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river in the hope that something would happen to again put us in
possession. Say! Just listen to Tommy’s conversation! He thinks he is
the whole works! He has a horror of being awakened suddenly.”
“Tommy” was a great red and green parrot, who had evidently been sound
asleep during the short trip down the river. He was making up for lost
time now, however, making the boat ring with his screams.
Presently a man’s form shot out of the cabin as if fired out of a gun,
with the parrot astride of his shoulders! The red and green feathers of
the bird shone and glistened under the electric light, the long tail
trailed out behind like the tail of a comet, while the topknot was very
much in evidence, standing up straight and rigid.
The man thus attacked gave utterance to a string of oaths and
billingsgate which would have made a fishwife green with envy.
“The bloomin’ bird is clawin’ me eyes out!” he shouted, doing his best
to dislodge the bird. “Take ’im off, someone!”
By this time two other men were on deck, struggling with Tommy, who did
not seem at all inclined to release the excellent hold which he secured
in the hair of the robber. At last, however, he was dislodged, and
secreted himself behind a chest of drawers in the cabin.
“I’ll ’ave ’is bloody life!” shouted the fellow, starting away in
pursuit, but a chum blocked his entrance to the cabin.
“Have it out with the bird some other time,” he advised, with a broad
smile. “Just now we have other fish to fry. We came back to get a kid
what can operate this boat. There’s something wrong with the motors. We
got it up the river as far as this, and that’s about all, consarn the
luck!”
“Try him again with your Peter Pratt,” advised Clay, having reference to
the boy’s trick of throwing his voice. Whenever this faculty was
referred to by any of the lads it was invariably known as “Peter Pratt.”
“Let’s see what Peter Pratt can do for us in the way of getting
possession of the _Rambler_.”
Jule threw his voice across the rushing, water again, but no attention
whatever was paid to it.
“That’s strange!” said Alex.
“They evidently believe it to be the parrot!” said Jule.
“Of course you are right,” admitted Clay. “It is a wonder we didn’t
think of that before.”
The robbers now appeared to be holding a consultation as to the best
means of getting one of the boys on board the _Rambler_. The boys could
not catch a word, although the _Rambler_ lay only a few feet from the
shore.
The thunder and lightning were now almost continuous, and the robbers
sought shelter in the cabin.
“Now’s our opportunity,” exclaimed Jule.
“I must be pretty dense,” said Clay. “If there’s a chance here I must
have overlooked it.”
“What’s the matter with the stern deck?” ventured Jule. “I’ve known kids
to get on board boats in that way before now!”
“Not in the face of a current like that!” replied Clay. “A boy couldn’t
swim in that millrace any more than he could fly!”
“You just wait a second and I’ll show you!” replied Jule. “Anybody got a
rope or a strong cord?”
“Alex has,” responded Clay. “I saw him put one into his pocket! Produce
it, Alex!” he added, all excitement at the prospect of getting the best
of the pirates.
“Who’s going to make the attempt?” Jule asked.
Alex deposited the baby bear in Clay’s arms.
“Here,” he said, “you take charge of Teddy, Jr., and I’ll do the trick
myself. You fellows couldn’t make the riffle in a thousand years! This
is a man’s job!”
As Alex had kept the cub in a measure protected from the storm by his
coat, and as the cub had remained perfectly quiet during this
conversation, Clay was greatly surprised at being presented with a baby
bear. He made a quick examination of his charge and then burst into a
hearty laugh. Alex proceeded to unwind his fish line as if the
presentation of a cub was the most natural thing in the world.
Jule stepped to Clay’s side and gravely shook hands with the bear after
locating him in the darkness.
“Where did you get the cub?” he asked.
“Oh, I presume he picked it off a bush!” Clay cut in. “Alex has an
affinity for bears.”
“He’s making too much noise,” Jule asserted, as the cub set up a wail
which might have been heard on the _Rambler_. “Better let me take that
line, Alex, while you teach your baby manners.”
“Mind the nerve of him! Talking about a man’s job!” laughed Clay. “If I
had his good opinion of himself, I’d walk on the water out to the
_Rambler_.” “Yes, you would!” commented Alex, throwing off his outer
garments preparatory to entering the river. “If you don’t take good care
of that cub, I’ll set him on you when you come aboard.”
The boys now carried the fish line up the stream a short distance and
Alex entered the water. In order to gain the stem deck it would be
necessary to follow the motions of the swimmer until the stem was
reached and then release the line, trusting to the dexterity of the boy
in the water to make connection with the hull of the boat.
“Now, boys!” cried Alex, and the next he was feeling the draw of the
current.
The moment the lad was in the water the bulldog sprang in after him.
Jule tried in vain to coax him to return to the shore, but Captain Joe
was obstinate and paid no attention to the entreaties and threats of the
boy. The dog soon was abreast of the boy, swimming with his head well
down in the water.
In the meantime Jule was having about all he could do following Alex
with his eyes, for the light from the cabin windows was uncertain and
the great prow light had been extinguished.
“It’s a wonder that Tommy keeps so quiet,” said Clay, holding to the
bear cub with one hand and pulling at the line with the other. “He is
usually very much in evidence if awakened in the night.”
“Here’s hoping he has the good sense to remain quiet until Alex is on
board,” added Jule. “The parrot may have been killed, for all we know!
If he has, there’ll be doings when we get aboard!”
By this time the lights of the cabin were about opposite, and the boys
on shore slackened their pace in order to give Alex an opportunity to
gain the stem deck, which was, of course, downstream.
They saw very dimly indeed, for the rain was now falling in great
sheets, obscuring the light from the cabin windows, and making the stem
deck very slippery.
“Can you see where he is?” asked Clay.
“I can see that the line has slackened, and that is about all,” replied
the boy. “I wonder where Captain Joe is?” Jule added, tossing the fish
line to one side. “He ought to be getting into action pretty soon. There
he is now!”
The voice of the dog came faintly through the storm, and the screaming
of the parrot added to the din.
“I’d give a hundred dollars to know exactly how things stand!” shouted
Clay, dancing up and down in the excitement of the moment.
“That was a fool venture of Alex’s,” was Jule’s comment.
CHAPTER III
ALEX TAKES A LONG CHANCE
Case sat for a long time at the side of the injured boy, doing what he
could to relieve his suffering, but there was little he could do in the
absence of a surgeon. The boy was in great pain and conversed only at
long intervals.
“I presume the robbers have taken possession of the _Rambler_,” said
Case, crouching low to escape as much of the storm as possible, “and
they may have carried Jule and Clay off with her, but I don’t see what
is keeping Alex. He should have been here a long time ago.”
“They may have taken him, too,” said the sufferer. “In that case we may
stay here until we starve to death. If I could only walk, I’d soon get
out of this!”
“What’s your name, and how is it that you come to be here on the Great
Divide?” Case asked abruptly. “You’re a beauty, I must say!” he added
with a grin.
“My name is Paul Stegman, and I’m from Chicago, as I told you before,”
the boy explained. “I came up here in quest of adventure, and reckon I’m
getting enough of it. If I ever get back to civilization you just bet
your bottom dollar I’ll stay there!”
“Cheer up!” said Case, “the worst is yet to come!”
“I fail to see how it could be much worse,” said Paul. “My boat is gone
and, unless we can connect with the one you have, there are mountains to
climb before we get out of here.”
“It does look pretty dark,” Case admitted, “but we’ll find a way out.
Suppose I go down to the river and see what’s keeping Alex? The pirates
haven’t captured him, I hope!”
“It’s pretty dark. And pretty wet, too,” replied Paul, loath to lose
Case’s companionship for even a minute. “Perhaps he will come back after
he has failed to discover the boys.”
Case had his doubts about Alex returning as long as there was any
prospect of finding either the boys or the _Rambler_, but he kept his
thoughts to himself. It was very dark when the searchlight was for a
moment turned aside, and rain was falling in torrents. The wind, too,
was racing over the narrow point of land as if sent for by the Evil One.
It was a wild night for early May, and Case, sitting dejectedly at the
side of Paul Stegman, could feel the rain trickling down the back of his
neck in streams. It was cold too, and the teeth of both boys rattled
like castanets.
“No use trying to build a fire,” Case grumbled, “for what little wood
there is in sight is soaking wet. I guess the _Rambler_ made one trip
too many!”
There was silence for a minute and then a footfall was heard on the
rocky ridge which ran through the center of the peninsula.
“Alex at last!” shouted Case, springing to his feet. “Come forward, give
an account of yourself! Did you find any trace of the boys or the boat?”
But the man who appeared a moment later was not Alex. He stood for a
second looking down on the boys and started to join them, swinging a
pocket dark-lantern as he advanced. But Case was shy of strangers and
ordered the fellow back, at the same time switching off his searchlight.
“Oh, all right!” replied the stranger. “I thought you might be in some
sort o’ trouble and might need help.”
“We are in trouble, and do need help,” Case answered, “but we mean to
make sure first that you are just what you pretend to be.”
“I hain’t purtended to anything yet,” was the reply. “If you want my
pedigree, I reckon you’ll have to want. I came down here lookin’ for a
brindle steer what strayed away from the herd an’ saw your light,
likewise the light from that boat anchored out there in the river. But,
still, if you don’t want me to butt in, I’ll be joggin’ along.”
“Wait a minute,” Case exclaimed, starting to climb the ridge, “do you
say there’s a boat out there in the river?”
“Come up here and see for yourself; seein’ is believin’, as the cat said
to the mouse.”
Case clambered to the top of the ridge and looked out upon the river.
There were the dim lights of the _Rambler_, but the rest of the scene
could not be discerned.
“The boat’s there, all right!” the boy said jubilantly, hopping up and
down in his excitement. “The boys will soon be here now.”
Case looked into the stranger’s face with a question on his lips—a
question he might or might not answer.
“You didn’t come to this rocky place in quest of any brindle steer,” the
boy ventured. “Will you tell me what you did come for?”
“Perhaps I’ll do it if you’ll tell me what I want to know,” was the
reply, “and that is this: What were you doing with that wounded boy in
that nest of rocks?”
“You know the lad is wounded, then?”
“I don’t suppose you could hear much in this storm, but I’ve walked
twice around the spot where you sat,” was the reply.
“Well, you didn’t hear anything of any account,” was Case’s reply. “Up
to two hours ago I didn’t know there was such a kid living. According to
his story, he was set upon by robbers a short distance up the river and
beaten up proper.”
“So!” said the other.
“We, my three chums and myself, were lying up the river, anchored, when
Captain Joe—that’s the bulldog—leaped into the river and brought him
out, more dead than alive. The dog is on the _Rambler_ now. We boys
wouldn’t part with Captain Joe for his weight in gold.”
The man looked thoughtfully into the boy’s eyes.
“I guess,” he began, but was interrupted by voices coming from the
_Rambler_. The wind was now blowing a fierce gale and the words were
indistinguishable, but words were not needed.
The prow lights flared up, lighting the deck of the boat as thoroughly
as it was possible to do it in the dead of the night.
At the same instant the watchers caught sight of a man leaping over the
railing of the boat.
“There goes one of the pirates!” shouted Case. “I wonder how many of
them there are?”
“Perhaps he thinks it’s just as dry in the river as it is on board the
boat,” the other said with a chuckle, “and I for one think he’s about
right. Here comes another.”
When three had taken to the water there came a lull in the procession of
jumpers and Case observed: “Now we’ll soon be tucked up in our little
beds, that is as soon as we get Paul cared for.”
“Suppose the robbers return?” the stranger suggested.
“They’ll have to be pretty swift in their movements if they connect with
the _Rambler_,” Case answered. “We’ve got a boat that can go some, and
then some more!”
The two then descended the ridge and were soon standing where Paul had
been left. The boy was still in great pain from his broken leg.
“This boy shouldn’t lie here in the storm,” said the stranger. “He’ll
take the newmonnie.”
“He’ll not remain here long now,” replied Case, with a smile at the
man’s pronunciation of “pneumonia,” “for we’ll get him to the _Rambler_
in short order. We must get him to a surgeon.”
“I thought you’d never come,” groaned Paul.
“It’s all right now,” Case assured the boy.
“Wait until the boys come with the stretcher, and we’ll have you where
you can receive the care of a doctor in three jerks of a lamb’s tail.”
Clay soon appeared with the stretcher and the injured lad was carefully
placed upon it. Then Clay turned to Case with a smile.
“Why don’t you introduce me?” he asked.
Case hesitated and the stranger came forward.
“I reckon we don’t either one know what to call the other,” he said with
a smile. “I’m Rube Stagg.”
“Glad to know you, Mr. Stagg,” said Clay with a laugh at the odd
appearance of the man.
He was at least six feet four inches tall, lean to emaciation, with
enormous hands and feet, and just about the reddest and longest head of
hair that the lads had ever seen. It came far down on his shoulders and
was so tossed about by the wind that it appeared to be in one great
snarl.
His eyes were blue and bright, his nose blunt stub, and his head was
adorned with a pair of enormous ears. His dress was of the sort usually
worn by ranchmen.
“I’ve got a ranch over here a short distance,” explained Mr. Stagg, “and
you are quite welcome to use it if you feel so disposed. That boy has
been exposed to the storm too long already.”
“We’ll have him under shelter directly,” was Case’s reply, “but we’re a
thousand times obliged to you, all the same.”
“Well,” Stagg replied, “if you won’t use my shack, perhaps you won’t
object to my carrying one end of the stretcher.”
“You are all right, Mr. Stagg,” said Clay, heartily. “We are a little
short-handed on account of leaving two boys at the boat.”
“What was the ruction at the boat?” Case asked.
Clay burst into a ringing laugh.
“That was the funniest thing I ever saw!” he said as they set the
stretcher down for a rest. “Alex, the little monkey, sneaked on board
the _Rambler_ when an especially hard shower came on, accompanied by
thunder and lightning. Captain Joe was with him, as usual, and when they
came to the window which looks out on the stern deck the parrot joined
the combination.”
“Great combination, that!” laughed Case. “A boy full of mischief, a
bulldog full of bites, and a parrot full of the old Nick! What happened
then? Did the pirates take to the river as soon as they saw what they
were up against?”
“No, they attempted to put up a fight,” replied Clay, “and what followed
was a jumble of legs, arms, parrot and bulldog. The parrot screamed and
the dog got in his work on the shins of the outlaws, who had laid their
weapons aside in order to dry their clothing and couldn’t get them
without coming in contact with the dog.”
“Must have been very funny,” said Case. “I should have enjoyed seeing
it.”
“I imagine the bandits thought the devil was after them for sure. How
that parrot did scream! The racket might have been heard a mile away
only for the wind and rain. How it did rain! And thunder and lightning!
Say but it was fierce!”
“And where was the baby bear all this time?” Case asked. “Of course you
knew that Alex adopted another bear?”
“Yes, I’m wise to the fact,” answered Clay. “Well, the cub was asleep
under my coat until the fireworks started, then he took a hand in the
game. It certainly was comical to see that little runt trying to eat a
full-sized robber.”
The boys now continued their progress to the _Rambler_, and soon saw the
cabin lights shining through the rain. As the lads neared the boat the
great prow light was switched on, making everything as light as day. The
rain was still falling in torrents, and the wind was blowing a
hurricane.
In fact, the boys were obliged to stand pretty close together in order
to make themselves heard at all.
“It’s a wonder the boys didn’t think of that prow light before,” was
Case’s comment as they laid the stretcher down on the shore.
“It was out of kilter when I left the boat,” said Clay. “What is
bothering me now is how to get this boy on board the boat. I don’t think
we can get the boat any nearer to the land.”
“We must manage it, in some way, before long, for the lad has been
exposed to the storm for a long time.”
“Why, of course we can get him over to the _Rambler_,” cut in Case. “You
have only to lift the stretcher into the rowboat, then lift it out again
when we reach the _Rambler_!”
“Never thought of that!” laughed Clay. “Two heads are better than one,
if one is a bit thick!”
“Anything to get me out of this storm!” groaned Paul. “I don’t think I
shall ever be warm again.”
While the boys were getting Paul on board the _Rambler_ Stagg appeared
to be very busy about the boy’s head. More than once he bent over the
lad, as if trying to recognize him, but the boy was too badly beaten up
for that.
At last he seemed to give it up, but there was still a look of inquiry
in his eyes, and Clay referred to it.
“He acts to me like he was looking for a friend,” he said.
“He does act rather strangely,” was Case’s comment. “Still, he may be
one of the curious kind.”
No more was said on the subject at that time, though Clay often wondered
if there could be any connection between the two, and also if Mr. Stagg
was exactly what he seemed.
CHAPTER IV
A NIGHT ON SHORE
The boys had a hard time getting on board the _Rambler_, but it was
accomplished at last, and the sufferer was soon in one of the bunks.
Then the boat was headed downstream.
Mr. Stagg was left standing on the river bank in the rain. The boys
invited him on board, but he explained that he was determined to “get
that pesky steer before he went home.”
“It’s a wild night to be hunting for cattle,” Clay suggested as the boat
was got under way, “but we all hope you’ll find it.”
“Say,” said Alex, as the boat started downstream, “do you believe the
story that man told?”
“Seems like an honest fellow,” was Jule’s reply, “but one can never
tell. To tell the truth, he looked to me more like an outlaw than any
fellow we caught on board.”
“Pretty fierce night to be hunting cattle,” commented Alex, and the
discussion was dropped.
“How far is it to the Hayes Junction?” asked Case. “We can’t get a
surgeon to set that broken leg until we get there, and perhaps not then.
I think I’ll study surgery, just to be ready for any emergency, when I
go to college,” added the boy.
“We’ve got quite a distance to travel before we reach Hayes, and I
suggest that we put in the time eating,” said Alex. “I wouldn’t want to
get a regular meal,” he continued, “just a large steak and French fried
potatoes, and bread and butter, and a couple of pies, and a couple of
dozen doughnuts. Just a light luncheon!”
“When the time comes for you to die,” Case observed, with a wink at
Jule, “you’ll die of starvation because of having swept the world slick
and clear of food.”
