he returned at leisure to
the spot, and that the bullion of the Golden Gate went to replenish
the forfeited fortune of the bold ex-rebel. Believe as you like, good
reader.

The sea-sand, in its industrious zeal in covering up memorials of
man's art and industry, is often curiously assisted by the zoophytes
and vegetation of the ocean, as well as guarded in its labor by
abnormal monsters of piscine creation. An example of this occurred
in an amusing venture after Lafitte's gold. While the Gulf coast of
Western Louisiana is fortified, in its immature _terre tremblante_, by
the coral reefs and islets, it has the appearance of having been torn
into ragged edges by the hydrostatic pressure of the Gulf Stream. On
one of these little islets or keys, hard by Caillon Bay, the rumor
went that the buccaneer had sunk a Spanish galleon laden with pieces
of eight and ingots of despoiled Mexico. The people thereabout are
a simple, credulous race of Spanish Creoles, speaking no English,
keeping the saints' days, and watching the salt-pans of the more
energetic but scarcely more thrifty Americans with curious wonder.
They chanced in their broken tongue to commit the story of the
treasure to a diver of an equally simple faith, who set about
putting it to more practical use than to gild an hour with an old
legend. They told how the spook of the Spanish captain haunted the
wreck, and that the gold was guarded by a dragon in the shape of a
monstrous horned and mottled frog, or some other devil of the sea,
to which the diver did seriously incline, but not to make him give
up the undertaking. He prudently, however, consulted with an old
Indian witch, and so received the devil's good word, and piously
got a bottle of holy water from the priest, and thus was well fenced
in above and below.

But his coadjutors were inexperienced, and perhaps his own courage
was of that saccharine character that gets oozy and slushy in moist
perils. When descending with his leaded boots on the dark green
outline of sea mosses that in the clear Gulf invested the vessel in a
verdurous coat, by some mistake he was let down with a slip, and went
hurtling through the rotten planks, losing his holy water and sending
his witch's wand--well, to its original owner. He crushed through,
and the infinite dust of infusoriae and diatomaceae choked his vision.
The _Teredo navalis_, whose labors are so destructive in southern
seas, had perforated the old hulk, and converted the vessel into a
spongy mass of wood, clay and lime. Innumerable algae and curious
fungi of the sea, hydroids, delicate-frost formed emerald plumuluria
and campanuluna, bryozoa, mollusks, barnacles and varieties of coral
had used it as a builder's quarry and granary. As the geologist finds
atom by atom of an organism converted into a stony counterfeit, these
busy existences had preserved the vessel's shape, but converted the
woody fibre to their own uses. He could see nothing at first but a
mixture of green and ochreous dust, through which tiny electric fires
went quivering and shaking. In the confusion he lost the signal line,
and had no way of making his condition known. Plunging about as the
sea dust began to settle, and already more intent on finding the
life-line and getting out of that than of securing Lafitte's gold,
he observed some spectators not pleasant to look upon. A lobster or a
crab is much pleasanter upon the table than in the sea, and there were
other things he knew, and some he believed, might not take his hasty
visit pleasantly. There was the horseshoe-fish with ugly strings
hanging from his base, disagreeable arachnides, strange star fish and
their parasites, and, curiously, a large wolfish fish that had built
a nest and was watching it and him--watching him with no agreeable
or timid expression in its angry eyes. He was just expecting Victor
Hugo's devil fish to complete his horror when a sudden, sharp,
bone-breaking shock struck him from an electrical eel or marine
torpedo. This was a real and sensible danger, and as he struggled to
ascend the hulk to the rotten half-deck, the spongy substance
gave way, the treacherous quicksand, with its smooth, tenacious
throat-clutch, slid down and caught him. The danger was real and
imminent, when his companions above, observing the slide, drew him
up. And that, I believe, was the first and last attempt to levv on
Lafitte's gold.

But the experience of Pharaoh and the danger of our rambling wrecker
are not the only instances of the wall of waters or the destruction it
causes. Nine days after a storm in the Gulf, a traveler, finding
his way from the salt-pans of Western Louisiana, took a little
fishing-craft. There was that fresh purity in the air and the sea
which follows the bursting of the elements. The numerous "bays" and
keys that indent the shore looked fresher and brighter, and there
was that repentant beauty in Nature which aims to soothe us into
forgetfulness of its recent angry passions. The white-winged sea-birds
flew about, and tall water-fowl stood silently over their shadows like
a picture above and below. The water sparkled with salt freshness, and
the roving winds sat in the shoulder of the sail, resting and riding
to port.

The little bark slipped along the shores and shallows, and in and out
by key and inlet, seeing its shadow on the pure white sand that seemed
so near its keel. The last vestige of the storm was gone, and the
little Gulf-world seemed fresher and gladder for it. The tropical
green grasses and water-plants hung their long, linear, hairlike
sheaths in graceful curves, and patches of willow-palm and palmetto,
in many an intricate curve and involution, made a labyrinth of
verdure. The wild loveliness of the numerous slips and channels, where
never a boat seemed to have sailed since the Indian's water-logged
canoe was tossed on the shadowy banks, was enhanced by the vision of
distant ships, their sails even with the water, or broken by the white
buildings of a sleepy plantation in its bower of fig and olive and
tall moss-clustered pines.

Suddenly the traveler fancied he heard a cry, but the fishermen said
No--it was the scream of water-fowl or the shrill call of an eagle far
above dropping down from the blue zenith; and they sailed on. Again
he heard the distant cry, and was told of the panther in the bush and
wild birds that drummed and called with almost human intonation; and
they sailed on again. But again the mysterious, troubled cry arose
from the labyrinth of green, and the traveler entreated them to go in
quest of it. The fishers had their freight for the market---delay would
deteriorate its value; but the anxious traveler bade them put about
and he would bear the loss.

It was well they did. There, in the dense coverts of the sea-swamps,
amid the brackish water-growths and grasses, they found a man and
woman, ragged, torn, starved. For nine days they had had no food but
the soft pith of the palmetto, coarse mussels or scant poison-berries,
their bed the damp morass, and their drink the brackish water; and
they told the wild and terrible story of Last Island.

Last Island was the Saratoga and Long Branch of the South, the
southern-most watering-place in the Gulf. Situated on a fertile coral
island enriched by innumerable flocks of wild-fowl, art had brought
its wealth of fruit and flower to perfection. The cocoanut-palm,
date-palm and orange orchards contrasted their rich foliage in the
sunshine with the pineapple, banana and the rich soft turf of the
mesquit-grass. The air was fragrant with magnolia and orange bloom,
the gardens glittering with the burning beauty of tropical flower,
jessamine thickets and voluptuous grape arbors, the golden wine-like
sun pouring an intoxicating balm over it; graceful white cottages
festooned with vines, with curving chalet or Chinese roofs colored
red; pinnacled arbors and shadowy retreats of espaliers pretty as a
coral grove; and a fair shining hotel in the midst, with arcades and
porches and galleries--the very dream of ease and luxury, as delicate
and trim as if made of cut paper in many forms of prettiness. Here was
the nabob's retreat; in this balmy garden of delight all that luxury,
art and voluptuous desire could hint or hope for was collected; and
nothing harsh or poor or rugged jarred the fullness of its luxurious
ease.

Ten nights before its fragrant atmosphere was broken into beautiful
ripples by the clang and harmony of dancing music. It was the night of
the "hop." The hotel was crowded. Yachts and pleasure-vessels pretty
as the petals of a flower tossed on the water, or as graceful shells
banked the shores; and the steamer at twilight came breathing short,
excited breaths with the last relay, for it was the height of the
summer season. In their light, airy dresses, as the music swam
and sung, bright-eyed girls floated in graceful waltzes down the
voluptuous waves of sound, and the gleam of light and color was like a
butterflies' ball. The queenly, luscious night sank deeper, and lovers
strolled in lamp-lighted arcades, and dreamed and hoped of life like
that, the fairy existence of love and peace; and so till, tired of
play, sleep and rest came in the small hours.

Hush! All at once came the storm, not, as in northern latitudes, with
premonitory murmur and fretting, lashing itself by slow degrees into
white heat and rain, but the storm of the tropics, carrying the sea
on its broad, angry shoulders, till, reaching the verdurous,
love-clustered little isle, it flung the bulk of waters with all its
huge, brawny force right upon the cut-paper prettinesses, and broke
them into sand and splinters. Of all those pretty children with blue
and with opalescent eyes, arrayed like flowers of the field; of all
those lovers dreaming of love in summer dalliance, and of cottages
among figs and olives; of all the vigorous manhood and ripe
womanhood, with all the skill and courage of successful life in
them,--not a tithe was saved. The ghastly maw of the waters covered
them and swallowed them. A few sprang, among crashing timbers, on a
floor laden with impetuous water--the many perhaps never waked at
all, or woke to but one short prayer. The few who were saved hardly
knew how they were saved--the many who died never knew how they were
slain or drowned.

It has twice been my fortune in life to see such a storm, and to know
its sudden destruction: once, to see a low, broad, shelving farm-house
disappear to the ground timbers before my eyes, as if its substance
had vanished into air, while great globes of electric fire burst down
and sunk into the ground; once, to see a pine forest of centuries'
growth cut down as grass by the mower's scythe. I do not think it
possible to see a third and survive, and I do not wish my soul to be
whirled away in the vortex of such a storm.

At noon or later, after the ruin of Last Island, a gentleman of a name
renowned in South-western story found himself clinging to a bush in
the wild waters, lashed by the long whips of branches, half dead
with fatigue and fear. For a time the hurly-burly blinded and hid
everything, and the long roll rocked and tore at him in desperate
endeavor to wrench loose his bleeding fingers. The impulse of the wind
and storm at such a time is as of a solid body, and there is a look
of solidity in the very appearance of the magnificent force. But as
it abated he thought he heard a faint cry, and looking around he saw a
poor girl in the ribbons of her night-dress clinging to a branch, and
slipping from her feeble hold. Tired as he was, and wild and dangerous
as the attempt might be, he did not dare to leave her to perish.
Choosing his time in a lull, he struck out to the bush, and reached it
just as her ebbing strength gave way. He took her in his sturdy arms,
and, clinging with tooth and nail, stayed them both to their strange
anchorage. Faint, half conscious, disrobed as she was, in the sweet,
delicate features, the curve of the lip, and the raven tresses clothed
in seaweed, he recognized the Creole belle of last night's hop. He
cheered and encouraged her, pointing out that the storm was abating,
had abated. It could not be long until search-boats came, and while he
had strength to live she should share it. It proved true. Generous and
hardy fishers and ships had come at once to the scene of disaster, and
were busy picking up the few spared by wind and wave. They found the
two clinging together and to that slight bush, and took them off,
wrapping them in ready, rough fishermen's coats. The reader can see
the end of that story. A meeting so appointed had its predestined
end in a love-match. So we leave it and them: the rest of their lives
belongs to them, not to us.

The pair found by our fishing-smack were a wealthy planter and his
wife. For nine days of starvation and danger they had clung together.
When I think of the husband's manly care in thus abiding by the wife,
I find it hard to reconcile it with the fact that he only valued his
life and hers at a few dollars--not enough to compensate the traveler
for the loss incurred as demurrage to the fishermen.

Now Last Island is but a low sandy reef, on which a few straggling
fruit trees try to keep the remembrance of its bygone beauty. It is
as bare and desolate as the bones of those who filled its halls in the
cataclysm of that dreadful night--bones which now waste to whiteness
on sterile shores or are wrought into coral in the under-sea.

WILL WALLACE HARNEY.

[Footnote 1: The difficulty, I am aware, in venturing on a description
is, that it will appear rather a fever of fancy than an accurate
chromoscope. I can only point to the fact that the revelation of the
intense beauty of the sea has in recent years fallen rather to the
naturalist than the poet, the accurate and scientific prose of the
former surpassing the idealization of the latter.]

[Footnote 2: By recent provision the Chinese are
allowed to buy foreign vessels.]




POSEY'S NUGGET.


When the California "gold fever" broke out in the spring of 1849,
Doctor Hanchett was living at Clarksville in Southern Indiana. Doctor
Hanchett, it should be stated, had received his professional title not
by the favor of any medical college or other learned institution, but
through the simpler and less formal method that obtains among the free
and generous people amongst whom his lines were cast. The process may
be explained in a few words. In the fall of 1846 a recruiting station
was established at Vicksburg to enlist volunteers for the war with
Mexico, and Hanchett, at that time a resident of Vicksburg, and
laboring in a profession--the saltatorial, to wit--a shade less
illustrious than that to which he was so soon to attain, was the first
man in the city to enlist. This momentous circumstance procured
for him not only the prompt recognition of a patriotic press, which
blazoned his name abroad with so many eccentricities of spelling
that he came near losing his identity, but also gave him a claim in
courtesy to such a position in the organization of his company, within
the grasp of the mere high private, as he might select. After due
deliberation he chose that of company commissary--an office unknown,
I think, to the _United States Army Regulations_, but none the less
familiar to our volunteer service. To this post he was promptly
appointed by his captain; and, thus placed in the line of promotion,
he rose rapidly till he attained the rank of hospital steward. The
thing was done. Hanchett was Doctor Hanchett from that day, and the
title was very much the larger part of the man ever after. How he had
lived for forty years or more without it is still a mystery.

When the war was over, Doctor Hanchett stranded upon the northern bank
of the Ohio, in the State of Indiana. As a returning brave he was,
naturally, quite warmly received. As a veteran not unwilling to
recount his adventures by flood and field, he speedily became famous
as the hero of many deeds of valor and of blood. He had been assistant
surgeon of his regiment, it appeared, but nevertheless had fought in
the ranks in every important engagement of the war from Monterey to
Churubusco, and the number of men who had fallen by his own hand from
first to last he could not undertake to estimate. Though traces of a
somewhat lively imagination might be detected in most of the doctor's
stories, there is really no good reason to doubt that he spoke the
simple truth when he averred that with his red right hand he had mowed
down men like grass, for he actually retained the position of hospital
steward throughout the whole term of his service.

Finding himself after the lapse of a few weeks not without honor in
this Indiana town, he struck out suddenly one day a brilliant idea:
he would devote his remaining years to the practice of the profession
into which Fortune had so kindly inducted him. He hired a house, hung
out his banner, and wrote to his wife and daughter, who had remained
at Vicksburg, to come on immediately to his new home, as his fortune
was now made.

Hanchett had married, at an early stage in his original career, the
only daughter of a bankrupt Vicksburg storekeeper. This young woman,
who had doubtless found ample opportunity for the practice of domestic
economy in the paternal home, soon proved herself to be a most
excellent housekeeper on her own account. She was a jewel indeed to
her improvident husband, who, finding that she made shift by one means
or another to keep the family larder supplied, whether he kept her
purse supplied or not, dismissed a great care from his mind at once
and for ever, and thenceforth to the end of his days never exerted
himself beyond his natural bent. As the daughter, Dora Hanchett,
grew to womanhood, she divided her mother's burden with her, and
ultimately, as the mother's health failed, relieved her of it almost
entirely.

The family once reunited and domiciled in their new home, it soon
became evident to the most casual observer that Dora exercised the
functions of commander-in-chief of that force, and that the
doctor, notwithstanding his brilliant record in the field, had been
incontinently reduced to the ranks, and subjected to a rather rigid
discipline. Let it not be inferred, however, that Dora ruled with a
high hand or with a rod of iron. Far from it. She was the quietest and
meekest of tyrants, controlling not by conscious will or effort, but
by divine commission, as many a woman does.

Not only was Dora the head of the household in the sense of directing
its internal affairs, but she likewise soon proved herself to be
its mainstay as bread-winner. The doctor under her hands became a
dignified and not unornamental figure-head to the concern, in whom she
took a certain filial pride. His banner was still allowed to hang upon
the outer wall, and, as some slight justification of the legend borne
upon it, the semblance of an office was maintained for him, where
he spent many solitary and irksome hours daily in the semblance of
professional study and work. But his income did not amount even to a
semblance, and upon Dora, therefore, devolved the task of maintaining
the cuisine as well as the character of the establishment. She had
been accustomed to this duty indeed ever since, upon becoming a
schoolteacher at the age of sixteen, she had proved her capacity
to perform it. She early found her place in the public schools of
Clarksville, and so the pot was soon boiling merrily, and the demands
of the doctor's magnificent appetite were duly honored at sight.

Thus, Doctor Hanchett was enabled to live a life of elegant leisure,
devoid of care and fruitful of enjoyment to a man of his temperament,
for some fourteen months. Then he was suddenly smitten with the
"gold fever," and went raging through the town, seeking whom he might
infect. It was one of the curiosities of this singular epidemic that
it claimed not only those youthful and adventurous spirits who were by
common consent held to be its legitimate victims, but carried off
also old and infirm men, chronic invalids, and, stranger still, such
shiftless, incompetent and altogether worthless cumberers of the
ground as this Doctor Hanchett; thus proving itself to be, like most
other contagions, a not entirely unmixed evil.

Not wholly through the efforts of Doctor Hanchett, it is safe to
say, but in due process of time and events, a company was mustered in
Clarksville to go overland to California, as so many other companies
were mustered in hundreds of other towns all over the country in that
memorable spring of '49. This company, composed principally of
men from the surrounding country, and containing only two or three
residents of the village proper, regarded itself as peculiarly
fortunate in being able to count among its members a gentleman
like Doctor Hanchett, who, besides being a physician, was an old
campaigner, and thus likely to prove doubly desirable as a comrade in
an expedition like that upon which they were embarked.

It being definitely settled that the doctor was to march with his
company upon a certain day not far distant, it devolved upon his
chancellor of the exchequer to provide the sinews of war. Whether Dora
found this duty an agreeable one or not, she performed it promptly and
cheerfully. The little hoard that by the sharpest economy the frugal
girl had contrived to save from her earnings was placed in the
doctor's hands without reserve, to be appropriated, first to the
purchase of an outfit, and next to the defrayment of the general
expenses of the campaign.

Proverbially careful and judicious in the expenditure of money, as may
be supposed, in the purchase of his supplies on this occasion Doctor
Hanchett quite outshone himself. Besides the indispensable pans
and shovels and picks with which every man provided himself, Doctor
Hanchett laid in an assortment of miscellaneous drugs and surgical
instruments, that added a new lustre to his distinction in the eyes
of his comrades. But it was in the compilation of his wardrobe and his
deadly weapons that he displayed an individuality of taste altogether
unique. It being now the month of May, and the journey across the
Plains being expected to occupy about three months, the doctor, who
was a small man, bought first a great--uncommonly great--coat, that
fitted him about as snugly as a sentry-box might have done; secondly,
a pair of cavalry boots, the tops of which towered almost to his
eyebrows; and thirdly, a silk hat of the very finest and very tallest
description to be found in the market. Then he purchased a pair of
large Colt's revolvers, handsomely mounted in silver, and had his name
engraved on the plate in bold letters--"ELIAS HANCHETT, M.D.;" and his
armory was completed by the addition of numerous and various knives of
vast length and breadth of blade, into the hasp of each of which was
let a neat silver plate, upon which was engraved his name--"ELIAS
HANCHETT, M.D." Thus clad and thus arsenaled, he bore down upon Dora
with much elation as she was returning home from her school, and
proudly challenged her admiration. Of course the loving girl responded
heartily, notwithstanding her thrifty and methodical soul was racked
to see such few of her hardly-earned coins as remained unexpended
falling to the ground and rolling away in all directions as the doctor
turned pocket after pocket inside out in search of yet another and
another knife to surprise her withal.

At last the company got off, going by river to Council Bluffs, and
thence striking out upon the almost interminable trail, that, however
surely it might lead to fortune, was far from being a royal road
thereto. It was two months later when a member of the party, compelled
by ill-health to abandon the tedious journey and return home, brought
to Clarksville the first intelligence of the achievements of Doctor
Hanchett in the capacity of a physician and surgeon in actual
practice. These achievements cannot be recorded here, but a single
incident may be mentioned as indicating the estimation in which the
doctor's skill speedily came to be held by his companions. Before the
expedition had been three weeks upon the march his surviving comrades,
taking alarm at the rapidly augmenting number of lonely graves with
which they were dotting the dreary trail, hastily formed a conspiracy
to despoil him of his enginery of death. Under the silent stars,
what time the doctor was sleeping the deep sleep of the overworked
practitioner, his medicine-case and his miscellaneous assortment of
cutlery were quietly spirited away, and were never seen again. The
doctor proclaimed his loss upon waking in the morning, and felt it
keenly. He declared, however, that he deplored the casualty chiefly
in the interest of his companions, who were thus deprived, at one fell
blow, of his further services; and he cursed very heartily, in the
same interest, the "dastardly red-skins," whom he assumed to be guilty
of the theft.

Dora and her mother waited long and anxiously for a letter from the
doctor's own hand, and after many months it came. It was dated from
"the Heart of the Gold Region," and, after asking them to join him in
due ascriptions of thanks to the Almighty Powers for his deliverance
from many perils and his safe arrival in the promised land, and after
passing lightly over the invaluable services he had been able to
render to his companions in his professional capacity--it was not
for a modest man to dwell upon these--the doctor proceeded to state
frankly that his success in the gold fields had far exceeded his
most sanguine hopes; that, indeed, he might even then call himself an
opulent man, inasmuch as nothing but the necessary papers were wanting
to confirm him in the possession of a half interest in the Big Grizzly
Claim--a claim that promised an enormously rich yield as soon as
arrangements could be perfected for developing it. He advised his
daughter to give up her school at once, and to begin to prepare
herself for that happy change in her circumstances which was now so
near at hand; and he closed by requesting her to send him by return of
mail fifty dollars, and more if she could possibly spare more, as he
urgently required a little money for "present needs."

Is it necessary to say how this clear-headed and conscientious girl
acted upon reading this transparent balderdash? She knew, as well as
you and I know, that the whole thing was a clumsy game of her worthy
sire to deplete once more the little hoard that had been slowly
growing during his absence. She knew that her mother, who had worn her
life out trying to support an ornamental husband, was fast failing
in health, and might very soon require such attendance as nothing but
money could procure. And of course she went directly to the bank,
drew out her entire deposit, and sped it on its way to Elias Hanchett,
M.D., before the sun went down.

It was nearly a year after the arrival of his first letter when
another epistle was received from the absent doctor. Bad news this
time--the worst of bad news. He had been stricken down by a terrible
malady at a most critical moment in his affairs, and the consequence
was that his interests had suffered irretrievably. He might call
himself, in short, a ruined man. He felt that his distress of mind,
together with the physical anguish of his disease, was more than he
could bear up against for many hours longer. It was hard for an old
man to die thus among strangers, far from his own hearthstone and the
gentle influences that clustered round it. But he should be consoled
in his last hour by the reflection that he had always maintained his
family liberally, and had tried to be a kind and indulgent husband and
father; and he hoped that his daughter, thus left alone in the world
without any earthly protector, would not wholly despair, but would
strive for his sake to bear up against adversity, and prove herself
worthy of the father who had lost his life in trying to serve her in
his old age. And so farewell! His eyes were now about to close for the
last time upon the scenes of this earth. Signed ELIAS HANCHETT, M.D.,
with the customary flourish beneath the name, as bravely executed as
if the writer might have twenty years of life ahead of him yet. But
stay! P.S. Would not his dear daughter, for whom he had sacrificed so
much, grant him one last little favor? He had not means enough left
out of the sad wreck of his fortune to procure him decent burial.
Would she not send him a small sum for that purpose? She might direct
it to his own address, for if he were gone it would be received by a
friend, who would apply it faithfully according to the directions he
should leave. "And now again farewell! And may we meet above!" Signed
ELIAS HANCHETT, M.D. Flourish as usual.

I do not believe that Dora Hanchett's honest estimate of this letter
was very far different from our own. I am persuaded that she was
mentally incapable of being seriously deceived by it. But the heart
of woman is the mystery of the universe. In the face of her honest
judgment, in the truth of that clear common sense that constituted
the strongest trait in her character, this absurd girl went about
bemoaning in dead earnest and in the bitterest grief the death of
her father. This lasted a week; by which time she had succeeded in
convincing her mother, at least, that the affliction was a real one;
and that good lady, being finally, as she believed, released from her
responsibility, and having no occasion to live longer, quietly and
peacefully passed away. And Dora, by the light of this actual sorrow,
came after a while to acknowledge to herself that she had been
breaking her heart over a fictitious one.

Of course the money had gone on before this time, and she was far from
wishing to recall it now. If her father was alive, he was welcome to
it, she said, for he could not possibly put it to a worse use than
that to which it had been dedicated.

A girl as good as Dora could not be left friendless, whatever domestic
affliction she might suffer; and so with all her trouble she had no
opportunity to become absorbed in her sorrow. It would have pained her
unspeakably if she had been aware that her friends generally, however,
so far from inclining to grieve with her grief at the possibility
of her father's death, were quite unanimous in the view that such a
dispensation would be "the best thing for Dory that ever turned
up." For her part, she could not, after all, rid her mind of the
apprehension that her father might possibly have been in as serious
extremity as his letter represented. And if so, and she neglected to
do her utmost to succor him in his need, what peace could she ever
find in this world again? In this way she dwelt upon the subject,
until at last she convinced herself that her whole duty lay in nothing
less than an immediate effort to go to him. If, fortunately, she
should find him alive and well, she would gladly share his fortune,
however hard it might be, and would never leave him so long as he
lived. But if, as she feared, he should prove to be indeed sick
and near his end in that wild region, where, she asked, should his
daughter be but at his side?

This is the ridiculous way in which such headstrong creatures as this
Dora Hanchett are accustomed to meet you when you seek to point out to
them the unreasonableness of a line of conduct on which they have set
their hearts.

Deaf to all arguments, therefore, Dora shut up her house and set about
making preparations for her journey. In the adjoining county, as she
had learned, a company of gold-hunters had been organized, and was
then on the point of starting for the Sacramento Valley, in which was
situated the little town from which her father had last written. Of
this company of sixty men she knew but one, and he was a mere boy in
years, the youngest of the party. This was Hiram Bridge, familiarly
termed Posey in honor of his native county, who four years before had
been one of Dora's first pupils in her Clarksville school. She was
little more than a girl herself at that time, and Hiram was her
biggest boy; and her recollection now of the bond of good-fellowship
that soon grew up between herself and the shy, overgrown but not
overbright lad relieved her of any hesitation she might otherwise have
felt in applying to him to obtain permission for her to accompany his
party to its destination.

"Yes, you can go, Miss Hanchett," Posey quietly replied to her appeal.

"But will the rest of the men be willing?" she suggested.

"Doesn't signify," said Posey.

She did prevail on him, however, as a matter of form, to mention the
subject to his comrades; but as he never took the trouble to report to
her what action, if any, they took in the matter, she started at last,
relying altogether on his single friendship for protection. That was
no mean reliance, though, as she soon began to realize. He was an
immense fellow, six feet two in height, and broad in proportion; and
he soon proved to Dora that, however readily he had undertaken
her safe conduct, he did not lightly esteem that charge, but was
determined to aid and befriend her in every way possible. Thus at the
outset she found herself relieved of much of the embarrassment and
annoyance she had believed to be inseparable from such a journey in
such companionship. Posey himself she did not find to be companionable
in the ordinary sense of that word, notwithstanding his constant
kindness. He was of a quiet turn, reserved; of speech, rather
forbidding of countenance, and did not wear his excellent heart upon
his sleeve. There were few surface indications of the gold that was in
him. Dora was not long, however, in finding the auriferous vein; and,
to drop metaphor, she soon became conscious of a very warm sentiment
of gratitude growing up in her heart toward her uncouth guide,
philosopher and friend.

Posey's outfit consisted of a pair of powerful mules and a covered
wagon, with the usual mining and cooking utensils, and the provisions
necessary for the journey. In the forward part of this wagon, while
the expedition was on the march, Dora sat enthroned; and in its dusky
recesses she made her couch at night. Not only did the loyal Posey
devote himself to her guardianship by day, but he kept watch and
ward by night, sitting bolt upright within a couple of yards of
his precious charge until the stars grew pale in the dawn. Then,
if opportunity offered, he would snatch a surreptitious nap, still
disdaining to lie down, however; and it frequently occurred that the
earlier risers in the camp would discover Posey sitting on the ground,
embracing his nether limbs with his long arms, while his head, with
its close-cut, sandy hair, sank slumberous between his towering knees,
like the sun going down between two mountain-peaks. To such a length
did he carry these romantic vigils that he shortly came to look as
gaunt and hollow-eyed as Famine. In addition to which he had to
endure no end of raillery from his not too considerate or fastidious
companions, who, so far from inclining to harm a hair of Dora's head,
were generally wholly indifferent to her presence, and could not enter
into Posey's solicitude on her behalf.

Just here, also, Jake Savage, who had spent a year in the mines and
was piloting the present expedition, was reminded of a story, which he
obligingly related to Posey, apropos.

"You see, Posey," said Jake, "me and Hooker--Hooker was my chum--had
been scratchin' and washin' for about seven or eight dollars a day
down there to McCracken's Bend, till we got disgusted, and we made up
our minds that if we couldn't make more'n that we might as well give
up and strike for the States. But just then who should come along but
little Bill Skinner, bound all so fast for up the gulch? Bill had
been prospectin' around all summer on his own hook, but hadn't struck
nothin' yet, and was so much worse off than we was that Hooker and me
concluded to stay by a while longer. A day or two afore, we found out,
little Bill had run across a Digger somewhere that had told him--the
Lord knows how, for I never see a Digger that, could talk English
more'n a mule,--but this Digger told little Bill that up the gulch
there was rich diggin's. And so Bill was on the rampage to get there.
Of course me and Hooker we didn't take no stock in that yarn, and
little Bill went off alone.