“Go ahead and get up your light luncheon,” Jule advised. “I think I
could take a little nourishment myself.”
“Oh, well, if you’re going to get up a simple luncheon like you suggest,
I don’t know but I’ll take a light snack myself,” said Case, his mouth
watering at the mention of pie.
“How’ll you have the steak cooked?” asked Alex.
“When it comes to cooking steak,” Jule cut in, “I’ve got the crowd up a
blind siding with fires banked.”
“That comes pretty near being slang,” Clay laughed, putting his head in
at the cabin door. “I can see someone washing the supper dishes right
now.”
While this conversation was going on Paul Stegman, worn out by pain and
exposure, was sleeping soundly. At first the boys talked in whispers,
but they soon saw that it was a useless precaution, as the roaring of
the storm drowned all lesser sounds.
Nothing more was heard of the robbers at that time. The boys believed
them to be tramps, and so put them out of their minds. How wrong they
were in this the future will show.
The sky cleared shortly, just as the town of Hayes came into view. There
was not much of the place—which was little better than a railroad
crossing.
Paul still slept soundly, and the boys decided to wait until he awoke
before looking over the town for a surgeon.
The steak and potatoes being done to a turn, the boys fell to with
appetites sharpened by the keen air.
“Pie,” declared Alex, “is Nature’s best gift to man! There is green
apple pie, dried apple pie, red apple pie, and pie-pie. Pie has all
other food on its back with its tongue out!”
“When you get to pie,” Jule cut in, “you’re always due for a eulogy. If
I had the appetite for pie that you have, I’d feed it to the bears! By
the way,” he exclaimed, bounding up from the table, “where is Teddy,
Junior? Why isn’t he out here getting filled up?”
The boy shot away like he had only a second more to live, but soon
returned with the announcement that the baby bear was lying on his belly
snoring “to beat the band!”
“Who’s got the job of washing the supper dishes?” asked Alex, rolling
back in his chair with the air of a millionaire. “Who talked the most
slang to-day?”
“Jule did,” declared Case.
“I should say not!” denied that lad. “If I could talk slang equal to
Alex, I’d give the slang dictionary cards and spades and then win out!
He’s got a tongue that whirls round and round like a puppy after his
tail. The idea of putting me in his class!”
“In order to settle this dispute amicably,” interrupted Clay, “I propose
that the boys both tackle the job. They have both been talking slang all
day.”
“All right!” consented Jule. “Only you don’t want to forget and leave
any pie on the plates.”
“If I had your mouth for pie——”
Alex began, but checked himself before completing the sentence—much to
Jule’s disappointment.
The boys had a merry time over the dishes, and then Clay and Case went
to bed, leaving Alex and Jule to watch the _Rambler_ during the
remainder of the night. In a short time all was still on board. The
storm which had driven so fiercely against the motor boat in the early
part of the night had now passed over, leaving a rim of moon in the
west.
Directly Alex passed out of the cabin and stood on the deck. Jule was
half asleep in the cabin.
For a time there was only the roaring of the river to break the silence.
The wind had died down to a gentle breeze, and there was the scent of
spring in the air.
Captain Joe came out on deck after a time and sniffed the air excitedly.
In a moment he was on the railing of the boat, looking over to the west
shore. Alex spoke to him, but for once his words received no attention.
“What is it, Joe?” asked the boy.
Captain Joe only wagged his stumpy tail.
“I’ll soon find out what’s doing here!” decided Alex. “How would you
like a run on shore, Captain Joe?” the boy went on. “It ain’t a very
swell night for a ramble, but I feel as if my legs wouldn’t be the worse
for a little stretching.”
Jule was below, in the cabin, and there could be no possible harm, the
boy thought, in leaving the watch to him. Therefore he took the rowboat
and started for the shore, accompanied by the dog, who seemed very
anxious to get to the land.
The moon was setting, but the stars were out, and the boy and the dog
had little difficulty in finding their way after gaining the shore. The
latter, however, after hastily sniffing the air for an instant, darted
away, leaving the boy alone.
“That’s a dirty Irish trick, Captain Joe,” said the lad, doing his best
to keep up with his four-footed rival. “I wonder what he sees in there,
anyway?”
The dog was now lost from sight in the underbrush which lined the shore,
and Alex could only whistle in an effort to secure his return. The
rustle of the dead foliage was the only sound for some time, then the
dog set up fierce barking.
This was very unusual for Captain Joe, who confined himself, as a rule,
to a series of warning growls, and Alex quickened his steps in order
that he might see what the dog was at.
All was still in the thicket penetrated by the lad, however, and it was
dark as a pocket, too. There was little hope of finding the dog in that
smother of shadows, so Alex reluctantly turned his steps toward the
boat.
“I’d like to know what’s got into Captain Joe,” thought the boy as he
made his way back to the _Rambler_. “He certainly is acting queerly, and
I don’t like the looks of it.”
In a few minutes he was back on the shore.
“It will be a good joke on the crazy pup to go away and leave him on the
shore,” thought the boy. “It will teach him better manners, anyway. Now
what’s that?”
“That” was a low whistle, evidently a signal. It came again in an
instant, louder and clearer.
Alex listened again for the dog, but heard nothing indicating his
presence. In a moment there was a rustling in the underbrush and then a
man’s voice asked:
“Are you there, Charley?”
There was no answer, and the question was repeated. Still there was no
answer. There was another movement in the bushes, and then a figure
showed dimly in the starlight.
Presently the man who had given the signal was joined by two other men.
They talked in low tones for a time, but gradually their voices grew
louder and Alex was able to hear what was being said.
“I don’t think they succeeded in getting the motor boat,” the first
speaker said.
“Wonder they wouldn’t show a signal,” commented another.
“It’s a sure thing they didn’t get the boat,” a third man said. “If they
had, you needn’t be guessing.”
“No, they would be holding a celebration now. Wonder why they failed?
The job seemed an easy one to me—just to take a boat away from four
boys.”
There was further talk that Alex could not hear, then the men passed out
of hearing.
“The _Rambler_ seems to be in good demand,” was the boy’s comment. “If
Captain Joe would show up now, I’d go on board and put the boys on their
guard. Somehow that dog always runs away at the wrong time! Perhaps I’d
better take another look for him. It doesn’t seem as if he could be very
far away. He needs a thumping!”
Alex made another trip through the underbrush, but no Captain Joe
rewarded his search. At last the boy abandoned the quest and started for
the _Rambler_.
“The boys will want to know what’s going on, and the dog can be found at
some other time,” he reasoned. “It would serve the beast good and right
to leave him in a place where he’d get hungry enough to devour his own
shadow!”
When Alex reached the spot where the boat had been left it was nowhere
to be seen. He got away from the locality in quick time.
The place was probably being watched. The men who had found the boat
would know very well that it couldn’t walk there.
The boy slipped back in the bushes, where he was protected from
observation by a rocky elevation, and waited. Presently there was the
murmur of hushed voices, and then a man’s form appeared, outlined
against the sky, which was now showing the first faint traces of
daylight.
“Wonder if the fellow who went ashore in the boat intends to make his
permanent home there?” said a voice. “He certainly stays long enough to
give one that impression.”
“He’s got to come back here after his boat, and we’ll be right here,
waiting for him,” said another voice. “The thing that puzzles me is why
the boys didn’t get the motor boat upstream.”
There was silence for a time, during which the three men waited for the
return of the boy, who was listening to most of their talk. Directly
Alex felt a cold nose thrust into the palm of his hand, he knew that
Captain Joe had returned.
“You’re a bad dog, going off like this!” exclaimed the boy. “What have
you to say for yourself?”
The dog stretched himself at Alex’s feet and offered no explanation. The
matter ended, as all such matters usually did, by the boy taking the
dog’s head into his lap and pulling his stubby ears.
Daylight was now coming on rapidly, and Alex realized that something
must be done. The least of his troubles concerned the manner of getting
back to the _Rambler_.
So far as that went, he could easily swim that short distance. But the
lad had no intention of going back to the boat to be laughed at.
Presently the cabin door opened and Jule made his appearance, looking as
if he had had a pretty sound sleep.
The watching men crouched out of sight in the bushes, and Jule stepped
to the railing of the _Rambler_ and looked into the river. The sun would
be in sight in half an hour and it would be a bright day.
Jule stood looking over the water for a minute and then turned and
entered the cabin. Directly Clay and Case came out and the three stood
at the rail talking.
“I think I know what they are saying,” said Alex with a smile. “They are
holding a squaw man’s convention on me. It was a rotten thing to do to
go and lose that boat. Perhaps I shall be lucky enough to get it back. I
wish those men wouldn’t watch this spot so closely. I half believe they
suspect something.”
Alex did not know that there were two parties watching the movements on
board the _Rambler_, each party consisting of three men. One was up the
river perhaps eighty rods, while the other lay on the bank of the stream
only a short distance from the spot where Alex was hidden.
Directly Captain Joe arose and moved over toward the clump of bushes
where the three men lay. The chances are that he knew of their presence,
and was willing to overlook it in the interest of harmony, but one of
the three launched a rock at his head as he came up.
This was an insult by no means to be overlooked. In less time than it
takes to tell the story, Joe had him by the throat.
All three boys on board the _Rambler_, seeing the dog struggling with
superior numbers, were over the rail in an instant, striking out for the
spot where the combat was in progress.
At that instant the three men who had been up the river, hearing the
sounds of a conflict below, emerged from the shelter of the trees and
started toward the scene of action.
Clay afterward declared that he thought Jule was left in charge of the
boat, while Jule declared that Case was the responsible one. At any
rate, while the boys were umpiring the fight between the dog and the man
the three men plunged into the stream and made off with the _Rambler_.
The boys saw their loss too late. The boat was already headed
downstream.
CHAPTER V
A FRIEND IN NEED
Released from the jaws of the dog in a slightly damaged condition, the
man who had been attacked started on a run for the spot where the
rowboat had been concealed. Blood was streaming down his neck and throat
as a result of the attentions of Captain Joe, and the fellow shook his
fist wrathfully as he ran.
The next instant he was followed by the two other men, who made many
threats as to what they would do to the dog if they ever came upon him
again. Captain Joe looked as if he wanted to finish the job he had
begun, but was restrained by Clay.
The three men were not followed by the boys, for they were too much
interested in watching the men on the _Rambler_.
For once the boys were unarmed. They had leaped into the river on the
spur of the moment, only half dressed, and were absolutely defenseless.
They now looked at each other with faces from which every vestige of
color had fled.
In the meantime the three men were making their way to the spot where
the rowboat had been hidden in the thicket. Almost before they could
sense what was being done, they had pushed the boat into the water and
were away in the wake of the _Rambler_.
“There goes our Rio Grande trip!” exclaimed Alex sorrowfully. “What can
we do now?”
“Just our luck!” was Case’s comment.
Jule said not a word, evidently thinking that no words could do justice
to the occasion.
Clay remained silent for a moment, and then a smile flickered over his
face as he observed:
“Well, our next stunt will be to get the boat back. No game is played
out until the cards are all on the table.”
“Oh, you’ll get it back, all right! In a pig’s wrist.”
Case was almost ready to
|
and miserable world, and yet I love it. It has done me
nothing but evil, and yet I watch it and seek out what it does, and
listen to what goes on, just as if I thought to hear of any good fortune
likely to come to me. Foolish old man that I am! What is it to me what
people say or do, or who dies, or who is married? and why should I come
out here to see the market people pass, and climb this street to hear of
the murder that was done here last night, and look at the body that lies
in the room above?"
"What murder?" said Inglesant. "Who was murdered, and by whom?"
"He is a foreigner; they say an Inglese—a traveller here merely. Who
murdered him I know not, though they do say that too."
"Where is the body?" said Inglesant. "Let us go up." And he gave the
old man another small coin.
The old man looked at him for a moment with a peculiar expression.
"Better not, Signore," he said; "better go home."
"Do not fear for me," said Inglesant; "I bear a charmed life; no steel
can touch me, nor any bullet hurt me, till my hour comes; and my hour is
not yet."
The old man led the way to an open door, carved with tracery and
foliaged work, and they ascended a flight of stairs. It was one of those
houses, so common in Italian towns, whose plain and massive exterior,
pierced with few and narrow windows, gives no idea of the size and
splendour of the rooms within. When they reached the top of the stairs,
Inglesant saw that the house had once, and probably not long before,
been the residence of some person of wealth. They passed through
several rooms with carved chimney-pieces and cornices, and here and
there even some massive piece of furniture still remained. From the
windows that opened on the inner side Inglesant could see the tall
cypresses of a garden, and hear the splash of fountains. But the house
had fallen from its high estate, and was now evidently used for the
vilest purposes. After passing two or three rooms, they reached an
upper hall or dining-room of considerable length, and painted in fresco
apparently of some merit. A row of windows on the left opened on the
garden, from which the sound of voices and laughter came up.
The room was bare of furniture, except towards the upper end, where was
a small and shattered table, upon which the body of the murdered man was
laid. Inglesant went up and stood by its side.
There was no doubt whose countryman he had been. The fair English boy,
scarcely bordering upon manhood—the heir, probably, of bright
hopes—travelling with a careless or incompetent tutor, lay upon the
small table, his long hair glistening in the sunlight, his face peaceful
and smiling as in sleep. The fatal rapier thrust, marked by the stain
upon the clothes, was the sole sign that his mother—waking up probably
at that moment in distant England, with his image in her heart—was
bereaved for ever of her boy. Inglesant stood silent a few moments,
looking sadly down; that other terrible figure, upon the white
hearthstone, was so constantly in his mind, that this one, so like it,
scarcely could be said to recall the image of his murdered brother; but
the whole scene certainly strengthened his morbid fancy, and it seemed
to him that he was on the footsteps of the murderer, and that his fate
was drawing near.
"His steps are still in blood," he said aloud; "and it is warm; he
cannot be far off."
He turned, as he spoke, to look for the old man, but he was gone, and in
his place a ghastly figure met Inglesant’s glance.
Standing about three feet from the table, a little behind Inglesant, and
also looking fixedly at the murdered boy, was the figure of a corpse.
The face was thin and fearfully white, and the whole figure was wrapped
and swathed in grave-clothes, somewhat disordered and loosened, so as to
give play to the limbs. This form took no notice of the other’s
presence, but continued to gaze at the body with its pallid ghastly
face.
Inglesant scarcely started. Nothing could seem more strange and unreal
to him than what was passing on every side. That the dead should return
and stand by him seemed to him not more fearful and unreal than all the
rest.
Suddenly the corpse turned its eyes upon Inglesant, and regarded him
with a fixed and piercing glance.
"You spoke of the author of this deed as though you knew him," it said.
"I am on the track of a murderer, and my fate is urging me on. It seems
to me that I see his bloody steps."
"This was no murder," said the corpse, in an irritated and impatient
voice. "It was a chance melée, and an unfortunate and unhappy thrust;
we do not even know the name of the man who lies there. Are you the
avenger of blood, that you see murder at every step?"
"I am in truth the avenger of blood," said Inglesant in a low and
melancholy voice; "would I were not."
The corpse continued to look at Inglesant fixedly, and would have
spoken, but the voices which had been heard in the garden now seemed to
come nearer, and hurried steps approached the room. The laughter that
Inglesant had heard was stilled, and deep and solemn voices strove
together, and one above the rest said, "Bring up the murderer."
The corpse turned round impatiently, and the next moment from a small
door, which opened on a covered balcony and outside staircase to the
garden, there came hurriedly in a troop of the most strange and
fantastic figures that the eye could rest upon. Angels and demons, and
savage men in lions’ skins, and men with the heads of beasts and birds,
swarmed tumultuously in, dragging with them an unfortunate being in his
night-clothes, and apparently just out of bed, whom they urged on with
blows. This man, who was only half-awake, was evidently in the
extremity of terror, and looked upon himself as already in the place of
eternal torment. He addressed now one and now another of his
tormentors, as well as he could find breath, in the most abject terms,
endeavouring, in the most ludicrous manner, to choose the titles and
epithets to address them most in accordance with the individual
appearance that the spectre he entreated wore to his dazzled
eyes—whether a demon or an angel, a savage or a man-beast. When he saw
the murdered man, and the terrible figure that stood by Inglesant, he
nearly fainted with terror; but, on many voices demanding loudly that he
should be brought in contact with the body of his victim, he recovered a
little, and recognizing in Inglesant, at least, a being of an earthly
sphere, and by his dress a man of rank, he burst from his tormentors,
and throwing himself at his feet, he entreated his protection, assuring
him that he had been guilty of no murder, having just been dragged from
a sound sleep, and being even ignorant that a murder had been committed.
Inglesant took little notice of him, but the corpse interposed between
the man and the fantastic crew. It was still apparently in a very bad
humour, especially with Inglesant, and said imperiously,—"We have enough
and too much of this foolery. Have not some of you done enough mischief
for one night? This gentleman says he is on the track of a murderer,
and will have it that he sees his traces in this unfortunate affair."
At these words the masquers crowded round Inglesant with wild and
threatening gestures, apparently half earnest and half the result of
wine, and as many of them were armed with great clubs, the consequences
might have seemed doubtful to one whose feelings were less excited than
Inglesant’s were.
He, however, as though the proceeding were a matter of course, merely
took off his hat, and addressed the others in explanation.
"I am indeed in pursuit of a murderer, the murderer of my brother—a
gallant and noble gentleman who was slain foully in cold blood. The
murderer was an Italian, his name Malvolti. Do any of you, signori,
happen to have heard of such a man?"
There was a pause after this singular address, but the next moment a
demon of terrific aspect forced his way to the front, saying in a tone
of drunken consequence,—
"I knew him formerly at Lucca; he was well born and my friend."
"He was, and is, a scelerat and a coward," said Inglesant fiercely. "It
would be well to be more careful of your company, sir."
"Have I not said he was my friend, sir?" cried the demon, furious with
passion. "Who will lend me a rapier?"
A silent and melancholy person, with the head of an owl, who had several
under his arm, immediately tendered him one with a low bow, and the
masquers fell back in a circle, while the demon, drawing his weapon,
threw himself into an attitude and attacked Inglesant, who, after
looking at him for a moment, also drew his rapier and stood upon his
guard. It soon appeared that the demon was a very moderate fencer; in
less than a minute his guard was entered by Inglesant’s irresistible
tierce, and he would have been infallibly run through the body had he
not saved himself by rolling ignominiously on the ground.
This incident appeared to restore the corpse to good humour; it laughed,
and turning to the masquers said,—
"Gentlemen, let me beg of you to disperse as quickly as possible before
the day is any farther advanced. You know of the rendezvous at one
o’clock. I will see the authorities as to this unhappy affair. Sir,"
he continued, turning to Inglesant, "you are, I believe, the friend of
Don Agostino di Chigi, whom he has been introducing into Florentine
society; if it will amuse you to see a frolic of the Carnival carried
out, of which this is only the somewhat unfortunate rehearsal, and will
meet me this afternoon at two o’clock, at the Great Church in the Via
Larga, I shall be happy to do my best to entertain you; a simple domino
will suffice. I am the Count Capece."
Inglesant gave his name in return. He apologized for not accepting the
Count’s courtesy, on the plea of ill-health, but assured him he would
take advantage of his offer to cultivate his acquaintance. They left
the house together, the Count covering himself with a cloak, and
Inglesant accompanied him to the office of police, from whence he went
to his lodging and to his bed.
He arose early in the afternoon, and remembering the invitation he had
received, he went out into the Via Larga. The streets formed a strange
contrast to the stillness and calm of the cool morning. The afternoon
was hot, and the city crowded with people of every class and rank. The
balconies and windows of the principal streets were full of ladies and
children; trophies and embroideries hung from the houses and crossed the
street. Strings of carriages and country carts, dressed with flowers
and branches of trees, paraded the streets. Every variety of fantastic
and grotesque costume, and every shade of colour, filled and confused
the eye. Music, laughter, and loud talking filled the ear. Inglesant,
from his simple costume and grave demeanour, became the butt of several
noisy parties; but used as he was to great crowds, and to the confused
revelries of Courts, he was able to disentangle himself with mutual
good-humour. He recognized his friends of the morning, who were
performing a kind of comedy on a country cart, arched with boughs, in
imitation of the oldest form of the itinerant theatre. He was
recognized by them also, for, in a pause of the performance, as he was
moving down a bye-street, he was accosted by one of the company,
enveloped in a large cloak. He had no difficulty in recognizing beneath
this concealment his antagonist of the morning, who still supported his
character of demon.
"I offer you my apologies for the occurrences of this morning, signore,"
he said, "having been informed by my friends more closely concerning
them than I can myself recollect. I am also deeply interested in the
person of whom you spoke, who formerly was a friend of mine; and I must
also have been acquainted with the signore, your brother, of which I am
the more certain as your appearance every moment recalls him more and
more to my mind. I should esteem it a great favour to be allowed to
speak at large with you on these matters. If you will allow me to pay
my respects at your lodgings, I will conduct you to my father’s house,
il Conte Pericon di Visalvo, where I can show you many things which may
be of interest to you respecting the man whom I understand you seek."
Inglesant replied that he should gladly avail himself of his society,
and offered to come to the Count’s house early the next day.
He found the house, a sombre plain one, in a quiet street, with a tall
front pierced with few windows. At the low door hung a wine-flask, as a
sign that wine was sold within; for the sale of wine by retail was
confined to the gentry, the common people being only allowed to sell
wholesale. The Count was the fortunate possessor of a very fine
vineyard, which made his wine much in request, and Inglesant found the
whole ground-floor of his house devoted to this retail traffic. Having
inquired for the Count, he was led up the staircase into a vestibule,
and from thence into the Count’s own room. This was a large apartment
with windows looking on to the court, with a suite of rooms opening
beyond it. It was handsomely furnished, with several cages full of
singing birds in the windows. Outside, the walls of the houses forming
the courtyard were covered with vines and creeping jessamine and other
plants, and a fountain splashed in the centre of the court, which was
covered with a coloured awning.
The old Count received Inglesant politely. He was a tall, spare old
man, with a reserved and dignified manner, more like that of a Spaniard
than of an Italian. Rather to Inglesant’s surprise he introduced him to
his daughter, on whom, as she sat near one of the windows, Inglesant’s
eyes had been fixed from the moment he had entered the room. The
Italians were so careful of the ladies of their families, and it was so
unusual to allow strangers to see them, that his surprise was not
unnatural, especially as the young lady before him was remarkably
beautiful. She was apparently very young, tall and dark-eyed, with a
haughty and indifferent manner, which concentrated itself entirely upon
her father.
The Count noticed Inglesant’s surprise at the cordiality of his
reception, and seemed to speak as if in explanation.
"You are no stranger to us, signore," he said; "my son has not only
commended you to me, but your intimacy with Count Agostino has endeared
you already to us who admire and love him."
As Agostino had told him the evening before that he knew little of these
people, though he believed the old Count to be respectable, this rather
increased Inglesant’s surprise; but he merely said that he was fortunate
in possessing a friend whose favour procured him such advantages.
"My son’s affairs," continued the old man, "unavoidably took him abroad
this morning, but I wait his return every moment."
Inglesant suspected that the Cavaliere, who appeared to him to be a
complete debauchée, had not been at home at all that night; but if that
were the case, when he entered the room a few moments afterwards, his
manner was completely self-possessed and quiet, and showed no signs of a
night of revelry.
As soon as they were seated the Cavaliere began to explain to Inglesant
that both his father and himself were anxious to see him, to confer
respecting the unfortunate circumstances which, as they imagined, had
brought him to Italy upon a mission which they assured him was madly
imprudent.
"Our nation, signore," said the Cavaliere, "is notorious for two
passions—jealousy and revenge. Both of these, combined with
self-interest, induced Malvolti to commit the foul deed which he
perpetrated upon your brother. While in Italy your brother crossed him
in some of his amours, and also resented some indiscretions, which the
manners of our nation regard with tolerance, but which your discreeter
countrymen resent with unappeasable disgust. Our people never forgive
injuries; nay, they entail them on their posterity. We ourselves left
our native city, Lucca, on account of one of these feuds, which made it
unsafe for us to remain; and I could show you a gentleman’s house in
Lucca whose master has never set foot out of doors for nine years, nay,
scarcely looked out of window, for fear of being shot by an antagonist
who has several times planted ambushes to take away his life. It is
considered a disgrace to a family that one of its members has forgiven
an injury; and a mother will keep the bloody clothes of her murdered
husband, to incite her young sons to acts of vengeance. You will see,
signore, the evil which such ideas as these winds about our lives; and
how unwise it must be in a stranger to involve himself needlessly in
such an intrigue, in a foreign country, unknown and comparatively
without friends. Italy swarms with bravos hired to do the work of
vengeance; merchants are assaulted in their warehouses in open day; in
the public streets the highest personages in the land are not safe. What
will be the fate then of a stranger whose death is necessary to the
safety of an Italian?"
"I understand you, signore," said Inglesant, "and I thank you for your
good-will, but you are somewhat mistaken. I am not seeking the man of
whom we speak, though, I confess, I came to Italy partly with the
expectation of meeting him, when it is the will of God, or the will of
the Devil whom He permits to influence the affairs of men, that this man
and I should meet. I shall not attempt to avoid the interview; it would
be useless if I did. The result of that meeting who can tell! But as I
said yesterday to the Count Capece, till my hour comes I bear a charmed
life that cannot be taken, and any result I regard with supreme
indifference, if so be I may, by any means, escape in the end the snares
of the Devil, who seeks to take me captive at his will."
The two gentlemen regarded Inglesant with profound astonishment as he
uttered these words; and the young lady in the window raised her eyes
towards him as he was speaking (he spoke very pure Italian) with some
appearance of interest.
After a pause Inglesant went on, "I also venture to think, signore," he
said, "that you are unaware of the position of this man, and of the
condition to which his crimes have brought him. I am well informed from
sure sources that he is without friends, and that his crimes have raised
him more enemies in this country even than elsewhere; so that he is
afraid to appear openly, lest he fall a victim to his own countrymen.
He is also in abject poverty, and is therefore to a great extent
powerless to do evil."
The Cavaliere smiled. "You do not altogether know this country,
signore," he said; "there are always so many different factions and
interests at work that a daring useful man is never without patrons, who
will support and further his private interests in return for the service
he may render them; and (though you may not be fully aware of it) it is
because it is notorious that you are yourself supported and protected by
a most powerful and widely spread faction, that your position in this
country is as assured and safe as it is."
His words certainly struck Inglesant. The idea that he was already a
known and marked man in this wonderful country, and playing an
acknowledged part in its fantastic drama, was new to him, and he
remained silent.
"From all ordinary antagonists," continued the Cavaliere, "this
knowledge is sufficient to secure you; no man would wish, unless ruined
and desperate, to draw on his head the swift and certain punishment
which a hand raised against your life would be sure to invoke. But a
reckless despairing man stops at nothing; and should you, by your
presence even, endanger this man’s standing in the favour of some
new-found patron, or impede the success of some freshly planned
scheme—perhaps the last hope of his ruined life—I would not buy your
safety at an hour’s rate."
While the Cavaliere was speaking it was evident that his sister was
listening with great attention. The interest that she manifested, and
the singular attraction that Inglesant felt towards her, so occupied his
thoughts that he could scarcely attend to what the other was saying,
though he continued speaking for some time. It is possible that the
Cavaliere noticed this, for Inglesant was suddenly conscious that he was
regarding him fixedly and with a peculiar expression. He apologized for
his inattention on the ground of ill-health, and soon after took his
leave, having invited the Cavaliere to visit him at his lodgings.
As Inglesant walked back through the streets of the city, he was
perplexed at his own sensations, which appeared so different from any he
had previously known. The attraction he experienced towards the lady he
had just seen was quite different from the affection he had felt for
Mary Collet. That was a sentiment which commended itself to his reason
and his highest feelings. In her company he felt himself soothed,
elevated above himself, safe from danger and from temptation. In this
latter attraction he was conscious of a half-formed fear, of a sense of
glamour and peril, and of an alluring force independent of his own
free-will. The opinion he had formed of her brother’s character may
have had something to do with these feelings, and the sense of perpetual
danger and insecurity with which he walked this land of mystery and
intrigue no doubt increased it. He half resolved not to visit the old
nobleman again; but even while forming the resolution he knew that he
should break it.
The circumstances in which he was placed, indeed, almost precluded such
a course. The very remarkable beauty of the young lady, and the
extraordinary unreserve with which he had been introduced to
her—unreserve so unusual in Italy—while it might increase the misgiving
he felt, made it very difficult for him to decline the acquaintance.
The girl’s beauty was of a kind unusual in Italy, though not unknown
there, her hair being of a light brown, contrasting with her magnificent
eyes, which were of the true Italian splendour and brilliancy. She had
doubtless been kept in the strictest seclusion, and Inglesant could only
wonder what could have induced the old Count to depart from his usual
caution.
The next day, being Ash Wednesday, Inglesant was present at the Duomo at
the ceremony of the day, when the vast congregation received the
emblematic ashes upon their foreheads. The Cavaliere was also present
with his sister, whose name Inglesant discovered to be Lauretta. Don
Agostino, to whom Inglesant had related the adventure, and the
acquaintance to which it had led, was inclined to suspect these people
of some evil purpose, and made what inquiries he could concerning them;
but he could discover nothing to their discredit, further than that the
Cavaliere was a well-known debauchée, and that he had been involved in
some intrigue, in connection with some of the present Papal family,
which had not proved successful. He was in consequence then in disgrace
with Donna Olympia and her faction,—a disappointment which it was said
had rendered his fortunes very desperate, as he was very deeply involved
in debts of all kinds. Don Agostino, the Carnival being over, was
desirous of returning to Sienna, unless Inglesant made up his mind to go
at once to Venice, in which case he offered to accompany him. His
friend, however, did not appear at all desirous of quitting Florence, at
any rate hastily, and Don Agostino left him and returned home, the two
friends agreeing to meet again before proceeding to Venice.
His companion gone, Inglesant employed himself in frequenting all those
churches to which Lauretta was in the habit of resorting during the Holy
Season; and as every facility appeared to be given him by her friends,
he became very intimate with her, and she on her part testified no
disinclination to his society. It will probably occur to the reader
that this conduct was not consistent with the cautious demeanour which
Inglesant had resolved upon; but such resolutions have before now proved
ineffectual under similar circumstances, and doubtless the like will
occur again. Lauretta looked round as a matter of course, as she came
out of the particular church she had that day chosen, for the handsome
cavalier who was certain to be ready to offer the drop of holy water;
and more than one rival whom the beautiful devotee had attracted to the
service, noticed with envy the kindly look of the masked eyes which
acknowledged the courtesy; and, indeed, it is not often that ladies’
eyes have rested upon a lover more attractive to a girl of a refined
nature than did Lauretta’s, when, in the dawn of the March mornings, she
saw John Inglesant waiting for her on the marble steps. It is true that
she thought the Cavaliere Inglese somewhat melancholy and sad, but her
own disposition was reserved and pensive; and in her presence
Inglesant’s melancholy was so far charmed away that it became only an
added grace of sweetness of manner, and of tender deference and
protection. The servant of the polished King of England, the companion
of Falkland and of Caernarvon, the French Princess’s favourite page,
trained in every art that makes life attractive, that makes life itself
the finest art, with a memory and intellect stored with the poetry and
learning of the antique world,—it would have been strange if, where once
his fancy was touched, Inglesant had not made a finished and attractive
lover.
The familiar streets of Florence, the bridges, or the walks by the Arno,
assumed a new charm to the young girl, when she saw them in company with
her pleasant and courteous friend; and whether in the early morning it
was a few spring flowers that he brought her, or a brilliant jewel that
he placed upon her finger as he parted in the soft Italian night, it was
the giver, and the grace with which the gift was made, that won the
romantic fancy of the daughter of the south. Their talk was not of the
kind that lovers often use. He would indeed begin with relating stories
of the English Court, in the bright fleeting days before the war, of the
courtly refined revels, of the stately dances and plays, and of the
boating parties on the wooded Thames; but most often the narrative
changed its tone instinctively, and went on to speak of sadder and
higher things; of self-denial and devotion of ladies and children, who
suffered for their King without complaint; of the Ferrars and their holy
life; of the martyred Archbishop and of the King’s death; and sometimes
perhaps of some sight of battle and suffering the narrator himself had
seen, as when the evening sun was shining upon the glassy slope of
Newbury, and he knelt beside the dying Caernarvon, unmindful of the
bullets that fell around.
"You have deserved well of the King," he whispered: "have you no request
that I may make to him, nothing for your children, or your wife?"
And with his eyes fixed upon the western horizon the Earl replied,—
"No, I will go hence with no request upon my lips but to the King of
kings."
How all this pleasant dalliance would have terminated, had it continued,
we have no means of knowing, for a sudden and unexpected end was put to
it, at any rate for a time.
Easter was over, and the Cavaliere had invited Inglesant to join in a
small party to spend a day or two at his vineyard and country house
among the Apennines, assuring him that at that time of the year the
valleys and hill-slopes were very delightful.
The evening before the day on which the little company was to start,
Inglesant had an engagement at one of the theatres in Florence, where a
comedy or pantomime was being performed. The comedies in Italy at this
time were paltry in character in everything except the music, which was
very good. Inglesant accompanied a Signore Gabriotto, a violin player,
who was engaged at the theatre, and of whom Inglesant had taken lessons,
and with whom he had become intimate. This man was not only an admirable
performer on the violin, but was a man of cultivation and taste. He had
given much study to the music of the ancients, and especially to their
musical instruments, as they are to be seen in the hands of the Apollos,
muses, fauns, satyrs, bacchanals, and shepherds of the classic
sculptors. As they walked through the streets in the evening sunlight,
he favoured his companion, whom he greatly admired as an excellent
listener, with a long discourse on this subject, showing how useful such
an inquiry was, not only to obtain a right notion of the ancient music,
but also to help us to obtain pleasanter instruments if possible than
those at present in use.
"Not, signore," he said, "that I think we have much to learn from the
ancients; for if we are to judge their instruments by the appearance
they make in marble, there is not one that is comparable to our violins;
for they seem, as far as I can make out, all to have been played on
either by the bare fingers or the plectrum, so that they could not add
length to their notes, nor could they vary them by that insensible
swelling and dying away of sound upon the same string which gives so
wonderful a sweetness to our modern music. And as far as I can see,
their stringed instruments must have had very low and feeble voices from
the small proportion of wood used (though it is difficult to judge of
this, seeing that all our examples are represented in marble), which
would prevent the instruments containing sufficient air to render the
strokes full or sonorous. Now my violin," continued the Italian with
enthusiasm, "does not speak only with the strings, it speaks all over,
as though it were a living creature that was all voice, or, as is really
the case, as though it were full of sound."
"You have a wonderful advantage," said Inglesant, "you Italians, that
is, in the cultivation of the art of life; for you have the unbroken
tradition, and habit and tone of mind, from the old world of pleasure
and art—a world that took the pleasures of life boldly, and had no
conscience to prevent its cultivating and enjoying them to the full.
But I must say that you have not, to my mind, improved during the lapse
of centuries, nor is the comedy we shall see to-night what might be
expected of a people who are the descendants of the old Italians who
applauded Terence."
"The comedy to-night," said the Italian, "would be nothing without the
music, the acting is a mere pretence."
"The comedy itself," said Inglesant, "would be intolerable but for the
buffoons, and the people show their sense in demanding that place shall
be found in every piece for these worthies. The play itself is stilted
and unreal, but there is always something of irony and wit in these
characters, which men have found full of satire and humour for four
thousand years: Harlequin the reckless fantastic youth, Pantaleone the
poor old worn-out ’Senex,’ and Corviello the rogue. In their absurd
impertinences, in their impossible combinations, in their mistakes and
tumbles, in their falling over queens and running up against monarchs,
men have always seemed to see some careless, light-hearted,
half-indifferent sarcasm and satire upon their own existence."