"A couple of months after that me and Hooker see we'd got to do
something pretty quick or starve, and so we made up our minds to
prospect a little. We headed up the gulch, but without ever thinkin'
of little Bill, and as indications was good, we kept on in the same
direction for a couple of days. It was on the third day out, and we'd
got about twenty miles from the Bend, and hadn't struck nothin' yet
to bet on, when all of a sudden Hooker yells out, 'Holy Moses, Jake!
look-a there!' and what do you s'pose we see?

"About as fur as from here to that mule there, leanin' ag'in a tree,
sot little Bill Skinner--what was left of him, I mean, for he was
as dead as a dornick. And what do you s'pose he was a-settin' on? A
nugget of the pure metal worth forty thousand dollars! Yes, sir! We
could see in a minute how it was. Bill had found this nugget, and
bein' weak for want of grub, of course he couldn't carry it. So he had
sot down on it to guard it. And there he sot and sot. He dassent go to
sleep for fear somebody'd hook it, and he couldn't leave it to get
any grub for the same reason. We could see he'd browsed 'round on
the bushes as fur as he could reach, but that couldn't keep him alive
long, and so there he'd sot and sot till finally he'd pegged out.

"And that's what's the matter with Posey. I wakes up in the night and
sees him a-settin' thar by that wagon, and says I to myself, 'Thar
sets Posey on his nugget!' And one of these fine mornin's we'll find
nothin' but Posey's bones a-settin' there, and his buttons and such
like."

About this time, as they were now nearing the region where danger
from Indian raids was apprehended, Savage's company and another party
hailing from Illinois joined forces for mutual protection, and all
proceeded thenceforward under Savage's direction. Accompanying this
Illinois party was a woman going out to the diggings to join her
husband, who was prospering, and had sent for her to come on. The
two women thereafter keeping constantly together, Posey felt his
responsibility so far lightened that he occasionally indulged himself
in a "square" night's sleep, while Dora and her new-found friend
slumbered beneath his ample wagon-cover.

His partial separation from Dora, occasioned by the advent of this
other woman on the scene, soon opened Posey's eyes to the fact that
a total separation from her would take the ground entirely from under
his feet, and leave him in a condition that he felt disinclined
to contemplate so long as there might be a chance to avert such a
calamity. He accordingly improved the first opportunity that offered,
and cast himself at the feet of Dora--literally, mind you, on the lee
side of a sage bush--and lisped his love. On this sacred ground let
us tread as lightly as may be. Suffice it that Posey's suit prospered,
and that presently a little programme came to be agreed upon between
the contracting parties to this effect: They would go on for the
present precisely as if nothing had happened--Dora to seek her father
and Posey to seek his fortune. As soon, however, as Dora should have
succeeded in restoring the doctor to health, or had haply buried him,
Posey should be notified, and they would thereupon be married. Then
Dora would open a school somewhere, wherever she might chance to
find the indispensable children, while Posey, accompanied by his
newly-fledged father-in-law, if perchance that worthy individual
should be spared, would launch into the mines and conquer Fortune at
the point of the pick.

Time flew fast with the lovers after this, and they were quite
startled one day when Savage informed them that they were upon the
very borders of the promised land.

That evening, an hour before sunset, the train was halted for the
night at a point whence the travel-worn adventurers could look down
for the first time into the Sacramento Valley, and render thanks in
their various ways that the end of their tedious pilgrimage was almost
reached. As Dora Hanchett and Posey stood together upon a green knoll,
following with their eyes the winding trail that their feet were to
descend on the morrow, they descried, toiling slowly toward them, one
of those returning bands of unsuccessful and discouraged veterans--the
reflux of the great wave of immigration constantly pouring into the
golden valley--which they had frequently met in the course of their
long journey. As the cavalcade drew nearer, Dora's attention fixed
itself upon a curious figure that brought up the rear. Mounted upon a
loose aggregation of bones and ears that purported to be a mule, this
mysterious figure gradually approached, while Dora watched it as
if fascinated. On and on it came, and still she gazed, spell-bound.
Opposite her it paused. There was no longer any doubt: it was He.
Clad in the mangled remains of the original great-coat, the original
boot-tops yet towering in the region of his ears, and the upper half
of the original beaver crowning his well-developed brain, there He
was. Slowly and carefully he descended from the back of his shambling
steed, settled himself well in his boots, pulled up the collar of his
great-coat--and there was little but collar left of it--tipped the
curtailed and weatherbeaten stovepipe to the proper angle, opened his
paternal arms and feebly embraced his daughter. He announced himself
to all concerned as a broken man--a poor unfortunate going home to
die, where his bones might rest with those of his ancestors, and where
his humble name and his honorable record in the service of his country
would be cherished by his fellow-citizens after he should be gone.
Providence had surely, in his extremity, drawn his daughter to his
succor. Now he was relieved of all anxiety, and might turn his mind
to things above. His daughter would fan the spark of life, and keep
it burning, God willing, till the old home should be reached. Then he
would release her from her labor of love. Then he would be at peace
with all the world, and would cheerfully die in the midst of his
weeping friends. He had up to this hour been haunted with the
apprehension that his poor old frame might be left to moulder
somewhere in the wide, inhospitable desert that stretched between him
and his roof-tree. Now that dreadful apprehension was banished. The
Lord had remembered his own. Dora would walk beside his beast and
protect him, and the knowledge that she had thus been instrumental in
prolonging her father's life would be her exceeding great reward.

A most enchanting prospect for Dora, was it not? Even she did not put
her neck under the yoke until she had first informed her father of her
momentous secret, and invited him to assume his role in the programme
already mentioned as arranged by her lover and herself. But, as a
matter of course, he scorned the suggestion. Posey begged and raved,
but without avail. The girl never had a question in her mind as to her
duty from the moment she saw her father approaching. She must do as he
said--go back with him as his slave. There was no help for it.

And so the lovers held a hurried consultation, pledged eternal
fidelity and all that, agreed that Posey should go on and make his
fortune, and that when Dora should be released by death from her duty
to her father he should either come back for her or she should go to
him, and then they would be married. Meantime, he engaged to write to
her frequently, and she promised to write to him faithfully once every
week. And then farewell!

By this time the doctor's party had left him far behind, and
naturally, considering the capabilities of his steed, he was growing
impatient to move on. The early stars were already coming out, and
he testily reminded Dora, as she lingered over her leavetaking, that
there was no more time to lose. And so, without a murmur, the devoted
soul turned her back upon all her new-born hope and joy, and dutifully
took up the long and dreadful homeward march on foot. And Posey,
his heart in his mouth and his tongue charged with unutterable
execrations, gazed gloomily down into the darkening valley, that half
an hour before had been filled with a radiance "that never shone on
land or sea." And as he gazed all the bad in him persistently rose
up to curse the despicable author of his woe, while all the good in
him--about an even balance--rose up to bless the fast-disappearing
idol of his heart.

Slowly and painfully, day after day, the little company of stragglers
toiled on toward their distant homes, the redoubtable doctor, with his
unwilling beast and his willing bond-woman, ever bringing up the rear.
No one but Dora herself could know how grievously she suffered in
her chains--how her very heart's blood was gradually consumed by
the vampire whom she chose to cherish and obey because it was her
misfortune to be his daughter.

The old home was reached at last. On the whole, the doctor had rather
enjoyed the journey, and brought to the family board, as of yore, a
tremendous appetite. He "resumed practice at the old stand" without
delay, publishing a card to that effect in the village newspaper. He
seemed scarcely to note the absence of his wife, who for a quarter of
a century had been wearing her life out in a vain endeavor to justify
his existence on this globe. In short, he speedily settled back into
his old habit of life, and appeared to have totally forgotten that he
had come home to die. And Dora, too, soon lapsed into her old routine
of schoolkeeping, and so once more the pot boiled merrily. Once a
week, with scrupulous regularity, she wrote her promised letter to
Posey, and she waited long and anxiously for some word from him, but
in vain. Weary weeks lost themselves in months, and month after
month crept slowly away till almost a year had passed, and still the
faithful soul famished for some token that she was not forgotten. Then
one evening she went home from her school to find that the heavens had
fallen. Her father, whom she had left four hours before apparently
in the highest health and spirits, was dead. The village physician
attributed his sudden death to apoplexy, which seems illogical. But
he was dead, whatever the cause, and his orphaned daughter mourned him
with as genuine a grief as ever wrung a human heart.

When in process of time the first transports of grief had subsided
there seemed to be nothing left for Dora to do but to concentrate all
the overflowing tenderness and devotion of her heart upon her lover,
and to brood and pine over his long-continued silence. She never
doubted that he had written to her, for the mail-service to and from
the gold regions was notoriously unreliable in those days, and she
was by no means the only one who looked in vain for letters thence.
At last she could bear the suspense no longer. The spring had opened
early, and a party in a neighboring town was to start for the diggings
by the middle of April. This party, in which were already included
two women, Dora resolved to join. Once let her reach that indefinite
region denominated "the mines," and she felt the most unquestioning
faith in her ability to find her lover.

And so once more the dauntless girl set out upon that long and tedious
journey of three thousand miles. Not many weeks passed before the
inevitable homeward-bound stragglers began to be encountered, and of
these Dora eagerly sought information concerning the object of her
quest.

"Bridge? No, marm," was almost uniformly the reply to her first
question in that direction.

"He was sometimes called Posey," she would then suggest; and at last
she found a man who acknowledged that he knew Posey. "He was at
the Buny Visty in Carter's Gulch at last accounts," this individual
informed her, but he omitted to commit himself as to the nature of
Posey's occupation. "Wife, p'r'aps?" he observed, incidentally.

"No, sir," said Dora.

"Sister?"

"No."

"Ah! Well, he's a stocky chap, that Posey, and ought to make his
fortune in the mines, if anybody could. But nobody can't--take my word
for't. Look at me!"

He was a spectacle indeed. The retrogressive Doctor Hanchett had
been quite an exquisite in the matter of apparel compared with this
tatterdemalion. With Dora's companions he was less reticent concerning
the character and calling of Posey than he had been with Dora herself.
By his account it appeared that Posey had spent about a month in the
mines without striking a single streak of luck to hearten him. At
the end of that time, completely discouraged, he went to the nearest
village and advertised himself as willing to work for his board at
anything that might offer. The thing that offered was a situation as
assistant bar-tender at the Buena Vista gambling-house. Posey
accepted this situation with ardor, and discharged the delicate duties
pertaining to the place so satisfactorily that he very soon found
himself promoted to the distinguished position of "stool pigeon."
In this capacity he developed shining talents, and the Buena Vista's
gaming-tables soon became the most famous resort in all that region
for those confiding birds whose favorite amusement appears to lie in
being plucked. And thus Posey went on prospering until he achieved a
partnership in the concern; and his partner soon after being suddenly
called to that bourne whence no traveler returns, Posey found himself
sole proprietor and manager of an uncommonly flourishing concern in an
uncommonly lively line of business.

All this information was carefully kept by her companions from the
ears of Dora, of course; and she, having obtained the long-coveted
trace by means of which she felt sure that she could not fail to find
her lover, was quite cheerful and happy throughout the remainder of
the seemingly endless journey.

The end neared at last, however, and as Dora recognized the familiar
landmarks that told her she had almost reached the fruition of her
hope deferred, her eyes brightened daily, a new flush came into
her thin cheeks; and though she grew more quiet and abstracted than
formerly, it was plain that her reveries had no tinge of darkness, her
hope no shadow of fear, her faith no alloy of doubt. And when the time
came for her to part with the good people in whose company she had
traveled so far, she bade them adieu with a light heart, and at once
set out alone by stage for Carter's Gulch.

Reaching the straggling, ill-conditioned village at nightfall, she
asked the driver, as she alighted in front of the stage-office, to
direct her to the Buena Vista.

"The Buny Visty! The Buny Visty's not a hotel, ma'am," that individual
explained. "It's the Golden Gate that you want, I reckon."

"No, sir," she replied confidently. "I have a friend at the Buena
Vista--Mr.--Mr. Posey. Perhaps," she went on, with a little tremor in
her voice, "you can tell me if he is well?"

"Posey!" He stopped some moments at the word and looked in blank
amazement at the delicate, tender, unmistakably honest face that
confronted him. Then he continued hastily: "Never better. Saw him
yesterday morning. You see that green lantern? That's the Buny Visty.
Good-night, ma'am. _I_ stay here--if you should want a friend, you
know. Good-night."

Dora thanked him for his kindness, returned his salutation, and
tripped away with unruffled spirits. She had been so much concerned to
conceal her own agitation as she mentioned the name of her lover that
she had quite overlooked the astonishment with which that name had
seemed to transfix the driver.

As she picked her way along the dark and muddy sidewalk she could
not help complaining a little petulantly to herself because the
stage-office had not been located nearer to that distant green
lantern. But she was not the girl to lose heart now. Bravely she
plodded on, and when at last she was able to discern the words "Buena
Vista" upon the beacon toward which she was toiling, suddenly her
heart gave a great bound, the tears rushed to her eyes, her knees
quaked beneath her, and from her pious soul there went up an earnest
thanksgiving to the dear Father of us all for His great mercy in
bringing her safely to the end of her momentous journey.

It was some minutes before she could so far compose herself as to be
able to proceed; and when she did move forward again, I think a vague
notion of the true character of the Buena Vista began to cast a shadow
upon her ardor. As she came within a couple of rods of the isolated
wooden building in front of which the green lantern was suspended she
was suddenly startled at hearing several shots discharged in quick
succession within, and a minute later three or four men rushed hastily
into the street and hurried away, evidently without noticing her,
though they passed within a few feet of her as she stood, almost
paralyzed with alarm, just outside the door. Her fright was gone in a
moment, however--soon enough, indeed, to enable her to satisfy herself
that none of these fugitives was the man she sought. As the door stood
wide open, there seemed nothing for her to do but enter, which she did
at once. The front apartment of the saloon, though lighted, she found
to be a mere ante-room, bare of all furniture save a few chairs; and
without pausing here the resolute girl, who must have had a foreboding
of the awful truth by this time, passed on into the gambling-room in
the rear. There, stretched upon the floor, shot through the heart, lay
the stark form of the man she had journeyed so far and so patiently
and hopefully to find. He had grown muscular and brawny since she
parted with him. His face, too, had changed, and not for the better:
it was flushed, sodden and bearded, and the beard was dyed black. She
knelt down beside the corpse and took one of the great hands in her
own. It was still warm! But the chill of death crept over it as she
held it to her heart, and thus her last ray of hope expired.

She sat still by her dead till the man's former companions came to
prepare the body for burial. As it was borne to the lonely grave upon
the hillside she walked beside the rough coffin. And when the grave
was reached she dropped upon her knees beside it, and poured forth in
a clear voice a fervent petition to the Most High to receive, for the
sake of the dear Saviour who died for all the world, the soul of this
poor sinner.

They had said that she might bear up till the funeral was over, but
that then she would break down. She did not. The next morning she set
her face to the East, and began again, for the fourth time, that
awful journey across the Plains. We need not follow her throughout its
length. She reached her home worn and sick, but nevertheless at once
took up her old school and went on with it a few weeks. And then the
end came.


LOUIS A. ROBERTS.

       *       *       *       *       *





FRANCESCA'S WORSHIP.


  In the deep afternoon, when westering calms
  Brooded above the streets of Rome, and hushed
  Their noisier clamor, at her orisons,
  In San Domenico, Francesca knelt.
  All day her charities had overflowed
  For others. Husband, children, friends had claimed
  Service ungrudged; the poor had gotten their dole,
  Doubled by reason of her soothing hands;
  Sick eyes had lifted at her coming, as lifts
  The parcht Campagna grass at the cool kisses
  Of winds that have been dallying with the snows
  Of Alban mountain-tops. And now, released
  From outward ministries, and free to turn
  Inward, and up the solemn aisle of thought
  Conduct her soul, she bowed with open page
  Before the altar: "_Tenuisti manum
  Dexteram meam_."
                  On her lips she held
  The words caressingly, as she would taste
  Each syllable and drain its separate sweetness,
  When, breaking on her still seclusion, came
  A messenger: "Sweet mistress, grace I pray!
  But unaware our lord hath come again,
  Bringing his gossips; and he bade me fetch
  My lady, if only for a one half hour,
  Saying the wine was flavorless without
  Her hand to pour it."
                    At the word she rose,
  And unreluctant followed. No undertow
  Of hidden regret disturbed the azure calm
  Of those clear eyes that still reflected heaven.
  Then, when they all had drunk and been refreshed,
  And forth had ridden, Francesca sought her place,
  And pored again above the Psalter's leaf:
  "_In voluntate tua deduxisti_,"
  Conning it over with a tender joy,
  As if she verily felt her human hand
  Close claspt in God's, and heard Him guiding her
  With audible counsel; when there fell a touch
  Upon her arm: "The Sister Barbara
  Comes seeking wherewithal to dress some wounds
  Got in a brawl upon the Esquiline."

  And now athwart the western windows streamed
  Rainbows of shafted light, as thither again
  Francesca came to read her "Offices."
  A beam, that seemed a golden pencil held
  Within the fingers of the Christ that glowed
  In the great oriel, pointed to the words
  Where she had paused to do the Sister's hest:
  "_Cum gloria suscepisti me_." She kissed
  The blazoned leaf, thanks nestling at her heart,
  That now, at last, no duty disallowing,
  Her loosened soul out through the sunset bars
  Might float, and catch heaven's crystal shimmer. But scarce
  Had meditation smoothed the wing of thought
  Before the hangings of the door were parted
  With yet a further summoning. From a Triton
  That spouted in the court her three-year boy,
  Who thither had climbed, had fallen, and naught would soothe
  The bruised brow save the sweet mother-kiss.

  "I come," she said, her forehead half divine
  With saintly patience. "For Thou wouldst teach me, Lord,
  That Thou art just as near me ministering
  At home as in these consecrated aisles;
  And 'tis true worship, pouring of the wine
  For him I love, or holding 'twixt my hands
  The little throbbing head; since where my duty
  Calls is the altar where I serve Thee best."

  When under the Campagna's purple rim
  The sun had sunken so long that all was gray,
  Softly across the dusky sacristy
  Francesca glided back. The Psalter lay
  Scarcely discernible amid the gloom;
  But lo the marvel! On the darken'd page
  The verse which thrice she had essayed to read
  Now shone illuminate, silver-clear, as though
  God's hand had written it with the flash of stars.

MARGARET J. PRESTON.




OUR HOME IN THE TYROL.

CHAPTER V.


We had not gone many yards when we noticed a grand old mansion with
gray slopes of roof and stone galleries on arched pillars, and, asking
its history, learned that it was a deserted seat of the counts of
Arlberg, inhabited now by our guide in quality of forester, and where
he had his sister Nanni and brother Hansel to live with him.

We kept gradually ascending by the side of deep, turfy meadows,
passing many a rich brown wooden chalet, with views ever and anon of
our distant village and its stately Hof. Soon we turned into a woody
gorge and began climbing the steep saddle of the Scharst; and as we
slowly toiled upward in the pleasant summer air, amongst the aromatic
fir trees, some verses came into my head out of a little German book,
_Jakob Stainer_, by Herr Reif, which we had given as a parting present
to Schuster Alois:

  The fiddle-maker Stainer
    Goes whistling on his way:
  A master like to Stainer
    Is not found every day.

  He passes lofty beech trees,
    And old oaks stout and good,
  Because that which he seeks for
    Grows not in every wood.

  But yonder in the sunshine,
    Above the dark green shade,
  Behold a hazel-fir tree--

"Joergel," said I, "as you are a forester and know all the trees in the
wood, I wish you would show me a hazel-fir tree."

"_Wohl gut_," he replied. "Higher up the chances are small but what we
pass one. I only pray the gracious Fraeulein to say those verses over
again."

When I had done so he wished to know whether the fiddle-maker Stainer
were a real man or no.

"Why, good Joergel," I replied, "he was a real Tyroler like yourself,
only you are not likely to have met with him, seeing that he died and
was buried some two hundred years ago. Yes, a very real man, who did
his work well, but to little profit. He was a peasant lad of Absam,
who, probably going to Innspruck whilst the archduke Leopold and
his Italian consort, Claudia dei Medici, kept their gay court there,
thought Italian violins were harsh and unsatisfactory in tone, and so
quietly worked out one of a different make from his own principles;
which has since gained for him the name of 'the father of the German
violin.' He never expected to earn such a title. He had begun making
violins when he was twenty: he worked very slowly, only made a few,
and sold them at a moderate price to the foreign dealers who came to
the fairs at Hall. They soon became asked after, for they excelled as
instruments from the first moment that they were touched, and retain
to this day the clearest and the fullest notes, like the middle
tones of the flute, wonderfully sympathetic and rich. The peculiar
excellency is probably owing to the extreme care which he showed in
the selection of the wood. He used the hazel-fir tree, it is said. He
selected the wood himself, striking the trunk with his hammer to hear
its tones before he felled it. He would wander for days through the
mountain forests searching suitable trees. He studied each one, and
only chose that which exactly answered his purpose--generally those of
which the topmost boughs were already dead.

"When wood was being precipitated down the mountain-slides, he
would seat himself in some safe spot near at hand, and listen to the
different tones which the trunks uttered as they struck against the
rocks in their fall. He chose from these 'singing trees' those which
pleased his ear the most. He was also particular about the rings on
the stems of the felled trees. They must be harmonious and regular,
neither too near nor too far apart. For those portions of the violin
which were made in separate pieces he used very old wood, preferring
old inner doors and wainscoting.

"Although one of the most celebrated violin-makers that ever lived,
this peasant always remained poor. It is true that one grand duke
favored him, but then his patron died, and whilst the emperor
permitted him to be the court fiddle-maker, he was scandalized, like
the rest of the world, by his reading Lutheran books, picked up in the
market at Hall. These books caused him to be thrown into prison as a
heretic, and although in time released, debts and poverty embittering
his life, he became introverted and melancholy, until finally the
humble, patient worker, who had sent forth so much melody into the
world, was strapped to the wooden bench of his cottage at Absam, a
heart-broken maniac. The merciful messenger Death released him after
several years, but the bench and the hole in the wood by means of
which he was bound may still be seen.

"When the artist was forgotten his works increased greatly in value.
This occasioned other makers to endeavor to multiply their number,
introducing many spurious Stainer violins, which gradually brought
down the market value. Nevertheless, genuine Stainer violins are
recognizable, and still retain a fancy price. Mozart possessed one
which he greatly prized, using it as his solo quartette instrument.
It belongs now to a professor in the Mozarteum at Salzburg, and was
played upon at the Mozart festival in 1856.

"But a violin with a still more remarkable history figured during the
festivities attending the marriage of the present emperor of Austria.
During the visit of the emperor Charles VI., King Friedrich Wilhelm
of Prussia and other princes to the great nobleman Count Wenzel von
Trautmannsdorf, the generous and lavish host became sorely perplexed
how to provide George Stezitzky, a splendid violinist, with a suitable
instrument. At this point he opportunely heard that there was an old
fiddler in the court who begged permission to play before the august
company. The request being granted, the musician commenced playing,
and immediately sent princes and nobles into raptures over the tones
of his violin. The count therefore stopped him, and offered to buy it.
This quite threw the old man into despair. 'It was a Stainer violin,'
he replied, 'and his whole livelihood was bound up in it.' The count,
however, was not to be thwarted: he gave him fifty ducats for the
piece he had played, and then concluded the bargain on the following
conditions: three hundred gulden for the violin, besides a house
to live in, food and a quart of wine daily; ten gulden monthly, two
barrels of beer and one suit of clothes yearly, fruit and as many
hares as he needed for his kitchen. The agreement having been
concluded, George Stezitzky played a solo on the violin: then received
it as a present from the count. The man who had parted with it lived
sixteen years more, thus costing the count in actual money 8733
florins 20 kreuzers, equal to 10,380 florins 24 kreuzers of the
present currency. A large sum to give for a violin."

"Yes," replied Joergel, who appeared to have been much interested
by the whole history; "but what puzzles me is, how a poor devil who
worked so slow could be a genius. I thought sharp people took more
after the Almighty, and hurried up their work in the twinkling of an
eye."

"Do the trees which you look after shoot up in the twinkling of an
eye?"

"Why, no. Good, stout wood, with strength enough to resist storms and
to cleave to the rocks of these mountainsides, takes a lifetime. I
often warn the peasants against cutting their trees down. It is easy
to destroy, but not to build up, I tell them; and the trees as they
stand are the best preventatives against land-slips."

"Have you always been a forester?" we asked.

Not he. It was true that in fine weather he often wandered for thirty
miles a day, his district reaching as far, but he had seen more of the
world than these fir woods. He had been in the habit, as a young
man, of taking horses for sale into Italy, where he had seen Milan
cathedral and the town-hall in Bergamo. He, however, gave up his trade
in 1831, as his father died in that year of dropsy, and his mother ten
days after of sorrow, and he thought it only right to stay with his
sister Nanni. Franz had gone off and married a rich widow against his
advice, for he knew she would treat a second husband as a day-laborer;
and what he had predicted proved true. However, she and her money
were gone out of the family now. Her body lay in the graveyard, and
he supposed that the priest who said masses for her soul knew where it
was by this time. As for Hansel, he was still at liberty, and had well
played his part in the world. He had protected the emperor Ferdinand
when he fled with his consort to Innspruck in 1848, standing as
sentinel at the gate of the faithful city. Later on he had marched
with the Tyrolese imperial Jaeger corps into Hungary, and fought
for the same master there. Again in 1866 he was righting under the
archduke Albert, until, on the feast of Johanni, he was disabled at
the battle of Custozza by a wound in his foot. The victory over the
Italians made him for a time forget the pain, but afterward it grew
dreadful, lasting for seventeen months, and not an army surgeon could
help him. Then, however, he determined to try a cow-doctor, who in two
weeks set him on his pins again.

"And you might not believe it," continued Joergel, who grew animated in
his narration, "but I too have seen service. In the last war between
Italy and Austria the students of Innspruck formed a corps, and young
Count Arlberg, being an active volunteer, proposed that I should go
as cook. The motion was carried, and I marched with one hundred
and ninety-three young gentlemen to Bira. Sometimes with help and
sometimes with none, I cooked for them all. I fed them on meat
dumplings and plenten, until in a few weeks the cook and the
_soldaten_--or the cook and the _salaten_, which you will--had to pull
up stakes and beat an honorable retreat through the Breimer. At Brixen
I bade farewell to my regiment, and have since, under Count Arlberg
the father, looked after stocks and stones, and not soldiers. Well,
well! Austria has lost Italy, but the Tyrol can hold up its head, for
it stands now as a great natural rampart between the two countries."

We had been resting during Joergel's narration: the long rays of the
declining sun now warned us to hasten on. Margaret, full of energy and
desirous of pushing forward up the almost vertical path, soon began
to lag behind. Thus I, looking back and waiting for her, saw a comely
peasant-woman who, quickly climbing the hill behind, offered her the
assistance of her arm. Although this was gratefully declined, the
stranger, apparently troubled at the sight of the tired lady, tarried
at her side, trying to be of service. She had a melodious voice and
a restful air, which made us, though she was but a poor illiterate
woman, feel better for her presence. Thus she was allowed to carry
our shawls, and whenever we rested she strayed into wayside glens,
returning with offerings of mellow bilberries; and finally she cheered
our lagging energies with the assurance that we should soon see blue
sky peeping through the trees, and that then there would be no more
climbing. At this point, Joergel, who had been carefully examining each
tree as we passed, expressed his fear that no actual hazel-fir tree
grew along this path. He, however, pointed out a well grown fir
tree, saying that a _hazelfichte_ merely possessed a straighter and a
smoother stem.

We had begun truly to descend, and our friendly woman, seeing that
"Shank's mare" required no further encouragement, bade us a friendly
good-evening, with a cheerful "May you live long and well!" She
had almost dipped out of sight when our Joergel, with praiseworthy
forethought, called after her to apprise the bath people, as she
passed, of our advent.

The path had become broader and more beaten. There was a gradual sense
of some human being, either from personal or unselfish interests,
having once been at work to make the woods still more attractive
and enjoyable. Benches of flat stones were raised at points where
snow-fields, fantastic and stern dolomite peaks and wooded slopes
formed exquisite pictures set in frames of stately, well-grown fir
trees--here a smooth lawn with its little shrine and wooden seat for
the wayfarer to meditate on the Flight into Egypt, which Joergel called
the "witches' ground;" there, under a spreading tree, a rural table
and seats--proofs that we must be approaching the bath-house; and no
little were we pleased by these signs of care and judgment, especially
as none of the rural bowers were either bran-new or in a state
of decay, but harmonizing with the tidy negligence of the woods
themselves.

"These paths promise well for the baths," we remarked to Joergel.

"Might have done so once," he replied, "but it was the old Frau
Wirthin who put them up. She was a woman with a head and a will, and
she took a pride in the place, seeing that the baths are as old as
the mountains, and they had been in her family since the Lord made
the Tyrol. Now they are in the hands of her son Seppl and his sister
Moidel. However, I never mix myself up in what does not concern me.
The master is at liberty, and so is she, and it is not for me or my
old Nanni to speak against unmarried people. Both they and we are
bound for _Herzing_ when we die, the spinsters to howl in the moor and
we men in the wood. That is what the lads and lasses say of us;" and
he gave a dry little laugh. "Ask my opinion of the water, and I'll
answer you straightforward. It's an elixir, a perfect elixir;" and
he repeated the sentence with the proud consciousness of using a
dictionary word. "As for the house, the master and the old maid, judge
for yourselves, or ask them that sent you here."