When they reached the theatre, the slant rays of the setting sun were
shining between the lofty houses, and many people were standing about
the doors. Inglesant accompanied the violinist to the door of the
playhouse, and took his place near the orchestra, at either end of which
were steps leading up on to the stage. The evening sunlight penetrated
into the house through Venetian blinds, lighting up the fittings and the
audience with a sort of mystic haze. The sides of the stage were
crowded with gentlemen, some standing, others sitting on small stools.
Many of the audience were standing, the rest seated on benches. The
part occupied in modern theatres by the boxes was furnished with raised
seats, on which ladies and people of distinction were accommodated.
There was no gallery.
As the first bars of the overture struck upon Inglesant’s ear, with a
long-drawn tremor of the bass viols and a shrill plaintive note of the
treble violins, an irresistible sense of loneliness and desolation and a
strange awe crept over him and weighed down his spirits. As the
fantastic music continued, in which gaiety and sadness were mysteriously
mingled, the reverberation seemed to excite each moment a clearer
perception of those paths of intrigue and of danger in which he seemed
to walk. The uneasy sentiment which accompanied, he knew not why, his
attachment to Lauretta, and the insidious friendship of the Cavaliere,
the sense of insecurity which followed his footsteps in this land of
dark and sinful deeds, passed before his mind. It seemed to his excited
fancy at that moment that the end was drawing very near, and amid the
fascination of the lovely music he seemed to await the note of the
huntsman’s horn which would announce that the toils were set, and that
the chase was up. From the kind of trance in which he stood he was
aroused by hearing a voice, distinct to his ear and perfectly audible,
though apparently at some considerable distance, say—
"Who is that man by the curtain, in black satin, with the Point de
Venice lace?"
And another voice, equally clear, answered, "His name is Inglesant, an
agent of the Society of the Gesu."
Inglesant turned; but, amid the crowd of faces behind him, he could
discern nothing that indicated the speakers, nor did any one else seem
to have noticed anything unusual. The next moment the music ceased, and
with a scream of laughter Harlequin bounded on the stage, followed by
Pantaleone in an eager and tottering step, and after them a wild rout of
figures, of all orders and classes, who flitted across the stage amid
the applause of the people, and suddenly disappeared; while Harlequin
and Pantaleone as suddenly reappearing, began a lively dialogue,
accompanied by a quick movement of the violins. As Inglesant took his
eyes off the stage for a moment, they fell on the figure of a man
standing on the flight of steps at the farther end of the orchestra, who
regarded him with a fixed and scrutinizing gaze. It was a tall and dark
man, whose expression would have been concealed from Inglesant but for
the fiery brilliancy of his eyes. Inglesant’s glance met his as in a
dream, and remained fixed as though fascinated, at which the gaze of the
other became, if possible, more intense, as though he too were
spell-bound and unable to turn away. At this moment the dialogue
|
soft beds, the luxurious food, the
pleasure-worshiping dalliance of a rich neighbor. It was clear to
him that virtue and happiness are independent of these things, if not
incompatible with them.
There was undoubtedly much in primitive Christianity to appeal to this
man, and Jesus’ hard sayings to the rich and about the rich would have
been entirely comprehensible to him. Yet the religion that is preached
in our churches and practiced by our congregations, with its element of
display and self-aggrandizement, its active proselytism, and its open
contempt of all religions but its own, was for a long time extremely
repellent. To his simple mind, the professionalism of the pulpit, the
paid exhorter, the moneyed church, was an unspiritual and unedifying
thing, and it was not until his spirit was broken and his moral and
physical constitution undermined by trade, conquest, and strong drink,
that Christian missionaries obtained any real hold upon him. Strange as
it may seem, it is true that the proud pagan in his secret soul despised
the good men who came to convert and to enlighten him!
Nor were its publicity and its Phariseeism the only elements in the
alien religion that offended the red man. To him, it appeared shocking
and almost incredible that there were among this people who claimed
superiority many irreligious, who did not even pretend to profess the
national faith. Not only did they not profess it, but they stooped so
low as to insult their God with profane and sacrilegious speech! In our
own tongue His name was not spoken aloud, even with utmost reverence,
much less lightly or irreverently.
More than this, even in those white men who professed religion we found
much inconsistency of conduct. They spoke much of spiritual things,
while seeking only the material. They bought and sold everything:
time, labor, personal independence, the love of woman, and even the
ministrations of their holy faith! The lust for money, power, and
conquest so characteristic of the Anglo-Saxon race did not escape moral
condemnation at the hands of his untutored judge, nor did he fail to
contrast this conspicuous trait of the dominant race with the spirit of
the meek and lowly Jesus.
He might in time come to recognize that the drunkards and licentious
among white men, with whom he too frequently came in contact, were
condemned by the white man’s religion as well, and must not be held to
discredit it. But it was not so easy to overlook or to excuse national
bad faith. When distinguished emissaries from the Father at Washington,
some of them ministers of the gospel and even bishops, came to the
Indian nations, and pledged to them in solemn treaty the national honor,
with prayer and mention of their God; and when such treaties, so made,
were promptly and shamelessly broken, is it strange that the action
should arouse not only anger, but contempt? The historians of the white
race admit that the Indian was never the first to repudiate his oath.
It is my personal belief, after thirty-five years’ experience of it,
that there is no such thing as “Christian civilization.” I believe that
Christianity and modern civilization are opposed and irreconcilable,
and that the spirit of Christianity and of our ancient religion is
essentially the same.
II. THE FAMILY ALTAR
Pre-natal Influence. Early Religious Teaching. The
Function of the Aged. Woman, Marriage and the Family.
Loyalty, Hospitality, Friendship.
The American Indian was an individualist in religion as in war. He had
neither a national army nor an organized church. There was no priest
to assume responsibility for another’s soul. That is, we believed, the
supreme duty of the parent, who only was permitted to claim in some
degree the priestly office and function, since it is his creative and
protecting power which alone approaches the solemn function of Deity.
The Indian was a religious man from his mother’s womb. From the moment
of her recognition of the fact of conception to the end of the second
year of life, which was the ordinary duration of lactation, it was
supposed by us that the mother’s spiritual influence counted for most.
Her attitude and secret meditations must be such as to instill into the
receptive soul of the unborn child the love of the “Great Mystery” and
a sense of brotherhood with all creation. Silence and isolation are
the rule of life for the expectant mother. She wanders prayerful in the
stillness of great woods, or on the bosom of the untrodden prairie, and
to her poetic mind the immanent birth of her child prefigures the advent
of a master-man--a hero, or the mother of heroes--a thought conceived in
the virgin breast of primeval nature, and dreamed out in a hush that is
only broken by the sighing of the pine tree or the thrilling orchestra
of a distant waterfall.
And when the day of days in her life dawns--the day in which there is
to be a new life, the miracle of whose making has been intrusted to her,
she seeks no human aid. She has been trained and prepared in body and
mind for this her holiest duty, ever since she can remember. The ordeal
is best met alone, where no curious or pitying eyes embarrass her; where
all nature says to her spirit: “‘Tis love! ‘tis love! the fulfilling of
life!” When a sacred voice comes to her out of the silence, and a pair
of eyes open upon her in the wilderness, she knows with joy that she has
borne well her part in the great song of creation!
Presently she returns to the camp, carrying the mysterious, the holy,
the dearest bundle! She feels the endearing warmth of it and hears its
soft breathing. It is still a part of herself, since both are nourished
by the same mouthful, and no look of a lover could be sweeter than its
deep, trusting gaze.
She continues her spiritual teaching, at first silently--a mere pointing
of the index finger to nature; then in whispered songs, bird-like, at
morning and evening. To her and to the child the birds are real people,
who live very close to the “Great Mystery”; the murmuring trees breathe
His presence; the falling waters chant His praise.
If the child should chance to be fretful, the mother raises her hand.
“Hush! hush!” she cautions it tenderly, “the spirits may be disturbed!”
She bids it be still and listen--listen to the silver voice of the
aspen, or the clashing cymbals of the birch; and at night she points
to the heavenly, blazed trail, through nature’s galaxy of splendor to
nature’s God. Silence, love, reverence,--this is the trinity of first
lessons; and to these she later adds generosity, courage, and chastity.
In the old days, our mothers were single-eyed to the trust imposed upon
them; and as a noted chief of our people was wont to say: “Men may slay
one another, but they can never overcome the woman, for in the quietude
of her lap lies the child! You may destroy him once and again, but he
issues as often from that same gentle lap--a gift of the Great Good to
the race, in which man is only an accomplice!”
This wild mother has not only the experience of her mother and
grandmother, and the accepted rules of her people for a guide, but she
humbly seeks to learn a lesson from ants, bees, spiders, beavers, and
badgers. She studies the family life of the birds, so exquisite in its
emotional intensity and its patient devotion, until she seems to feel
the universal mother-heart beating in her own breast. In due time
the child takes of his own accord the attitude of prayer, and speaks
reverently of the Powers. He thinks that he is a blood brother to all
living creatures, and the storm wind is to him a messenger of the “Great
Mystery.”
At the age of about eight years, if he is a boy, she turns him over to
his father for more Spartan training. If a girl, she is from this time
much under the guardianship of her grandmother, who is considered the
most dignified protector for the maiden. Indeed, the distinctive work
of both grandparents is that of acquainting the youth with the
national traditions and beliefs. It is reserved for them to repeat the
time-hallowed tales with dignity and authority, so as to lead him into
his inheritance in the stored-up wisdom and experience of the race. The
old are dedicated to the service of the young, as their teachers and
advisers, and the young in turn regard them with love and reverence.
Our old age was in some respects the happiest period of life. Advancing
years brought with them much freedom, not only from the burden of
laborious and dangerous tasks, but from those restrictions of custom and
etiquette which were religiously observed by all others. No one who is
at all acquainted with the Indian in his home can deny that we are a
polite people. As a rule, the warrior who inspired the greatest terror
in the hearts of his enemies was a man of the most exemplary gentleness,
and almost feminine refinement, among his family and friends. A soft,
low voice was considered an excellent thing in man, as well as in
woman! Indeed, the enforced intimacy of tent life would soon become
intolerable, were it not for these instinctive reserves and delicacies,
this unfailing respect for the established place and possessions of
every other member of the family circle, this habitual quiet, order, and
decorum.
Our people, though capable of strong and durable feeling, were not
demonstrative in their affection at any time, least of all in the
presence of guests or strangers. Only to the aged, who have journeyed
far, and are in a manner exempt from ordinary rules, are permitted
some playful familiarities with children and grandchildren, some plain
speaking, even to harshness and objurgation, from which the others must
rigidly refrain. In short, the old men and women are privileged to say
what they please and how they please, without contradiction, while the
hardships and bodily infirmities that of necessity fall to their lot are
softened so far as may be by universal consideration and attention.
There was no religious ceremony connected with marriage among us, while
on the other hand the relation between man and woman was regarded as in
itself mysterious and holy. It appears that where marriage is solemnized
by the church and blessed by the priest, it may at the same time be
surrounded with customs and ideas of a frivolous, superficial, and even
prurient character. We believed that two who love should be united in
secret, before the public acknowledgment of their union, and should
taste their apotheosis alone with nature. The betrothal might or might
not be discussed and approved by the parents, but in either case it was
customary for the young pair to disappear into the wilderness, there
to pass some days or weeks in perfect seclusion and dual solitude,
afterward returning to the village as man and wife. An exchange of
presents and entertainments between the two families usually followed,
but the nuptial blessing was given by the High Priest of God, the most
reverend and holy Nature.
The family was not only the social unit, but also the unit of
government. The clan is nothing more than a larger family, with its
patriarchal chief as the natural head, and the union of several clans by
intermarriage and voluntary connection constitutes the tribe. The very
name of our tribe, Dakota, means Allied People. The remoter degrees of
kinship were fully recognized, and that not as a matter of form only:
first cousins were known as brothers and sisters; the name of “cousin”
constituted a binding claim, and our rigid morality forbade marriage
between cousins in any known degree, or in other words within the clan.
The household proper consisted of a man with one or more wives and their
children, all of whom dwelt amicably together, often under one roof,
although some men of rank and position provided a separate lodge for
each wife. There were, indeed, few plural marriages except among
the older and leading men, and plural wives were usually, though not
necessarily, sisters. A marriage might honorably be dissolved for cause,
but there was very little infidelity or immorality, either open or
secret.
It has been said that the position of woman is the test of civilization,
and that of our women was secure. In them was vested our standard of
morals and the purity of our blood. The wife did not take the name of
her husband nor enter his clan, and the children belonged to the clan
of the mother. All of the family property was held by her, descent
was traced in the maternal line, and the honor of the house was in her
hands. Modesty was her chief adornment; hence the younger women were
usually silent and retiring: but a woman who had attained to ripeness
of years and wisdom, or who had displayed notable courage in some
emergency, was sometimes invited to a seat in the council.
Thus she ruled undisputed within her own domain, and was to us a tower
of moral and spiritual strength, until the coming of the border white
man, the soldier and trader, who with strong drink overthrew the honor
of the man, and through his power over a worthless husband purchased the
virtue of his wife or his daughter. When she fell, the whole race fell
with her.
Before this calamity came upon us, you could not find anywhere a happier
home than that created by the Indian woman. There was nothing of the
artificial about her person, and very little disingenuousness in her
character. Her early and consistent training, the definiteness of her
vocation, and, above all, her profoundly religious attitude gave her
a strength and poise that could not be overcome by any ordinary
misfortune.
Indian names were either characteristic nicknames given in a playful
spirit, deed names, birth names, or such as have a religious and
symbolic meaning. It has been said that when a child is born, some
accident or unusual appearance determines his name. This is sometimes
the case, but is not the rule. A man of forcible character, with a fine
war record, usually bears the name of the buffalo or bear, lightning or
some dread natural force. Another of more peaceful nature may be called
Swift Bird or Blue Sky. A woman’s name usually suggested something about
the home, often with the adjective “pretty” or “good,” and a feminine
termination. Names of any dignity or importance must be conferred by the
old men, and especially so if they have any spiritual significance; as
Sacred Cloud, Mysterious Night, Spirit Woman, and the like. Such a name
was sometimes borne by three generations, but each individual must prove
that he is worthy of it.
In the life of the Indian there was only one inevitable duty,--the duty
of prayer--the daily recognition of the Unseen and Eternal. His daily
devotions were more necessary to him than daily food. He wakes at
daybreak, puts on his moccasins and steps down to the water’s edge. Here
he throws handfuls of clear, cold water into his face, or plunges in
bodily. After the bath, he stands erect before the advancing dawn,
facing the sun as it dances upon the horizon, and offers his unspoken
orison. His mate may precede or follow him in his devotions, but never
accompanies him. Each soul must meet the morning sun, the new, sweet
earth, and the Great Silence alone!
Whenever, in the course of the daily hunt, the red hunter comes upon a
scene that is strikingly beautiful or sublime--a black thundercloud with
the rainbow’s glowing arch above the mountain; a white waterfall in
the heart of a green gorge; a vast prairie tinged with the blood-red of
sunset--he pauses for an instant in the attitude of worship. He sees no
need for setting apart one day in seven as a holy day, since to him all
days are God’s.
Every act of his life is, in a very real sense, a religious act. He
recognizes the spirit in all creation, and believes that he draws from
it spiritual power. His respect for the immortal part of the animal, his
brother, often leads him so far as to lay out the body of his game in
state and decorate the head with symbolic paint or feathers. Then he
stands before it in the prayer attitude, holding up the filled pipe, in
token that he has freed with honor the spirit of his brother, whose body
his need compelled him to take to sustain his own life.
When food is taken, the woman murmurs a “grace” as she lowers the
kettle; an act so softly and unobtrusively performed that one who
does not know the custom usually fails to catch the whisper: “Spirit,
partake!” As her husband receives the bowl or plate, he likewise murmurs
his invocation to the spirit. When he becomes an old man, he loves to
make a notable effort to prove his gratitude. He cuts off the choicest
morsel of the meat and casts it into the fire--the purest and most
ethereal element.
The hospitality of the wigwam is only limited by the institution of
war. Yet, if an enemy should honor us with a call, his trust will not
be misplaced, and he will go away convinced that he has met with a royal
host! Our honor is the guarantee for his safety, so long as he is within
the camp.
Friendship is held to be the severest test of character. It is easy, we
think, to be loyal to family and clan, whose blood is in our own veins.
Love between man and woman is founded on the mating instinct and is not
free from desire and self-seeking. But to have a friend, and to be true
under any and all trials, is the mark of a man!
The highest type of friendship is the relation of “brother-friend” or
“life-and-death friend.” This bond is between man and man, is usually
formed in early youth, and can only be broken by death. It is the
essence of comradeship and fraternal love, without thought of pleasure
or gain, but rather for moral support and inspiration. Each is vowed to
die for the other, if need be, and nothing is denied the brother-friend,
but neither is anything required that is not in accord with the highest
conceptions of the Indian mind.
III. CEREMONIAL AND SYMBOLIC WORSHIP
Modern Perversions of Early Religious Rites. The Sun Dance.
The Great Medicine Lodge. Totems and Charms. The Vapor-Bath
and the Ceremonial of the Pipe.
The public religious rites of the Plains Indians are few, and in large
part of modern origin, belonging properly to the so-called “transition
period.” That period must be held to begin with the first insidious
effect upon their manners and customs of contact with the dominant race,
and many of the tribes were so influenced long before they ceased to
lead the nomadic life.
The fur-traders, the “Black Robe” priests, the military, and finally the
Protestant missionaries, were the men who began the disintegration of
the Indian nations and the overthrow of their religion, seventy-five to
a hundred years before they were forced to enter upon reservation life.
We have no authentic study of them until well along in the transition
period, when whiskey and trade had already debauched their native
ideals.
During the era of reconstruction they modified their customs and beliefs
continually, creating a singular admixture of Christian with pagan
superstitions, and an addition to the old folk-lore of disguised Bible
stories under an Indian aspect. Even their music shows the influence of
the Catholic chants. Most of the material collected by modern observers
is necessarily of this promiscuous character.
It is noteworthy that the first effect of contact with the whites was an
increase of cruelty and barbarity, an intensifying of the dark shadows
in the picture! In this manner the “Sun Dance” of the Plains Indians,
the most important of their public ceremonials, was abused and perverted
until it became a horrible exhibition of barbarism, and was eventually
prohibited by the Government.
In the old days, when a Sioux warrior found himself in the very jaws of
destruction, he might offer a prayer to his father, the Sun, to prolong
his life. If rescued from imminent danger, he must acknowledge the
divine favor by making a Sun Dance, according to the vow embraced in his
prayer, in which he declared that he did not fear torture or death, but
asked life only for the sake of those who loved him. Thus the physical
ordeal was the fulfillment of a vow, and a sort of atonement for what
might otherwise appear to be reprehensible weakness in the face of
death. It was in the nature of confession and thank-offering to the
“Great Mystery,” through the physical parent, the Sun, and did not
embrace a prayer for future favors.
The ceremonies usually took place from six months to a year after the
making of the vow, in order to admit of suitable preparation; always
in midsummer and before a large and imposing gathering. They naturally
included the making of a feast, and the giving away of much savage
wealth in honor of the occasion, although these were no essential part
of the religious rite.
When the day came to procure the pole, it was brought in by a party of
warriors, headed by some man of distinction. The tree selected was six
to eight inches in diameter at the base, and twenty to twenty-five
feet high. It was chosen and felled with some solemnity, including
the ceremony of the “filled pipe,” and was carried in the fashion of a
litter, symbolizing the body of the man who made the dance. A solitary
teepee was pitched on a level spot at some distance from the village,
and the pole raised near at hand with the same ceremony, in the centre
of a circular enclosure of fresh-cut boughs.
Meanwhile, one of the most noted of our old men had carved out of
rawhide, or later of wood, two figures, usually those of a man and
a buffalo. Sometimes the figure of a bird, supposed to represent the
Thunder, was substituted for the buffalo. It was customary to paint the
man red and the animal black, and each was suspended from one end of the
crossbar which was securely tied some two feet from the top of the
pole. I have never been able to determine that this cross had any
significance; it was probably nothing more than a dramatic coincidence
that surmounted the Sun-Dance pole with the symbol of Christianity.
The paint indicated that the man who was about to give thanks publicly
had been potentially dead, but was allowed to live by the mysterious
favor and interference of the Giver of Life. The buffalo hung opposite
the image of his own body in death, because it was the support of his
physical self, and a leading figure in legendary lore. Following
the same line of thought, when he emerged from the solitary lodge
of preparation, and approached the pole to dance, nude save for his
breechclout and moccasins, his hair loosened and daubed with clay, he
must drag after him a buffalo skull, representing the grave from which
he had escaped.
The dancer was cut or scarified on the chest, sufficient to draw blood
and cause pain, the natural accompaniments of his figurative death. He
took his position opposite the singers, facing the pole, and dragging
the skull by leather thongs which were merely fastened about his
shoulders. During a later period, incisions were made in the breast
or back, sometimes both, through which wooden skewers were drawn, and
secured by lariats to the pole or to the skulls. Thus he danced without
intermission for a day and a night, or even longer, ever gazing at the
sun in the daytime, and blowing from time to time a sacred whistle made
from the bone of a goose’s wing.
In recent times, this rite was exaggerated and distorted into a mere
ghastly display of physical strength and endurance under torture, almost
on a level with the Caucasian institution of the bull-fight, or the
yet more modern prize-ring. Moreover, instead of an atonement or
thank-offering, it became the accompaniment of a prayer for success in
war, or in a raid upon the horses of the enemy. The number of dancers
was increased, and they were made to hang suspended from the pole by
their own flesh, which they must break loose before being released.
I well remember the comments in our own home upon the passing of
this simple but impressive ceremony, and its loss of all meaning and
propriety under the demoralizing additions which were some of the fruits
of early contact with the white man.
Perhaps the most remarkable organization ever known among American
Indians, that of the “Grand Medicine Lodge,” was apparently an indirect
result of the labors of the early Jesuit missionaries. In it Caucasian
ideas are easily recognizable, and it seems reasonable to suppose that
its founders desired to establish an order that would successfully
resist the encroachments of the “Black Robes.” However that may be, it
is an unquestionable fact that the only religious leaders of any note
who have arisen among the native tribes since the advent of the white
man, the “Shawnee Prophet” in 1762, and the half-breed prophet of the
“Ghost Dance” in 1890, both founded their claims or prophecies upon the
Gospel story. Thus in each case an Indian religious revival or craze,
though more or less threatening to the invader, was of distinctively
alien origin.
The Medicine Lodge originated among the Algonquin tribe, and extended
gradually throughout its branches, finally affecting the Sioux of the
Mississippi Valley, and forming a strong bulwark against the work of the
pioneer missionaries, who secured, indeed, scarcely any converts
until after the outbreak of 1862, when subjection, starvation, and
imprisonment turned our broken-hearted people to accept Christianity,
which seemed to offer them the only gleam of kindness or hope.
The order was a secret one, and in some respects not unlike the Free
Masons, being a union or affiliation of a number of lodges, each
with its distinctive songs and medicines. Leadership was in order of
seniority in degrees, which could only be obtained by merit, and women
were admitted to membership upon equal terms, with the possibility of
attaining to the highest honors. No person might become a member unless
his moral standing was excellent, all candidates remained on probation
for one or two years, and murderers and adulterers were expelled. The
commandments promulgated by this order were essentially the same as the
Mosaic Ten, so that it exerted a distinct moral influence, in addition
to its ostensible object, which was instruction in the secrets of
legitimate medicine.
In this society the uses of all curative roots and herbs known to us
were taught exhaustively and practiced mainly by the old, the younger
members being in training to fill the places of those who passed away.
My grandmother was a well-known and successful practitioner, and both my
mother and father were members, but did not practice.
A medicine or “mystery feast” was not a public affair, as members only
were eligible, and upon these occasions all the “medicine bags” and
totems of the various lodges were displayed and their peculiar “medicine
songs” were sung. The food was only partaken of by invited guests, and
not by the hosts, or lodge making the feast. The “Grand Medicine
Dance” was given on the occasion of initiating those candidates who had
finished their probation, a sufficient number of whom were designated
to take the places of those who had died since the last meeting.
Invitations were sent out in the form of small bundles of tobacco.
Two very large teepees were pitched facing one another, a hundred feet
apart, half open, and connected by a roofless hall or colonnade of
fresh-cut boughs. One of these lodges was for the society giving the
dance and the novices, the other was occupied by the “soldiers,” whose
duty it was to distribute the refreshments, and to keep order among the
spectators. They were selected from among the best and bravest warriors
of the tribe.
The preparations being complete, and the members of each lodge
garbed and painted according to their rituals, they entered the hall
separately, in single file, led by their oldest man or “Great Chief.”
Standing before the “Soldiers’ Lodge,” facing the setting sun, their
chief addressed the “Great Mystery” directly in a few words, after which
all extending the right arm horizontally from the shoulder with
open palm, sang a short invocation in unison, ending with a deep:
“E-ho-ho-ho!” This performance, which was really impressive, was
repeated in front of the headquarters lodge, facing the rising sun,
after which each lodge took its assigned place, and the songs and dances
followed in regular order.
The closing ceremony, which was intensely dramatic in its character, was
the initiation of the novices, who had received their final preparation
on the night before. They were now led out in front of the headquarters
lodge and placed in a kneeling position upon a carpet of rich robes and
furs, the men upon the right hand, stripped and painted black, with a
round spot of red just over the heart, while the women, dressed in their
best, were arranged upon the left. Both sexes wore the hair loose, as
if in mourning or expectation of death. An equal number of grand
medicine-men, each of whom was especially appointed to one of the
novices, faced them at a distance of half the length of the hall, or
perhaps fifty feet.
After silent prayer, each medicine-man in turn addressed himself to his
charge, exhorting him to observe all the rules of the order under the
eye of the Mysterious One, and instructing him in his duty toward his
fellow-man and toward the Ruler of Life. All then assumed an attitude
of superb power and dignity, crouching slightly as if about to spring
forward in a foot-race, and grasping their medicine bags firmly in both
hands. Swinging their arms forward at the same moment, they uttered
their guttural “Yo-ho-ho-ho!” in perfect unison and with startling
effect. In the midst of a breathless silence, they took a step forward,
then another and another, ending a rod or so from the row of kneeling
victims, with a mighty swing of the sacred bags that would seem to
project all their mystic power into the bodies of the initiates.
Instantly they all fell forward, apparently lifeless.
With this thrilling climax, the drums were vigorously pounded and the
dance began again with energy. After a few turns had been taken about
the prostrate bodies of the new members, covering them with fine robes
and other garments which were later to be distributed as gifts, they
were permitted to come to life and to join in the final dance. The whole
performance was clearly symbolic of death and resurrection.
While I cannot suppose that this elaborate ritual, with its use of
public and audible prayer, of public exhortation or sermon, and other
Caucasian features, was practiced before comparatively modern times,
there is no doubt that it was conscientiously believed in by its
members, and for a time regarded with reverence by the people. But at
a later period it became still further demoralized and fell under
suspicion of witchcraft.
There is no doubt that the Indian held medicine close to spiritual
things, but in this also he has been much misunderstood; in fact
everything that he held sacred is indiscriminately called “medicine,” in
the sense of mystery or magic. As a doctor he was originally very adroit
and often successful. He employed only healing bark, roots, and leaves
with whose properties he was familiar, using them in the form of a
distillation or tea and always singly. The stomach or internal bath
was a valuable discovery of his, and the vapor or Turkish bath was in
general use. He could set a broken bone with fair success, but never
practiced surgery in any form. In addition to all this, the medicine-man
possessed much personal magnetism and authority, and in his treatment
often sought to reestablish the equilibrium of the patient through
mental or spiritual influences--a sort of primitive psychotherapy.
The Sioux word for the healing art is “wah-pee-yah,” which literally
means readjusting or making anew. “Pay-jee-hoo-tah,” literally root,
means medicine, and “wakan” signifies spirit or mystery. Thus the three
ideas, while sometimes associated, were carefully distinguished.
It is important to remember that in the old days the “medicine-man”
received no payment for his services, which were of the nature of an
honorable function or office. When the idea of payment and barter was
introduced among us, and valuable presents or fees began to be demanded
for treating the sick, the ensuing greed and rivalry led to many
demoralizing practices, and in time to the rise of the modern
“conjurer,” who is generally a fraud and trickster of the grossest kind.
It is fortunate that his day is practically over.
Ever seeking to establish spiritual comradeship with the animal
creation, the Indian adopted this or that animal as his “totem,” the
emblematic device of his society, family, or clan. It is probable that
the creature chosen was the traditional ancestress, as we are told that
the First Man had many wives among the animal people. The sacred
beast, bird, or reptile, represented by its stuffed skin, or by a rude
painting, was treated with reverence and carried into battle to insure
the guardianship of the spirits. The symbolic attribute of beaver,
bear, or tortoise, such as wisdom, cunning, courage, and the like, was
supposed to be mysteriously conferred upon the wearer of the badge.
The totem or charm used in medicine was ordinarily that of the medicine
lodge to which the practitioner belonged, though there were some great
men who boasted a special revelation.
There are two ceremonial usages which, so far as I have been able
to ascertain, were universal among American Indians, and apparently
fundamental. These have already been referred to as the “eneepee,” or
vapor-bath, and the “chan-du-hu-pah-yu-za-pee,” or ceremonial of the
pipe. In our Siouan legends and traditions these two are preeminent, as
handed down from the most ancient time and persisting to the last.
In our Creation myth or story of the First Man, the vapor-bath was the
magic used by The-one-who-was-First-Created, to give life to the dead
bones of his younger brother, who had been slain by the monsters of the
deep. Upon the shore of the Great Water he dug two round holes, over one
of which he built a low enclosure of fragrant cedar boughs, and here he
gathered together the bones of his brother. In the other pit he made a
fire and heated four round stones, which he rolled one by one into the
lodge of boughs. Having closed every aperture save one, he sang a mystic
chant while he thrust in his arm and sprinkled water upon the stones
with a bunch of sage. Immediately steam arose, and as the legend says,
“there was an appearance of life.” A second time he sprinkled water, and
the dry bones rattled together. The third time he seemed to hear soft
singing from within the lodge; and the fourth time a voice exclaimed:
“Brother, let me out!” (It should be noted that the number four is the
magic or sacred number of the Indian.)
This story gives the traditional origin of the “eneepee,” which has
ever since been deemed essential to the Indian’s effort to purify and
recreate his spirit. It is used both by the doctor and by his patient.
Every man must enter the cleansing bath and take the cold plunge which
follows, when preparing for any spiritual crisis, for possible death, or
imminent danger.
Not only the “eneepee” itself, but everything used in connection with
the mysterious event, the aromatic cedar and sage, the water, and
especially the water-worn boulders, are regarded as sacred, or at
the least adapted to a spiritual use. For the rock we have a
special reverent name--“Tunkan,” a contraction of the Sioux word for
Grandfather.
The natural boulder enters into many of our solemn ceremonials, such
as the “Rain Dance,” and the “Feast of Virgins.” The lone hunter and
warrior reverently holds up his filled pipe to “Tunkan,” in solitary
commemoration of a miracle which to him is as authentic and holy as the
raising of Lazarus to the devout Christian.
There is a legend that the First Man fell sick, and was taught by his
Elder Brother the ceremonial use of the pipe, in a prayer to the
spirits for ease and relief. This simple ceremony is the commonest daily
expression of thanks or “grace,” as well as an oath of loyalty and good
faith when the warrior goes forth upon some perilous enterprise
|
manners and institutions. "It is right for Greeks to rule
barbarians," was the sentiment of Euripides, one of the first of her
poets, echoed by Aristotle, the greatest of her intellects.[13] And
even Plato, in his imaginary Republic, the Utopia of his beautiful
genius, sanctions slavery. But notwithstanding these high names,
we learn from Aristotle himself that there were persons in his
day--pestilent Abolitionists of ancient Athens--who did not hesitate
to maintain that liberty was the great law of Nature, and to deny any
difference between master and slave,--declaring at the same time that
slavery was founded upon violence, and not upon right, and that the
authority of the master was unnatural and unjust.[14] "God sent forth
all persons free; Nature has made no man a slave,"[15] was the protest
of one of these agitating Athenians against this great wrong. I am not
in any way authorized to speak for any Anti-Slavery Society, even if
this were the proper occasion; but I presume that this ancient Greek
morality embodies substantially the principles maintained at their
public meetings,--so far, at least, as they relate to slavery.
[13] Euripid., Iphig. in Taurid., 1400; Aristot., Polit., Lib. I.
c. 1.
[14] Polit., Lib. I. c. 3. In like spirit are the words of the good
Las Casas, when pleading before Charles the Fifth for the Indian
races of America. "The Christian religion," he said, "is equal in
its operation, and is accommodated to every nation on the globe.
_It robs no one of his freedom, violates none of his inherent
rights, on the ground that he is a slave by nature, as pretended_;
and it well becomes your Majesty _to banish_ so monstrous an
oppression from your kingdoms in the beginning of your reign, that
the Almighty may make it long and glorious."--Prescott, Conquest of
Mexico, Vol. I. p. 379.
[15] A saying attributed by the Scholiast on Aristotle's Rhetoric
to Alcidamas, a disciple of Gorgias of Leontini. See Aristotle's
Ethics and Politics, tr. Gillies, Vol. II. p. 26.
It is true, most true, that slavery stands on force and not on right.
It is a hideous result of war, or of that barbarism in which savage
war plays its conspicuous part. To the victor belonged the lives of
his captives, and, by consequence, he might bind them in perpetual
servitude. This principle, which has been the foundation of slavery
in all ages, is adapted only to the rudest conditions of society, and
is wholly inconsistent with a period of refinement, humanity, and
justice. It is sad to confess that it was recognized by Greece; but the
civilization of this famed land, though brilliant to the external view
as the immortal sculptures of the Parthenon, was, like that stately
temple, dark and cheerless within.
Slavery extended, with new rigors, under the military dominion of Rome.
The spirit of freedom which animated the Republic was of that selfish
and intolerant character which accumulated privileges upon the Roman
citizen, while it heeded little the rights of others. But, unlike the
Greeks, the Romans admitted in theory that all men are originally
free by the Law of Nature; and they ascribed the power of masters
over slaves, not to any alleged diversities in the races of men, but
to the will of society.[16] The constant triumphs of their arms were
signalized by reducing to servitude large bodies of subjugated people.
Paulus Æmilius returned from Macedonia with an uncounted train of
slaves, composed of persons in every sphere of life; and the camp of
Lucullus in Pontus witnessed the sale of slaves for four drachmæ, or
seventy-five cents, a head.
[16] Institut., Lib. I. Tit. 2.
Terence and Phædrus, Roman slaves, teach us that genius is not always
quenched even by degrading bondage; while the writings of Cato the
Censor, one of the most virtuous slave-masters in history, show the
hardening influence of a system which treats human beings as cattle.
"Let the husbandman," says Cato, "sell his old oxen, his sickly
cattle, his sickly sheep, his wool, his hides, his old wagon, his old
implements, _his old slave, and his diseased slave_; and if there is
anything else not wanted, let him sell it. _He should be seller, rather
than buyer._"[17]
[17] De Re Rustica, Cap. II.
The cruelty and inhumanity which flourished in the Republic professing
freedom enjoyed a natural home under Emperors who were the high-priests
of despotism. Wealth increased, and with it the multitude of slaves.
Some masters are said to have owned as many as ten thousand, while
extravagant prices were often paid for them, according to fancy or
caprice. Martial mentions handsome boys sold for as much as two hundred
thousand sesterces each, or more than eight thousand dollars.[18] On
the assassination of Pedanius Secundus by one of his slaves, no less
than four hundred were put to death,--an orator in the Senate arguing
that these hecatombs were in accordance with ancient custom.[19]
[18] Epig. III. 62.