So saying, he sturdily marched on ahead, as if fearing to be
compromised. We did not feel encouraged, especially with night
steadily falling down upon us. Still less was the future hopeful when
Joergel pointed with his stick in advance, exclaiming, "Arrived at
last!"

Yes, arrived at an old weatherbeaten chalet, with a crazy barn to keep
it company, dilapidated and tottering as if in the bankruptcy court,
standing abruptly on the borders of the black fir wood, the air filled
with the odor of concentrated pigstye; dark male figures playing at
skittles on the path, and having to stop the game to enable us to
reach the door; black male figures playing at cards and drinking wine
in the dusky, close old parlor or _stube_, made still more gloomy by
the large, projecting brick stove, unlighted at this season of the
year.

We should never have proceeded on a voyage of discovery had not the
thick folds of a woman's yellow petticoat flickered before us on the
steps of a smoke-stained ladder.

Joergel, who, with the utmost determination, resolved to fulfill his
duty as guide, marshaled us up this old creaking ladder, then up a
second, until we stopped in an open gallery sheltered by the wooden
eaves, where a feeble old woman nursed an idiot child in the
gloaming. And yet what a landscape to relieve this desolate
foreground!--slumbrous mountains, dewy meadows, peaceful villages,
over which the calm of Sunday lay. We stood drinking in the tranquil
scene, when a woman in blue apron and of rapid motion quickly touched
my elbow with a large key; and bidding us follow she hastily flung
open the door of a narrow wainscoted closet, smelling of hay. "She had
no other room," she blurted forth, and then, without word of apology,
disappeared as speedily as she had come. We found ourselves the owners
of two large bedsteads and two dilapidated chairs: everywhere in the
house we had caught glimpses of broken-backed chairs, witnesses either
of poverty or riot.

A modest tap at the door announced worthy Joergel. He tried to comfort
us in his rough and honest way, with "They that sent you here are to
blame."

We interrupted him, saying that the fault lay with ourselves.

"Well, well! how could you tell? But have no fears. This house is
disorderly for the want of a head, but remember, there's an elixir of
life in the water. I'm very much satisfied with what you have paid
me, and the next time we meet we shall regard each other as old
acquaintance."

He lifted his empty _kraxe_ upon his shoulders, and went out. We
waited to see his square figure appear in the path below, like those
who were parting not only from a friend, but a protector. It was some
minutes before he was visible. We discovered shortly afterward that
not wishing to leave us in our desolation, and perceiving that some
"Herrschaft" must be in the house, as the best room had not been
given us, he had boldly introduced himself to them, and thus we found
ourselves committed by Joergel to a fresh Good Samaritan in the shape
of a well-to-do draper's wife, Frau T----. We knew her by name, but
did not deal at her shop. Still, she was ruled by no selfish thoughts,
and out of the genuine kindliness of her heart she joyfully fulfilled
Joergel's commission. It was she who insisted on preparing our supper;
it was her cloth that was spread on the table in the gallery as the
quietest, most suitable spot in the riotous house, she smoothing our
scruples by declaring it her pleasure, only regretting that we should
have arrived on such a noisy night, for the house was usually very
still. It was her servant who showed the deaf old woman, the one help
of the establishment, how to make our beds.

The aged crone, Nanni--half the female population of the Tyrol are
called either after the Virgin Mary or her traditionary mother, Saint
Ann--gazed in intense astonishment when we screamed to her our simple
requirements. We asked for a light, and she brought us a tallow candle
stuck in a bottle. We asked for a pitcher of water, and she muttered
something about the spout.

Worn-out, weary, very grateful to the good Frau T----, we went to bed,
but not to sleep. That would have been a vain endeavor, for shrill
laughter, loud words and boisterous songs, in which the high tones
of wild female voices rose painfully above the gruff singing of
half-besotted men, penetrated the room, whilst the old rafters groaned
and creaked from the heavy tramp of dancers below. All our belief in
the sobriety and goodness of the Tyrolese seemed swept away, and a
sense of their coarseness and dissipation to have taken its place.
We were in a very pandemonium, which never ceased until the sun was
rising.

Nor was the evil mitigated when we learned from the landlord's sister
a few hours later that the guests were only returning from Scapulary
Sunday in Reischach. Most of them belonged to the next village, and
had rested here on their way. After prayers it was right to sing and
dance: why should they not? And, look you, when wine got into people's
head, what could she do? She could not turn them out.

"Yes, but the master, her brother, might."

She shook her head ominously, and hurried into the kitchen--a smoky
old kitchen, but quaint from the little windows with the old ox-eyed
panes of thick glass.

It impressed itself forcibly on our minds that Seppl had compromised
himself on the preceding night. He was to be seen nowhere; only the
bustling sister Moidel, who had already swept out and cleaned the
scene of the late dissipation, and was now busy over our coffee, and
the old Nanni, who with bare feet and wet petticoats intimated that
she had scrubbed the female bath-room and placed two freshly scoured
tubs there at our disposition.

Both women meant kindly by us: the pleasant fir woods and the fresh
air seemed to whisper to us to stay. So we gave up the plan which we
had resolutely made in the night of leaving that very morning, and by
so doing found Bad Scharst not only endurable, but really, in a very
rough and ready way, enjoyable. The remembrance of the wild,
riotous night even became enveloped with a certain interest when we
recollected that this grim attempt at pleasure was in sober reality
one of those Tyrolese peasant balls which are represented in such fair
and attractive colors on the stage, in pictures or in novels. It was
well to be undeceived, and to see the deep shadows as well as the
bright side of Tyrolese life.

And what matter if for one night we had lost our sleep, whilst we
breathed exhilarating ozone and drank water which, to quote Joergel,
was truly an elixir of life? For all our temporary and trifling
inconveniences we found rich compensation when after an easy ascent
of two hours we reached the topmost platform of the mountain, the
Kronplatz. To the north, reaching from east to west, a long, unbroken
chain of glaciers, from the Furtschlaeg to the Gross Venediger Spitze
with its untrodden snows. Below us, at some four thousand feet, the
broad, rich Pusterthal, with its comfortable villages and its pastoral
tributary valleys. To the south, the stern limestone peaks of the
dolomite region; the Vedretta Marmolata, with its breastplate of ice,
king of these barbaric giants, the splintered pinnacles of the Drei
Zinnen, the pyramidal Antalao, and many another jagged, appalling
mountain, stern as the bewildering doctrines of election and
reprobation, whilst the pure glistening snow, green meadows and
pleasant woods opposite seemed to breathe forth the gentle, winning
truths of the glad tidings of peace.

It was delicious to lie on the short turf in an ethereal region with a
perception of the burden and heat of the day in the valley below; yet
the fresh breeze of the mountain drove us with a sense of hunger back
to the baths.

Having spoken of the scenery, let us now speak of the guests.
There were not many. Frau T----, ourselves and a young woman, a
sewing-machinist, occupied the available chambers of the chalet.
The rest were used as receptacles for hay and milk: the ground floor
contained the _stube_, the kitchen, the pigstye, or rather the room
set apart for the pig, and the cow-house. Several poor guests, men and
woman, hovered about the door of the barn. They slept in the various
lofts, divided into rooms, and cooked for themselves in a common
kitchen adjoining the bath-rooms. These were two long wooden sheds, in
which rows of large tubs were placed. The patients bathed twice a day,
being covered over with boards and a horse-rug, but the head was left
free. There was no doctor: each could doctor himself by lying in the
hot water and drinking more or fewer glasses of the iron water daily.
It poured from a spout into a wooden trough between the chalet and the
barn; and this explained old Nanni's mutterings after our arrival.

Although the peasant bathers as a class made no distinct impression on
us, the half dozen men looking like facsimiles of each other, and the
seven women appearing always to be one and the same, still there were
one or two figures which stand prominently forth, from the more direct
relations into which we came with them.

First, an old peasant-woman, whom we heard, as we descended from the
Kronplatz, singing to a crying baby as we approached the house:

  Engeli, Bengeli, wilt thou go to America?
  Rumelti, Pumelti, wilt thou go to England?

She instantly stopped her ditty when she saw us emerge from the wood.

Curious, was it not? and yet we had neither brought our passports with
us, nor had we followed the example of previous guests and proved our
learning by writing our names and birthplaces in the visitors' book--a
large volume for which every door-lintel and piece of wainscot in the
house acted as leaves. No, but some little bird had been whispering
about us on the mountain-side.

The next figure is another peasant-woman, tall and somewhat thin,
with a patient, beseeching look in her face. This I quietly perceived
whilst I sat busily writing near the house at a table which Moidel had
carried out for me, yet I would not look up, because she stood eyeing
me with an innocent stare, as if wishful to enter into conversation. A
few minutes later a buxom matron stepped forth from the passage of
the chalet. It acted as a convenient thoroughfare on the road between
Reischach and Geisselburg. Her daughter, a girl of sixteen, who was
with her, wore two beaver hats, the uppermost evidently bran-new and a
fresh purchase. The first peasant-woman addressed the newcomer with a
"God greet thee, Trina! Thou hast been shopping, I see."

"God greet thee, Gertraud! It is only a new hat for the moidel. We
were going down for Scapulary Sunday; so I thought I might go on to
town and sell thirty pounds of cow-hair, the savings of ten years;
for, now there's to be a railway, beds are wanted, and as I received
more than I expected, Moidel got her hat."

Then lowering her voice and pointing in my direction: "One of the
strange ladies? I saw the other in the wood gathering strawberries. I
heard she came from America, but she was quite pretty, without either
black skin or thick lips. There must be some mistake. But, Gertraud,
how's the sick little maid?"

"Very weak--cannot last long. The doctor was up yesterday, and he
said it was useless his coming again: however, he left it something
soothing. Adieu, Trina: greet all at home."

At first amused by the notions these fellow-creatures possessed of
us, then forgetting them in the trouble which I perceived occupied the
poor woman's mind, I lifted up my head when her friends were gone and
inquired if she had a sick child.

"Oh, na, na! not of my own. I'm nursing a little maid of five years
old: the father is a government postilion and the mother in service,
and so she brought her up here to see if the air and the water would
strengthen her. She is their only child. No, I myself live about an
hour from here: you can see my cottage amongst the cherry trees on
the slopes yonder. It looks nearer than it is, for there is a hidden
ravine between. Ah, Herr je! I've had children too, and have had to
give them all up. They are waiting for me with the dear God; but, Herr
je! it's long toiling and hoping to reach them. However, you'll oblige
me and tell me where you have really come from?"

"From Rome," was the reply.

"Mein Gott! as far off as heaven! The creation is frightfully big!
Well, I must not loiter. I came out to say a prayer, then to chop wood
for Moidel."

An hour later, while sitting at supper in the passage, the most
convenient and quiet place as we imagined, we found all the guests
marching past us, each saluting us with "A good appetite to you!" or
else "May you eat well!" They had been called together by Frau T----
and the sewing-machinist, Frauelein Magdalena, for Rosenkranz.

Hardly were they kneeling in the chapel, a small building at the
farther side of the chalet, when the pig marched also up the passage,
and grunting out his "Guten appetit," proposed taking his place at our
table. We drove him out of doors: he waited behind the house corner to
avoid detection until we were comfortably seated, when again he was
at our side, snuffing the dishes in the air and grunting his "Guten
appetit."

We were in despair. Moidel was not forthcoming, and we found that we
could not shut the door against our intruding visitor.

"_Was thust du? Na, na! Draus, draus, Kloane_!" ("What dost thou? No,
no! Out with thee, little one!"), said a voice in the passage; and
a short man, with a good-natured, half-foolish face, after releasing
himself from a heavily-laden basket which he carried on his back,
walked through the passage and out of the farther door, attended by
the pig, who lovingly rubbed his snout against him. The stranger knelt
down at one of the shattered windows of the chapel, his four-footed
companion standing patiently by him, until the orison was over and
the worshipers trooped out of the little chapel. Then the knowing pig
trotted off to his own quarters, whilst one voice exclaimed, "You are
back again, Seppl?"

"You've not forgotten my bread?" said a second.

"You've brought me the knitting needles?" said a third.

"You left the letter at the Lamb and Flag?" added a fourth.

This, then, was the master, evidently the common messenger of all,
who, whilst the guests called him behind his back "Headless Seppl,"
had managed to fulfill two dozen verbal commissions to everybody's
satisfaction. This was the landlord, whom we had pictured lying in a
drunken lethargy in some hay barn after the bout of the night before.
How we had maligned an evidently simple, honest soul, who had been
toiling from early morning, and who, having discharged the orders of
his different customers, started up the steep mountain-side, and we
heard him calling "_Koos, koos, koos_," lovingly to his cows! It was
only when he had milked them, patted them, called each by its name,
seen them comfortably housed for the night, that he had time to think
of resting or eating his dumplings for supper.

It was the fourth morning of our stay, and we were preparing to leave.
Seppl's basket was already packed with our belongings, and he, the
good beast of burden, had orders in half an hour to act as our guide,
when suddenly Moidel flew out of the kitchen, exclaiming, "He is
coming! he is coming!" and wiping her arms on her apron rushed down
the green meadows beyond the chapel. Fraeulein Magdalena, dropping her
work, uttered a joyful cry. "Yes, it is he! it's Herr Pflersch!" she
said, turning to us. "The king of Bad Scharst. Ah! why don't you stay,
for glorious days will begin? I've been here eleven years at the same
time as Herr Pflersch, and we have none of us gone to bed for seven
days together. We play at cards and he tells us tales."

The excitement in the whole establishment became universal. Herr
Pflersch was our grocer, a burly, good-natured man, who bowed politely
to us when he arrived at the house, led by a troop of admiring and
rejoicing friends. He was attended by his cook, and had brought with
him a sackful of provisions and his feather bed, which came toiling up
the hill in a cart.

Fraeulein Magdalena stood rapturously before the welcome guest,
offering him a quart glass of water: "No beer to offer you, Herr
Pflersch, but glorious water, Herr Pflersch."

Moidel apologized for not going a step of the way with us, "But Herr
Pflersch had come;" and whilst she said so she began putting one of
Herr Pflersch's own wax candles into a brass candlestick. "I have,
however, a favor to ask of you," she continued: "that is, if we ever
happen to meet on the high-road in the Pusterthal, you'll allow me to
recognize you." A humble request indeed, poor soul!

Gertraud came down from the barn to say good-bye to us. The "little
maid" was still lingering, but she added mysteriously, "She'll be
knocking thrice at her mother's door to-morrow."

Walking across the meadows, this time taking a different way from that
by which we had arrived, we met several groups of peasant-men carrying
bundles in their hands, who asked Seppl if the Herr had arrived, and
being answered in the affirmative, they hurried on, as if desirous to
act as Knights of the Round Table to King Pflersch.




CHAPTER VI.


In sending word to Anton to fetch us from the inn at Nieder Olang that
especial afternoon, we had not been aware that we had chosen a place
and hour when most of the pious male Catholics were gathered thither
to accord an unflinching, unequivocal assent to the Infallibility
dogma, as well as to condemn from the bottom of their clerical or
rustic souls the foul heresy of Old Catholicism, which was spreading
far and wide in the adjoining kingdom of Bavaria. Most of the farmers
and all the parish priests were assembled. The spacious _Widum_ or
parsonage, in festal array, kept open house, the large church was
full to overflowing, whilst the ample inn being still more crammed
we preferred waiting for Anton in a shady nook opposite. Here we had
ample leisure to observe the rows of clerical and bucolic backs ranged
against the open inn windows, and to listen to the hum of serious
voices, sounding as if a spiritual mass meeting were being held over
seitels of wine. It was a curious sight a quarter of an hour later,
the conclave being at an end, to watch the priests flocking forth,
some so old and shabby, in such stained, rusty frockcoats, that their
very assumption of dignity appeared painfully grotesque; others, more
scrupulously clean, displayed with pride a blue silk ribbon bound as
an order across their breasts; but whether shabby or decent, whether
singly or in groups, they were invariably received bareheaded by the
respectful villagers waiting outside, whilst a double salvo of homage
was awarded by priest and layman to a tall, elegant Italian monsignor
from Brixen, who, tucking up gracefully his rich violet garments,
walked with infinite care from the inn to the Widum, disappearing from
view under the gateway.

All the clergy now departing in various directions were complacently
chuckling over the security of their position, their quiet,
unquestioning sheep obediently following whithersoever they might lead
them. It was not always so in the Tyrol. In former ages, especially
at the time of the Reformation, the people had used their independent
judgment, allowing themselves neither to be oppressed nor led astray.
In these latter days, however, their freer, nobler instincts have
been overpowered by the marvelous, almost incredible, influence of
the Jesuits. In the last century, when this order was suppressed, the
Tyrolese gymnasiums were immediately improved, schools for the people
were opened, and such was the spirit of the age that the barons
Sternbach, Turn, Taxis and other noblemen became Freemasons--an act
which their descendants, now shackled with Jesuitical influences,
regard with the deepest horror. After the revolution of 1848 a spirit
of reaction arose in the Tyrol, which holds the people back, retards
progress and keeps the country far behind other European lands.

A very embodiment of this retrograding subordination stood before us
in the form of Seppl, who, dull, poor both in mind and pocket, still
lingered entranced with wonder and amazement at a power which appeared
to him capable of governing both earth and heaven.

Rich bauers and poor laborers in this peaceful, wealthy portion of the
Tyrol become daily more blindly attached to the priests. Should there
happen to be a thinker amongst them, he must keep his questionings to
himself: he will find no sympathy in his neighbors. In towns such as
Innsbruck, however, he will discover many fellows, for a feeling of
reaction has awakened there a more liberal, independent spirit.

If Seppl might be taken as an extreme type of the provincial mode
of thought, so might a young student with whom we shortly became
acquainted be regarded as representing that of the town. Pursuing a
long course of medical studies at the Innsbruck University, he implied
rather by his actions than by any outward expressions that he regarded
his worthy country relations as zealots, absented himself from
Rosenkranz and long family graces, and spoke compassionately of his
relatives as being "very naive;" and these simple, unsophisticated
people in their turn, though staggered by this spirit of quiet
innovation and rebellion in their midst, made their minds easy on the
score that a man of the world, such as he was, and honorably providing
for himself, could not be expected to be such as they were. He had not
time for prayers and confessions: he must study, and then must enjoy
relaxation; but some of their extra petitions might be put to his
account. Not that this was ever expressed in so many words: it was
rather from our own quiet observations that we drew these inferences.
Nor did opportunities fail, seeing that our new acquaintance was in
fact no other than the "Herr Student," the saintly personage whom
we had imagined in long black Noah's Ark coat, wearing the orthodox
clerical stock embroidered with blue and white beads, leading
Rosenkranz, and, should we ever have the honor of his acquaintance,
saying three Ave Marias before conversing with heretics.

Instead of this, behold a good-looking, cheerful young man in gold
spectacles, wearing a suit the color of ripe chestnuts, who, whilst
we began impatiently to look for Anton, appeared before us like a good
genius from the inn, introduced himself and apologized that we should
have been kept waiting. "I regret," he added, "that I was not aware of
your arrival until the kellnerin pointed you out through the window;
otherwise I should have taken the liberty to explain to you that
my brother may be a little late. He brought me and two friends over
earlier in the day, and had then to attend to a little business. _Mein
compliment_;" and with a low bow he returned to the inn.

We no longer anxiously inquired of each other whether the ever-ready
Anton had received our message, rather whether we had not put him to
considerable inconvenience when there was business of the Hofbauer's
to be attended to. And next, how in the world, if the Herr Student,
who had so suddenly appeared on the scene, were here with two friends,
we could all return in the gig?

Nor did this dilemma seem likely to decrease when we spied in the
far distant windings of the road, dotted over with the receding black
groups of priests and their supporters, a moving object approaching
in our direction bearing unmistakable resemblance to the gig and
broad-backed horse, but with a female figure seated behind Anton--a
perplexity which grew greater when, the distance becoming less,
the figure assumed a still more elegant form, holding a fashionable
sunshade in her hand, which suddenly began to wave persistently in our
direction.

Who could it be? We imagined, we hoped, we doubted, until ten minutes
later our astonishment ended in a joyous reality as we clasped in our
arms our dear, friend E----. She had arrived in our absence on a visit
to us at the Hof, and the good family, desirous of affording us a
joyful surprise, had proposed that Anton should drive her over to meet
us at Nieder Olang. The Herr Student was in the secret. This had made
him prudently cut our conversation short and return to his friends in
the inn.

E---- brought bouquets of flowers for us from the aunt and Moidel,
but there was no reason for us to hurry back: there were still several
hours of daylight. The sturdy horse having already accomplished some
eighteen or twenty miles since morning, made no objection to a rest
and feed of hay in the stable, whilst Anton was content to sit with
his brother and his two friends in the _stube_ before the trio started
on foot for the Hof. It seemed rather a desire to show the strangers
the neighborhood than any inclination to attend the clerical meeting
which had brought the Herr Student to Nieder Olang this afternoon. And
we, glad of an hour's delay, started immediately with E----, the sunny
summer afternoon made brighter by this joyous meeting, to visit the
adjoining hamlet of Mitter Olang.

The three small adjacent villages of Upper, Middle and Lower Olang,
lying amongst monotonous fields and destitute themselves of any
picturesque beauty, would be passed over by the stranger as totally
devoid of interest; but, thanks to Dr. Staffler's topographical work,
_Das deutsche Tirol und Voralberg_, the mention of Peter Sigmair of
Mitter Olang had excited a strong desire in us to see the spot where
he had lived and died.

After the battle of Austerlitz, in 1805, the defeated emperor of
Austria signed a treaty with Napoleon ceding Venice to the French and
the Tyrol to their ally, Bavaria. The Tyrolese thus found themselves
suddenly separated from an empire the fortunes of which they had
shared for some five hundred years. If the country had outwardly
become Bavarian, the hearts of the people remained essentially
Austrian, and bitterly did they resent having to obey a government in
league with the French, the sworn foe of Austria. Thus they determined
on the first opportunity to throw off the hated yoke. The Bavarians
had promised by the treaty to leave intact the Tyrolese constitution.
They soon, however, forced the young men into the army to fight their
battles, dissolved the religious houses, and eventually dismissed
both bishops and parish priests. This was more than these extremely
religious people could brook. The Bavarians had broken faith in not
preserving the constitution: now they were free from their oath, they
declared. In this sentiment the emperor of Austria warmly seconded
them, and secret plots of rebellion began speedily to ferment through
the land. In 1809, the memorable, never-to-be-forgotten year _Nine_
of Tyrolese history, the earnestly longed-for opportunity arrived. In
April of this year the Austrians declared war against France, and on
the 8th of the same month the enthusiastic patriot Johann Maria von
Kolb appeared in the market-place of Innichen, where he issued written
proclamations, still preserved at Bruneck, bidding all the parish
priests and the inhabitants of the Upper Pusterthal instantly to rise,
throw off the Bavarian yoke and join the beloved Austrian troops,
which were now marching in that direction.

Incited by Von Kolb and other leaders, the people rose and welcomed
the Austrians. The Bavarian troops stationed at Bruneck hastily
retreated to Brixen, and the Austrians entered the chief town of the
Pusterthal on April 12. Peace now reigned in the district for several
months. The rest of the Tyrol, however, was in commotion. In May the
Bavarians were again back in the country, and the French coming to
their assistance. The people rose under the leadership of the brave
Hofer. They won a great victory at Iselberg, but in October the
French had taken possession of Innsbruck, and the treaty of Schonbrunn
immediately followed, in which the Tyrolese, again handed over to
Bavaria, were ordered to lay down their arms.

The people disobeyed: they were incredulous, believing the official
documents to be forged; and, although he knew better, Von Kolb
strengthened them in this belief. He, together with Peter Kemenater, a
wealthy wirth, and George Lantschner, the priest of Weitenthal, urged
the people to rise and fight for their country, setting at naught any
treaty of peace. Thus, though the French troops were allowed by the
town authorities to enter Bruneck on November 5, the people remained
in a state of turbulence, the men of Taufers immediately rising and
fighting the French at Gaisz, the first village in their valley,
and although defeated and driven back, the neighboring peasants
of Aufhofen took up the attack, having in their turn their village
plundered and some of the inhabitants killed by the enemy.

Von Kolb and his party next encouraged the Landsturm or people _en
masse_ to assail the French general Moreau in Brixen, causing his
friend, General Almeras, to leave Bruneck in charge of a small troop
and to hurry to his rescue. The very same afternoon (November 30)
the priest Lantschner, accompanied by the wirth of Muehlen in the
Taufersthal, Johann Hofer, marched at the head of an army of peasants
on Bruneck. In the mean time, Almeras, prevented by a general uprising
from reaching Brixen, turned back with his troops dressed as a
private, and made most of the way by mountain-paths on foot, fearing
to remain in his carriage, as immediately after starting his cook
had been shot dead on the coach-box. Approaching Bruneck, the general
discovered the concourse of the armed peasants to be far greater than
he had imagined, and a whole day elapsed before his entry into the
town could be effected. On December 2 the insurgents advanced nearer
and nearer, pouring down from the neighboring village of Percha, which
they had chosen as their head-quarters. At one o'clock they pushed
before them two sledges loaded with hay from Edelsheim, and one filled
with straw from Percha, and, forming by this means a barricade in
front of the Capuchin monastery, began firing, whilst troops of
peasants still marched forward from other villages. More used to
plough-shares than swords, however, the peasants, numbering ten
thousand men, instead of surrounding the town, as they might easily
have done, merely attacked it on the north side, thus enabling the
French general with a handful of cavalry and infantry to surprise
them in the rear. Confusion and a most ignominious defeat ensued, the
peasants fleeing across the meadows and fields, some being killed and
others taken prisoners. Although repulsed, they were not reduced,
and animated by the rash, vindictive Von Kolb, made several fresh
skirmishes. Standing up in the village street of Percha, this leader
animated them still to fresh attacks, and sent special messengers
north, south, east and west, vowing fire and vengeance to all who
succumbed; but on December 6, fresh French troops having come to the
aid of General Almeras, the peasants saw that their cause was lost and
refused to listen. Thus ceased the peasant war.

The town of Bruneck, which had suffered greatly from the double siege,
still venerates the memory of General Almeras, who exerted himself
on its behalf, whilst his liberality toward the peasants, whom
he regarded as ignorant and misguided, was equally praiseworthy,
mitigating in many instances the severity of the council of war.

Although the insurgents were dispersed, most of the French officers,
unlike General Almeras, condescended to the bitterest revenge against
the disarmed people. All the leaders who had not concealed themselves
were captured and summarily shot without trial. Von Kolb, however,
escaped with his life: disguised as a seller of lemons, he fled
over the Redensberg, and passing through Antholz managed to reach
Stiermark. Another still more remarkable man, Father Joachim, known
amongst the people as Red Beard, wading through deep snow managed to
hide himself for many months in the castle of Goldrain. In August
of 1810, disguised as an artisan, he reached Switzerland, Milan, and
finally Vienna, where the emperor, as a reward for his valiant deeds,
presented him with the living of Hietzing in the neighborhood of
Vienna.

Our long but necessary preamble now brings us to Peter Sigmair. He too
had a price set on his head, having acted as lieutenant in the popular
cause, and had accordingly sought a safe retreat in the mountains.
Soon, however, a friend brought him word that his old father, George
Sigmair, the Tharer-wirth of Mitter Olang, when attending to some
business in Bruneck on St. Thomas's Day, had been arrested by command
of General Broussier, with orders that he should be shot if his
son did not give himself up before three days. The son might have
comforted himself with the thought that it would be impossible for
the general to put so tyrannical a threat into execution, but the
consciousness of his father in such danger conquered all other
feelings. He immediately started for Bruneck, and gave himself up. His
father was instantly liberated, whilst he, bound in chains, was sent
to Bozen, but brought back to Bruneck at the beginning of
January, 1810, when in his cell in the castle he quietly heard his
sentence--that he should be shot before the door of his father's inn
at Mitter Olang, and that his body should then be hung on a gallows as
a solemn warning to refractory peasants. His young wife, maddened with
grief, penetrated to the presence of the French general, clasped his
knees and plead in vain for mercy. He remained perfectly impassive to
her entreaties, but granted a favor to a young priest, Franz von
Moerl, who accompanied the prisoner in his last moments--namely, that,
instead of before the window, the execution should take place at a
small wayside chapel on the confines of the village. And so Peter
Sigmair was shot at the age of thirty-six, honored for his valor, but
still more for his filial piety.

We were now standing on the very spot, before the humble, whitewashed
chapel. Above the entrance, which was closed, a rude fresco, much
injured by weather, commemorated the deed. Some soldiers in very
high-waisted regimentals were taking aim at Peter Sigmair, who knelt
blindfolded, wearing the full peasant costume, which, more ordinary
in those days, is still used for marriages, and is consequently
represented even now on mortuary tablets as indicative of the heavenly
wedding-garment.

After seeing the now desolate, forsaken chapel, we bent our steps into
the village to visit the Wirth-haus. A friendly, quiet peasant-woman
met us in the dark passage, and showed us into a clean, comfortable
wainscoted room, the _zechstube_. We ordered some wine for the good of
the house, which was brought by an equally quiet peasant-man. Setting
it on the table, he hovered about the room in an uncertain way, but
confided to us eventually that he was the landlord. The woman then
came and introduced herself as his sister, and they both stood
silently before us in a house as silent as themselves, the great
festival at the neighboring hamlet having probably thinned their
custom. It was evident that they had plenty of leisure to answer any
questions, and we had soon learned from them that the old Tharer-wirth
was their grandfather.