[19] Tacitus, Ann., XIV. 43.
It is easy to believe that slavery, which prevailed so largely in
Greece and Rome, must have existed in Africa. Here, indeed, it found a
peculiar home. If we trace the progress of this unfortunate continent
from those distant days of fable when Jupiter did not
"disdain to grace
The feasts of Æthiopia's blameless race,"[20]
the merchandise in slaves will be found to have contributed to the
abolition of two hateful customs, once universal in Africa,--the eating
of captives, and their sacrifice to idols. Thus, in the march of
civilization, even the barbarism of slavery is an important stage of
Human Progress. It is a point in the ascending scale from cannibalism.
[20] Iliad. tr. Pope, Book I., 556, 557.
SLAVERY IN MODERN TIMES.
In the early periods of modern Europe slavery was a general custom,
which yielded only gradually to the humane influences of Christianity.
It prevailed in all the countries of which we have any records.
Fair-haired Saxon slaves from distant England arrested the attention
of Pope Gregory in the markets of Rome, and were by him hailed as
_Angels_. A law of so virtuous a king as Alfred ranks slaves with
horses and oxen; and the Chronicles of William of Malmesbury show
that in our mother country there was once a cruel slave-trade in
whites. As we listen to this story, we shall be grateful again to that
civilization which renders such outrage more and more impossible.
"Directly opposite to the Irish coast," he says, "there is a seaport
called Bristol, the inhabitants of which frequently sent into Ireland
to sell those people whom they had bought up throughout England. They
exposed to sale girls in a state of pregnancy, with whom they made
a sort of mock marriage. There you might see with grief, fastened
together by ropes, whole rows of wretched beings of both sexes, of
elegant forms, and in the very bloom of youth,--a sight sufficient to
excite pity even in barbarians,--daily offered for sale to the first
purchaser. Accursed deed! infamous disgrace! that men, acting in a
manner which brute instinct alone would have forbidden, should sell
into slavery their relations, nay, even their own offspring!"[21] From
still another chronicler we learn, that, in 1172, when Ireland was
afflicted with public calamities, there was a great assembly of the
principal men, _chiefly of the clergy_, who concluded, as well they
might, that these evils were sent upon their country for the reason
that they had formerly purchased English boys as slaves, contrary to
the right of Christian liberty,--the poor English, to supply their
wants, being "accustomed to sell even their own children, not to bring
them up": wherefore, it is said, the English slaves were allowed to
depart in freedom.[22] Earlier in Irish history a boy was stolen from
Scotland, who, after six years of bondage, succeeded in reaching his
home, when, entering the Church, he returned to Ireland, preached
Christianity, and, as St. Patrick, became the patron saint of that
beautiful land.[23]
[21] Life of St. Wulstan, Book II. Chap. 20.
[22] Chronica Hiberniæ, or the Annals of Philip Flatsbury (in the
Cottonian Library, Domitianus XVIII. 10); quoted in Stephen on West
India Slavery, Vol. I. p. 6.
[23] Biographie Générale (Hoefer), Art. _Patrice_.
On the Continent of Europe, as late as the thirteenth century, the
custom prevailed of treating all captives in war as slaves. Here
poetry, as well as history, bears its testimony. Old Michael Drayton,
in his story of the Battle of Agincourt, says of the French:--
"For knots of cord to every town they send,
The captived English that they caught to bind;
_For to perpetual slavery they intend
Those that alive they on the field should find_."[24]
[24] Battle of Agincourt, st. 144.
And Othello, in recounting his perils, exposes this custom, when he
speaks
"Of being taken by the insolent foe
_And sold to slavery_; of my redemption thence."
It was also held lawful to enslave an infidel, or person who did not
receive the Christian faith. The early Common Law of England doomed
heretics to the stake; the Catholic Inquisition did the same; and the
laws of Oléron, the maritime code of the Middle Ages, treated them "as
dogs," to be attacked and despoiled by all true believers. Philip le
Bel of France, grandson of St. Louis, in 1296 presented his brother
Charles, Count of Valois, with a Jew, and paid three hundred livres for
another Jew,--as if Jews were at the time chattels, to be given away
or bought.[25] The statutes of Florence, boastful of freedom, as late
as 1415 allowed republican citizens to hold slaves not of the Catholic
Christian faith,--_Qui non sunt Catholicæ fidei et Christianæ_.[26]
Besides captive Moors, there were African slaves in Spain, before
Christopher Columbus; and at Venice Marco Polo for some time held a
slave he had brought from the Orient in the age of Dante. The comedies
of Molière, _L'Étourdi_ and _Le Sicilien_, depicting Italian usages
not remote from his day, show that at Messina even Christian women
continued to be sold as slaves.
[25] Encyclopédie Méthodique (Jurisprudence), Art. _Esclavage_.
[26] Biot, De l'Abolition de l'Esclavage Ancien en Occident, p.
440,--a work crowned with a gold medal by the Institute of France,
which will be read with some disappointment.
This rapid sketch, which brings us down to the period when Algiers
became a terror to the Christian nations, renders it no longer
astonishing that the barbarous States of Barbary--a part of Africa,
the great womb of slavery, professing Mahometanism, which not only
recognizes slavery, but expressly ordains "chains and collars" to
infidels[27]--should maintain the traffic in slaves, particularly in
Christians, denying the faith of the Prophet. In the duty of constant
war upon unbelievers, and in the assertion of right to the service
or ransom of their captives, they followed the lessons of Christians
themselves.
[27] Koran, Chap. LXXVI.
It is not difficult, then, to account for the origin of this cruel
custom. Its _history_ forms our next topic.
II.
HISTORY OF WHITE SLAVERY.
The Barbary States, after the decline of the Arabian power, were
enveloped in darkness, rendered more palpable by increasing light
among the Christian nations. At the twilight of European civilization
they appear to be little more than scattered bands of robbers and
pirates, "land-rats and water-rats" of Shylock, leading the lives of
Ishmaelites. Algiers is described by an early writer as "a den of
sturdy thieves formed into a body, by which, after a tumultuary sort,
they govern,"[28]--and by still another writer, contemporary with the
monstrosity which he exposes, as the "theatre of all crueltie and
sanctuarie of iniquitie, holding captive, in miserable servitude, one
hundred and twentie thousand Christians, almost all subjects of the
king of Spaine."[29] Their habit of enslaving prisoners captured in war
and piracy arousing at last the sacred animosities of Christendom,
Ferdinand the Catholic, after the conquest of Granada, and while the
boundless discoveries of Columbus, giving to Castile and Leon a new
world, still occupied his mind, found time to direct an expedition into
Africa, under the military command of that great ecclesiastic, Cardinal
Ximenes. It is recorded that this valiant soldier of the Church,
on effecting the conquest of Oran, in 1509, had the inexpressible
satisfaction of liberating three hundred Christian slaves.[30]
[28] A Discourse concerning Tangier: Harleian Miscellany, Vol. V.
p. 522.
[29] Purchas's Pilgrims, Vol. II. p. 1565.
[30] Prescott, History of Ferdinand and Isabella, Vol. III. p. 308.
Purchas's Pilgrims, Vol. II. p. 813.
To stay the progress of the Spanish arms the government of Algiers
invoked assistance from abroad. Two brothers, Horuc and Hayradin, sons
of a potter in the island of Lesbos, had become famous as corsairs.
In an age when the sword of the adventurer often carved a higher
fortune than could be earned by lawful exertion, they were dreaded for
abilities, hardihood, and power. To them Algiers turned for aid. The
corsairs left the sea to sway the land,--or rather, with amphibious
robbery, took possession of Algiers and Tunis, while they continued to
prey upon the sea. The name of Barbarossa, by which they are known to
Christians, is terrible in modern history.[31]
[31] Robertson, History of Charles the Fifth, Book V. Haedo,
Historia de Argel, Epitome de los Reyes de Argel.
MILITARY EXPEDITIONS AGAINST WHITE SLAVERY.
With pirate ships they infested the seas, and spread their ravages
along the coasts of Spain and Italy, until Charles the Fifth was
aroused to undertake their overthrow. The various strength of his broad
dominions was rallied in this new crusade. "If the enthusiasm," says
Sismondi, "which had armed the Christians in the old Crusades was
nearly extinct, a new sentiment, more rational and legitimate, united
the vows of Europe with the efforts of Charles against the infidels.
The object was no longer to reconquer the tomb of Christ, but to
defend the civilization, the liberty, the lives of Christians."[32]
A stanch body of infantry from Germany, veterans of Spain and Italy,
the flower of the Spanish nobility, knights of Malta, with a fleet of
near five hundred vessels, contributed by Italy, Portugal, and even
distant Holland, commanded by Andrew Doria, the great sea-officer of
the age,--the whole under the immediate eye of the Emperor himself,
with the countenance and benediction of the Pope, and composing one of
the most complete armaments which the world had hitherto seen,--were
directed upon Tunis. Barbarossa opposed them bravely, but with unequal
forces. While slowly yielding to attack from without, his defeat
was hastened by unexpected uprising within. Confined in the citadel
were many Christian slaves, who, asserting the rights of freedom,
obtained a bloody emancipation, and turned its artillery against their
former masters. The place yielded to the Emperor, whose soldiers
soon surrendered to the inhuman excesses of war. The blood of thirty
thousand innocent inhabitants reddened his victory. Amidst these scenes
of horror there was but one spectacle that afforded any satisfaction to
the imperial conqueror. It was that of ten thousand Christian slaves
rejoicing in emancipation, who met him as he entered the town, and,
falling on their knees, thanked him as their deliverer.[33]
[32] Histoire des Français, Tom. XVII. pp. 101, 102.
[33] Robertson, History of Charles the Fifth, Book V.
In the treaty of peace which ensued, it was expressly stipulated on the
part of Tunis, that all Christian slaves, of whatever nation, should
be set at liberty without ransom, and that no subject of the Emperor
should for the future be detained in slavery.[34]
[34] Robertson, History of Charles the Fifth. Book V.
The apparent generosity of this undertaking, the magnificence with
which it was conducted, and the success with which it was crowned
drew to the Emperor the homage of his age beyond any other event of
his reign. Twenty thousand slaves freed by treaty or by arms diffused
through Europe the praise of his name. It is probable that in this
expedition the Emperor was governed by motives little higher than
vulgar ambition and fame; but the results by which it was emblazoned,
in the emancipation of so many fellow-Christians from cruel chains,
place him, with Cardinal Ximenes, among the earliest Abolitionists of
modern times.
This was in 1535. Only a few short years before, in 1517, he conceded
to a Flemish courtier the exclusive privilege of importing into the
West Indies four thousand blacks from Africa. It is said that Charles
lived long enough to repent what he had thus inconsiderately done.[35]
Certain it is, no single concession of king or emperor recorded in
history has produced such disastrous far-reaching consequences. The
Fleming sold his monopoly to a company of Genoese merchants, who
organized a systematic traffic in slaves between Africa and America.
Thus, while levying a mighty force to check the piracies of Barbarossa,
and to procure the abolition of Christian slavery in Tunis, the
Emperor, with criminal inconsistency, laid the corner-stone of a new
slavery, in comparison with which the enormity he warred against was
trivial and fugitive.
[35] Clarkson, History of the Abolition of the Slave-Trade, Vol. I.
p. 33.
Elated by the conquest of Tunis, filled also with the ambition of
subduing all the Barbary States, and of extirpating Christian slavery,
the Emperor in 1541 directed an expedition of singular grandeur against
Algiers. The Pope tardily joined his influence to the martial array.
But Nature proved stronger than Pope and Emperor. Within sight of
Algiers a sudden storm shattered his proud fleet, and he was driven
back to Spain, discomfited, with none of those trophies of emancipation
with which his former expedition was crowned.[36]
[36] Robertson's Charles the Fifth, Book VI. A lamentable and
piteous Treatise, verye necessarye for euerie Christen Manne to
reade, wherin is contayned, not onely the high Entreprise and
Valeauntnes of Themperour Charles the v. and his Army (in his
Voyage made to the Towne of Argier in Affrique, etc.) Truly and
dylygently translated out of Latyn into Frenche, and out of Frenche
into English, 1542: Harleian Miscellany, Vol. IV. p. 504.
The power of the Barbary States was now at its height. Their corsairs
became the scourge of Christendom, while their much dreaded system of
slavery assumed a front of new terror. Their ravages were not confined
to the Mediterranean. They entered the ocean, and penetrated even to
the Straits of Dover and St. George's Channel. From the chalky cliffs
of England, and from the remote western coasts of Ireland, unsuspecting
inhabitants were swept into cruel captivity.[37] The English government
was aroused against these atrocities. In 1620, a fleet of eighteen
ships, under the command of Sir Robert Mansel, Vice-Admiral, was
despatched to punish Algiers. It returned without being able, in the
language of the times, to "destroy those hellish pirates," though it
obtained the liberation of "some forty poore captives, which they
pretended was all they had in the towne." Purchas records, that the
English fleet was indebted for information to "a Christian captive,
which did swimme from the towne to the ships."[38] Not in this respect
only does this expedition recall that of Charles the Fifth, which
received important assistance from rebel slaves; we observe also a
similar inconsistency in the government which directed it. It was in
the year 1620,--dear to all the descendants of the Pilgrims of Plymouth
Rock as an epoch of freedom,--while an English fleet was seeking the
emancipation of Englishmen held in bondage by Algiers, that African
slaves were first introduced into the English colonies of North
America,[39] thus beginning that dreadful system whose long catalogue
of humiliation and woes is not yet complete.
[37] Guizot, Histoire de la Révolution d'Angleterre, Liv. II. Tom.
I. p. 78. Strafford's Letters and Dispatches, Vol. I. p. 68. Sir
George Radcliffe, the friend and biographer of the Earl, boasts
that the latter "secured the seas from piracies, so as only one
ship was lost at his first coming [as Lord Lieutenant to Ireland],
and no more all his time; whereas every year before, not only
several ships and goods were lost by robbery at sea, but also
Turkish men-of-war usually landed and _took prey of men to be made
slaves_."--Ibid., Vol. II. p. 434.
[38] Purchas's Pilgrims, Vol. II. pp. 881-886. Southey, Naval
History of England, Vol. V. pp. 60-63. There was a publication
specially relating to this expedition, entitled "Algiers Voyage, in
a Journall, or briefe Reportary of all Occurrents hapning in the
Fleet of Ships sent out by the Kinge his most excellent Majestie,
as well against the Pirates of Algiers as others," London, 1621,
4to.
[39] Bancroft, History of the United States, Vol. I. p. 189.
The expedition against Algiers was followed, in 1637, by another
against Sallee, in Morocco. Terrified by its approach, the Moors
desperately transferred a thousand captives, British subjects, to
Tunis and Algiers. "Some Christians that were slaves ashore, who
stole away out of the town and came swimming aboard," together with
intestine feud, aided the fleet, and the cause of emancipation speedily
triumphed.[40] Two hundred and ninety Britons were released, and a
promise was extorted from the enemy to redeem the wretched captives
sold away to Tunis and Algiers. Shortly afterwards an ambassador from
the King of Morocco visited England, and on his way through the streets
of London to his audience at court was attended by "four Barbary horses
led along in rich caparisons, and richer saddles, with bridles set with
stones; also some hawks; _many of the captives whom he brought over
going along afoot clad in white_."[41] Every emancipated slave was a
grateful witness to English prowess.
[40] Journal of the Sallee Fleet: Osborne's Voyages, Vol. II. p.
493. See also Mrs. Macaulay's History of England, Chap. IV. Vol.
II. p. 219.
[41] Strafford's Letters and Despatches, Vol. II. pp. 86, 116, 129.
The importance attached to this achievement is inferred from the
singular joy with which it was hailed in England. Though on a
limited scale, it was nothing less than _a war of liberation_. Poet,
ecclesiastic, and statesman now joined in congratulation. It inspired
the Muse of Waller to a poem called "The Taking of Sallee," where the
submission of the slaveholder is thus described:--
"Hither he sends the chief among his peers,
Who in his bark proportioned presents bears
To the renowned for piety and force,
_Poor captives manumised_, and matchless horse."
It gladdened Laud, and lighted with exultation the dark mind of
Strafford. "For Sallee, the town is taken," said the Archbishop in a
letter to the Earl, then in Ireland, "and all the captives at Sallee
and Morocco delivered,--_as many, our merchants say, as, according to
the price_ _of the market, come to ten thousand pounds at least_."[42]
Strafford saw in the popularity of this triumph fresh opportunity to
commend the tyrannical designs of Charles the First. "This action of
Sallee," he wrote in reply to the Archbishop, "I assure you, is full of
honor, will bring great content to the subject, and should, methinks,
_help much towards the ready, cheerful payment of the shipping
moneys_."[43] Thus was this act of emancipation linked with one of the
most memorable events of English history.
[42] Strafford's Letters and Despatches, Vol. II. p. 131.
[43] Ibid., p. 138.
The coasts of England were now protected; but her subjects at sea
continued the prey of Algerine corsairs, who, according to the
historian Carte, now "carried their English captives to France,
_drove them in chains overland to Marseille, to ship them thence with
greater safety for slaves to Algiers_."[44] The increasing troubles
which distracted the reign of Charles the First, and finally brought
his head to the block, could not divert attention from the sorrows of
Englishmen, victims to Mahometan slave-drivers. At the height of the
struggle between King and Parliament, an earnest voice was raised in
behalf of these fellow-Christians in bonds. Edmund Waller, who was
orator as well as poet, speaking in Parliament in 1641, said, "By the
many petitions which we receive from the wives of those miserable
captives at Algiers (being between four or five thousand of our
countrymen) it does too evidently appear that to make us slaves at home
is not the way to keep us from being made slaves abroad."[45]
[44] History of England, Book XXII. Vol. IV. p. 231.
[45] Works, p. 270.