"You must know," said the sister, "I have read in big printed letters
that Onkel Peter's little children, holding up their little hands,
prayed the cruel general with tears to spare their father. It is a
pity that what is put in print can never be altered, because he had no
children. He had only a young wife, who afterward married a bauer at
Antholz, where their son is the priest."

"Yes," said the wirth. "If there had been children, they would have
succeeded, not my mother. It was before either of us was born, but she
often told us of it--how cold it was, in the depth of winter, on the
Name of Jesus Day. Onkel Peter marched with a cross placed in his
hands, which were bound behind him, from Bruneck, being led to a house
near the inn at Nieder Olang, since burnt down, where he confessed.
At the wayside chapel he next received the sacrament, and then the
soldiers shot him."

Were there any mementoes of him in the house? we asked.

"Oh, not now. His belt used to lie about the house, but had been
either carried off or lost." And then one of the good souls intimated
that it was sad to have a relation publicly executed: he must pass as
a criminal. It did their hearts good to find that strangers from other
parts did not look upon him as such. It was natural that they and the
villagers should think well of him, but they were poor ignorant people
at the best. However, criminal or not, all the school-children in
Tyrol read about him now. He was stuck in their primers and called
a hero and a patriot; only, even in the lesson-book, the mistake had
again been made of giving him children. The wirth thought it must be
for effect--to make the tale more thrilling.

"We often puzzle ourselves about the rights and wrongs of Onkel
Peter's death," concluded the simple man; "but this will always be
clear to us, that three foreign ladies visiting the house out of
respect to his memory speaks well for him."

Thus we left the staid brother and sister quietly gratified by our
call, and returning to Nieder Olang found the kellnerin of the now
deserted inn awaiting us with a nosegay of stately white lilies. The
gig too was ready, and with our dear friend E---- at our side we drove
homeward in the silent summer evening. We passed Percha, a small group
of peaceful houses and a church, contrasting forcibly with the wild,
tumultuous scenes which it must have witnessed when the enthusiast Von
Kolb and his companions convulsed the peasantry;--and passed over the
upland plains where the ten thousand peasants had been repulsed and
scattered--a corn-giving land, affluent with myriad golden shocks,
like a perpetual Joseph's dream.

       *       *       *       *       *

The Hof proved too quiet and healthful a resting-place, and its
inmates too genuinely good and honest, for us to bid it a lasting
farewell in '71. Behold us, therefore, in the following summer
again within its friendly walls, where we at first settled down to
a harmonious, industrious routine of several weeks: then an extreme
desire seizing upon some of us to see more of the glories of mountain
and valley around, we set out one and all for six days of pure holiday
enjoyment; part of the programme being for the more adventurous,
attended by Moidel, to climb to the Olm on a visit to Jakob.

MARGARET HOWITT.

[TO BE CONTINUED]




WITH THE AMERICAN AMBULANCE CORPS AT PARIS.


We were sitting under the trees in the Champs Elysees, in sight of the
ruined Tuileries, when my friend gave me the following reminiscences.
In repeating what I can recall of them, as nearly as I can in his own
language, I shall use names with almost as great freedom as he did--a
fact for which I think I owe no apology.

"Restore that wreck of the Tuileries," said my friend--but I shall
let him tell his story without quotation-marks, and without the
interruption of my urging and questionings, that finally got him
almost as much interested in his subject as I was myself--Restore that
wreck of the Tuileries, and these gay equipages and these loiterers
in the Avenue would repeat for you, very nearly, the scene of my first
service with the American ambulance. That was before I was a regular
member of the corps--in fact, before the corps which operated at the
siege of Paris had been properly formed. Dr. Sims, Dr. Tom Pratt,
Frank Hayden and others, with three ambulance-wagons, were going to
the front: we heard a great deal of _"a Berlin!"_ in the streets in
those days. I came down this way to the Palais d'Industrie to see
them off, and when I did see the American ladies raising the colors
to march through the crowd, I couldn't help taking part in the
procession. So I put on the _brassard_ of Geneva--a red cross on a
white band strapped on the arm, being the ambulance badge established
in 1864 by the International Convention of Geneva--and seized one
of the sticks with a sack on the end of it, and began asking
contributions for the wounded as the cortege moved on.

It was one of the most exciting scenes I ever witnessed, our march for
miles through the crowded boulevards to the station of the Northern
Railway. Dr. Sims walked behind his own horses, which headed the
procession, and the throng everywhere commented admiringly upon the
_chic_ of the fine animals. The American ladies--there were three
of them--marched beside the wagons, bearing the French and American
colors and the red cross of the International ambulance. We filled and
emptied and refilled our sacks with the Napoleons from the _monde_ in
their flash barouches and from the loungers of the clubs, and with
the greasy sous of the workingmen and grisettes. Many took out purses
containing five sous and gave three: many took out purses containing
silver and copper, and gave the silver. Old men with feeble sight
and hearing would hobble up to us through the crowd and ask, "What is
this?"

"For the wounded," we would say--"for France!"

And trembling hands would be thrust into pockets, and "God's blessing
on you!" would go with their silver or sous.

Well, well, it was a great day. It was, I believe, the largest
collection ever taken up in Paris for the wounded. We shouted
ourselves hoarse when the train bore the corps away for Mezieres. They
served through the war, part of the time with the French, part of the
time with the Prussians. Many of them have since been decorated by
both governments.

It is to Dr. Evans that the American ambulance owes more perhaps than
to any one man. It supported itself, our corps did, and Dr. Evans
furnished the largest portion of the money. He had some American
ambulance-wagons and the material for a field hospital brought over
and exhibited at the Exposition of 1867, and these were still in
his possession. They were early offered to the American corps, but a
misunderstanding between Dr. Evans and Dr. Sims caused the latter
to go to the field with wagons, etc. furnished by the International
ambulance. So we who formed the American corps at Paris during the
siege had the use of Dr. Evans's wagons and material. The doctor
himself accompanied the empress in her flight; but from England he
sent money whenever he could get it into Paris, and did all in his
power for the ambulance.

Some time before the Prussians had closed in upon us it was ordered
that the useless mouths (_bouches inutiles_) should leave the city. Of
course thousands left. We who remained expected we should have to
go into the ranks. I liked the excitement of the thing, and stayed
through it all. Meanwhile, Dr. John Swinburne, who was formerly, I
believe, a health officer of New York, had been invited to take charge
of the American hospital at Paris. Dr. Evans's tents were pitched in
the Avenue de l'Imperatrice, in the place where the dog-show used to
be. This was our headquarters all through the siege, though at last,
as winter came on, the tents were not large or comfortable enough to
hold the wounded, and so we built barracks there. George Kidder, Will
Dreyer and I joined the corps together. My first service was to beg
Bowles Brothers' American flag and hoist it over our tents. Then our
duties consisted for a while in loafing about the grounds, driving
tent pegs, greasing the wagons and drawing up rules for our own
government, for there was no fighting just then. Those were the
bright, sunny days of September. Montretout and Chatillon had been
taken, the Zouaves had disgraced themselves, and we were utterly
cut off from the world. We elected two captains. One was William B.
Bowles, and the other Joseph K. Riggs of Washington. They were to
serve on alternate days.

One morning we went down in our wagons, drawn by horses belonging to
members of our corps, and reported to the "International Society for
the Aid of the Wounded." We found them at the Palais d'Industrie. They
did not think much of us, as we could not help perceiving, but they
finally consented to let us go out at the first sortie--namely, that
of Villejuif, when the French tried to take the villages of Thiais and
L'Hay. We got upon the field just as the firing was over. The French
had taken one village at the point of the bayonet, but at last they
had retired so precipitately that they had left their wounded in the
Prussian lines. There the poor fellows lay, in among the yellow wheat,
with great well-fed Prussians prancing around them on horseback. It
was a terrible scene, especially to me, being the first of the kind
I had ever seen. But after a while I was so busy with the others,
picking up the wounded and burying the dead, that somehow I lost my
first overwhelming sense of the horror of the spectacle.

We smelt our first powder--that is, a few stray balls came among
us--at Chatillon. Returning from this latter fight, we saw the burning
of the palace of St. Cloud. It was a beautiful October sunset and
evening, and the sight was indescribably grand.

You will, however, get a better idea of our share in a sortie if I
tell you more particularly of the next one, that of Malmaison. It was
there, in fact, that we began to make our reputation. This was the
sortie fraught with most real danger to the Germans. They had not then
had time to establish their lines, and if the attack had been
followed up with more men, the French, it is thought, might have taken
Versailles and cut the enemy's line of communication. As it was, the
Prussians had everything packed and horses saddled, ready to leave
Versailles at a moment's notice. Ur. Sarazin, chief surgeon of
Ducrot's corps, had asked us to rendezvous at the Rond Point de
Courbevoie, just behind Mont Valerien, where the French had a battery.
On our way out there that beautiful October afternoon, as we were
driving up the hill from Porte Maillot, the American flag and the
colors of the International ambulance flying over our five wagons, we
were met by the whole provisional government of France. Jules Ferry
hailed us and asked a ride. They were going to see the fight. We
took them all in: we had in our wagon Rochefort, Ferry and Favre; the
others took seats as the wagons came up. We left them on a sort of
platform which had been built for them upon the pedestal of the famous
knee-breeches-and-cocked-hat statue of the First Napoleon, which
was replaced by the Roman-togaed one upon the Column Venodme. The
first-mentioned statue had even then been toppled over and carted
away. We went on to the top of the hill of Courbevoie, whence,
however, we were promptly ordered back. From our station farther in
the rear, lying down in our wagons, we watched the bombs and the smoke
of the musketry rising over the hill. The French were beating the
Prussians back with great slaughter, as we heard from couriers
constantly sent in.

Suddenly, Dr. Sarazin rode into our midst and shouted, "Ambulance
Americaine, en avant!" Putting spurs to his horse, he galloped down
the road, we following at a brisk trot. Halfway to Rueil he drew up
and said, "Pass that windmill, turn to the right, and you will be on
the field." We plunged on through potato-patches and vineyards, our
hearts in our mouths. As we drew past the windmill, which was on
a knoll in the descent from Mont Valerien, we came upon the French
reserves, massed by regiments behind the artillery and mitrailleuses
which lined the crest of the hill we were on. Just behind them
were Trochu and his staff. An aide-de-camp galloped toward us as we
approached, and told us to take down our flags, shouting that we would
draw fire. He had to tell us that only once: our flags came down like
a shot. The fight was going on in the valley just beneath us. The sun
was setting, the windows of Mont Valerien shimmered with its slanting
rays, the green woods grew darker, and the blue smoke curled lazily
over the combatants. Away in the distance the aqueduct of Marly ran in
gray relief against the red of the evening sky. From this aqueduct,
as we learned afterward, King William, the crown prince, Moltke and
Bismarck were watching the struggle. Our little red-legged liners had
pushed the Germans across the open space and were pressing them in the
wood. We grew excited, and the boys began making for the crest of the
hill among the artillery, when one of our party, a well-known American
here in Paris, cried out, "Gentlemen, as a clergyman and father of a
family, I forbid you to go any farther forward and risk your lives."
Whereupon Mr. William Bowles, aroused, but in his usual manner in
moments of excitement--namely, with his hands in his vest pockets and
his eyes beaming through his gold spectacles--observed, "Gentlemen,
oh that be d----d! As an American and your captain, I command you to
follow me." And we followed him, singing at the tops of our voices,
"While we were marching through Georgia."

What would have become of us, carried away as we were, no one knows,
if we had not been marched back again by higher orders. We were
straightway sent down to the right, toward Malmaison, to gather the
wounded. We passed Trochu and staff, who saluted us, and we wound
down the hill, with the infantry before us, and the cannon and
mitrailleuses behind us bellowing over our heads. The French soldiery
sent up cheer after cheer for "les Americains" as we made our way,
still shouting, "While we were marching through Georgia." There were
twenty or twenty-five of us, and we made some noise. In the streets of
Rueil we found the dead and wounded very thick. We filled our wagons
with the wounded, and started back for our hospital at Paris. In our
wagon we had seven, so we had to walk along beside it. It was late in
the night when we reached the city gate. There we were confronted
by sentinels with glaring torches, challenged, asked the number of our
wounded, and then allowed to rattle and creak over the draw-bridge.
Just inside the walls we were met by a surging mass of anxious men,
women and children.

"What regiment have you?" they would shout. "Has the Hundred-and-fifth
been engaged? Have the Zouaves been in?"

"Yes," exclaimed one from our wagon, rising on his elbow, "they have
been in, and many haven't come out again." Then snatching his fez from
his head, he waved it in the glare of the torches, I and cried, "Vive
la France! vive la Republique!"

That poor fellow was shot in the hip. We so far cured him at the
hospital that I saw him hobbling into the fight upon a cane, his gun
strapped across his back, at the last sortie of the besieged. I got
very well acquainted with him, too, at the hospital, as I did
with many another gallant fellow on both sides. He was an educated
gentleman of Alsace: he had entered the Zouaves as a volunteer at the
outbreak of the war, and had fought it all through in the ranks. He
was sergeant when he was wounded. After the war and Commune were over
I was touched on the shoulder by some one sitting upon the seat back
of me at the Opera Comique one night, and there was my brave friend
the sergeant, safe and almost sound through all.

At the hospital, the night after the sortie I have just been
telling you of, we worked with our wounded until nearly morning. Dr.
Swinburne, I think, did not go to bed at all. And right here I
ought to introduce you more particularly to the old doctor. Take the
portrait of General Grant, run a good many streaks of gray through
his hair and beard, a few more lines on his forehead and crows' feet
around his eyes, and you have an idea of the doctor's looks. He is a
man of great energy and few words--a surgical genius and a great
lover of horses. He could or would explain nothing. At last we got to
calling him "Old Compound Fracture," for he would say, when we were
starting for a fight likely to be serious, "Boys, don't mind those
slightly wounded fellows--let the Frenchmen pick them up: just bring
me along the compound fractures." These latter were his hobby. He
fairly doted on a man whom ordinary surgeons would have given up in
despair; and I believe he was the happiest man in Paris when the
first patient who had his leg shattered in a half dozen places began
hobbling about the camp on crutches. The soldiers got to hear of
him at last. More than one poor fellow lying on the field grievously
wounded swore he would be taken to no place but to the American
hospital.

Our next important sortie was at Champigny. That was the occasion
when Ducrot was surely going to push through the German lines. In his
proclamation he had announced that he would re-enter Paris victorious
or dead. Of course he did not keep his promise. We were all to
rendezvous at the Champs de Mars that morning at four o'clock. About
three of the same morning Mont Valerien opened fire, and then Issy,
then Vanves, then Mont Rouge, and so the flash and roar of cannon went
round the whole city. That was our reveille. It was cold, very cold,
that morning, and we waited at the rendezvous a long time in company
with the French, Italian, Swiss and other ambulance corps. The great
Doctor Ricord was there, and some of us heard then for the first time
that he is an American from Baltimore. Chenu, Nellaton and several
other famous surgeons were also there, shivering with us as we waited
and waited for the push through the lines, which never came. Well,
when at last the fight did occur, it made plenty of work for our
wagons. For the next two days they were constantly going to and fro
between the field and our hospital. Everywhere we went along the lines
now we were recognized and made way for. One night, as one of our
wagons was trying to cross the field, it was halted with the question,
"What ambulance is that?"

"Is it necessary to ask?" shouted a French soldier out of the
darkness. "It is the Americans', of course: they are everywhere."

At this sortie there rode with us a little French abbe, whom some of
the boys had picked up weeks before roaming about the outposts among
the trenches. He had won their hearts by his utter contempt of fire as
he prayed with and confessed everybody he could lay hands on. At the
sortie of Chatillon he had discovered one of our corps bringing in to
the wagons at the risk of his life a huge pumpkin. The abbe imagined
that Americans must set great value upon pumpkins if they were willing
to secure them at such hazard, and he described the whole incident in
_L'Univers_, the ultra-Catholic paper of Paris. In the course of a few
days the ambulance Americaine received two or three polite notes from
religious French maiden ladies, saying that they had a few pumpkins
which were at the service of the gentlemen of the corps. We received
the pumpkins, and skirmished for the ingredients of pumpkin-pie, which
the matron of our hospital baked for us. This was an unknown use for
pumpkins in France, and those pies cost about their weight in silver.
Sugar we had--it was the eggs that cost. Horsemeat and pumpkin-pie!
There was a wild extravagance in that dinner, but then it was
patriotic--at least the dessert was.

We nearly froze to death at Bourget, but I have not time to tell
you of it. I must pass on to the last sortie--toward Montretout and
Malmaison. That was a dark, foggy, leaden morning, with a drizzling
rain. We passed through the whole French army on our way out--line,
National Guards, Mobiles, artillery, cavalry: we passed through them
all, everywhere meeting with a grateful reception. Sometimes they
cheered us and our wagons (now increased to eight) and our immense
coffee-pot. This last was an institution: it consisted of three great
boilers mounted on wheels. Before the meat gave out we used sometimes
to put soup in our coffee-pot and take it to the field. Coffee by some
means we still had. Even on the desolate morning I am now telling you
of many a poor foot-soldier who had been upon the almost impassable
roads all night had been cheered by a sly tin cupful of the precious
liquid as we trudged on toward the field. Well, we were finally
ordered to halt at the little village of Rueil, within a stone's throw
of the church where Josephine and Hortense lie buried. I climbed a
hill on the left, and saw the French pushing toward Buzenval. They
could see nothing before them but a line of fire--not a Prussian above
the low wall in front of the thick mass of wood. Though I could see
these Frenchmen dropping down by hundreds, they went steadily on and
on. Some of them were National Guards who had never before been under
fire. It was here that young Henri Regnault fell, with many other
Parisians known in literature and art. After a while the Germans began
shelling the hill on which I was, and I scampered down to the open
square where the wagons were. It was not long, however, till another
German battery got to throwing shells into this square, each discharge
bringing them nearer and nearer to us. Suddenly a shell struck the
corner house in front of us. The door opened in a very deliberate
way, and out came a man in a blouse, smoking a pipe, and followed by
a woman with a baby in her arms. He leisurely locked the door behind
him, and put the key into his pocket. Then he started slowly across
the square, with his wife and baby still behind him. As he passed us I
exclaimed, "For Heaven's sake, what are you doing here with that baby?
Don't you see they are shelling all around us?"

"Yes, I see, I see: one of them struck our house just now. I've got
another one up here, and we're moving to it." And without taking his
hands out of his pockets or his pipe out of his mouth, he strolled on
across the open square, followed by his wife, who seemed absorbed
only in hushing the baby as it wailed in fright at the sound of the
bursting shells.

The French line was soon thrown back, and we filled our wagons
with wounded and started for the city, the shells still falling
unpleasantly thick and near. One of them struck right under our
coffee-pot, and, exploding, sent it in a hundred directions. The
horses which drew it did not happen to be hit, but they took fright
and dashed off, wrecking what was left of the coffee-pot wagon. We got
back to town as fast as we knew how that day. We tried to go out
again at night, but could make no headway against the crowd of wagons,
artillery and the retreating army on the roads. It was an utterly
demoralized mob. We barely escaped massacre by a regiment of
Belleville National Guards, who were mad, raving mad, accusing
everybody of incapacity and treason. The next day we went out with a
burying-party, and found members of this same National Guard thickly
strewn among the vines of Buzenval and Montretout, and we buried them.
In their new knap-sacks we found crested note-paper and many such
things, showing their owners' rank and want of military experience at
the same time. Some of these articles were stained with blood. We saw
out there the young lady who was soon to have married Henri Regnauit.
She was looking for his body among the dead, and found it during the
day. Young Regnault, it is claimed, was introducing a new school in
French painting. He had made some remarkable studies in Algiers, one
of the results of which was the well-known picture of Salome in the
Salon of 1870. I have said we saw his betrothed searching for his body
among the dead; and the memory of that sweet, brave girl in that awful
scene has lent a pathos to the story of his life and death which I do
not get out of the writers and painters who have since dwelt so much
and so lovingly upon the subject.

George McFarland of New York and two other fellows got lost from our
wagons the night before, when we left the field. They took refuge in
a tomb, where half a dozen poor wounded had crawled before them. They
remained there for three long hours, hearing the shells burst around
them from a tremendous cross-fire of the Germans. These three fellows,
by the by, were the unlucky men of the ambulance. Whenever, by any
chance, any of us were missing late at night, it was always they. When
the wagons were full, the roads dusty or covered with sleet, it was
they too who failed to get a seat, and had to walk to town. When our
eatables had disappeared, or we had no wine or drink of any kind, they
were sure to come in hungry, thirsty and foot-sore from some distant
part of the field. At Champigny they slept on a billiard-table; upon
the Plateau d'Avron they just happened around when the Prussians began
the awful bombardment which obliged the French to scurry off, leaving
guns and stores. This, they said, was their worst day out, for they
half ran, half rolled down the hillside through a rain of shells,
about a hundred guns, they maintained, having been concentrated upon
that particular plateau. At Rueil one of them was just coming up to
get a cup of coffee when the shell struck our coffee-pot. I witnessed
the escape that time, and it did truly seem miraculous.

I think I may state it as a fact that if it had not been for the loss
of that coffee-pot we should never have eaten the cook's dog. It came
about in this natural--or perhaps I should say unnatural--way. In the
early days of the siege, you see, some poor wretch who lived near
our hospital possessed, as is almost always the case with a Frenchman
removed a quarter of a degree, say, above abject poverty, a favorite
dog. One day his beast and house were made glad by the appearance
of two pups. They were tawny, bright-eyed little fellows, and the
Frenchman loved them with a love that the Anglo-Saxon knows not of,
especially in the matter of dogs. Well, provisions got scarcer
and scarcer, and finally, with an anguish that I have no right to
ridicule, and as the only thing left for him to do, the poor Frenchman
brought his pups around and presented them to the cook of our
hospital. Here the little fellows waxed fat and strong, and were soon
great favorites, not only of the good-natured cook, but of all the
fellows of the ambulance. Perhaps you never saw a pot of horse-soup
boiling: if you have, you will never forget the great blotches of fat
that float upon the surface of it. Many skimmings of this did John
Cook, as we used to call our _chef_, put aside for the pups. In the
course of time, however, famine began to invade the ambulance. The
canned meat and the hams had long since disappeared; a horse belonging
to one of our corps, found overtaken by mysterious death in his stall,
had been devoured; but the two pups, fat and tender, no one ventured
to attack. And they had the powerful protection of the cook. Still, it
made our mouths water to see them gambol in their sleekness. At length
came the memorable morning of the last sortie at Montretout. Then for
the first time we mounted the cook upon our coffee-pot wagon, with an
extra large _brassard_ around his arm, allowing him about three times
the ordinary amount of linen to show how peacefully and culinarily he
was neutral. Poor fellow! I am sorry to say he was soon demoralized
that day. The coffee he had brewed was a success, but he could not
stand Krupp shells. Long before one of them had exploded under
his coffee-pot he had wanted to go home. At that fearful moment he
completely lost his head and--his white cap. How he got back to the
hospital not even himself ever knew. It was long after nightfall when
he wandered in, weary, listless, sorrowful. One of the pups came up to
greet him as he crossed the threshold of the kitchen. The _chef_ met
that welcome with an unfeeling kick, he was so demoralized. The fate
of the pup was sealed. Scarce had the cook found his way to a bed in
one of the tents when the scullions made for the pup, and had his fat
frizzing on the gridiron and his bones dancing in a seething soup-pot.
We all had a feast that night. Even the cook himself had a greasy
morsel brought to his bedside. But somehow thenceforth the name of
that dog was never mentioned, and his brother led a more luxurious,
a sleeker life than ever. We had learned, I think, the old moral of
being moved by sorrow for the dead to be kinder to the living.

As I have said before, we became very well acquainted with many of the
wounded men at our hospital. With some, indeed, we contracted strong
friendships. We buried many by subscription, thus rescuing them from
the _fosse commune_ to which soldiers, French or German, were as a
rule consigned within the French lines. Among others was a fair-haired
Saxon by the name of Bruno, almost a boy in years, who was brought in
from Champigny. He won our hearts from the very first by asking that
a suffering Frenchman who lay beside him might have his wounds dressed
before his own. He was dangerously and painfully wounded himself,
yet no one ever heard him complain. I shall never hear the "Wacht am
Rhein" without thinking of him, for he was the first one that I ever
heard sing it. He sang it to me one night in return for some old
German songs I had tried to cheer him with; that is, he sang some
of it: his voice was so feeble that I had to stop him. He seemed to
expect death, and was prepared for it. His long, wavy blonde hair and
his beardless boy face were always beautiful, but imagine them when
his blue eyes were lit up by the sentiment of that song!

The next night, when I came to visit Bruno, a French National Guard
was dying not far from him, with wife and family kneeling around the
bed. The tent was hushed, and I hesitated a moment at the door. One or
two American ladies, volunteer nurses of the ambulance, were grouped
near the dying man back of the family. Suddenly, Lisette, an Alsatian
nurse who worked devotedly night and day for friend or foe alike, and
who in her neat white cap had been standing in a corner wiping her
eyes, approached me and said in her broad German French, _"Partonn_,
but I will pray for this poor unfortunate." And she dropped on her
knees beside the bed and commenced aloud in German a simple, earnest,
honest prayer to which the scene and the language gave an effect
utterly indescribable. There were few dry eyes in the tent. Soon
after that I could tell by the movements about the bed that the poor
National Guard was dead. I turned to the bedside of the wounded Saxon,
and found his hands clasped upon his breast and his lips muttering a
prayer for his enemy.

It was near Christmas then, and to cheer Bruno after the foregoing
scene I spoke to him of the merry Christmas-times in the Fatherland.
He shook his head mournfully: "Ach Gott! die werd' ich nie
wiedersehen" ("I shall never see them again"). The only thing which he
seemed very much to regret was that he should not live long enough to
get the cross he had won, so that it might be sent to his father
at his little village on the Elbe. Well, the next afternoon we were
gathered in the same mournful and hushed way about his bedside. The
dying Saxon alone broke the silence. There is no way of reproducing
in English the wonderful pathos of his speech, mellow even in its
faintness. I suppose I ought to say that his mind was wandering, but
at the time it did not seem so to me. He spoke first of the green
fields approaching his native village, then of the flowers; and
then finally he exclaimed, "There gleams the Elbe, and there comes
father!--Father!" And in the joy of that meeting, real or imaginary, a
smile parting his lips, he died.

We gave the gentle Saxon the poor honor of a separate grave, and
as soon after the siege as I could get a letter out I wrote to his
father, sending the few little trinkets that had been trusted to my
keeping. In the answer and thanks of the lonely old man--for he was
now widowed and childless--there was something almost as sad as the
death I have been telling you of. He could not hear enough of his
son's last days, and our correspondence ceased only when my minutest
details had been given.

I have already told you of our last sortie, and really of our last
service as a corps. A few days after the loss of our coffee-pot the
armistice was declared. Those were sad times. I can't tell you of the
despair of that whole city. It makes me dizzy even to remember it.
When the people saw that their endurance, suffering, starvation for
those long months had been unavailing, there were no bounds to their
speech or acts. The two words, "Treason!" and "Bread!" were heard
everywhere. Men wept like children. Many actually lay down and died,
half starved, half heartbroken. These things will never be written
up--they never can be written up. It needed hope with the scant food
so many had lived on. The city at the mercy of the conquerors--But
there is no use in trying to recall those wild, miserable days. The
air was charged with the common despair. I saw the burning of the
Tuileries and all the horrors of the Commune, but nothing ever had
such an effect upon me as that.

I must, however, before I draw these reminiscences to a close, tell
you about Major O'Flynn, of Her Majesty's Indian army. It was he who
brought the pumpkin into camp at Chatillon. That he should have risked
his life most recklessly in doing it was nothing odd, as you will soon
learn. It was only a little droll that he should have taken just that
time and place to gratify his curiosity. He had heard Americans talk
a great deal about pumpkin-pies, and he wanted to know if they were
as good as their reputation; so he took the first chance and the first
pumpkin that came in his way. Major Thomas Vincent O'Flynn, of Her
Majesty's Indian army, was of course an Irishman. He was tall, tawny,
impassive as any Englishman; modest and mild-mannered in camp, and in
the field utterly unconscious of bullets or shell. He had married a
Hindoo lady, whom we called the Begum. She was just as excitable as
he was impassive. He owned a pair of splendid black horses, which he
generally drove himself in one of our wagons. Sometimes, however, he
rode, as _estafette_ or orderly, a splendid sorrel stallion, also his
property; and this stallion, "Garryowen" by name, was the pride and
delight of our hearts, the pet of our camp. The major had a poodle
dog too, distinct from the Begum's. It was generosity rather than
effeminacy on his part to have this dog, for he bought it to save its
life: the former owners were about to eat it when the major came to
the rescue. The dog was white, and our Indian warrior used to spend
much time washing it on the eve of a fight. The dog would ride
stretched across its master's feet on the front of the wagon; and
upon the field, if the major was capable of the sense of fear--which-I
doubt--it was exercised solely for his horses and dog. When away from
these he was always getting to the front. The only provision he
made against any possible danger was to fill his pocket with silver
five-franc pieces. A man didn't know, he said, when he might be taken
prisoner by those "thaves" of Prussians, and he'd better have his
money with him till he could get his remittances from across the
Channel. He had enough of living upon next to nothing--which was
horse-flesh--and he didn't want to live on nothing among the Germans.
Those five-franc pieces, however, he always put to the drollest uses.
He would find his way in among the artillerymen, and, pointing to a
given spot, he would tell them in the worst imaginable French to throw
a shell in there: "Ploo haut, ploo haut, mon bong ami: aim at the
chimney, the chimney." Then he would step aside, with hands in his
pockets, and watch results. If it was a good shot, he would give the
gunner a five-franc piece. Thus he would pass along the line until he
had exhausted the money with which he had fortified himself against
starvation among the Prussians. And this was all for pure love
of fighting, for the major saw so much of the French officers'
incompetency that he soon had precious little sympathy for their
cause.

At the second assault on Bourget, O'Flynn grew tired of waiting for
the attack, and, what is more, terribly hungry. "I've lived long
enough on horse-mate," exclaimed the major, "especially when I've
none of it at all!" So he unhitched one of his black horses from the
ambulance-wagon, and, taking a saddle from an orderly, tore off his
_brassard_ and other ambulance insignia, threw away his cap, so as not
to compromise us, and rode bareheaded down to the very frontest of
the front. The advance were lying crouched down in the rifle-pits,
awaiting the signal to storm the village. Motioning to the amazed
soldiery, he cried, still in his horrible French, "Now or never!
_Voila_ Bourget! Follow me! See, there's Bourget. Sooivez moi!" All
this to the rattle of German musketry. Seeing that he got no response
in one place, he rode madly to the other rifle-pits and repeated the
invitation, the officers shouting to him as he passed that he was
riding into certain death, and conjuring him to save himself. But the
major could not or would not understand them. Finally, some officers
ran out, and, taking him forcibly from his horse, led him away.

The major often went on commissions from our camp on the Avenue de
l'Imperatrice down into the city. In those days many of the young
French swells, to keep from going into the field, had donned the
ambulance uniform and passed their time loafing about the cafes in the
Boulevards. This became so great a scandal that Trochu was obliged
to issue an order forbidding the uniform to be worn except on active
duty. One day, as the major, bound on some errand in the interest of
a Frenchman lying wounded in our hospital, was majestically riding
his superb stallion Garryowen down the Champs Elysees, his long tawny
side-whiskers waving gently in the breeze, his wiry frame erect as
a ramrod, the blue regulation-coat buttoned close to his throat with
American buttons, the International _brassard_ on his arm and the
ambulance shield on his cap,--as the major, I say, sailed down in this
state, he was hailed by one of the chiefs of the French ambulance,
which just then was all powerful in Paris. The major pulled up
Garryowen leisurely, and the little Frenchman, who spoke tolerable
English, demanded brusquely, "Don't you know General Trochu has
forbidden to wear ambulance uniform when off duty? And we want this
thing stopped."

The major very deliberately leaned over and caught the little French
official by the button of the coat, and in an undertone asked, "And,
sure, who are you?"

"I am Mr. So-and-so," mentioning the name of one of the chiefs of the
French International corps.

"Oh, ye are, are ye?" rejoined the major, retaining his hold of the
little man's button. "Then, Mr. So-and-so, give my compliments--Major
O'Flynn's compliments, if ye loike it better--to General Trochu, and
tell him, if you plase, that the gentlemen of the American ambulance
and meself buy our own clothes and pay for them, ride our own horses
and fade them; and when we want or have time to parade aither the one
or the other, we will ask permission from the general himself."

Releasing his hold of the Frenchman's button, the major saluted
and rode gracefully away upon his errand of mercy. 'And after this
specimen of his politeness none of us was ever interfered with.

I have heard from others that the major and the Begum are still alive
and thriving. One day in the times of the Commune I had crept up
behind the Arc de Triomphe, during a lull in the fire, to take a look
at the Communist batteries at Porte Maillot. Now, the major
lived halfway between the Arc and the batteries. Suddenly from my
concealment I saw the gateway of his house open, and the major sally
forth on Garryowen. He gave merely a glance at the batteries, and
slowly rode up toward the Arc. There was not a soul else visible on
the highway, and it must have been he who drew the attention of
the Versaillais, for their guns opened at once and the shells came
spinning around in the neighborhood. Garryowen, the grand, the
beautiful, was as accustomed to fire as his rider was: neither was
shaken from his equilibrium. With the same easy pace they gradually
wound their way up to and around the Arc de Triomphe, and thus calmly
down the Champs Elysees. The droll, gallant fellow waved me a graceful
good-day as he passed me peeping from behind my hiding-place; and that
was my last sight, and a characteristic one, of Major Thomas Vincent
O'Flynn, of Her Majesty's Indian army.

RALPH KEELER.




THE HUMMING-BIRD.

          Poised in a sheeny mist
          Of the dust of bloom,
  Clasped to the poppy's breast and kissed,
  Baptized in pools of violet perfume
            From foot to plume!

          Zephyr loves thy wings
          Above all lovable things,
  And brings them gifts with rapturous murmurings:
  Thine is the golden reach of blooming hours,
            Spirit of flowers!

          Music follows thee,
          And, continually,
  Thy life is changed and sweetened happily,
  Having no more than rose-leaf shade of gloom,
            O bird of Bloom!

          Thou art a winged thought
          Of tropical hours,
  With all the tropic's rare bloom-splendor fraught,
  Surcharged with Beauty's indefinable powers,
            Angel of flowers!

JAMES MAURICE THOMPSON.




A PRINCESS OF THULE.

By William Black, Author of "THE STRANGE ADVENTURES OF A PHAETON."

CHAPTER X.

FAIRY--LAND.


"Welcome to London--!"

He was about to add "Sheila," but suddenly stopped. The girl, who had
hastily come forward to meet him with a glad look in her eyes and with
both hands outstretched, doubtless perceived the brief embarrassment
of the moment, and was perhaps a little amused by it. But she took no
notice of it: she merely advanced to him and caught both his hands,
and said, "And are you very well?"

It was the old and familiar salutation, uttered in the same odd,
gentle, insinuating fashion, and in the same low and sweet voice.
Sheila's stay in Oban and the few days she had already spent in London
had not taught her the difference between "very" and "ferry."

"It is so strange to hear you speak in London--Mrs. Lavender," he
said, with rather a wry face as he pronounced her full and proper
title.

And now it was Sheila's turn to look a bit embarrassed and color,
and appear uncertain whether to be vexed or pleased, when her husband
himself broke in in his usual impetuous fashion: "I say, Ingram, don't
be a fool! Of course you must call her Sheila--unless when there are
people here, and then you must please yourself. Why, the poor girl has
enough of strange things and names about her already. I don't know how
she keeps her head. It would bewilder me, I know; but I can see that,
after she has stood at the window for a time, and begun to get dazed
by all the wonderful sights and sounds outside, she suddenly withdraws
and fixes all her attention on some little domestic duty, just as if
she were hanging on to the practical things of life to assure herself
it isn't all a dream. Isn't that so, Sheila?" he said, putting his
hand on her shoulder.

"You ought not to watch me like that," she said with a smile. "But it
is the noise that is most bewildering. There are many places I will
know already when I see them, many places and things I have known in
pictures; but now the size of them, and the noise of carriages, and
the people always passing, and always different, always strangers,
so that you never see the same people any more--But I am getting very
much accustomed to it."

"You are trying very hard to get accustomed to it, any way, my good
girl," said her husband.

"You need not be in a hurry: you may begin to regret some day that you
have not a little of that feeling of wonder left," said Ingram. "But
you have not told me anything of what you think about London, and of
how you like it, and how you like your house, and what you have done
with Bras, and a thousand other things."

"I will tell you all that directly, when I have got for you some wine
and some biscuits."

"Sheila, you can ring for them," said her husband, but she had by that
time departed on her mission. Presently she returned, and waited upon
Ingram just as if she had been in her father's house in Borva, with
the gentlemen in a hurry to go out to the fishing, and herself the
only one who could serve them.

She put a small table close by the French window; she drew back the
curtains as far as they would go, to show the sunshine of a bright
forenoon in May lighting up the trees in the square and gleaming on
the pale and tall fronts of the houses beyond; and she wheeled in
three low easy-chairs, so as to front this comparatively cheerful
prospect.

Somehow or other, it seemed quite natural that Sheila should wheel in
those chairs. It was certainly no disrespect on the part of either her
husband or her visitor which caused both of them to sit still and give
her her own way about such things. Indeed, Lavender had not as yet
ever attempted to impress upon Sheila the necessity of cultivating
the art of helplessness. That, with other social graces, would perhaps
come in good time. She would soon acquire the habits and ways of her
friends and acquaintances, without his trying to force upon her a
series of affectations, which would only embarrass her and cloud the
perfect frankness and spontaneity of her nature. Of one thing he was
quite assured--that whatever mistakes Sheila might make in society
they would never render her ridiculous. Strangers might not know the
absolute sincerity of her every word and act, which gave her a courage
that had no fear of criticism, but they could at least see the simple
grace and dignity of the girl, and that natural ease of manner which
is beyond the reach of cultivation, being mainly the result of a
thorough consciousness of honesty. To burden her with rules and
regulations of conduct would be to produce the very catastrophes he
wished to avoid. Where no attempt is made, failure is impossible;
and he was meanwhile well content that Sheila should simply appear as
Sheila, even although she might draw in a chair for a guest or so far
forget her dignity as to pour out some wine for her husband.

"After all, Sheila," said Lavender, "hadn't I better begin and tell
Ingram about your surprise and delight when you came near Oban and saw
the tall hotels and the trees? It was the trees, I think, that
struck you most, because, you know, those in Lewis--well, to tell the
truth--the fact is, the trees of Lewis--as I was saying, the trees of
Lewis are not just--they cannot be said to be--"

"You bad boy, to say anything against the Lewis!" exclaimed Sheila;
and Ingram held that she was right, and that there were certain sorts
of ingratitude more disgraceful than others, and that this was just
about the worst.

"Oh, I have brought all the good away from Lewis," said Lavender with
a careless impertinence.

"No," said Sheila proudly. "You have not brought away my papa, and
there is not any one in this country I have seen as good as he is."

"My dear, your experience of the thirty millions of folks in these
islands is quite convincing. I was wholly in the wrong; and if you
forgive me we shall celebrate our reconciliation in a cigarette--that
is to say, Ingram and I will perform the rites, and you can look on."

So Sheila went away to get the cigarettes also.

"You don't say you smoke in your drawing-room, Lavender?" said
Ingram, mindful of the fastidious ways of his friend even when he had
bachelor's rooms in King street.

"Don't I, though? I smoke everywhere--all over the place. Don't you
see, we have no visitors yet. No one is supposed to know we have
come South. Sheila must get all sorts of things before she can be
introduced to my friends and my aunt's friends, and the house must be
put to rights, too. You wouldn't have her go to see my aunt in that
sailor's costume she used to rush about in up in Lewis?"

"That is precisely what I would have," said Ingram: "she cannot look
more handsome in any other dress."

"Why, my aunt would fancy I had married a savage: I believe she fears
something of the sort now."

"And you haven't told even her that you are in London?"

"No."

"Well, Lavender, that is a precious silly performance. Suppose she
hears of your being in town, what will you say to her?"

"I should tell her I wanted a few days to get my wife properly dressed
before taking her about."

Ingram shrugged his shoulders: "Perhaps you are right. Perhaps,
indeed, it would be better if you waited six months before you
introduced Sheila to your friends. At present you seem to be keeping
the footlights turned down until everything is ready for the first
scene, and then Sheila is to burst upon society in a blaze of light
and color. Well, that is harmless enough; but look here! You don't
know much about her yet: you will be mainly anxious to hear what the
audience, as it were, say of her; and there is just a chance of your
adopting their impressions and opinions of Sheila, seeing that you
have no very fixed ones of your own. Now, what your social circle may
think about her is a difficult thing to decide; and I confess I would
rather have seen you remain six months in Lewis before bringing her up
here."

Ingram was at least a candid friend. It was not the first nor the
hundredth time that Frank Lavender had to endure small lectures,
uttered in a slow, deliberate voice, and yet with an indifference
of manner which showed that Ingram cared very little how sharply his
words struck home. He rarely even apologized for his bluntness. These
were his opinions: Lavender could take them or leave them, as he
liked. And the younger man, after finding his face flush a bit on
being accused of wishing to make a dramatic impression with Sheila's
entrance into London society, laughed in an embarrassed way, and said,
"It is impossible to be angry with you, Ingram, and yet you do talk so
absurdly. I wonder who is likely to know more about the character of a
girl than her own husband?"

"You may in time: you don't now," said Ingram, carefully balancing a
biscuit on the point of his finger.

"The fact is," said Lavender with good-natured impatience, "you are
the most romantic card I know, and there is no pleasing you. You
have all sorts of exalted notions about things--about sentiments and
duties, and so forth. Well, all that is true enough, and would
be right enough if the world were filled with men and women like
yourself; but then it isn't, you see, and one has to give in to
conventionalities of dress and living and ceremonies, if one wants
to retain one's friends. Now, I like to see you going about with that
wide-awake--it suits your brown complexion and beard--and that stick
that would do for herding sheep; and the costume looks well and is
business-like and excellent when you're off for a walk over the Surrey
downs or lying on the river-banks about Henley or Cookham; but it
isn't, you know, the sort of costume for a stroll in the Park."

"Whenever God withdraws from me my small share of common sense,"
said Ingram slowly, "so far that I shall begin to think of having my
clothes made for the purpose of walking in Hyde Park, well--"

"But don't you see," said Lavender, "that one must meet one's friends,
especially when one is married; and when you know that at a certain
hour in the forenoon they are all to be found in a particular place,
and that a very pleasant place, and that you will do yourself good
by having a walk in the fresh air, and so forth, I really don't see
anything very immoral in going down for an hour or so to the Park!"

"Don't you think the pleasure of seeing one's friends might be
postponed till one had done some sort of good day's work?"

"There now!" cried Lavender, "that is another of your delusions. You
are always against superstitions, and yet you make work a fetish. You
do with work just as women do with duty: they carry about with them
a convenient little god, and they are always worshiping it with
small sacrifices, and complimenting themselves on a series of little
martyrdoms that are of no good to anybody. Of course, duty wouldn't be
duty if it wasn't disagreeable, and when they go nursing the sick--and
they could get it better done for fifteen shillings a week by somebody
else--they don't mind coming back to their families with the seeds of
typhus about their gowns; and when they crush the affections in order
to worship at the shrine of duty, they don't consider that they may be
making martyr of other folks, who don't want martyrdom and get no sort
of pleasure out of it. Now, what in all the world is the good of work
as work? I believe that work is an unmistakable evil, but when it is
a necessity I suppose you get some sort of selfish satisfaction in
over-coming it; and doubtless if there was any immediate necessity in
my case--I don't deny the necessity may arise, and that I should like
nothing better than to work for Sheila's sake--"

"Now you are coming to the point," said Ingram, who had been listening
with his usual patience to his friend's somewhat chaotic speculations.
"Perhaps you may have to work for your wife's sake and your own; and
I confess I am surprised to see you so content with your present
circumstances. If your aunt's property legally reverted to you, if
you had any sort of family claim on it, that would make some little
difference; but you know that any sudden quarrel between you might
leave you penniless to-morrow."

"In which case I should begin to work to-morrow, and I should come to
you for my first commission."

"And you shouldn't have it. I would leave you to go and fight the
world for yourself; without which a man knows nothing of himself or of
his relations with those around him."

"Frank, dear, here are the cigarettes," said Sheila at this point; and
as she came and sat down the discussion ceased.

For Sheila began to tell her friend of all the strange adventures that
had befallen her since she left the far island of Lewis--how she had
seen with fear the great mountains of Skye lit up by the wild glare
of a stormy sunrise; how she had seen with astonishment the great
fir-woods of Armadale; and how green and beautiful were the shores of
the Sound of Mull. And then Oban, with its shining houses, its
blue bay and its magnificent trees, all lit up by a fair and still
sunshine! She had not imagined there was anywhere in the world so
beautiful a place, and could scarcely believe that London itself was
more rich and noble and impressive; for there were beautiful ladies
walking along the broad pavements, and there were shops with large
windows that seemed to contain everything that the mind could desire,
and there was a whole fleet of yachts in the bay. But it was the
trees, above all, that captivated her; and she asked if they were
lords who owned those beautiful houses built up on the hill and half
smothered among lilacs and ash trees and rowan trees and ivy.

"My darling," Lavender had said to her, "if your papa were to come and
live here, he could buy half a dozen of those cottages, gardens and
all. They are mostly the property of well-to-do shopkeepers. If
this little place takes your fancy, what will you say when you go
South--when you see Wimbledon and Richmond and Kew, with their
grand old commons and trees? Why, you could hide Oban in a corner of
Richmond Park!"

"And my papa has seen all those places?"

"Yes. Don't you think it strange he should have seen them all, and
known he could live in any one of them, and then gone away back to
Borva?"

"But what would the poor people have done if he had never gone back?"

"Oh, some one else would have taken his place."

"And then, if he were living here or in London, he might have got
tired, and he might have wished to go back to the Lewis and see all
the people he knew; and then he would come among them like a stranger,
and have no house to go to."

Then Lavender said, quite gently, "Do you think, Sheila, you will ever
tire of living in the South?"

The girl looked up quickly, and said, with a sort of surprised
questioning in her eyes, "No, not with you. But then we shall often go
to the Lewis?"

"Oh yes," her husband said, "as often as we can conveniently. But it
will take some time at first, you know, before you get to know all my
friends who are to be your friends, and before you get properly fitted
into our social circle. That will take you a long time, Sheila, and
you may have many annoyances or embarrassments to encounter; but you
won't be very much afraid, my girl?"

Sheila merely looked up to him: there was no fear in the frank, brave
eyes.

The first large town she saw struck a cold chill to her heart. On a
wet and dismal afternoon they sailed into Greenock. A heavy smoke hung
about the black building-yards and the dirty quays; the narrow and
squalid streets were filled with mud, and only the poorer sections of
the population waded through the mire or hung disconsolately about
the corners of the thoroughfares. A gloomier picture could not well
be conceived; and Sheila, chilled with the long and wet sail and
bewildered by the noise and bustle of the harbor, was driven to the
hotel with a sore heart and a downcast face.

"This is not like London, Frank?" she said, pretty nearly ready to cry
with disappointment.

"This? No. Well, it is like a part of London, certainly, but not the
part you will live in."

"But how can we live in the one place without passing the other and
being made miserable by it? There was no part of Oban like this."

"Why, you will live miles away from the docks and quays of London.
You might live for a lifetime in London without ever knowing it had a
harbor. Don't you be afraid, Sheila. You will live in a district where
there are far finer houses than any you saw in Oban, and far finer
trees; and within a few minutes' walk you will find great gardens and
parks, with lakes in them and wild-fowl, and you will be able to
teach the boys about how to set the helm and the sails when they are
launching their small boats."

"I should like that," said Sheila, with her face brightening.

"Perhaps you would like a boat yourself?"

"Yes," she said frankly. "If there were not many people there, we
might go out sometimes in the evening--"

Her husband laughed and took her hand: "You don't understand, Sheila.
The boats the boys have are little things a foot or two long--like the
one in your papa's bed-room in Borva. But many of the boys would be
greatly obliged to you if you would teach them how to manage the sails
properly, for sometimes dreadful shipwrecks occur."

"You must bring them to our house. I am very fond of little boys, when
they begin to forget to be shy, and let you become acquainted with
them."

"Well," said Lavender, "I don't know many of the boys who sail boats
in the Serpentine: you will have to make their acquaintance yourself.
But I know one boy whom I must bring to the house. He is a German-Jew
boy, who is going to be another Mendelssohn, his friends say. He is a
pretty boy, with ruddy-brown hair, big black eyes and a fine forehead;
and he really sings and plays delightfully. But you know, Sheila, you
must not treat him as a boy, for he is over fourteen, I should think;
and if you were to kiss him--"

"He might be angry," said Sheila with perfect simplicity.

"I might," said Lavender; and then, noticing that she seemed a little
surprised, he merely patted her head and bade her go and get ready for
dinner.

Then came the great climax of Sheila's southward journey--her arrival
in London. She was all anxiety to see her future home; and, as luck
would have it, there was a fair spring morning shining over the
city. For a couple of hours before she had sat and looked out of
the carriage-window as the train whirled rapidly through the
scarcely-awakened country, and she had seen the soft and beautiful
landscapes of the South lit up by the early sunlight. How the
bright little villages shone, with here and there a gilt weathercock
glittering on the spire of some small gray church, while as yet in
many valleys a pale gray mist lay along the bed of the level streams
or clung to the dense woods on the upland heights! Which was the more
beautiful--the sharp, clear picture, with its brilliant colors and
its awakening life, or the more mystic landscape over which was still
drawn the tender veil of the morning haze? She could not tell. She
only knew that England, as she then saw it, seemed a great country
that was very beautiful, that had few inhabitants, and that was still
and sleepy, and bathed in sunshine. How happy must the people be who
lived in those quiet green valleys by the side of slow and smooth
rivers, and amid great woods and avenues of stately trees, the like of
which she had not imagined even in her dreams!

But from the moment that they got out at Euston Square she seemed a
trifle bewildered, and could only do implicitly as her husband bade
her--clinging to his hand, for the most part, as if to make sure of
guidance. She did indeed glance somewhat nervously at the hansom into
which Lavender put her, apparently asking how such a tall and narrow
two-wheeled vehicle could be prevented toppling over. But when he,
having sent on all their luggage by a respectable old four-wheeler,
got into the hansom beside her, and put his hand inside her arm, and
bade her be of good cheer that she should have such a pleasant morning
to welcome her to London, she said "Yes" mechanically, and only looked
out in a wistful fashion at the great houses and trees of Euston
Square, the mighty and roaring stream of omnibuses, the droves of
strangers, mostly clad in black, as if they were going to church, and
the pale blue smoke that seemed to mix with the sunshine and make it
cold and distant.

They were in no hurry, these two, on that still morning, and so, to
impress Sheila all at once with a sense of the greatness and grandeur
of London, he made the cabman cut down by Park Crescent and Portland
Place to Regent Circus. Then they went along Oxford street; and there
were crowded omnibuses taking young men into the city, while all
the pavements were busy with hurrying passers-by. What multitudes of
unknown faces, unknown to her and unknown to each other! These people
did not speak: they only hurried on, each intent upon his own affairs,
caring nothing, apparently, for the din around them, and looking so
strange and sad in their black clothes in the pale and misty sunlight.

"You are in a trance, Sheila," he said.

She did not answer. Surely she had wandered into some magical city,
for now the houses on one side of the way suddenly ceased, and she saw
before her a great and undulating extent of green, with a border of
beautiful flowers, and with groups of trees that met the sky all along
the southern horizon. Did the green and beautiful country she had seen
shoot in thus into the heart of the town, or was there another city
far away on the other side of the trees? The place was almost as
deserted as those still valleys she had passed by in the morning.
Here, in the street, there was the roar of a passing crowd, but there
was a long and almost deserted stretch of park, with winding roads and
umbrageous trees, on which the wan sunlight fell from between loose
masses of half-golden cloud.

Then they passed Kensington Gardens, and there were more people
walking down the broad highways between the elms.

"You are getting nearly home now, Sheila," he said. "And you will be
able to come and walk in these avenues whenever you please."

Was this, then, her home?--this section of a barrack-row of dwellings,
all alike in steps, pillars, doors and windows? When she got inside
the servant who had opened the door bobbed a curtsey to her: should
she shake hands with her and say, "And are you ferry well?" But at
this moment Lavender came running up the steps, playfully hurried
her into the house and up the stairs, and led her into her own
drawing-room. "Well, darling, what do you think of your home, now that
you see it?"

Sheila looked round timidly. It was not a big room, but it was a
palace in height and grandeur and color compared with that little
museum in Borva in which Sheila's piano stood. It was all so strange
and beautiful--the split pomegranates and quaint leaves on the
upper part of the walls, and underneath a dull slate color where the
pictures hung; the curious painting on the frames of the mirrors; the
brilliant curtains, with their stiff and formal patterns. It was not
very much like a home as yet; it was more like a picture that had been
carefully planned and executed; but she knew how he had thought of
pleasing her in choosing these things, and without saying a word she
took his hand and kissed it. And then she went to one of the three
tall French windows and looked out on the square. There, between the
trees, was a space of beautiful soft green, and some children dressed
in bright dresses, and attended by a governess in sober black, had
just begun to play croquet. An elderly lady with a small white dog was
walking along one of the graveled paths. An old man was pruning some
bushes.

"It is very still and quiet here," said Sheila. "I was afraid we
should have to live in that terrible noise always."

"I hope you won't find it dull, my darling," he said.

"Dull, when you are here?"

"But I cannot always be here, you know?"

She looked up.

"You see, a man is so much in the way if he is dawdling about a house
all day long. You would begin to regard me as a nuisance, Sheila,
and would be for sending me out to play croquet with those young
Carruthers, merely that you might get the rooms dusted. Besides, you
know I couldn't work here: I must have a studio of some sort--in the
neighborhood, of course. And then you will give me your orders in the
morning as to when I am to come round for luncheon or dinner."

"And you will be alone all day at your work?"

"Yes."

"Then I will come and sit with you, my poor boy," she said.

"Much work I should do in that case!" he said. "But we'll see. In
the mean time go up stairs and get your things off: that young person
below has breakfast ready, I dare say."

"But you have not shown me yet where Mr. Ingram lives," said Sheila
before she went to the door.

"Oh, that is miles away. You have only seen a little bit of London
yet. Ingram lives about as far away from here as the distance you have
just come, but in another direction."

"It is like a world made of houses," said Sheila, "and all filled with
strangers. But you will take me to see Mr. Ingram?"

"By and by, yes. But he is sure to drop in on you as soon as he
fancies you are settled in your new home."

And here, at last, was Mr. Ingram come; and the mere sound of his
voice seemed to carry her back to Borva, so that in talking to him and
waiting on him as of old she would scarcely have been surprised if her
father had walked in to say that a coaster was making for the harbor,
or that Duncan was going over to Stornoway, and Sheila would have to
give him commissions. Her husband did not take the same interest
in the social and political affairs of Borva that Mr. Ingram did.
Lavender had made a pretence of assisting Sheila in her work among
the poor people, but the effort was a hopeless failure. He could
not remember the name of the family that wanted a new boat, and was
visibly impatient when Sheila would sit down to write out for some
aged crone a letter to her grandson in Canada. Now, Ingram, for the
mere sake of occupation, had qualified himself during his various
visits to Lewis, so that he might have become the home minister of the
King of Borva; and Sheila was glad to have one attentive listener as
she described all the wonderful things that had happened in the island
since the previous summer.

But Ingram had got a full and complete holiday on which to come up
and see Sheila; and he had brought with him the wild and startling
proposal that in order that she should take her first plunge into the
pleasures of civilized life, her husband and herself should drive down
to Richmond and dine at the Star and Garter.

"What is that?" said Sheila.

"My dear girl," said her husband seriously, "your ignorance is
something fearful to contemplate. It is quite bewildering. How can a
person who does not know what the Star and Garter is be told what the
Star and Garter is?"

"But I am willing to go and see," said Sheila.

"Then I must look after getting a brougham," said Lavender, rising.

"A brougham on such a day as this?" exclaimed Ingram. "Nonsense! Get
an open trap of some sort; and Sheila, just to please me, will put on
that very blue dress she used to wear in Borva, and the hat and the
white feather, if she has got them."

"Perhaps you would like me to put on a sealskin cap and a red
handkerchief instead of a collar," observed Lavender calmly.

"You may do as you please. Sheila and I are going to dine at the Star
and Garter."

"May I put on that blue dress?" said the girl, going up to her
husband.

"Yes, of course, if you like," said Lavender meekly, going off to
order the carriage, and wondering by what route he could drive those
two maniacs down to Richmond so that none of his friends should see
them.

When he came back again, bringing with him a landau which could be
shut up for the homeward journey at night, he had to confess that no
costume seemed to suit Sheila so well as the rough sailor-dress; and
he was so pleased with her appearance that he consented at once to let
Bras go with them in the carriage, on condition that Sheila should be
responsible for him. Indeed, after the first shiver of driving away
from the square was over, he forgot that there was much unusual about
the look of this odd pleasure-party. If you had told him eighteen
months before that on a bright day in May, just as people were going
home from the Park for luncheon, he would go for a drive in a
hired trap with one horse, his companions being a man with a brown
wide-awake, a girl dressed as though she were the owner of a yacht,
and an immense deerhound, and that in this fashion he would dare to
drive up to the Star and Garter and order dinner, he would have bet
five hundred to one that such a thing would never occur so long as he
preserved his senses. But somehow he did not mind much. He was very
much at home with those two people beside him; the day was bright and
fresh; the horse went a good pace; and once they were over Hammersmith
Bridge and out among fields and trees, the country looked exceedingly
pretty, and all the beauty of it was mirrored in Sheila's eyes.

"All can't quite make you out in that dress, Sheila," he said. "I am
not sure whether it is real and business-like or a theatrical costume.
I have seen girls on Ryde Pier with something of the same sort on,
only a good deal more pronounced, you know, and they looked like sham
yachtsmen; and I have seen stewardesses wearing that color and texture
of cloth--"

"But why not leave it as it is," said Ingram--"a solitary costume
produced by certain conditions of climate and duties, acting in
conjunction with a natural taste for harmonious coloring and simple
form? That dress, I will maintain, sprang as naturally from the salt
sea as Aphrodite did; and the man who suspects artifice in it or
invention has had his mind perverted by the skepticism of modern
society."

"Is my dress so very wonderful?" said Sheila with a grave
complaisance. "I am pleased that the Lewis has produced such a fine
thing, and perhaps you would like me to tell you its history. It
was my papa bought a piece of blue serge in Stornoway: it cost three
shillings sixpence a yard, and a dressmaker in Stornoway cut it for
me, and I made it myself. That is all the history of the wonderful
dress."