Publications pleading their cause are yet extant, bearing date 1637,
1640, 1642, and 1647.[46] The overthrow of an oppression so justly
odious formed a worthy object for the imperial energies of Cromwell;
and in 1655, when, amidst the amazement of Europe, the English
sovereignty settled upon his Atlantean shoulders, he directed into the
Mediterranean a navy of thirty ships, under the command of Admiral
Blake. This was the most powerful English force which had sailed into
that sea since the Crusades.[47] Its success was complete. "General
Blak," said one of the foreign agents of Government, "has ratifyed
the articles of peace at Argier, and included therein Scotch, Irish,
Jarnsey and Garnsey-men, and all others the Protector's subjects.
He has lykewys redeemed from thence al such as wer captives ther.
_Several Duch captives swam aboard the fleet, and so escape theyr
captivity._"[48] Tunis, as well as Algiers, was humbled; all British
captives were set at liberty; and the Protector, in his remarkable
speech at the opening of Parliament, announced peace with the
"profane" nations in that region.[49] To my mind no single circumstance
gives higher impression of that vigilance with which the Protector
guarded his subjects than this effort, to which may be applied the
"smooth" line of Waller,--
"telling dreadful news
To all that piracy and rapine use."[50]
[46] Compassion towards Captives: urged and pressed in Three
Sermons on Heb. xiii. 3, by Charles Fitz-Geffry, Oxford, 1637.
Libertas, or Reliefe to the English Captives in Algier, by Henry
Robinson, London, 1642. Letters relating to the Redemption of
the Captives in Argier and Tunis, by Edmond Cason, London, 1647.
A Relation of Seven Years Slavery under the Turks of Algier,
suffered by an English Captive Merchant, etc., together with a
Description of the Sufferings of the Miserable Captives under that
Merciless Tyranny, etc., by Francis Knight, London, 1640. The last
publication is preserved in the Collection of Voyages and Travels
by Osborne, Vol. II. pp. 465-489.
[47] Hume says, "No English fleet, except during the Crusades, _had
ever before sailed in those seas_." (History of England, Chap. LXI.
Vol. VII. p. 529.) He forgot the expedition of Sir Robert Mansel,
already mentioned (_ante_, p. 408), which was elaborately debated
in the Privy Council as early as 1617, three years before it was
finally undertaken, and was the subject of a special work. See
Southey's Naval History of England, Vol. V. pp. 149-157.
[48] Thurloe's State Papers, Vol. III. p. 527.
[49] Carlyle's Letters and Speeches of Cromwell, Part IX. Speech V.
Vol. II. p. 235.
[50] Panegyric to my Lord Protector, st. 9.
His vigorous sway was succeeded by the voluptuous tyranny of Charles
the Second, inaugurated by an unsuccessful expedition against Algiers
under Lord Sandwich. This was soon followed by another, with more
favorable result, under Admiral Lawson.[51] Then came a treaty, bearing
date May 3, 1662, by which the piratical government stipulated, "that
all subjects of the king of Great Britain, now slaves in Algiers, or
any of the territories thereof, shall be set at liberty, and released,
upon paying the price they were first sold for in the market; and for
the time to come no subjects of His Majesty shall be bought or sold, or
made slaves of, in Algiers or its territories."[52] This seems to have
been short-lived. Other expeditions ensued, and other treaties in 1664,
1672, 1682, and 1686,--showing, by their constant iteration, the little
impression produced upon these barbarians.[53] Insensible to justice
and freedom, how could they be faithful to stipulations in restraint of
robbery and slaveholding?
[51] Rapin, History of England, Book XXIII. Vol. II. pp. 858, 864.
[52] Recueil des Traitez de Paix, Tom. IV. p. 43.
[53] Ibid., pp. 307, 476, 703, 756.
Legislation turned aside in behalf of these captives. The famous
statute of the forty-third year of Queen Elizabeth for charitable
uses designates among proper objects the "relief or redemption of
prisoners or captives," meaning especially, according to recent
judicial decision, those suffering in the Barbary States. A bequest by
Lady Mico, in 1670, "to redeem poor slaves in what manner the executors
should think convenient," came under review as late as 1835, when
slavery in the Barbary States was already dead, and the British Act
of Emancipation had commenced its operation in the West Indies; but
the court sanctioned the application of the fund to the education of
the Africans whose freedom was then beginning.[54] Thus was a charity
originally inspired by sympathy for white slaves applied to the benefit
of black.
[54] Attorney-General _v._ Gibson, 2 Beav. R. 317, note.
During a long succession of years, complaints of English captives
continued. In 1748 an indignant soul found expression in these words:--
"O, how can Britain's sons regardless hear
The prayers, sighs, groans (immortal infamy!)
Of fellow-Britons, with oppression sunk,
In bitterness of soul demanding aid,
Calling on Britain, their dear native land,
The land of liberty?"[55]
But during all this time the slavery of blacks, transported to the
colonies under British colors, continued also!
Meanwhile France plied Algiers with embassies and bombardments. In 1635
three hundred and forty-seven Frenchmen were captives there. M. de
Samson was dispatched on an unsuccessful mission for their liberation.
They were offered to him "for the price they were sold for in the
market"; but this he refused to pay.[56]
[55] The Gentleman's Magazine, Vol. XVIII. p. 531.
[56] Relation of Seven Years Slavery under the Turks of Algier:
Osborne's Voyages, Vol. II. p. 468.
Two years later, M. de Manti, who was called "that noble captain, and
glory of the French nation," was sent "with fifteen of his king's
ships, and a commission to enfranchise the French slaves." He also
returned, leaving his countrymen still in captivity.[57] Treaties
followed, hastily concluded, and abruptly broken, till at last Louis
the Fourteenth, in the pride of power, did for France what Cromwell had
done for England. Algiers, twice bombarded[58] in 1683, sent deputies
to sue for peace, and to surrender all her Christian slaves. Tunis and
Tripoli made the same submission. Voltaire, with his accustomed point,
says that by this transaction the French became respected on the coast
of Africa, where they had before been known only as slaves.[59]
[57] Relation of Seven Years Slavery: Osborne's Voyages, Vol. II.
p. 470.
[58] In the melancholy history of war, this is remarked as the
earliest instance of _bombarding_ a town. Sismondi, who never
fails to regard the past in the light of humanity, remarks,
that "Louis the Fourteenth was the first to put in practice the
atrocious method, newly invented, of bombarding towns,--of burning
them, not to take them, but to destroy them,--_of attacking, not
fortifications, but private houses, not soldiers, but peaceable
inhabitants, women and children,--and of confounding thousands of
private crimes, each one of which would cause horror, in one great
public crime, one great disaster, which he regarded only as one of
the catastrophes of war_." (Histoire des Français, Tom. XXV. p.
452.) How much of this is justly applicable to the recent sacrifice
of women and children by forces of the United States at Vera Cruz!
Algiers was bombarded in the cause of _freedom_; Vera Cruz, to
extend _slavery_!
[59] Siècle de Louis XIV., Chap. XIV
|
him.”
“Well, Miss Milton, perhaps I do. Describe him.”
“I don’t believe Annie ever told me his name, but she was talking about
him at our house yesterday.”
“But I wasn’t there, Miss Milton.”
“No,” said Miss Milton, “but he’s got the next place to yours in the
country.”
I positively leaped from my seat.
“Why, good gracious, Carter himself, you mean?” cried Dinnerly,
laughing. “Well, that is a good un--ha-ha-ha!”
She turned a stony glare on me.
“Do you live next to Mr. Dinnerly in the country?” she asked.
I would have denied it if Dinnerly had not been there. As it was, I blew
my nose.
“I wonder,” said Miss Milton, “what has become of Aunt Emily.”
“Miss Milton,” said I, “by a happy chance you have enjoyed a luxury. You
have told the man what you think of him.”
“Yes,” said she; “and I have only to add that he is also a hypocrite.”
Pleasant, wasn’t it? Yet Mrs. Hilary says it was my fault. That’s a
woman all over!
THE LITTLE WRETCH
Seeing that little Johnny Tompkins was safely out of the country, under
injunctions to make a new man of himself, and to keep that new man, when
made, at the Antipodes, I could not see anything indiscreet in touching
on the matter in the course of conversation with Mrs. Hilary Musgrave.
In point of fact, I was curious to find out what she knew, and supposing
she knew, what she thought. So I mentioned little Johnny Tompkins.
“Oh, the little wretch!” cried Mrs. Hilary. “You know he came here two
or three times? Anybody can impose on Hilary.”
“Happy woman I--I mean unhappy man, Mrs. Hilary.”
“And how much was it he stole?”
“Hard on a thousand,” said I. “For a time, you know, he was quite a man
of fashion.”
“Oh, I know. He came here in his own hansom, perfectly dressed, and--”
“Behaved all right, didn’t he?”
“Yes. Of course there was a something.”
“Or you wouldn’t have been deceived!” said I, with a smile.
“I wasn’t deceived,” said Mrs. Hilary, an admirable flush appearing on
her cheeks.
“That is to say, Hilary wouldn’t.”
“Oh, Hilary! Why didn’t his employers prosecute him, Mr. Carter?”
“In the first place, he had that inestimable advantage in a career of
dishonesty--respectable relations.”
“Well, but still--”
“His widowed mother was a trump, you know.”
“Do you mean a good woman.”
“Doubtless she was; but I mean a good card. However, there was another
reason.”
“I can’t see any,” declared Mrs. Hilary.
“I’m going to surprise you,” said I. “Hilary interceded for him.”
“Hilary?”
“You didn’t know it? I thought not. Well, he did.”
“Why, he always pretended to want him to be convicted.”
“Cunning Hilary!” said I.
“He used to speak most strongly against him.”
“That was his guile,” said I.
“Oh, but why in the world--?” she began; then she paused, and went on
again: “It was nothing to do with Hilary.”
“Hilary went with me to see him, you know, while they had him under lock
and key at the firm’s offices.”
“Did he? I never heard that.”
“And he was much impressed with his bearing.”
“Well, I suppose, Mr. Carter, that if he was really penitent--”
“Never saw a man less penitent,” I interrupted. “He gloried in his
crime; if I remember his exact expression, it was that the jam was jolly
well worth the powder, and if they liked to send him to chokee they
could and be--and suffer accordingly, you know.”
“And after that, Hilary--!”
“Oh, anybody can impose on Hilary, you know. Hilary only asked what the
jam was.”
“It’s a horrid expression, but I suppose it meant acting the part of a
gentleman, didn’t it?”
“Not entirely. According to what he told Hilary, Johnny was in love.”
“Oh, and he stole for some wretched--?”
“Now do be careful. What do you know about the lady?”
“The lady! I can imagine Johnny Tompkin’s’s ideal?”
“So can I, if you come to that.”
“And she must have known his money wasn’t his own.”
“Why must she?” I asked. “According to what he told Hilary, she didn’t.”
“I don’t believe it,” said Mrs. Hilary, with decision.
“Hilary believed it!”
“Oh, Hilary!”
“But, then Hilary knew the girl.”
“Hilary knew--! You mean to say Hilary knew--?
“No one better,” said I composedly.
Mrs. Hilary rose to her feet. “Who was the creature?” she asked sharply.
“Come,” I expostulated, “how would you like it if your young man had
taken to theft and--”
“Oh, nonsense. Tell me her name, please, Mr. Carter.”
“Johnny told Hilary that just to see her and talk to her and sit by her
side was ‘worth all the money’--but then, to be sure, it was somebody
else’s money--and that he’d do it again to get what he had got over
again. Then, I’m sorry to say, he swore.”
“And Hilary believed that stuff?”
“Hilary agreed with him,” said I. “Hilary, you see, knows the lady.”
“What’s her name, Mr. Carter?”
“Didn’t you notice his attentions to any one?”
“I notice! You don’t mean that I’ve seen her?”
“Certainly you have.”
“Was she ever here?’
“Yes, Mrs. Hilary. Hilary takes care of that.”
“I shall be angry in a minute, Mr. Carter. Oh, I’ll have this out of
Hilary!”
“I should.”
“Who was she?”
“According to what he told Hilary, she was the most fascinating woman in
the world, Hilary thought so, too.”
Mrs. Hilary began to walk up and down.
“Oh, so Hilary helped to let him go, because they both--?”
“Precisely,” said I.
“And you dare to come and tell me?”
“Well, I thought you ought to know,” said I. “Hilary’s just as mad about
her as Johnny--in fact, he said he’d be hanged if he wouldn’t have done
the same himself.”
I have once seen Madame Ristori play Lady Macbeth. Her performance was
recalled to me by the tones in which Mrs. Hilary asked:
“Who is this woman, if you please, Mr. Carter?”
“So Hilary got him off--gave him fifty pounds too.”
“Glad to get him away, perhaps,” she burst out, in angry scorn.
“Who knows?” said I. “Perhaps.”
“Her name?” demanded Lady Macbeth--I mean Mrs. Hilary--again.
“I shan’t tell you, unless you promise to say nothing to Hilary.”
“To say nothing! Well, really--”
“Oh, all right!” and I took up my hat.
“But I can watch them, can’t I?”
“As much as you like.”
“Won’t you tell me?”
“If you promise.”
“Well, then, I promise.”
“Look in the glass.”
“What for?”
“To see your face, to be sure.”
She started, blushed red, and moved a step towards me.
“You don’t mean--?” she cried.
“Thou art the woman,” said I.
“Oh, but he never said a word--”
“Johnny had his code,” said I. “And in some ways it was better than some
people’s--in some, alas! worse.”
“And Hilary?”
“Really you know better than I do whether I’ve told the truth about
Hilary.”
A pause ensued. Then Mrs. Hilary made three short remarks, which I give
in their order:
(1) “The little wretch!” (2) “Dear old Hilary!” (3) “Poor little man!”
I took my hat. I knew that Hilary was due from the city in a few
minutes. Mrs. Hilary sat down by the fire.
“How dare you torment me so?” she asked, but not in the least like Lady
Macbeth.
“I must have my little amusements,” said I.
“What an audacious little creature!” said Mrs. Hilary. “Fancy his
daring!--Aren’t you astounded?”
“Oh, yes, I am. But Hilary, you see--”
“It’s nearly his time,” said Mrs. Hilary.
I buttoned my left glove and held out my right hand.
“I’ve a good mind not to shake hands with you,” said she. “Wasn’t it
absurd of Hilary?”
“Horribly.”
“He ought to have been all the more angry.”
“Of course he ought.”
“The presumption of it!” And Mrs. Hilary smiled. I also smiled.
“That poor old mother of his,” reflected Mrs. Hilary. “Where did you say
she lived?”
“Hilary knows the address,” said I.
“Silly little wretch!” mused Mrs. Hilary, still smiling.
“Goodbye,” said I.
“Goodbye,” said Mrs. Hilary.
I turned toward the door and had laid my hand on the knob, when Mrs.
Hilary called softly:
“Mr. Carter.”
“Yes,” said I, turning.
“Do you know where the little wretch has gone?”
“Oh, yes,” said I.
“I--I suppose you don’t ever write to him?”
“Dear me, no,” said I.
“But you--could?” suggested Mrs. Hilary.
“Of course,” said I.
She jumped up and ran towards me. Her purse was in one hand, and a bit
of paper fluttered in the other.
“Send him that--don’t tell him,” she whispered, and her voice had a
little catch in it. “Poor little wretch!” said she.
As for me, I smiled cynically--quite cynically, you know; for it was
very absurd.
“Please do,” said Mrs. Hilary.
And I went.
Supposing it had been another woman? Well, I wonder!
AN EXPENSIVE PRIVILEGE
A rather uncomfortable thing happened the other day which threatened a
schism in my acquaintance and put me in a decidedly awkward position. It
was no other than this: Mrs. Hilary Musgrave had definitely informed me
that she did not approve of Lady Mickleham. The attitude is, no doubt, a
conceivable one, but I was surprised that a woman of Mrs. Hilary’s large
sympathies should adopt it. Besides, Mrs. Hilary is quite good-looking
herself.
The history of the affair is much as follows: I called on Mrs. Hilary
to see whether I could do anything, and she told me all about it. It
appears that Mrs. Hilary had a bad cold and a cousin up from the country
about the same time (she was justly aggrieved at the double event), and
being unable to go to the Duchess of Dexminster’s “squash,” she asked
Dolly Mickleham to chaperon little Miss Phyllis. Little Miss Phyllis, of
course, knew no one there--the Duchess least of all--(but then very few
of us--yes, I was there--knew the Duchess, and the Duchess didn’t know
any of us; I saw her shake hands with a waiter myself, just to be on
the safe side), and an hour after the party began she was discovered
wandering about in a most desolate condition. Dolly had told her that
she would be in a certain place; and when Miss Phyllis came, Dolly was
not there. The poor little lady wandered about for another hour, looking
so lost that one was inclined to send for a policeman; and then she sat
down on a seat by the wall, and, in desperation, asked her next-door
neighbor if he knew Lady Mickleham by sight, and had he seen her lately?
The next-door neighbor, by way of reply, called out to a quiet elderly
gentleman who was sidling unobtrusively about, “Duke, are there any
particularly snug corners in your house?” The Duke stopped, searched
his memory, and said that at the end of the Red Corridor there was
a passage, and that a few yards down the passage, if you turned very
suddenly to the right, you would come on a little nook under the stairs.
The little nook just held a settee, and the settee (the Duke thought)
might just hold two people. The next-door neighbor thanked the Duke, and
observed to Miss Phyllis--
“It will give me great pleasure to take you to Lady Mickleham.” So
they went, it being then, according to Miss Phyllis’ sworn statement
precisely two hours and five minutes since Dolly had disappeared; and,
pursuing the route indicated by the Duke, they found Lady Mickleham. And
Lady Mickleham exclaimed, “Good gracious, my dear, I’d quite forgotten
you! Have you had an ice? Do take her to have an ice, Sir John.” (Sir
John Berry was the next-door neighbor.) And with that Lady Mickleham is
said to have resumed her conversation.
“Did you ever hear anything more atrocious?” concluded Mrs. Hilary. “I
really cannot think what Lord Mickleham is doing.”