Suddenly Sheila seized her husband's arm. They had got down to the
river by Mortlake; and there, on the broad bosom of the stream, a long
and slender boat was shooting by, pulled by four oarsmen clad in white
flannel.

"How can they go out in such a boat?" said Sheila, with a great alarm
visible in her eyes. "It is scarcely a boat at all; and if they touch
a rock or if the wind catches them--"

"Don't be frightened, Sheila," said her husband. "They are quite
safe. There are no rocks in our rivers, and the wind does not give us
squalls here like those on Loch Roag. You will see hundreds of those
boats by and by, and perhaps you yourself will go out in one."

"Oh, never, never!" she said, almost with a shudder.

"Why, if the people here heard you they would not know how brave a
sailor you are. You are not afraid to go out at night by yourself on
the sea, and you won't go on a smooth inland river--"

"But those boats: if you touch them they must go over."

She seemed glad to get away from the river. She could not be persuaded
of the safety of the slender craft of the Thames; and indeed for some
time after seemed so strangely depressed that Lavender begged and
prayed of her to tell him what was the matter. It was simple enough.
She had heard him speak of his boating adventures. Was it in such
boats as that she had just seen? and might he not be some day going
out in one of them, and an accident--the breaking of an oar, a gust of
wind--

There was nothing for it but to reassure her by a solemn promise
that in no circumstances whatever would he, Lavender, go into a boat
without her express permission; whereupon Sheila was as grateful to
him as though he had dowered her with a kingdom.

This was not the Richmond Hill of her fancy--this spacious height,
with its great mansions, its magnificent elms, and its view of all the
westward and wooded country, with the blue-white streak of the river
winding through the green foliage. Where was the farm? The famous Lass
of Richmond Hill must have lived on a farm, but here surely were the
houses of great lords and nobles, which had apparently been there
for years and years. And was this really a hotel that they stopped
at--this great building that she could only compare to Stornoway
Castle?

"Now, Sheila," said Lavender after they had ordered dinner and gone
out, "mind you keep a tight hold on that leash, for Bras will see
strange things in the Park."

"It is I who will see strange things," she said; and the prophecy
was amply fulfilled. For as they went along the broad path, and came
better into view of the splendid undulations of woodland and pasture
and fern, when on the one hand they saw the Thames, far below them,
flowing through the green and spacious valley, and on the other hand
caught some dusky glimpse of the far white houses of London, it seemed
to her that she had got into a new world, and that this world was far
more beautiful than the great city she had left. She did not care so
much for the famous view from the hill. She had cast one quick look
to the horizon, with one throb of expectation that the sea might be
there. There was no sea there--only the faint blue of long lines of
country apparently without limit. Moreover, over the western landscape
a faint haze prevailed, that increased in the distance and softened
down the more distant woods into a sober gray. That great extent of
wooded plain, lying sleepily in its pale mists, was not so cheerful as
the scene around her, where the sunlight was sharp and clear, the air
fresh, the trees flooded with a pure and bright color. Here, indeed,
was a cheerful and beautiful world, and she was full of curiosity to
know all about it and its strange features. What was the name of this
tree? and how did it differ from that? Were not these rabbits over by
the fence? and did rabbits live in the midst of trees and bushes? What
sort of wood was the fence made of? and was it not terribly expensive
to have such a protection? Could not he tell the cost of a wooden
fence? Why did they not use wire netting? Was not that a loch away
down there? and what was its name? A loch without a name! Did the
salmon come up to it? and did any sea-birds ever come inland and build
their nests on its margin?

"Oh, Bras, you must come and look at the loch. It is a long time since
you will see a loch."

And away she went through the thick breckan, holding on to the swaying
leash that held the galloping greyhound, and running swiftly as though
she had been making down for the shore to get out the Maighdean-mhara.

"Sheila," called her husband, "don't be foolish!"

"Sheila," called Ingram, "have pity on an old man!"

Suddenly she stopped. A brace of partridges had sprung up at some
little distance, and with a wild whirr of their wings were now
directing their low and rapid flight toward the bottom of the valley.

"What birds are those?" she said peremptorily.

She took no notice of the fact that her companions were pretty nearly
too blown to speak. There was a brisk life and color in her face, and
all her attention was absorbed in watching the flight of the birds.
Lavender fancied he saw in the fixed and keen look something of old
Mackenzie's gray eye: it was the first trace of a likeness to her
father he had seen.

"You bad girl!" he said, "they are partridges."

She paid no heed to this reproach, for what were those other things
over there underneath the trees? Bras had pricked up his ears, and
there was a strange excitement in his look and in his trembling frame.

"Deer!" she cried, with her eyes as fixed as were those of the dog
beside her.

"Well," said her husband calmly, "what although they are deer?"

"But Bras--" she said; and with that she caught the leash with both
her hands.

"Bras won't mind them if you keep him quiet. I suppose you can manage
him better than I can. I wish we had brought a whip."

"I would rather let him kill every deer in the Park than touch him
with a whip," said Sheila proudly.

"You fearful creature, you don't know what you say. That is high
treason. If George Ranger heard you, he would have you hanged in front
of the Star and Garter."

"Who is George Ranger?" said Sheila with an air, as if she had said,
"Do you know that I am the daughter of the King of Borva, and whoever
touches me will have to answer to my papa, who is not afraid of any
George Ranger?"

"He is a great lord who hangs all persons who disturb the deer in this
Park."

"But why do they not go away?" said Sheila impatiently. "I have never
seen any deer so stupid. It is their own fault if they are disturbed:
why do they remain so near to people and to houses?"

"My dear child, if Bras wasn't here you would probably find some of
those deer coming up to see if you had any bits of sugar or pieces of
bread about your pockets."

"Then they are like sheep--they are not like deer," she said with
some contempt. "If I could only tell Bras that it is sheep he will be
looking at, he would not look any more. And so small they are! They
are as small as the roe, but they have horns as big as many of the
red-deer. Do people eat them?"

"I suppose so."

"And what will they cost?"

"I am sure I can't tell you."

"Are they as good as the roe or the big deer?"

"I don't know that, either. I don't think I ever ate fallow-deer.
But you know they are not kept here for that purpose. A great many
gentlemen in this country keep a lot of them in their parks merely to
look pretty. They cost a great deal more than they produce."

"They must eat up a great deal of fine grass," said Sheila almost
sorrowfully. "It is a beautiful ground for sheep--no rushes, no
peat-moss, only fine, good grass and dry land. I should like my papa
to see all this beautiful ground."

"I fancy he has seen it."

"Was my papa here?"

"I think he said so."

"And did he see those deer?"

"Doubtless."

"He never told me of them."

By this time they had pretty nearly got down to the little lake, and
Bras had been alternately coaxed and threatened into a quiescent mood.
Sheila evidently expected to hear a flapping of seafowls' wings when
they got near the margin, and looked all around for the first sudden
dart from the banks. But a dead silence prevailed, and as there were
neither fish nor birds to watch, she went along to a wooden bench and
sat down there, one of her companions on each hand. It was a pretty
scene that lay before her--the small stretch of water ruffled with the
wind, but showing a dash of blue sky here and there, the trees in the
enclosure beyond clad in their summer foliage, the smooth green sward
shining in the afternoon sunlight. Here, at least, was absolute quiet
after the roar of London; and it was somewhat wistfully that she asked
her husband how far this place was from her home, and whether, when he
was at work, she could not come down here by herself.

"Certainly," he said, never dreaming that she would think of doing
such a thing.

By and by they returned to the hotel, and while they sat at dinner a
great fire of sunset spread over the west, and the far woods became of
a rich purple, streaked here and there with lines of pale white mist.
The river caught the glow of the crimson clouds above, and shone
duskily red amid the dark green of the trees. Deeper and deeper grew
the color of the sun as it sank to the horizon, until it disappeared
behind one low bar of purple cloud, and then the wild glow in the west
slowly faded away, the river became pallid and indistinct, the white
mists over the distant woods seemed to grow denser, and then, as here
and there a lamp was lit far down in the valley, one or two pale stars
appeared in the sky overhead, and the night came on apace.

"It is so strange," Sheila said, "to find the darkness coming on and
not to hear the sound of the waves. I wonder if it is a fine night at
Borva?"

Her husband went over to her and led her back to the table, where the
candles, shining over the white cloth and the colored glasses, offered
a more cheerful picture than the deepening landscape outside. They
were in a private room, so that, when dinner was over, Sheila was
allowed to amuse herself with the fruit, while her two companions lit
their cigars. Where was the quaint old piano now, and the glass of hot
whisky and water, and the "Lament of Monaltrie" or "Love in thine eyes
for ever plays"? It seemed, but for the greatness of the room, to be
a repetition of one of those evenings at Borva that now belonged to
a far-off past. Here was Sheila, not minding the smoke, listening
to Ingram as of old, and sometimes saying something in that sweetly
inflected speech of hers; here was Ingram, talking, as it were, out
of a brown study, and morosely objecting to pretty nearly everything
Lavender said, but always ready to prove Sheila right; and Lavender
himself, as unlike a married man as ever, talking impatiently,
impetuously and wildly, except at such times as he said something to
his young wife, and then some brief smile and look or some pat on the
hand said more than words. But where, Sheila may have thought, was the
one wanting to complete the group? Has he gone down to Borvabost to
see about the cargoes of fish to be sent off in the morning? Perhaps
he is talking to Duncan outside about the cleaning of the guns or
making up cartridges in the kitchen. When Sheila's attention wandered
away from the talk of her companions she could not help listening for
the sound of the waves; and as there was no such message coming to her
from the great wooded plain without, her fancy took her away across
that mighty country she had traveled through, and carried her up to
the island of Loch Roag, until she almost fancied she could smell
the peat-smoke in the night-air, and listen to the sea, and hear
her father pacing up and down the gravel outside the house, perhaps
thinking of her as she was thinking of him.

This little excursion to Richmond was long remembered by those three.
It was the last of their meetings before Sheila was ushered into the
big world to busy herself with new occupations and cares. It was a
pleasant little journey throughout, for as they got into the landau
to drive back to town the moon was shining high up in the southern
heavens, and the air was mild and fresh, so that they had the carriage
opened, and Sheila, well wrapped up, lay and looked around her with
a strange wonder and joy as they drove underneath the shadow of the
trees and out again into the clear sheen of the night. They saw the
river, too, flowing smoothly and palely down between its dark banks;
and somehow here the silence checked them, and they hummed no more
those duets they used to sing up at Borva. Of what were they thinking,
then, as they drove through the clear night along the lonely road?
Lavender, at least, was rejoicing at his great good fortune that he
had secured for ever to himself the true-hearted girl who now sat
opposite him, with the moonlight touching her face and hair; and
he was laughing to himself at the notion that he did not properly
appreciate her or understand her or perceive her real character. If
not he, who then? Had he not watched every turn of her disposition,
every expression of her wishes, every grace of her manner and look of
her eyes? and was he not overjoyed to find that the more he knew
of her the more he loved her? Marriage had increased rather than
diminished the mystery and wonder he had woven about her. He was more
her lover now than he had been before his marriage. Who could see in
her eyes what he saw? Elderly folks can look at a girl's eyes, and
see that they are brown or blue or green, as the case may be; but the
lover looks at them and sees in them the magic mirror of a hundred
possible worlds. How can he fathom the sea of dreams that lies there,
or tell what strange fancies and reminiscences may be involved in an
absent look? Is she thinking of starlit nights on some distant lake,
or of the old bygone days on the hills? All her former life is told
there, and yet but half told, and he longs to become possessed of all
the beautiful past that she has seen. Here is a constant mystery to
him, and there is a singular and wistful attraction for him in those
still deeps where the thoughts and dreams of an innocent soul lie but
half revealed. He does not see those things in the eyes of women he is
not in love with; but when in after years he is carelessly regarding
this or the other woman, some chance look, some brief and sudden turn
of expression, will recall to him, as with a stroke of lightning, all
the old wonder-time, and his heart will go nigh to breaking to think
that he has grown old, that he has forgotten so much, and that the
fair, wild days of romance and longing are passed away for ever.

"Ingram thinks I don't understand you yet, Sheila," he said to her
after they had got home and their friend had gone.

Sheila only laughed, and said, "I don't understand myself sometimes."

"Eh? What?" he cried. "Do you mean to say that I have married a
conundrum? If I have, I don't mean to give you up, any way; so you may
go and get me a biscuit and a drop of the whisky we brought from the
North with us."




CHAPTER XI.

THE FIRST PLUNGE.


Frank Lavender was a good deal more concerned than he chose to show
about the effect that Sheila was likely to produce on his aunt; and
when at length the day arrived on which the young folks were to go
down to Kensington Gore, he had inwardly to confess that Sheila seemed
a great deal less perturbed than himself. Her perfect calmness and
self-possession surprised him. The manner in which she had dressed
herself, with certain modifications which he could not help approving,
according to the fashion of the time, seemed to him a miracle of
dexterity; and how had she acquired the art of looking at ease in this
attire, which was much more cumbrous than that she had usually worn in
Borva?

If Lavender had but known the truth, he would have begun to believe
something of what Ingram had vaguely hinted. This poor girl was
looking toward her visit to Kensington Gore as the most painful trial
of her life. While she was outwardly calm and firm, and even cheerful,
her heart sank within her as she thought of the dreaded interview.
Those garments which she wore with such an appearance of ease and
comfort had been the result of many an hour of anxiety, for how was
she to tell, from her husband's railery, what colors the terrible old
lady in Kensington would probably like? He did not know that every
word he said in joke about his aunt's temper, her peevish ways, the
awful consequences of offending her, and so forth, were like so many
needles stuck into the girl's heart, until she was ready to cry out to
be released from this fearful ordeal. Moreover, as the day came near
what he could not see in her she saw in him. Was she likely to be
reassured when she perceived that her husband, in spite of all his
fun, was really anxious, and when she knew that some blunder on her
part might ruin him? In fact, if he had suspected for a moment that
she was really trembling to think of what might happen, he might have
made some effort to give her courage.

But apparently Sheila was as cool and collected as if she had been
going to see John the Piper. He believed she could have gone to be
presented to the queen without a single tremor of the heart.

Still, he was a man, and therefore bound to assume an air of
patronage. "She won't eat you, really," he said to Sheila as they were
driving in a hansom down Kensington Palace Gardens. "All you have
got to do is to believe in her theories of food. She won't make you
a martyr to them. She measures every half ounce of what she eats, but
she won't starve you; and I am glad to think, Sheila, that you have
brought a remarkably good and sensible appetite with you from the
Lewis. Oh, by the way, take care you say nothing against Marcus
Aurelius."

"I don't know who he was, dear," observed Sheila meekly.

"He was a Roman emperor and a philosopher. I suppose it was because he
was an emperor that he found it easy to be a philosopher. However, my
aunt is nuts on Marcus Aurelius: I beg your pardon, you don't know the
phrase. My aunt makes Marcus Aurelius her Bible, and she is sure to
read you bits from him, which you must believe, you know."

"I will try," said Sheila doubtfully, "but if--"

"Oh, it has nothing to do with religion. I don't think anybody knows
what Marcus Aurelius means, so you may as well believe it. Ingram
swears by him, but he is always full of odd crotchets."

"Does Mr. Ingram believe in Marcus Aurelius?" said Sheila with some
accession of interest.

"Why, he gave my aunt the book years ago--confound him!--and ever
since she has been a nuisance to her friends. For my own part, you
know, I don't believe that Marcus Aurelius was quite such an ass as
Plato. He talks the same sort of perpetual common-places, but it isn't
about the True and the Good and the Beautiful. Would you like me to
repeat to you one of the Dialogues of Plato--about the immortality of
Mr. Cole and the moral effect of the South Kensington Museum?"

"No, dear, I shouldn't," said Sheila.

"You deprive yourself of a treat, but never mind. Here we are at my
aunt's house."

Sheila timidly glanced at the place while her husband paid the cabman.
It was a tall, narrow, dingy-looking house of dark brick, with some
black green ivy at the foot of the walls, and with crimson curtains
formally arranged in every one of the windows. If Mrs. Lavender was a
rich old lady, why did she live in such a gloomy building? Sheila had
seen beautiful white houses in all parts of London: her own house, for
example, was ever so much more cheerful than this one; and yet she
had heard with awe of the value of this depressing little mansion in
Kensington Gore.

The door was opened by a man, who showed them up stairs and announced
their names. Sheila's heart beat quickly. She entered the drawing-room
with a sort of mist before her eyes, and found herself going forward
to a lady who sat at the farther end. She had a strangely vivid
impression, amid all her alarm, that this old lady looked like the
withered kernel of a nut. Or was she not like a cockatoo? It
was through no anticipation of dislike to Mrs. Lavender that the
imagination of the girl got hold of that notion. But the little
old lady held her head like a cockatoo. She had the hard, staring,
observant and unimpressionable eyes of a cockatoo. What was there,
moreover, about the decorations of her head that reminded one of a
cockatoo when it puts up its crest and causes its feathers to look
like sticks of celery?

"Aunt Caroline, this is my wife."

"I am glad to see you, dear," said the old lady, giving her hand, but
not rising. "Sit down. When you are a little nervous you ought to sit
down. Frank, give me that ammonia from the mantelpiece."

It was a small glass phial, and labeled "Poison." She smelt the
stopper, and then handed it to Sheila, telling her to do the same.

"Why did your maid do your hair in such a way?" she asked suddenly.

"I haven't got a maid," said Sheila, "and I always do my hair so."

"Don't be offended. I like it. But you must not make a fool of
yourself. Your hair is too much that of a country beauty going to a
ball. Paterson will show you how to do your hair."

"Oh, I say, aunt," cried Lavender with a fine show of carelessness,
"you mustn't go and spoil her hair. I think it is very pretty as it
is, and that woman of yours would simply go and make a mop of it.
You'd think the girls now-a-days dressed their hair by shoving their
head into a furze bush and giving it a couple of turns."

She paid no heed to him, but turned to Sheila and said, "You are an
only child?"

"Yes."

"Why did you leave your father?"

The question was rather a cruel one, and it stung Sheila into
answering bravely, "Because my husband wished me."

"Oh. You think your husband is to be the first law of your life?"

"Yes, I do."

"Even when he is only silly Frank Lavender?"

Sheila rose. There was a quivering of her lips, but no weakness in the
proud, indignant look of her eyes: "What you may say of me, that I do
not care. But I will not remain to hear my husband insulted."

"Sheila," said Lavender, vexed and anxious, and yet pleased at the
same time by the courage of the girl--"Sheila, it is only a joke. You
must not mind: it is only a bit of fun."

"I do not understand such jests," she said calmly.

"Sit down, like a good girl," said the old lady with an air of
absolute indifference. "I did not mean to offend you. Sit down and be
quiet. You will destroy your nervous system if you give way to such
impulses. I think you are healthy. I like the look of you, but you
will never reach a good age, as I hope to do, except by moderating
your passions. That is well: now take the ammonia again, and give it
to me. You don't wish to die young, I suppose?"

"I am not afraid of dying," said Sheila.

"Ring the bell, Frank."

He did so, and a tall, spare, grave-faced woman appeared.

"Paterson, you must put luncheon on to two-ten. I ordered it at
one-fifty, did I not?"

"Yes, m'm."

"See that it is served at two-ten, and take this young lady and get
her hair properly done. You understand? My nephew and I will wait
luncheon for her."

"Yes, m'm."

Sheila rose with a great swelling in her throat. All her courage had
ebbed away. She had reflected how pained her husband would be if she
did not please this old lady; and she was now prepared to do anything
she was told, to receive meekly any remarks that might be made to her,
to be quite obedient and gentle and submissive. But what was this tall
and terrible woman going to do to her? Did she really mean to cut away
those great masses of hair to which Mrs. Lavender had objected? Sheila
would have let her hair be cut willingly for her husband's sake; but
as she went to the door some wild and despairing notions came into her
head of what her husband might think of her when once she was shorn
of this beautiful personal feature. Would he look at her with
surprise--perhaps even with disappointment?

"Mind you don't keep luncheon late," he said to her as she passed him.

She but indistinctly heard him, so great was the trembling within her.
Her father would scarcely know his altered Sheila when she went back
to Borva; and what would Mairi say--Mairi who had many a time helped
her to arrange those long tresses, and who was as proud of them as if
they were her own? She followed Mrs. Lavender's tall maid up stairs.
She entered a small dressing-room and glanced nervously round. Then
she suddenly turned, looked for a moment at the woman, and said, with
tears rushing up into her eyes, "Does Mrs. Lavender wish me to cut my
hair?"

The woman regarded her with astonishment: "Cut, miss?--ma'am. I
beg your pardon. No, ma'am, not at all. I suppose it is only some
difference in the arrangement, ma'am. Mrs. Lavender is very particular
about the hair, and she has asked me to show several ladies how to
dress their hair in the way she likes. But perhaps you would prefer
letting it remain as it is, ma'am?"

"Oh no, not at all!" said Sheila, "I should like to have it just as
Mrs. Lavender wishes--in every way just as she wishes. Only, it will
not be necessary to cut any?"

"Oh no, miss--ma'am; and it would be a great pity, if I may say so, to
cut _your_ hair."

Sheila was pleased to hear that. Here was a woman who had a large
experience in such matters among those very ladies of her husband's
social circle whom she had been a little afraid to meet. Mrs. Paterson
seemed to admire her hair as much as the simple Mairi had done; and
Sheila soon began to have less fear of this terrible tiring-woman, who
forthwith proceeded with her task.

The young wife went down stairs with a tower upon her head. She was
very uncomfortable. She had seen, it is true, that this method of
dressing the hair really became her--or rather would become her in
certain circumstances. It was grand, imposing, statuesque, but then
she did not feel statuesque just at this moment. She could have
dressed herself to suit this style of hair; she could have worn it
with confidence if she had got it up herself; but here she was the
victim of an experiment. She felt like a school-girl about for the
first time to appear in public in a long dress, and she was terribly
afraid her husband would laugh at her. If he had any such inclination,
he courteously suppressed it. He said the massive simplicity of this
dressing of the hair suited her admirably. Mrs. Lavender said that
Paterson was an invaluable woman; and then they went down to the
dining-room on the ground floor, where luncheon had been laid.

The man who had opened the door waited on the two strangers: the
invaluable Paterson acted as a sort of hench-woman to her mistress,
standing by her chair and supplying her wants. She also had the
management of a small pair of silver scales, in which pretty nearly
everything that Mrs. Lavender took in the way of solid food was
carefully and accurately weighed. The conversation was chiefly
alimentary, and Sheila listened with a growing wonder to the
description of the devices by which the ladies of Mrs. Lavender's
acquaintance were wont to cheat fatigue or win an appetite or preserve
their color. When by accident the girl herself was appealed to, she
had to confess to an astonishing ignorance of all such resources. She
knew nothing of the relative strengths and effects of wines, though
she was frankly ready to make any experiment her husband recommended.
She knew what camphor was, but had never heard of bismuth. On
cross-examination she had to admit that eau-de-cologne did not seem to
her likely to be a pleasant liquor before going to a ball. Did she not
know the effect on brown hair of washing it in soda-water every night?
She was equably confessing her ignorance on all such points, when she
was startled by a sudden question from Mrs. Lavender. Did she know
what she was doing?

She looked at her plate: there was on it a piece of cheese to
which she had thoughtlessly helped herself. Somebody had called it
Roquefort--that was all she knew.

"You have as much there, child, as would kill a ploughman; and I
suppose you would not have had the sense to leave it."

"Is it poison?" said Sheila, regarding her plate with horror.

"All cheese is. Paterson, my scales."

She had Sheila's plate brought to her, and the proper modicum of
cheese cut, weighed and sent back.

"Remember, whatever house you are at, never to have more Roquefort
than that."

"It would be simpler to do without it," said Sheila.

"It would be simple enough to do without a great many things," said
Mrs. Lavender severely. "But the wisdom of living is to enjoy as many
different things as possible, so long as you do so in moderation and
preserve your health. You are young--you don't think of such things.
You think, because you have good teeth and a clear complexion, you can
eat anything. But that won't last. A time will come. Do you not know
what the great emperor Marcus Antoninus says?--'In a little while thou
wilt be nobody and nowhere, like Hadrianus and Augustus.'"

"Yes," said Sheila.

She had not enjoyed her luncheon much--she would rather have had a ham
sandwich and a glass of spring water on the side of a Highland hill
than this varied and fastidious repast accompanied by a good deal of
physiology--but it was too bad that, having successfully got through
it, she should be threatened with annihilation immediately afterward.
It was no sort of consolation to her to know that she would be in the
same plight with two emperors.

"Frank, you can go and smoke a cigar in the conservatory if you
please. Your wife will come up stairs with me and have a talk."

Sheila would much rather have gone into the conservatory also, but she
obediently followed Mrs. Lavender up stairs and into the drawing-room.
It was rather a melancholy chamber, the curtains shutting out most of
the daylight, and leaving you in a semi-darkness that made the place
look big and vague and spectral. The little, shriveled woman, with
the hard and staring eyes and silver-gray hair, bade Sheila sit down
beside her. She herself sat by a small table, on which there were a
tiny pair of scales, a bottle of ammonia, a fan, and a book bound in
an old-fashioned binding of scarlet morocco and gold. Sheila wished
this old woman would not look at her so. She wished there was a window
open or a glint of sunlight coming in somewhere. But she was glad that
her husband was enjoying himself in the conservatory; and that for two
reasons. One of them was, that she did not like the tone of his talk
while he and his aunt had been conversing together about cosmetics
and such matters. Not only did he betray a marvelous acquaintance
with such things, but he seemed to take an odd sort of pleasure in
exhibiting his knowledge. He talked about the tricks of fashionable
women in a mocking way that Sheila did not quite like; and of course
she naturally threw the blame on Mrs. Lavender. It was only when this
old lady exerted a godless influence over him that her good boy talked
in such a fashion. There was nothing of that about him up in Lewis,
nor yet at home in a certain snug little smoking-room which these two
had come to consider the most comfortable corner in the house. Sheila
began to hate women who used lip-salve, and silently recorded a vow
that never, never, never would she wear anybody's hair but her own.

"Do you suffer from headaches?" said Mrs. Lavender abruptly.

"Sometimes," said Sheila.

"How often? What is an average? Two a week?"

"Oh, sometimes I have not a head-ache for three or four months at a
time."

"No toothache?"

"No."

"What did your mother die of?"

"It was a fever," said Sheila in a low voice, "and she caught it while
she was helping a family that was very bad with the fever."

"Does your father ever suffer from rheumatism?"

"No," said Sheila. "My papa is the strongest man in the Lewis--I am
sure of that."

"But the strongest of us, you know," said Mrs. Lavender, looking
hardly at the girl--"the strongest of us will die and go into the
general order of the universe; and it is a good thing for you that, as
you say, you are not afraid. Why should you be afraid? Listen to this
passage." She opened the red book, and guided herself to a certain
page by one of a series of colored ribbons: "'He who fears death
either fears the loss of sensation or a different kind of sensation.
But if thou shalt have no sensation, neither wilt thou feel any harm;
and if thou shalt acquire another kind of sensation, thou wilt be a
different kind of living being, and thou wilt not cease to live.' Do
you perceive the wisdom of that?"

"Yes," said Sheila, and her own voice seemed hollow and strange to her
in this big and dimly-lit chamber.

Mrs. Lavender turned over a few more pages, and proceeded to read
again; and as she did so, in a slow, unsympathetic, monotonous voice,
a spell came over the girl, the weight at her heart grew more and more
intolerable, and the room seemed to grow darker: "'Short, then, is the
time which every man lives, and small the nook of the earth where he
lives; and short, too, the longest posthumous fame, and even this only
continued by a succession of poor human beings, who will very soon
die, and who know not even themselves, much less him who died long
ago.' You cannot do better than ask your husband to buy you a copy
of this book, and give it special study. It will comfort you in
affliction, and reconcile you to whatever may happen to you. Listen:
'Soon will the earth cover us all; then the earth, too, will change,
and the things also which result from change will continue to change
for ever, and these again for ever. For if a man reflects on the
changes and transformations which follow one another like wave
after wave, and their rapidity, he will despise everything which is
perishable.' Do you understand that?"

"Yes," said Sheila, and it seemed to her that she was being
suffocated. Would not the gray walls burst asunder and show her one
glimpse of the blue sky before she sank into unconsciousness? The
monotonous tones of this old woman's voice sounded like the repetition
of a psalm over a coffin. It was as if she was already shut out
from life, and could only hear in a vague way the dismal words being
chanted over her by the people in the other world. She rose, steadied
herself for a moment by placing her hand on the back of the chair, and
managed to say, "Mrs. Lavender, forgive me for one moment: I wish to
speak to my husband." She went to the door--Mrs. Lavender being too
surprised to follow her--and made her way down stairs. She had seen
the conservatory at the end of a certain passage. She reached it, and
then she scarcely knew any more, except that her husband caught her
in his arms as she cried, "Oh, Frank, Frank, take me away from this
house! I am afraid: it terrifies me!"

"Sheila, what on earth is the matter? Here, come out into the fresh
air. By Jove, how pale you are! Will you have some water?"

He could not get to understand thoroughly what had occurred. What he
clearly did learn from Sheila's disjointed and timid explanations was
that there had been another "scene," and he knew that of all things
in the world his aunt hated "scenes" the worst. As soon as he saw that
there was little the matter with Sheila beyond considerable mental
perturbation, he could not help addressing some little remonstrance to
her, and reminding her how necessary it was that she should not offend
the old lady up stairs.

"You should not be so excitable, Sheila," he said. "You take such
exaggerated notions about things. I am sure my aunt meant nothing
unkind. And what did you say when you came away?"

"I said I wanted to see you. Are you angry with me?"

"No, of course not. But then, you see, it is a little vexing just at
this moment. Well, let us go up stairs at once, and try and make up
some excuse, like a good girl. Say you felt faint--anything."

"And you will come with me?"

"Yes. Now do try, Sheila, to make friends with my aunt. She's not such
a bad sort of creature as you seem to think. She's been very kind to
me--she'll be very kind to you when she knows you more."

Fortunately, no excuse was necessary, for Mrs. Lavender, in Sheila's
absence, had arrived at the conclusion that the girl's temporary
faintness was due to that piece of Roquefort.

"You see you must be careful," she said when they entered the room.
"You are unaccustomed to a great many things you will like afterward."

"And the room is a little close," said Lavender.

"I don't think so," said his aunt, sharply: "look at the barometer."

"I didn't mean for you and me, Aunt Caroline," he said, "but for her.
Sheila has been accustomed to live almost wholly in the open air."

"The open air in moderation is an excellent thing. I go out myself
every afternoon, wet or dry. And I was going to propose, Frank, that
you should leave her here with me for the afternoon, and come back and
dine with us at seven. I am going out at four-thirty, and she could go
with me."

"It's very kind of you, Aunt Caroline, but we have promised to call on
some people close by here at four."

Sheila looked up frightened. The statement was an audacious perversion
of the truth. But then Frank Lavender knew very well what his aunt
meant by going into the open air every afternoon, wet or dry. At one
certain hour her brougham was brought round: she got into it, and
had both doors and windows hermetically sealed, and then, in a
semi-somnolent state, she was driven slowly and monotonously round the
Park. How would Sheila fare if she were shut up in this box? He told a
lie with great equanimity, and saved her.

Then Sheila was taken away to get on her things, and her husband
waited, with some little trepidation, to hear what his aunt would say
about her. He had not long to wait.

"She's got a bad temper, Frank."

"Oh, I don't think so, Aunt Caroline," he said, considerably startled.

"Mark my words, she's got a bad temper, and she is not nearly so soft
as she tries to make out. That girl has a great deal of firmness,
Frank."

"I find her as gentle and submissive as a girl could be--a little too
gentle, perhaps, and anxious to study the wishes of other folks."

"That is all very well with you. You are her master. She is not likely
to quarrel with her bread and butter. But you'll see if she does not
hold her own when she gets among your friends."

"I hope she will hold her own."

The old lady only shook her head.

"I am sorry you should have taken a prejudice against her, Aunt
Caroline," said the young man humbly.

"I take a prejudice! Don't let me hear the word again, Frank. You know
I have no prejudices. If I cannot give you a reason for anything I
believe, then I cease to believe it."

"You have not heard her sing," he said, suddenly remembering that this
means of conquering the old lady had been neglected.

"I have no doubt she has many accomplishments," said Aunt Caroline
coldly. "In time, I suppose, she will get over that extraordinary
accent she has."

"Many people like it."

"I dare say you do--at present. But you may tire of it. You married
her in a hurry, and you have not got rid of your romance yet. At the
same time, I dare say she is a very good sort of girl, and will not
disgrace you if you instruct her and manage her properly. But remember
my words--she has a temper, and you will find it out if you thwart
her."

How sweet and fresh the air was, even in Kensington, when Sheila,
having dressed and come down stairs, and after having dutifully kissed
Mrs. Lavender and bade her good-bye, went outside with her husband!
It was like coming back to the light of day from inside the imaginary
coffin in which she had fancied herself placed. A soft west wind was
blowing over the Park, and a fairly clear sunlight shining on the May
green of the trees. And then she hung on her husband's arm, and she
had him to speak to instead of the terrible old woman who talked about
dying.

And yet she hoped she had not offended Mrs. Lavender, for Frank's
sake. What he thought about the matter he prudently resolved to
conceal.

"Do you know that you have greatly pleased my aunt?" he said, without
the least compunction. He knew that if he breathed the least hint
about what had actually been said, any possible amity between the two
women would be rendered impossible for ever.

"Have I, really?" said Sheila, very much astonished, but never
thinking for a moment of doubting anything said by her husband.

"Oh, she likes you awfully," he said with an infinite coolness.

"I am so glad!" said Sheila, with her face brightening. "I was so
afraid, dear, I had offended her. She did not look pleased with me."

By this time they had got into a hansom, and were driving down to the
South Kensington Museum. Lavender would have preferred going into
the Park, but what if his aunt, in driving by, were to see them? He
explained to Sheila the absolute necessity of his having to tell that
fib about the four-o'clock engagement; and when she heard described
the drive in the closed brougham which she had escaped, perhaps she
was not so greatly inclined as she ought to have been to protest
against that piece of wickedness.

"Oh yes, she likes you awfully," he repeated, "and you must get to
like her. Don't be frightened by her harsh way of saying things: it
is only a mannerism. She is really a kind-hearted woman, and would
do anything for me. That's her best feature, looking at her character
from my point of view."

"How often must we go to see her?" asked Sheila.

"Oh, not very often. But she will get up dinner-parties, at which you
will be introduced to batches of her friends. And then the best thing
you can do is to put yourself under her instructions, and take her
advice about your dress and such matters, just as you did about your
hair. That was very good of you."

"I am glad you were pleased with me," said Sheila. "I will do what I
can to like her. But she must talk more respectfully of you."

Lavender laughed that little matter off as a joke, but it was no joke
to Sheila. She would try to like that old woman--yes: her duty to her
husband demanded that she should. But there are some things that a
wife--especially a girl who has been newly made a wife--will never
forget; which, on the contrary, she will remember with burning cheeks
and anger and indignation.

[TO BE CONTINUED.]




SOME PASSAGES IN SHELLEY'S EARLY HISTORY.


Shelley's connection with Stockdale is one of the curiosities of
literary history. It is as if Miranda had attached herself to the
fortunes of Caliban. An inexplicable thing, except upon the assumption
of the young poet's inexperience of men and his ignorance of affairs.
It is, moreover, a new passage in his life which has hitherto eluded
the most sagacious of his biographers. Who was Stockdale, and what
was the relationship between these two personages, so opposite in
character, intellect and pursuits? Stockdale's name was altogether
unknown to honest folks before Shelley gave it currency and introduced
the owner of it to polite society--at all events on paper. He owes
his notoriety, therefore, entirely to the boy-poet, into whose way
the good man was thrown by one of those inexplicable freaks of chance
which often bring about such strange results both to subject and
object.

John Joseph Stockdale was, like his father, a bookseller, who did
a low sort of business in Pall Mall. For some forty years the
Stockdales, father and son, were jointly or separately the John
Murrays of the London Bohemians. Their house was the resort of
novelists, poets, and especially dramatic writers, for twenty years
before and twenty years after the close of the eighteenth century,
and they were purveyors-general of circulating libraries, tempting the
ambition of young authors with rosy promises of success and alluring
baits of immortality, if they could only find the base metals _in
quantum stiff_, to pay the cold-blooded paper-merchant and the vulgar
type-setter. Many a poetic pigeon did the Stockdales pluck, no doubt,
by these expedients. For in those days, as in these present, a young
suckling full of innocence and his mother's nourishment deemed it the
highest earthly honor to be admitted to the society of Bohemian bulls
and fire-breathing poets; and to be further allowed the privilege of
paying for dinner and wine, with dramatists and men of the Bohemian
kidney as guests, was a distinction for which no amount of pecuniary
disbursement could by any possibility be regarded as an equivalent.

It is hardly to be supposed, however, that Shelley--even if it could
be shown that he actually joined the mob of Stockdale's wits as
hale-fellow-well-met--ever participated in this loyalty to their
sovran virtues and superiorities. He was the god, not they; and
although he hid his divinity under a mask and knew the value of
silence in a court of fools, yet he could not fail to be conscious
that small and unimportant as he was held to be among those Titans of
imagination and song, yet it would be found upon trial that he alone
could bend the mighty bow of Ulysses, and had the right to wear the
garland and singing-robes of the poet.

But the prior question remains, how Shelley, of all men then living,
came to have any knowledge of such a person as Stockdale--still more,
any dealings with him.

And it is remarkable that the answer to this question comes from one
and the same source; and that is the private journal of Stockdale
himself, who, like the petty Boswells of the serial literature of the
present day, cozened, by flattery and other arts best known to
that class, a considerable number of scholars and authors into a
correspondence with him, and carefully preserving these their private
letters until time should have enhanced the value of the autographs,
and he could glorify himself in the fame of the writers, deliberately
ransacked his old archives for this purpose; and finding a number of
the boy Shelley's business-letters to him--curious, to be sure, and
interesting enough to a hero-worshiper--he audaciously published them
in an unclean magazine called _Stockdale's Budget_.

Personally, we know nothing of the _Budget_, but an English bookworm
sets it down as "a sort of appendix to the more celebrated _Memoirs
of Harriet Wilson"_, which Stockdale had himself published a few years
before. This was so boldly licentious, and so reckless in its attacks
upon the private characters of the Upper Ten, that the publisher was
prosecuted with merciless persistency until his business gave up the
ghost. To convince the public that he was a martyr he started the
_Budget_ in 1827, and still appears to have kept his poets and
dramatic satellites around him, and to have been a man of some repute
for good-nature to young authors. Indeed, it is but fair to say that
from the first moment of Shelley's introduction to him until we find
him betraying Shelley's confidence in him to his father, to save him,
if possible, from the publication of an atheistic theorem, he seems to
have been fascinated by the young poet's character, and has testified
under his own name that he had the highest confidence in his
integrity, although it seems he lost a round sum by him in the end;
and he adds that, in his belief, Shelley would "vegetate rather than
live, in order to pay any honest debt."

It was in 1810 that Shelley, impressed somehow or other with the
belief that Stockdale was the poet's friend, rushed pell-mell into
the publisher's _Pall Mall_ shop, and besought him to do the friendly
thing by him, and help him out of a scrape he had got into with his
printer by ordering him to print fourteen hundred and eighty copies of
a volume of poems, without having the money at hand to pay him. "Aldus
of Horsham, the mute and the inglorious," was finally, appeased,
although not by Stockdale's money, and the edition of the poems passed
into Stockdale's hands for sale. The book was entitled _Original
Poetry, by Victor and Cazire_, and we are informed that an
advertisement of the same appeared in the _Morning Chronicle_,
September 18, 1810.

Shelley had previously published a romance called _Zastrozzi_, and his
first kitten-love, Harriet Grove, is said to have helped both in
this performance and the poems. But Harriet was not mindful of the
commandment against stealing, and when Stockdale came to examine the
poems he found that she had taken one entire poem by Monk Lewis and
put it in among the "original" poetry. Shelley ordered the edition to
be "squelched," but nearly a hundred copies had already been issued;
and this fact, so maddening to the poet, may yet rejoice the collector
of rare books.

These poems, the _Wandering Jew_, an epic, the joint production of
himself and Captain Medwin, a school-boy production, _St. Irvyne,
or the Rosicrucian_, and his first story, _Zastrozzi_, are the first
books of the poet; and their history is detailed with more or less
interest in the letters which passed between Shelley and Stockdale
respecting them. The poet tells Stockdale, in offering him the
manuscript of the _Jew_ for publication, that he had previously to
knowing him sent it to John Ballantyne & Co., and encloses their
letter setting forth the reason that they did not publish it--namely,
that it contained "atheistical opinions." The canny Scots are sorry to
return it, and do so only "after the most mature deliberation." They
think that it is better suited, "perhaps," to the "character and
liberal feelings of the English than the bigoted spirit which yet
pervades many cultivated minds in this country;" adding, "Even Walter
Scott is assailed on all hands at present by our Scotch spiritual
and evangelical magazines and instructors for having promulgated
atheistical doctrines in the _Lady of the Lake_."

Shelley assures Stockdale he is unconscious of atheism in the _Few_,
and asks him "upon his honor as a gentleman to pay a fair price for
the copy-right."

Stockdale never received the manuscript of the _Jew_, and Shelley,
having submitted a copy in manuscript to Campbell and received an
adverse judgment, does not seem to have troubled himself further about
it. So it remained in must and dust until 1831, when somebody of the
Stockdale ilk discovered it, and printed parts of it in _Frazer's
Magazine_. Judging from these excerpts, the book was entirely
worthless, and as for the stories, they were neither better nor worse
than other school-boy pieces of those days.

The betrayal of confidence of which Shelley complained as proceeding
from Stockdale arose from a letter of the poet's, in which (November
12, 1810) he asks his friend the publisher to send him a "Hebrew essay
demonstrating the falsehood of the Christian religion," and which the
_Christian Observer_, he says, calls "an unanswerable but sophistical
argument." Have it he must, be it translated into "Greek, Latin or any
of the European languages."

Pendulous Stockdale--"long and lank and brown"--comes from the reek
and sin and filth of _Harriet Wilson's Memoirs_, his pet publication,
and actually trembles with godly fear for the safety of a human soul,
and that soul the interior, eternal esse of the son of a baronet;
which baronet he hopes to make a good money-friend of by betraying his
son's secrets to him. Love, of a sort, for Shelley may also have been
a constituent of his motive to this treachery, as the poet called it,
for there can be no doubt that he did love him in his way, as all the
rough fellows--his Comus crew of the _Budget_ office--loved him.

Old Sir Timothy is grateful to the bookseller for abusing the trust
put in him by his son, and he thanks him for what he calls the
"liberal and handsome manner" in which Stockdale has imparted to him
his sentiments toward Shelley, and says he shall ever esteem it and
hold it in remembrance.

The publication of the letters before us sets at rest the disputed
point as to the date of Shelley's first acquaintance with Harriet
Westbrook, whom he subsequently married. Writing to Stockdale December
18, 1810, he requests him to send copies of the new romance to Miss
Marshall, Horsham, Sussex, T. Medwin, Esq., Horsham, Sussex, T.J.
Hogg, Esq., Rev. Dayrells Lynnington, Dayrell, Bucks; and Jan. 11,
1811, writing to the same person, he asks him to send a copy of _St.
Irvyne_ to Miss Harriet Westbrook, 10 Chapel street, Grosvenor Square.
It is pretty certain, therefore, that the acquaintance began between
the dates of these two letters, for if he had known Harriet when he
ordered his book to be sent to Miss Marshall, he would certainly have
coupled the two names together and added them to the little list
of his friends already given. Our English friend suggests here that
Shelley may not have known Harriet personally at this time, but merely
through the reports of his sisters, who were always talking about her,
as reported in the _Shelley Memorials_. We think this is likely to
be the case, as during that period Shelley does not seem to have
journeyed to London. The aforesaid friend says also that he possessed
a manuscript (unpublished) in which somebody who knows states that
Shelley first saw her in January, 1811, and that whenever this
manuscript is published it will be seen how very slight was Shelley's
acquaintance with Harriet before their marriage, and "what advantage
was taken of his chivalry of sentiment and her complacent disposition,
and the inexperience of both, and how little entitled or disposed she
felt herself to complain of his behavior." "Shelley and his girl-wife
visited Windermere," we think are the words of De Quincey in alluding
to their sudden apparition in the Lake district just after their
union. And two more discordant natures could hardly have been bound
together till death.

The last friendly communication which passed between Shelley and his
publisher was dated January 11, 1811, as we have seen; and he must
immediately afterward have discovered the treachery of Stockdale, for
only three days later he writes a vituperative letter against him to
Hogg, in that he had been traducing Hogg's character; and informs
him that he will, while on his way to Oxford, compel the publisher to
explain not only why he "dared to make so free with the character of a
gentleman about whom he knew nothing," but why he had been treacherous
enough to inform Sir Timothy that he (Shelley) had sent him "a work"
which had been submitted to him in the strictest confidence and honor.

This performance was probably the pamphlet which caused Shelley's
expulsion from Oxford; and Stockdale hoped to be regarded as a friend
of the family by telling Sir T. all about it, and thus preventing a
young aristocrat of such high birth and pretensions from falling into
the slough of the blackguard Free-thinkers. No doubt he was influenced
to do this good turn to the family by the fact that the bill for the
last romance was unpaid, and he knew that if Sir Timothy would not,
and Shelley, being a minor, could not, liquidate it, he would, between
the two unreliable stools, come to the ground. In order to apologize
for Shelley, and make it appear to his father that he was not to blame
for writing such wickedness, but that another had indoctrinated him
with all bad notions, he pitched upon Hogg as the scapegoat. This is,
at all events, the English writer's explanation; but it was a futile
as well as a foolish thing for the cunning publisher to do, for he
made them all his enemies, and Sir Timothy refused to pay a farthing
of the printing account. So the publisher lost it. Shelley, it is
true, in a cool, polite business letter (April 11, 1811), asks for his
account, which is delayed, and does not reach the poet until some time
after it is sent, when it finds him in Radnorshire, Wales, too poor
to pay it. With an innocency worthy of the days of Adam and Eve,
he, after promising to pay as soon as he can, offers Stockdale the
manuscript of some metaphysical and moral essays--the result of "some
serious studies"--"in part payment of his debt."

JANUARY SEARLE.

       *       *       *       *       *




CHANGES.

  All things resume their wonted look and place,
    Day unto day shows beauty, night to night:
  No whit less fresh and fugitive a grace
    Marks the transitions of the swift year's flight;
          But, gradual, sure and strange,
  Throughout our being hath been wrought a change.

  Brief while ago the first soft day of spring
    A personal, fair fortune seemed to be;
  The soul awoke with earth's awakening,
    With Nature bound in closest sympathy;
          Sunshine or quiet rain
  Could soothe life's pulse or make it leap again.

  Now, stripped of all illusive veil or haze,
    Each object looms remote, distinct, apart:
  We know its worth, its limits, weight and ways;
    It is no longer one with our own heart;
          No answering ecstasy
  Is roused in us by earth or sea or sky.

  Who will affirm this brave display is real,
    When on a radiant morn the doom is sent
  That rends our world asunder, and we feel
    The dear, familiar earth, the firmament,
          All forms that meet the eye,
  An insubstantial, vacant mockery?

  A cobweb world of thin, transparent shapes,
    Though limp as silk, the magic woof proves wrought
  Stronger than steel: no outlets, no escapes
    Ope to the struggling spirit, trapped and caught.
          Prisoned in walls of glass,
  She sees beyond them, but she may not pass.

  Though comfort grows thereafter, nevermore
    The bond then snapped, the passionate young faith,
  Can healing years with all their gifts restore.
    From Psyche's wings life's rude and careless breath
          Hath dashed the purple dust,
  And with it died the rapture and the trust.

EMMA LAZARUS.

       *       *       *       *       *




OUR MONTHLY GOSSIP.

A SLEEPING-CAR SERENADE.


Not long ago I had to travel by the night-express from Montreal to New
York, and feeling drowsy about eleven o'clock, presented my claim
for a lower berth in the car paradoxically designated "sleeping,"
and tantalizingly named "palace," with sanguine hopes of obtaining
a refreshing snooze. Knowing from experience the aberrations of mind
peculiar to travelers roused from sleep, by which they are impelled to
get off at way-stations, I secured my traps against the contingencies
liable to unchecked baggage, and creeping into the back of the
sepulchral shelf called a bed, I enveloped myself after the fashion of
Indian squaws and Egyptian mummies, and fell asleep.

I do not know whether the noise and concussion of the cars excite the
same sort of dreams in every one's cranium as they do in mine, but
they almost invariably produce in my brain mental phenomena of a
pugnacious character, which are nothing modified by palace cars and
steel rails. This particular night there was a perfect revelry of
dreams in my brain. I was on the frontier with our corps, engaged in
a glorious hand-to-hand conflict with men our equals in number and
valor. We were having the best of it, giving it to them hot and heavy,
crash! through the beggars' skulls, and plunge! into their abominable
abdominal regions. "No quarter!" It was a pity, but it seemed
splendid.

Bang! roared an Armstrong gun, as I thought, close to my ear: down
went a whole column of the enemy like a flash, as I awoke to find it a
dream, alas! and the supposed artillery nothing more or less than one
of those sharp, gurgling snorts produced during inspiration in the
larynx of a stout Jewish gentleman, who had in some mysterious way
got on the outer half of my shelf during my sleep, and whose ancient
descent was clearly defined in the side view I immediately obtained
of the contour and size of his nose. I had got one of my arms out
from under the covering, and found I had "cut left" directly upon the
prominent proboscis of my friend--a passage of arms that materially
accelerated his breathing, and awoke him to the fact that though
he had a nose sufficiently large to have entitled him to Napoleon's
consideration for a generalship had he lived in the days of that
potentate, yet there was something unusual on the end of it, which
was far too large for a pimple and rather heavy for a fly. Perhaps it
induced a nightmare, and deluded him into the belief that he had been
metamorphosed into an elephant, and hadn't become accustomed to his
trunk. It puzzled me to know how or why he had been billeted on my
palatial shelf, for the whole of which I had paid; but as it was
rather a cold night, and there was something respectable in the
outline of that Roman nose, I turned my back on him and determined to
accept the situation, soothing myself with the reflection that if I
repeated the assault upon his nose, such an accident must be excused
as a fortuitous result of his unauthorized intrusion.

I had just got freshly enveloped in the "honey-dew of slumber" when
my _compagnon de voyage_ began to snore, and in the most unendurable
manner, the effect of which was nothing improved by his proximity.
It seemed to penetrate every sense and sensation of my body, and to
intensify the extreme of misery which I had begun to endure in the
hard effort to sleep. His snore was a medley of snuffing and snorting,
with an abortive demi-semi aristocratic sort of a sneeze; while to
add to the effect of this three-stringed inspiration there was in each
aspiration a tremulous and swooning neigh. I had been reading _The
Origin of Species_ and _The Descent of Man_ for several previous days,
and began to think I had discovered some wandering Jewish lost link
between man and the monkey, and that I actually had him or it for a
bedfellow; but by the dim light of the car-lamps I managed to see his
hands, which had orthodox nails. I was now thoroughly awake, and found
myself the victim of a perfect bedlam of snorers from one end of the
car to the other, making a concatenation of hideous noises only to be
equaled by a menagerie; though, to give the devil his due, a earful of
wild animals would never make such an uproar when fast asleep.

It is a well-known fact that when one's ears prick up at night and
find the slightest noise an obstacle to slumber, after much tossing
and turning, and some imprecating, tired Nature will finally succumb
from sheer exhaustion: she even conquers the howling of dogs holding
converse with the moon and the cater-wauling of enamored cats. Cats,
and even cataracts, I have defied, but of all noises to keep a sober
man awake I know of none to take the palm from the snoring in that
car. There seemed to be a bond of sympathy, too, among the snorers,
for those who did not snore were the only ones who did not sleep.

The varieties of sound were so intensely ridiculous that at first I
found it amusing to listen to the performance. A musical ear
might have had novel practice by classifying the intonations. The
war-whooping snore of my bedfellow changed at times into a deep and
mellow bass. To the right of us, on the lower shelf, was a happy
individual indulging in all the variations of a nervous treble of
every possible pitch: his was an inconstant _falsetto_ in sound and
cadence. Above him snored one as if he had a metallic reed in his
larynx that opened with each inhalation: his snore struck me as a
brassy _alto_. The tenors were distributed at such distances as to
convey to my ears all the discord of an inebriated band of cracked
fifes and split bagpipes playing snatches of different tunes. There
were snores that beggar description, that seemed to express every
temperament and every passion of the human soul. I cannot forget one
a couple of berths off, which seemed to rise above the mediocrity of
snores, mellowing into a tenderness like the dying strains of an echo,
and renewing its regular periods with a highbred dignity which Nature
had clearly not assumed. Another broke away from the harsh notes
around in soft diapasons, and with a mellifluous _soprano_ which I
instinctively knew must belong to a throat that could sing. Was it
Nilsson? Just over my head was a jerky croak of a snore, sounding
at intervals of half a minute, as if it had retired on half-pay and
longed to get back into active service.

It occurred to me, when amid these paroxysms of turmoil I heard a
very fair harmony between the bass of my bedfellow and the tenor of a
sleeper in the next berth, that if a Gilmore could take snores, into
training, and by animal magnetism or mesmerism manage to make them
snore in concert and by note--

    In perfect phalanx to the Dorian mood Of flutes and soft recorders--

we should have a diverting performance in sleeping-cars, and one
objection to their use would be actually utilized as an extra
inducement to patronize them.

Several times I was strongly impelled to shunt my bass snorer off the
bed or twig his Roman nose, but one experiment of a kick roused such
a vigorous snort, like that produced by dropping a brick on a sleeping
pig, that I abandoned such physical means of retaliation. I thought
of tickling his nose with a feather or a straw, but the bed contained
neither, and I had not even a pin. And supposing I should stop my
shelf-mate, what could I do to suppress the rest? Should I make some
horrible noise between a hoarse cough and a crow, and say, if any
one complained, that it was my way of snoring? But I thought that the
object to be attained, and the possibility of being voted insane and
consigned, in spite of protestation, to the baggage-car, would not
compensate me for the exertion required; so I determined to submit to
it like a Stoic. (_Query:_ Would a Stoic have submitted?)

The more one meditates upon the reason of wakefulness, the more his
chances of sleep diminish; and from this cause, conjoined with the
peculiarity of the situation and the mood in which I found myself,
I had surely "affrighted sleep" for that night. As I lay awake I
indulged in the following mental calculation of my misery to coax
a slumber: The average number of inspirations in a minute is
fifteen--remember, snoring is an act of the inspiration--the number of
hours I lay awake was six. Fifteen snores a minute make nine hundred
an hour. Multiply 900 by 6--the number of hours I lay awake--and you
have 5400, the number of notes struck by each snorer. There were at
least twelve distinct and regular snorers in the car. Multiply 5400
by 12, and you have 64,800 snores, not including the snuffling neighs,
perpetrated in that car from about eleven P. M. until five the next
morning!

The question follows: "Can snoring be prevented?" It is plainly a
nuisance, and ought to be indictable. I have heard of the use of local
stimulants, such as camphire and ammonia--how I longed for the
sweet revenge of holding a bottle of aqua ammonia under that Roman
nose!--and also of clipping the uvula, which may cause snoring by
resting on the base of the tongue. The question demands the grave
consideration of our railroad managers; for while the traveling public
do not object to a man snoring the roof off if he chooses to do it
under his own vine and fig tree, tired men and women have a right to
expect a sleep when they contract for it. Is there no lover of sleep
and litigation who will prosecute for damages?

There is a prospect, however, of a balm in Gilead. An ingenious
Yankee--a commercial traveler--has invented and patented an instrument
made of gutta percha, to be fitted to the nose, and pass from that
protuberance to the tympanum of the ear. As soon as the snorer begins
the sound is carried so perfectly to his own ear, and all other sounds
so well excluded, that he awakens in terror. The sanguine inventor
believes that after a few nights' trial the wearer will become so
disgusted with his own midnight serenading that his sleep will become
as sound and peaceable as that of a suckling baby.

And yet there is nothing vulgar in snoring. Chesterfield did it, and
so did Beau Brummell, and they were the two last men in the world to
do anything beyond the bounds of propriety, awake or asleep, if they
could help it. Plutarch tells us that the emperor Otho snored; so did
Cato; so did George II., and also George IV., who boasted that he was
"the first gentleman in Europe." Position has nothing to do with cause
and effect in snoring, as there are instances on record of soldiers
snoring while _standing_ asleep in sentry-boxes; and I have heard
policemen snore _sitting_ on doorsteps, waiting to be wakened by the
attentive "relief." We may be sure Alain Chartier did not snore when
Margaret of Scotland stooped down and kissed him while he was asleep,
or young John Milton when the highborn Italian won from him a pair
of gloves; though it did not lessen the ardor of philosophical Paddy,
when he coaxingly sang outside of his true love's window--

Shure, I know by the length of your snore you're awake.

But really, I don't know whether women _do_ snore. I'm not sure that
the mellifluous _soprano_ snore in the car was Nilsson's, and Paddy
may have been joking. I know that only male frogs croak.

W.G.B.




FABLES FOR THE YOUTH.


THE LION AND THE FOX. The Lion and the Fox once traveled in
company. Upon their coming to a public-house, it was agreed that the
former should go in and get a dinner, while Master Reynard kept watch
at the door. In stalked the Lion boldly, and ordered a haunch of
venison and a blood-pudding. The servant-maid, instead of fainting
away, bade him throw his mane over a chair and take his ease. Locking
the door as she withdrew, she sent for a policeman, and before night
King Lion was snugly back in the menagerie whence he and his companion
had that morning escaped.

Master Reynard, scenting what was in the wind, took to the woods and
was seen no more.

_Moral_: This fable teaches us to beware of that pretended friendship
which is specious and hollow.

THE JUDGEMENT OF PARIS. The Gorilla, the Hippopotamus and the
Snapping-Turtle were once upon a time partaking of a royal dinner at
the table of an opulent old Oyster, when the conversation turned upon
personal beauty. Each one of the guests present claimed for himself
that he alone was the favorite among the ladies for his handsome form
and features. As the wine had gone around freely, the discussion grew
heated, and upon the suggestion of the Gorilla it was left to their
host to decide between them.

In vain did Mr. Saddlerock (for that was the host's name) insist that
the point was too delicate for so humble an individual as himself to
presume to pass upon.

"Nay," said all three in concert, "tell us honestly what you think."

"But I may offend you," urged the bivalve.

"Oh, that were impossible," smiled the Turtle.

"Quite so," grunted the Hippopotamus.

"My dear friend," added the Gorilla with a leer, "as for myself, I am
so confident of being considered an Apollo that I wish for nothing so
much as your candid opinion."

"Well, gentlemen," replied Mr. Saddlerock, "since you all urge me
to disclose my real sentiments, I will do so. So far from being
good-looking, egad! it's hard telling which of you has the ugliest
countenance! In fact, you'd better draw lots for it."

No sooner had this remark fallen from his lips than he saw his
mistake. He ran to the window, jumped out and vainly attempted to
climb a tall sycamore in the garden. The Gorilla, seizing him with
a clutch like that of a vice, dragged him ignominiously back to the
dining-hall. Here the unhappy Mr. Saddlerock was opened, and the
wicked Gorilla swallowed his body in a twinkle, flinging thereafter a
shell to each of the other competitors.

_Moral_: When the powerful quarrel, don't let yourself become mixed up
with them or you may get hurt.


THE SANGUINARY DUEL. Two men fought a duel. Let us distinguish them
by the names of A and B respectively. It was a real, _bona-fide_,
powder-and-ball affair. A meant business: so did B.

It was a terrible encounter.

A had all the vocal part of his jaw shot off, and several useful
portions of his epiglottis carried away. Totally unfitted for his
business as auctioneer, he died some years after of dyspepsia of the
brain.

B parted company with his left arm, so he was compelled to pass
himself off as a disabled hero of the rebellion and accept a snug
little office in the United States custom-house, where there was
nothing whatever to do.

That is all.

The dispute grew out of something A had said about B. B said A said
that B said something, and B said he hadn't said it.

_Moral_: Don't duel.


THE DOG AND THE SPARE-RIB. A mastiff crossing a bridge, and bearing in
his mouth a piece of meat, suddenly swallowed the meat. He immediately
observed that the shadow of the aforesaid meat in the water had
disappeared.

Such is optics.

_Moral_: We learn from this fable that life is but a shadow.


THE ASS AND THE LOCOMOTIVE. A donkey one day was quietly munching
thistles when he heard the screaming whistle of a locomotive. Pricking
up his ears, he started into a gallop and raced across lots with his
tail high in the air.

_Moral_: This fable teaches what an ass he was.


THE MOUSE AND THE CAT. A mouse once peeped from his hole and saw a
cat. The cat was looking the other way, and happened not to see the
mouse.

Nobody killed.

_Moral_: This little fable doesn't teach anything.

SARSFIELD YOUNG.




A PICTURE WITH A HISTORY


In a number of _Punch_ for February, 1873, in the account of "Our
Representative Man's" visit to the Exhibition of Old Masters, occurs
the following sentence: "No 35. Oh, Miss Linley (afterward Mrs.
Sheridan), oh how lovely you are! Oh, Thomas Gainsborough, oh, Thomas
Gainsborough, oh! And if Baron Lionel de Rothschild, M.P., ever wishes
to offer a testimonial to one who knows nothing whatever about him,
and for no particular object, let him send this picture, carriage
paid, to the residence of your representative, who as his petitioner
will never cease to pray at convenient seasons, etc."

The picture thus apostrophized represents that "Saint Cecilia, the
beautiful mother of a beautiful race, [3] whose delicate features,
lighted up by love and music, art (Reynolds's and Gainsborough's) has
rescued from the common decay."

It is not unlikely that Sheridan or his wife may have presented this
picture to the Hon. Edward Bouverie.[4] A letter of Mrs. Sheridan in
1785 (she died in 1792) is dated from his seat, Delapre Abbey, and she
and Sheridan were _habitues_ of his house.

It was at the death of General Bouverie, grandson of Mrs. Sheridan's
friend, that her picture was sold, a few months ago, to Baron
Rothschild; and a romance might well be woven out of the circumstances
which caused this painting to be removed from the place which it had
so long occupied in the library of Delapre Abbey.

Delapre Abbey is a stately mansion occupying ground once covered by
a monastery, of which the only remains serve as offices of the more
modern edifice. Approaching the ancient borough of Northampton by the
old London road, you observe on your left, about a mile from the town,
a beautiful specimen--one of the only three remaining--of the crosses
which a king of England raised to commemorate the places where his
beloved wife's body rested on her last journey to Westminster. It lay
one night at the abbey, and, whilst that is almost obliterated, the
cross remains almost perfect after centuries have elapsed, and served
mainly as the model for that which has recently been erected close to
Charing Cross, where formerly another of these memorials marked the
last halt of the royal funereal cortege.

Mr. Edward Bouverie had several sons, and on the marriage of
the eldest Delapre Abbey and the estates attached to it were, in
conformity to common usage in England, settled upon the children of
this marriage, and, failing issue, on the general's younger brothers
and their sons in succession. The general's marriage proved childless,
his next brother also left no issue, and at length no son remained but
a certain somewhat ne'er-do-weel, Frank.

Frank was an officer in the army. Whilst quartered in the north of
Ireland he had fallen in love with a girl beneath him in station, and,
greatly to the disgust of his family, married her. His father, who was
deeply imbued with aristocratic prejudices, ceased to hold intercourse
with him, and except that occasional communications passed between
him and his mother, his relations with his family ceased. At length
he died, and as it became evident that his brothers would never
have children, Frank's son was obviously the heir. Under these
circumstances the family offered terms to the mother if she would
give up her son altogether and consent to his being bred a Protestant.
These overtures she declined. The advice of leading lawyers was then
sought, but they declared that the settlement of the property could
not by any possibility be set aside. Meanwhile the case suddenly
assumed a new aspect.

About twelve years ago a lady of prodigious energy and perseverance
made her appearance in the law courts of London, who was bent on
proving the legitimacy of her grandfather. By "much wearying" she
prevailed upon Lord Brougham to introduce a bill which became known as
the "Legitimacy Declaration Act." By the provisions of this measure
a person who believes himself heir to a property may cite all persons
interested to come in at once and show cause why he should not be
adjudged rightful heir and representative of a given person and
estate.

Frank Bouverie's son resolved, therefore, to take the bull by the
horns, and save all future trouble by obtaining a decree of court.
The family very unwisely resolved to oppose his claim. It seemed that
stories prejudicial to the character of the claimant's mother had been
in circulation, and the Bouveries grounded their opposition on the
allegation that the claimant [5] was not in truth a Bouverie at all.

On the other hand, ample testimony was adduced to show that Frank
Bouverie, notwithstanding his wife's irregularity of conduct, had
always regarded the boy as his son and heir; and one witness told how
the father had held the little fellow up to look at the picture of
his ancestral home, and said, "All that will one day be yours." So
the Bouveries' case broke down entirely, and the ex-private soldier,
ex-policeman, stepped into the fine old mansion of Delapre with sixty
thousand dollars a year. It is satisfactory to be able to add that he
has always borne an excellent character, and seems likely to duly
take his place as a country gentleman. Of course nothing but the bare
fabric and land came to him: the personalty was all left to his aunt,
the general's widow, an old lady near ninety, who yet survives; and it
was by her direction that the famous Linley picture once more changed
hands.

[Footnote 3: This lady's granddaughters, her son's daughters--the
duchess of Somerset, Queen of Beauty in the celebrated Eglinton
Tournament; the countess Gifford, mother, by her first husband, of
Lord Dufferin, viceroy of Canada; and the Honorable Mrs. Norton,
the well-known authoress--were famous in their day for beauty.
Gainsborough passed many years at Bath, where his intimacy with the
Linley family, then resident there, commenced. The following is from
Fulcher's _Life of Gainsborough_: "After returning from a concert at
Bath, where we had been charmed with Miss Linley's voice, I went home
to supper with my friend (Gainsborough), who sent his servant for a
bit of clay, with which he modeled, and then colored, her head--and
that too in a quarter of an hour--in such a manner that I protest it
appeared to me even superior to his paintings. The next day I took a
friend or two to his house to see it, but it was not to be seen:
the servant had thrown it down from the mantelpiece and broken it."
Gainsborough would now and then mould the faces of his friends in
miniature, finding the material in the wax candles burning before him:
the models were as perfect in their resemblance as his portraits.]

[Footnote 4: The history of the Bouverie family settling in England is
curious. The family had, prior to 1542, long been settled in Flanders.
In that year was born, near Lisle in that country, Laurence des
Bouveries, as the name was then written, founder of the English
branch. Laurence, from mixing with his father's Protestant tenants,
had imbibed some of their ideas, and his father, a stern Catholic,
told him that if he failed to appear at mass the following Sunday he
would have him examined by the Inquisition. In terror he ran away
to Frankfort-on-the-Main, and there had the luck to fall in with a
sympathetic silk manufacturer, who made him superintendent of his men.
Subsequently he married his patron's niece and heiress, and eventually
removed to England when Queen Elizabeth offered an asylum there to
those of the Reformed faith. His family made wealthy alliances and
prospered, and in 1747 his representative was created a peer. He
married, first, the heiress of Delapre, and her property went to her
second son, Edward. His eldest son by his second marriage took the
name of Pusey, and was, father of the celebrated Dr. Pusey.]

[Footnote 5: Lord Cairns, then Sir Hugh, opened the case for the
claimant, and received, it was said, two hundred and fifty guineas for
the work, which occupied about two hours. Sir Fitzroy Kelly appeared
as counsel for the family. He spoke for about fifteen minutes, and his
fee was the same.]




HINTS FOR NOVEL-WRITERS.


"Constance," said Philip to his sister, "I have got on very well with
my novel. I have written fifty pages, described my hero and heroine,
made them thoroughly in love with each other; and now I intend to part
them for a season, without letting them be certain of the state of
each other's heart. I think narrative my forte, but it will not do to
have no conversations, and my dialogues seem so short and trite. Do
look over this:

"'_Helena_. Your letter has arrived, I see.'

"'_Bertram_. Yes, I have just read it.'

"'_H_. Well?'

"'_B_. It says I must delay no longer.'

"'_H_. When shall you start?'

"'_B_. Tomorrow, at the latest.'

"'_H_. Have you told my aunt?'

"'_B_. Not yet: I must do it now.'

"'_H_. Shall you go direct to London?'

"'_B_. No: I stop one night at the Grange.'

"'_H_. Oh, then I will ask you to be the bearer of my letter.'

"'_B_. Is that _all_ you will permit me to do for you?'

"'_H_. I am careful not to burden my friends.'

"'_B_. Then you have no belief in true friendship.'"

"Well, Philip, let me try whilst you are at the office, and see what I
can suggest:

"'_Your letter has arrived, I see_,' said Helena, turning as Bertram
entered, letter in hand.

"'_Yes, I have just read it_,' he replied, advancing and leaning his
arm on the mantelpiece.

"'_Well_?' said Helena, stooping as if to warm her hands, but really
endeavoring to shade her face.

"'_It says I must delay no longer_,' he answered, trying to assume an
air of indifference.

"'_When shall you start_?' she said, resuming her work and fixing her
eyes on her pattern.

"'_To-morrow, at the latest_,' he replied, transferring the letter to
his pocket.

"'_Have you told my aunt_?' she said, searching her work-basket for
her scissors.

"'_Not yet: I must do it now_,' he said, putting back the little
ornament his elbow had displaced.

"'_Shall you go direct to London_?' she said, trying to disentangle a
skein of colored yarn.

"'_No: I stop one night at the Grange_,' he said quietly, but with an
air of decision.

"'_Then I will ask you to be the bearer of my letter_,' she added,
laying down her work as she spoke.

"'_Is that all you will permit me to do for you_?' he asked anxiously.

"'_Oh, I never burden my friends_,' she said, raising her head and
tossing back her curls.

"'_Then you have no belief in true friendship_,' he answered in a tone
of bitterness."

"That is pretty good," said Constance to herself, "but I will take
these two young people out of doors: perhaps Philip may be better
pleased:

"'_Your letter has arrived, I see_,' said Helena, advancing as Bertram
opened the garden gate.

"'_Yes, I have just read it_,' he replied as he secured the fastening.

"'_Well_?' said Helena, taking the path to the house.

"'_It says I must delay no longer_,' he replied, proffering her a
bunch of wild-flowers he had gathered in his walk.

"'_When shall you start_?' said Helena, turning away to pluck some
rosebuds, which she added to her bouquet.

"'_Tomorrow, at the latest_,' he answered, flinging aside roughly a
branch that crossed his path.

"'_Have you told my aunt_?' said Helena, tying the strings of her hat.

"'_No: I must do it now_,' he said, holding out his hand to relieve
her of her parasol as they entered the shady avenue.

"'_Shall you go direct to London_?' she asked hurriedly.

"'_No: I stop one night at the Grange_,' he said, inviting her by a
gesture to take a seat upon a rustic bench.

"'_Oh, then I will ask you to be the bearer of my letter_,' she said,
quickening her steps lest he should perceive her emotion.

"'_Is that all you will permit me to do for you_?' he said, with more
feeling than he had yet permitted himself to show.

"'_Yes: I am careful not to burden my friends_,' she added, drawing
her mantle round her and speaking in a tone of irony.

"'_Then you do not believe in true friendship_,' he replied as they
reached the house, and with a heightened color he threw back the hall
door and made way for her to enter."




NOTES.


Since the publication of the article on "Salmon Fishing in Canada,"
in the May Number of this Magazine, the writer has had access to the
_Report of the Department of Fisheries of the Dominion of Canada_,
for 1872. By this document it appears that an establishment for the
artificial hatching of salmon, whitefish and trout is in operation at
Newcastle on Lake Ontario, and that two millions of fish eggs were put
in the hatching-troughs the last season. Adult salmon, the produce of
this establishment, are now found in nearly all the streams between
the Bay of Quinte and Niagara River. A salmon-breeding establishment
is about going into operation on the Restigouche, and another is
contemplated for the Matapedia, both rivers of the Bay of Chaleur.

The reports from the river overseers indicate that under the system
of protection all the rivers are improving in the number and size of
their salmon. There were taken with the rod in 1872--from Grand River,
70 fish, average weight 14 pounds; Cascapedia, 139 fish, average
weight 22 pounds; Restigouche, 500 fish; Upsalquitch, 70 fish; St.
Marguerite, 165 fish; Moisie, 219 fish, average weight 18 pounds; St.
John, 147 fish, average weight 13 pounds; Mingan, 130 fish; and in
most of the rivers the young salmon are very numerous.

       *       *       *       *       *

It is a familiar observation that great inventions are commonly
foreshadowed in theory or speculation, and very often are approached
gradually in a long series of tentative experiments before the
perfected result is reached. Exceptions occur to this rule, but they
are exceedingly few, since usually it is a general sense of the need
of any new device which directs mechanical skill toward supplying
it. Nevertheless, it is with no little surprise that one reads how
thoroughly a century ago the entire theory of the modern electric
telegraph was comprehended; for a most remarkable premonition, so to
speak, of this great device is contained in a letter recently brought
to public notice, written by the abbe Barthelemy (the once famous
author of the _Voyage of Anacharsis_) to the marchioness du Deffand.
"I often think," says the abbe, writing under date of Chanteloup, 8th
August, 1772, "of an experiment which would be a very happy one for
us. They say that if two clocks have their hands equally magnetized,
you need only to move the hands of one to make those of the other
revolve in the same direction; so that, for example, when one strikes
twelve, the other will denote the same hour. Now, suppose that
artificial magnets can some day be so improved as to communicate their
power from here to Paris: you shall procure one of these clocks, and
we will have another. Instead of the hours, we will mark on the two
dials the letters of the alphabet. Every day at a certain hour we will
turn the hands. M. Wiart will put the letters together, and will read
them thus: 'Good-morning, dear little girl! I love you more tenderly
than ever.' That will be grandmother's turn at the clock. When my turn
comes, I shall say about the same thing. Besides, we could arrange to
have the first motion of the hand strike a bell, to give warning that
the oracle is about to speak. The fancy pleases me wonderfully. It
would soon become corrupted, to be sure, by being applied to spying
in war and in politics; but it would still be very pleasant in
the intercourse of friendship." In 1774--that is, two years after
Barthelemy's letter--Lesage, a Genevese professor of physics,
guardedly intimated that an apparatus could be constructed to
fulfill these vague suggestions. There were a few experiments in
electro-magnetism during the succeeding half century. It was reserved
for our own Morse to put into practical application the grand system
which the abbe Barthelemy had so curiously foreshadowed in a freak of
fancy.

       *       *       *       *       *

Endless are the blandishments and the seductive devices of trade. A
famous dry-goods store lately startled the shopping community of Paris
by opening a free restaurant, a billiard-hall and a reading-room for
the use and behoof of its customers. When ladies go to purchase at
this place, while preparing their lists a polite clerk escorts them to
the _buffet_, which is set out with ices, cakes, madeira wine, and so
forth; and, having ended their repast, they are again escorted to the
counter at which they desire to buy. But sometimes ladies bring their
escorts--husbands, brothers or other useful bankers and purveyors of
lucre--and the question arises, therefore, how to provide for them.
The device of the reading-room and the billiard-table is interposed
for this purpose, and a servant in livery informs them when the
buying is completed, and when their own duties--namely, of footing
the bills--are to begin. The care and ingenuity with which the French
guard against having any annoying moments in life are well exemplified
in this device. The free reading-room as an adjunct of the dry-goods
store is not wholly unknown in New York, but the free _buffet_ has not
yet, we believe, been transplanted there. A very much cheaper and a
far less praiseworthy mercantile trap for catching custom in the same
branch of trade also originates at Paris. One popular store has a
superb clerk, whose _specialite_ is to place himself near the door,
and to murmur whenever a new customer enters, "Hum! la jolie femme!"
The storekeeper is said to have observed that the effect was immediate
and lasting, the new-comer remaining a faithful and habitual customer;
but this device is not to be ranked for breadth of enterprise with the
one already mentioned.

       *       *       *       *       *

The project to turn the famous palace of Madrid into a museum like
that of Versailles inspires Angel de Miranda to recall the strange
vicissitudes of government which the vast, majestic edifice has
witnessed--it and its predecessor on the same site--during seven
centuries. Situated in the western quarter of the city, its principal
face dominates a grand esplanade called the "Field of the Moor," after
the Moorish camp there established in the twelfth century. A fortress
first, the original structure was turned by Peter the Cruel, a lover
of fine architecture, into a royal castle, or _alcazar_, as it was
then called, the word being borrowed from the Arabic. It became
thenceforth an historic spot of Spain. It was the prison of Francis I.
after Pavia. It was the dwelling of Philip II., who first made it the
official royal residence; and there died his son, Don Carlos,
whose tragic career has inspired so much dramatic literature, from
Schiller's fierce handling of Philip II. to the widely different
treatment of the subject by Don Gaspar Nunez de l'Arce in his drama
played for the first time the past year. In the same palace, continues
Miranda, died Elizabeth of Valois. There Philip IV. had farces played
by ordinary comedians while the tragedy of his own downfall was
enacting without. A fire reduced to ashes the haughty Alcazar at the
moment when the Austrian dynasty disappeared from the realm, and
on its ruins Philip V., first of the Spanish Bourbons, built the
sumptuous palace that exists today. Stranger tenants even than its
predecessor's it was fated to see--Riperda, Farinelli, Godoy, who
began his political rise by his skill with the guitar; and Joseph
Bonaparte, to whom his fraternal patron said, "Brother, you will have
better lodgings now than mine." There Ferdinand VII. passed his life
in breaking his word, and there reigned Isabella II., first adored,
then execrated. Marshal Serrano established there his modest
headquarters as regent of a provisory kingdom, and there lived Amadeo,
who had the spirit to quit a throne which he could not occupy with
dignity. What a story of changed times and manners does it tell, when,
in a detached wing of this royal edifice, we find installed Don Emilio
Castelar, foreign minister of the Spanish republic!

       *       *       *       *       *

"I must be cruel, only to be kind," says Hamlet. In a different sense
the kindness of some people is pretty sure to be cruel, their very
charity ferocious. There is a story of an old maiden lady whose
affection was centred on an ugly little cur, which one morning bounded
into her room with a biscuit in his chops. "Here, Jane," cries the
good lady, twisting the tidbit out of his mouth and giving it to her
maid, "throw away the bread--it may be poisoned; or stop, put it in
your pocket, and give it to the first poor little beggar you find
in the street!" The story is hardly overdrawn, for if "all mankind's
concern is charity," as Pope says, yet at least some of mankind's
methods of exhibiting generosity are questionable. An English paper
recounts that a Croydon pork-butcher was lately arrested for selling
diseased pork, and the man from whom he bought the pig, being summoned
as a witness, admitted that the animal had been killed "because it was
not very well"--that he was just about to bury the carcass when the
butcher opportunely came and bought it; but the strange point is that,
in a burst of munificence, "the head had already been given to a poor
woman who lived near." Evidently, the worthy pair thought this to be
the sort of charity that covers a multitude of sins; and to a question
whether their intents, as a whole, were wicked or charitable, they
might properly have answered "Both." The "charities that soothe and
heal and bless" are not the only ones that pass current under the
general form of almsgiving.





LITERATURE OF THE DAY.


Literature and Dogma: An Essay toward a Better Apprehension of the
Bible. By Matthew Arnold. Boston: James R. Osgood & Co.

This is a tract issued in the author's apprehension that our popular
view of Christianity is false, our conception of the Hebrew and Greek
Bible altogether hidebound and deadening, our notion of the Deity a
picture that is doomed to destruction in the face of science. As it
is a sincere scheme of individual opinion (though not of original
opinion, being largely made up of graftings from a certain
recognizable class of modern scholars), it could only be finally
disposed of by following it up root and branch in nearly all its
details, at the cost of writing a much larger book. No opponent will
be likely to give it so much importance. For our part, we are quite
content to exhibit a little tableau of the main theory advanced, and
let this tableau speak for itself.

We should perhaps begin with Mr. Arnold's matter, but it is hard to
represent him at all without doing some preliminary justice to
his manner--his attitude toward the Christian public, his dogma of
urbanity, and the value of his way of putting things as a likelihood
of making converts. This is the more appropriate as he thinks the
Founder of Christianity, and its chief promulgators, such as Peter
and Paul, gained most of their successes through manner. "Mildness and
sweet reasonableness" he believes to be the characteristic of Christ's
teaching--a presentment of truths long afloat in the Jewish mind
so winningly and persuasively that they became new and profound
convictions in all minds; and he believes that when these
characteristics were withdrawn or veiled the teaching was so far
ineffectual; that when Christ, addressing the Pharisees, abandoned
"the mild, uncontentious, winning, inward mode of working," there was
no chance at all of His gaining the persons at whom His sayings were
launched; and that Saint Paul certainly had no chance of convincing
those whom he calls "dogs." Now, it is inevitable for us to ask
ourselves what chance Mr. Arnold, undertaking the most delicate and
critical crusade that can possibly be imagined against the dearest
opinions of almost everybody, will have with _his_ method. The hard
hits which the Pharisees got, and which the early churches sometimes
received from Paul, were direct, terrible blows, adapted to a
primitive age: Mr. Arnold's hits, full of grace and sting, are adapted
to our own age, and are rather worse. When he calls Pius IX. the
amiable old pessimist in Saint Peter's chair, or when he calls Dr.
Marsh, an Anglican divine who had hung in the railway stations some
sets of biblical questions and answers which he does not approve, a
"venerable and amiable Coryphaeus of our evangelical party," he uses
expressions that will lash the ordinary Catholic and Churchman of his
audience harder than the fisherwoman was lashed in being called an
isosceles and a parallelopipedon. Not much more "sweetly reasonable"
will he seem to the ordinary Cantab. when he says that the Cambridge
addiction to muscularity would have sent the college, but for the
Hebrew religion, "in procession, vice-chancellor, bedels, masters,
scholars, and all, in spite of the professor of modern philosophy,
to the temple of Aphrodite;" nor anymore "sweetly reasonable" will
he seem to the ordinary innocent, conventional Churchman in asserting
that the God of righteousness is displeased and disserved by men
uttering such doggerel hymns as "Out of my stony griefs Bethel
I'll raise," and "My Jesus to know, and feel His blood flow;" or in
asserting that the modern preacher, who calls people infidels for
false views of the Bible, should have the epithet returned upon him
for his own false views; and that it would be just for us to say, "The
bishop of So-and-so, the dean of So-and-so, and other infidel laborers
of the present day;" or "That rampant infidel, the archdeacon of
So-and-so, in his recent letter on the Athanasian creed;" or "_The
Rock_, the _Church Times_, and the rest of the infidel press;" or "The
torrent of infidelity which pours every Sunday from our pulpits!
Just it would be," pursues the author, "and by no means inurbane; but
hardly, perhaps, Christian." The question is not so much whether such
allocutions are Christian--which they possibly may be in Mr. Arnold's
clearer aether--as whether they are adapted to his purpose of winning.
He manages here and there, indeed, in trying on his new conceptions of
old truths, to be exquisitely offensive. It will seem like trifling,
and it will keenly wound, for instance, the person of ordinary piety,
to have his "Holy Ghost," his promised "Comforter," called "the
Paraclete that Jesus promised, the Muse of righteousness, the Muse of
humanity," and to have this solemn Mystery lightly offset against the
literary Muse, "the same who no doubt visits the bishop of Gloucester
when he sits in his palace meditating on Personality." But he becomes
most elaborately and carefully outrageous when, combating this same
idea of Personality in the Holy Trinity, he calls it "the fairy-tale
of the three Lord Shaftesburys," in allusion to a parable which he is
at the pains of constructing about a first Lord Shaftesbury, who is a
judge with a crowd of vile offenders, and a second Lord Shaftesbury,
who takes their punishment, and a third Lord Shaftesbury, "who keeps
very much in the background and works in a very occult manner." This
seems like the talk not of a man who wishes to convince, but who
wishes to wound: it appears to be completely parallel with the method
of those dissenters, whom Mr. Arnold is never tired of inveighing
against, who use invective because Christ used it, and who hurl
epithets at a state church or titles. As for the new light which Mr.
Arnold has to shed on the Bible and religion, it is a recasting in
his own way of the old interpretation. He deals with miracles as Renan
deals with them, believing that credence in "thaumaturgy" will drop
off from the human mind as credence in witchcraft has done--that
Lazarus underwent resurrection, since, having found the Life, he had
passed through the state of death. The Hebrew God he believes to have
been a conception, not positive and pictorial as ours is apt to
be (influenced, perhaps, though Mr. Arnold does not say so, by the
efforts of Christian art), but a tendency to righteousness, a current
of superior virtue, plain enough to the Oriental mind without mere
personality; yet it may be objected to this that the Oriental mind
made for a personal God, when Jesus came, as delightedly as our Aryan
race could do. It is not, however, our purpose to expose much of Mr.
Arnold's theory. It will be accepted by some as the last effectual
mingling of literary grace and spiritual insight; but others,
especially when they find him saying that conduct cannot be perfected
except by culture, will think this work the sheep's head and shoulders
covering the bust of a Voltaire.

       *       *       *       *       *

Rhymes Atween Times. By Thomas MacKellar. Philadelphia: J.B.
Lippincott &Co.

When we find actually embalmed in a book the simple and touching song,
"Let me kiss him for his mother," our first inclination is to take all
its merit for granted and hurry by, capping the matter as we pass with
the inevitable quotation which also begins with a _let me_, and refers
to making the songs of a people, with infinitive contempt for the
adjustment of their laws. The people for whom Mr. MacKellar's ballad
was made, being young women in ringlets who press the suburban piano,
have, we may reasonably hope, small need of the law any how, and
we may be pretty sure that the verses which have touched the great
popular heart are made in a spirit which is better than any law, even
the law of metre. On reading attentively the poem in question we
find a touching theme handled with simplicity, and in a certain sense
earning its popular place, though no poem could possibly be so good
as the simple fact--an ancient woman in a hospital at New Orleans
arresting the coffin-lid they were placing over a young fever-patient
from the North with the natural impulse, "Stop! let me kiss him for
his mother!" That little sunbeam of pure feeling, sent straight from
the affections of the people, is the real poet in the affair, though
Mr. MacKellar has succeeded in investing himself with its simplicity,
supporting his subject with tenderness and directness. When a writer
happens, with luck in his theme and luck in his mood, to strike such
a keynote, he is astonished in a moment by a mighty and impressive
diapason, a whole nation breaking into song at the bid of his whisper.
Mr. MacKellar doubtless would think it strange, and a little hard to
be told, that this trifle outweighs the whole bulk, body and sum of
his collection. He is a writer of old acceptance and experience, who
began to rhyme long ago in _Neal's Gazette_, with "occasional verses"
about "no poetry in a hat"--a question which was bandied, in the
fashion of the times, through half a dozen assertions and replies,
assisted by voluntaries from the public. A stage-ride from New York
to Singsing at that day was something of an adventure, affording a
subject for six cantos, which Neal was doubtless very glad to get for
his journal. Neal's death, and the parting with Henry Reed and Dr.
Kane, with some other local changes, extracted short laments from the
author, whose tone is nevertheless usually cheerful and canny; but his
ballad is his best.

       *       *       *       *       *




_Books Received_.


The Philosophy of Art. By H. Taine, Professor of Aesthetics and of
History of Art in the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Paris. Translated by John
Durand. Second edition. Thoroughly revised by the translator. New
York: Holt & Williams.

Fleurange: A Novel. From the French of Madame Augustus Craven, author
of "A Sister's Story," "Anne Severin," etc. Translated by M.M.R. New
York: Holt & Williams.

Love is Enough; or, The Freeing of Pharamond. By William Morris.
Boston: Roberts Brothers.

Ralph Harding's Success. By the author of "Robert Joy's Victory."
Boston: Henry Hoyt.

The Mysterious Guest. By Miss Eliza A. Dupuy. Philadelphia: T.B.
Peterson & Brothers.

Madame de Chamblay. By Alexander Dumas. Philadelphia: T.B. Peterson &
Brothers.

Not Forsaken. By Agnes Giberne. Illustrated. Boston: Henry Hoyt.






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