“You surely mean, what Lady Mickleham--?”
“No, I don’t,” said Mrs. Hilary, with extraordinary decision. “Anything
might have happened to that poor child!”
“Oh, there were not many of the aristocracy present,” said I soothingly.
“But it’s not that so much as the thing itself. She’s the most
disgraceful flirt in London.”
“How do you know she was flirting?” I inquired with a smile.
“How do I know?” echoed Mrs. Hilary.
“It is a very hasty conclusion,” I persisted. “Sometimes I stay talking
with you for an hour or more. Are you, therefore, flirting with me?”
“With you!” exclaimed Mrs. Hilary, with a little laugh.
“Absurd as the supposition is,” I remarked, “it yet serves to point the
argument. Lady Mickleham might have been talking with a friend, just in
the quiet rational way in which we are talking now.”
“I don’t think that’s likely,” said Mrs. Hilary; and--well, I do not
like to say that she sniffed--it would convey too strong an idea, but
she did make an odd little sound something like a much etherealized
sniff.
I smiled again, and more broadly. I was enjoying beforehand the little
victory which I was to enjoy over Mrs. Hilary. “Yet it happens to be
true,” said I.
Mrs. Hilary was magnificently contemptuous.
“Lord Mickleham told you so, I suppose?” she asked. “And I suppose Lady
Mickleham told him--poor man!”
“Why do you call him ‘poor man’?”
“Oh, never mind. Did he tell you?”
“Certainly not. The fact is, Mrs. Hilary--and really, you must excuse me
for having kept you in the dark a little--it amused me so much to hear
your suspicions.”
Mrs. Hilary rose to her feet.
“Well, what are you going to say?” she asked.
I laughed, as I answered: “Why, I was the man with Lady Mickleham when
your friend and Berry inter--when they arrived, you know.”
Well, I should have thought--I should still think--that she would have
been pleased--relieved, you know, to find her uncharitable opinion
erroneous, and pleased to have it altered on the best authority. I’m
sure that is how I should have felt. It was not, however, how Mrs.
Hilary felt.
“I am deeply pained,” she observed after a long pause; and then she held
out her hand.
“I was sure you’d forgive my little deception,” said I, grasping it. I
thought still that she meant to bury all unkindness.
“I should never have thought it of you,” she went on.
“I didn’t know your friend was there at all,” I pleaded; for by now I
was alarmed.
“Oh, please don’t shuffle like that,” said Mrs. Hilary.
She continued to stand, and I rose to my feet. Mrs. Hilary held out her
hand again.
“Do you mean that I’m to go?” said I.
“I hope we shall see you again some day,” said Mrs. Hilary; the tone
suggested that she was looking forward to some future existence, when
my earthly sins should have been sufficiently purged. It reminded me for
the moment of King Arthur and Queen Guinevere.
“But I protest,” I began, “that my only object in telling you was to
show you how absurd--”
“Is it any good talking about it now?” asked Mrs. Hilary. A discussion
might possibly be fruitful in the dim futurity before mentioned--but not
now--that was what she seemed to say.
“Lady Mickleham and I, on the occasion in question--” I began with
dignity.
“Pray, spare me,” quote Mrs. Hilary, with much greater dignity.
I took my hat.
“Shall you be at home as usual on Thursday?” I asked.
“I have a great many people coming already,” she remarked.
“I can take a hint,” said I.
“I wish you’d take warning,” said Mrs. Hilary.
“I will take my leave,” said I--and I did, leaving Mrs. Hilary in a
tragic attitude in the middle of the room. Never again shall I go out of
my way to lull Mrs. Hilary’s suspicions.
A day or two after this very trying interview, Lady Mickleham’s victoria
happened to stop opposite where I was seated in the park. I went to pay
my respects.
“Do you mean to leave me nothing in the world,” I asked, just by way
of introducing the subject of Mrs. Hilary. “One of my best friends has
turned me out of her house on your account.”
“Oh, do tell me,” said Dolly, dimpling all over her face.
So I told her; I made the story as long as I could for reasons connected
with the dimples.
“What fun!” exclaimed Dolly. “I told you at the time that a young
unmarried person like you ought to be more careful.”
“I am just debating,” I observed, “whether to sacrifice you.”
“To sacrifice me, Mr. Carter?”
“Of course,” I explained; “if I dropped you, Mrs. Hilary would let me
come again.”
“How charming that would be!” cried Dolly. “You would enjoy her nice
serious conversation--all about Hilary!”
“She is apt,” I conceded, “to touch on Hilary. But she is very
picturesque.”
“Oh, yes, she’s handsome,” said Dolly.
There was a pause. Then Dolly said, “Well?”
“Well?” said I in return.
“It is goodbye?” asked Dolly, drawing down the corners of her mouth.
“It comes to this,” I remarked. “Supposing I forgive you--”
“As if it was my fault?”
“And risk Mrs. Hilary’s wrath--did you speak?”
“No; I laughed, Mr. Carter.”
“What shall I get out of it?”
The sun was shining brightly; it shone on Dolly; she had raised her
parasol, but she blinked a little beneath it. She was smiling slightly
still, and the dimple stuck to its post--like a sentinel, ready to
rouse the rest from their brief repose. Dolly lay back in the victoria,
nestling luxuriously against the soft cushions. She turned her eyes for
a moment on me.
“Why are you looking at me?” she asked.
“Because,” said I, “there is nothing better to look at.”
“Do you like doing it?” asked Dolly.
“It is a privilege,” said I politely.
“Well, then!” said Dolly.
“But,” I ventured to observe, “it’s rather an expensive one.”
“Then you mustn’t have it very often.”
“And it is shared by so many people.”
“Then,” said Dolly, smiling indulgently, “you must have it--a little
oftener. Home, Roberts, please.”
I am not yet allowed at Mrs. Hilary Musgrave’s.
A VERY DULL AFFAIR
“To hear you talk,” remarked Mrs. Hilary Musgrave--and, if any one is
surprised to find me at her house, I can only say that Hilary, when
he asked me to take a pot-luck, was quite ignorant of any ground of
difference between his wife and myself, and that Mrs. Hilary could not
very well eject me on my arrival in evening dress at ten minutes to
eight--“to hear you talk one would think that there was no such thing as
real love.”
She paused. I smiled.
“Now,” she continued, turning a fine, but scornful eye upon me, “I have
never cared for any man in the world except my husband.”
I smiled again. Poor Hilary looked very uncomfortable. With an
apologetic air he began to stammer something about Parish Councils. I
was not to be diverted by any such maneuver. It was impossible that he
could really wish to talk on that subject.
“Would a person who had never eaten anything but beef make a boast of
it?” I asked.
Hilary grinned covertly. Mrs. Hilary pulled the lamp nearer, and took up
her embroidery.
“Do you always work the same pattern?” said I.
Hilary kicked me gently. Mrs. Hilary made no direct reply, but presently
she began to talk.
“I was just about Phyllis’s age--(by the way, little Miss Phyllis was
there)--when I first saw Hilary. You remember, Hilary? At Bournemouth?”
“Oh--er--was it Bournemouth?” said Hilary, with much carelessness.
“I was on the pier,” pursued Mrs. Hilary. “I had a red frock on, I
remember, and one of those big hats they wore that year. Hilary wore--”
“Blue serge,” I interpolated, encouragingly.
“Yes, blue serge,” said she fondly. “He had been yachting, and he was
beautifully burnt. I was horribly burnt--wasn’t I, Hilary?”
Hilary began to pat the dog.
“Then we got to know one another.”
“Stop a minute,” said I. “How did that happen?” Mrs. Hilary blushed.
“Well, we were both always on the pier,” she explained. “And--and
somehow Hilary got to know father, and--and father introduced him to
me.”
“I’m glad it was no worse,” said I. I was considering Miss Phyllis, who
sat listening, open-eyed.
“And then you know, father wasn’t always there; and once or twice we met
on the cliff. Do you remember that morning, Hilary?”
“What morning?” asked Hilary, patting the dog with immense assiduity.
“Why, the morning I had my white serge on. I’d been bathing, and my hair
was down to dry, and you said I looked like a mermaid.”
“Do mermaids wear white serge?” I asked; but nobody took the least
notice of me--quite properly.
“And you told me such a lot about yourself; and then we found we were
late for lunch.”
“Yes,” said Hilary, suddenly forgetting the dog, “and your mother gave
me an awful glance.”
“Yes, and then you told me that you were very poor, but that you
couldn’t help it; and you said you supposed I couldn’t possibly--”
“Well, I didn’t think--!”
“And I said you were a silly old thing; and then--” Mrs. Hilary stopped
abruptly.
“How lovely,” remarked little Miss Phyllis in a wistful voice.
“And do you remember,” pursued Mrs. Hilary, laying down her embroidery
and clasping her hands on her knees, “the morning you went to see
father?”
“What a row there was!” said Hilary.
“And what an awful week it was after that! I was never so miserable in
all my life. I cried till my eyes were quite red, and then I bathed
them for an hour, and then I went to the pier, and you were there--and I
mightn’t speak to you!”
“I remember,” said Hilary, nodding gently.
“And then, Hilary, father sent for me and told me it was no use; and I
said I’d never marry any one else. And father said, ‘There, there, don’t
cry. We’ll see what mother says.’”
“Your mother was a brick,” said Hilary, poking the fire.
“And that night they never told me anything about it, and I didn’t even
change my frock, but came down, looking horrible, just as I was, in an
old black rag--no, Hilary, don’t say it was pretty!”
Hilary, unconvinced, shook his head.
“And when I walked into the drawing room there was nobody there but
just you; and we neither of us said anything for ever so long. And then
father and mother came in and--do you remember after dinner, Hilary?”
“I remember,” said Hilary.
There was a long pause. Mrs. Hilary was looking into the fire; little
Miss Phyllis’s eyes were fixed, in rapt gaze, on the ceiling; Hilary was
looking at his wife--I, thinking it safest, was regarding my own boots.
At last Miss Phyllis broke the silence.
“How perfectly lovely!” she said.
“Yes,” said Mrs. Hilary, reflectively. “And we were married three months
afterwards.”
“Tenth of June,” said Hilary reflectively.
“And we had the most charming little rooms in the world! Do you remember
those first rooms, dear? So tiny!”
“Not bad little rooms,” said Hilary.
“How awfully lovely,” cried little Miss Phyllis.
I felt that it was time to interfere.
“And is that all?” I asked.
“All? How do you mean?” said Mrs. Hilary, with a slight start.
“Well, I mean, did nothing else happen? Weren’t there any complications?
Weren’t there any more troubles, or any more opposition, or any
misunderstandings, or anything?”
“No,” said Mrs. Hilary.
“You never quarreled, or broke it off?”
“No.”
“Nobody came between you?”
“No. It all went just perfectly. Why, of course it did.”
“Hilary’s people made themselves nasty, perhaps?” I suggested, with a
ray of hope.
“They fell in love with her on the spot,” said Hilary.
Then I rose and stood with my back to the fire.
“I do not know,” I observed, “what Miss Phyllis thinks about it--”
“I think it was just perfect, Mr. Carter.”
“But for my part, I can only say that I never heard of such a dull
affair in all my life.”
“Dull!” gasped Miss Phyllis.
“Dull!” murmured Mrs. Hilary.
“Dull!” chuckled Hilary.
“It was,” said I severely, “without a spark of interest from beginning
to end. Such things happen by thousands. It’s commonplaceness itself. I
had some hopes when you father assumed a firm attitude, but--”
“Mother was such a dear,” interrupted Mrs. Hilary.
“Just so. She gave away the whole situation. Then I did trust that
Hilary would lose his place, or develop an old flame, or do something
just a little interesting.”
“It was a perfect time,” said Mrs. Hilary.
“I wonder why in the world you told me about it,” I pursued.
“I don’t know why I did,” said Mrs. Hilary dreamily.
“The only possible excuse for an engagement like that,” I observed, “is
to be found in intense post-nuptial unhappiness.”
Hilary rose, and advanced towards his wife.
“Your embroidery’s falling on the floor,” said he.
“Not a bit of it,” said I.
“Yes, it is,” he persisted; and he picked it up and gave it to her. Miss
Phyllis smiled delightedly. Hilary had squeezed his wife’s hand.
“Then we don’t excuse it,” said he.
I took out my watch. I was not finding much entertainment.
“Surely it’s quite early, old man?” said Hilary.
“It’s nearly eleven. We’ve spent half-an-hour on the thing,” said I
peevishly, holding out my hand to my hostess.
“Oh, are you going? Good night, Mr. Carter.”
I turned to Miss Phyllis.
“I hope you won’t think all love affairs are like that,” I said; but I
saw her lips begin to shape into “lovely,” and I hastily left the room.
Hilary came to help me on with my coat. He looked extremely apologetic,
and very much ashamed of himself.
“Awfully sorry, old chap,” said he, “that we bored you with our
reminiscences. I know, of course, that they can’t be very interesting to
other people. Women are so confoundedly romantic.”
“Don’t try that on me,” said I, much disgusted. “You were just as bad
yourself.”
He laughed, as he leant against the door.
“She did look ripping in that white frock,” he said, “with her hair--”
“Stop,” said I firmly. “She looked just like a lot of other girls.”
“I’m hanged if she did!” said Hilary.
Then he glanced at me with a puzzled sort of expression.
“I say, old man, weren’t you ever that way yourself?” he asked.
I hailed a hansom cab.
“Because, if you were, you know, you’d understand how a fellow remembers
every--”
“Good night,” said I. “At least I suppose you’re not coming to the
club?”
“Well, I think not,” said Hilary. “Ta-ta, old fellow. Sorry we bored
you. Of course, if a man has never--”
“Never!” I groaned. “A score of times!”
“Well, then, doesn’t it--?
“No,” said I. “It’s just that that makes stories like yours so
infernally--”
“What?” asked Hilary; for I had paused to light a cigarette.
“Uninteresting,” said I, getting into my cab.
STRANGE, BUT TRUE
The other day my young cousin George lunched with me. He is a cheery
youth, and a member of the University of Oxford. He refreshes me very
much, and I believe that I have the pleasure of affording him some
matter for thought. On this occasion, however, he was extremely silent
and depressed. I said little, but made an extremely good luncheon.
Afterwards we proceeded to take a stroll in the Park.
“Sam, old boy,” said George suddenly, “I’m the most miserable devil
alive.”
“I don’t know what else you expect at your age,” I observed, lighting a
cigar. He walked on in silence for a few moments.
“I say, Sam, old boy, when you were young, were you ever--?” he paused,
arranged his neckcloth (it was more like a bed-quilt--oh, the fashion,
of course, I know that), and blushed a fine crimson.
“Was I ever what, George?” I had the curiosity to ask.
“Oh, well, hard hit, you know--a girl, you know.”
“In love, you mean, George? No, I never was.”
“Never?”
“No. Are you?”
“Yes. Hang it!” Then he looked at me with a puzzled air and continued:
“I say, though, Sam, it’s awfully funny you shouldn’t have--don’t you
know what it’s like, then?”
“How should I?” I inquired apologetically. “What is it like, George?”
George took my arm.
“It’s just Hades,” he informed me confidentially.
“Then,” I remarked, “I have no reason to regret--?”
“Still, you know,” interrupted George, “it’s not half bad.”
“That appears to me to be a paradox,” I observed.
“It’s precious hard to explain it to you if you’ve never felt it,” said
George, in rather an injured tone. “But what I say is quite true.”
“I shouldn’t think of contradicting you, my dear fellow,” I hastened to
say.
“Let’s sit down,” said he, “and watch the people driving. We may see
somebody--somebody we know, you know, Sam.”
“So we may,” said I, and we sat down.
“A fellow,” pursued George, with knitted brows, “is all turned upside
down, don’t you know?”
“How very peculiar?” I exclaimed.
“One moment he’s the happiest dog in the world, and the next--well, the
next, it’s the deuce.”
“But,” I objected, “not surely without good reason for such a change?”
“Reason? Bosh! The least thing does it.”
I flicked the ash from my cigar.
“It may,” I remarked, “affect you in this extraordinary way, but surely
it is not so with most people?”
“Perhaps not,” George conceded. “Most people are cold-blooded asses.”
“Very likely the explanation lies in that fact,” said I.
“I didn’t mean you, old chap,” said George, with a penitence which
showed that he had meant me.
“Oh, all right, all right,” said I.
“But when a man’s really far gone there’s nothing else in the world but
it.”
“That seems to me not to be a healthy condition,” said I.
“Healthy? Oh, you old idiot, Sam! Who’s talking of health? Now, only
last night I met her at a dance. I had five dances with her--talked to
her half the evening, in fact. Well, you’d think that would last some
time, wouldn’t you?”
“I should certainly have supposed so,” I assented.
“So it would with most chaps, I dare say, but with me--confound it, I
feel as if I hadn’t seen her for six months!”
“But, my dear George, that’s surely rather absurd? As you tell me, you
spent a long while with the young person--”
“The--young person!”
“You’ve not told me her name, you see.”
“No, and I shan’t. I wonder if she’ll be at the Musgraves’ tonight!”
“You’re sure,” said I soothingly, “to meet her somewhere in the course
of the next few weeks.”
George looked at me. Then he observed with a bitter laugh:
“It’s pretty evident you’ve never had it. You’re as bad as those chaps
who write books.”
“Well, but surely they often describe with sufficient warmth
and--er--color--”
“Oh, I dare say; but it’s all wrong. At least, it’s not what I feel.
Then look at the girls in books! All beasts!”
George spoke with much vehemence; so that I was led to say:
“The lady you are preoccupied with is, I suppose, handsome?”
George turned swiftly round on me.
“Look here, can you hold your tongue, Sam?”
I nodded.
“Then I’m hanged if I won’t point her out to you?”
“That’s uncommon good of you, George,” said I.
“Then you’ll see,” continued George. “But it’s not only her looks, you
know, she’s the most--”
He stopped. Looking round to see why, I observed that his face was red;
he clutched his walking stick tightly in his left hand; his right hand
was trembling, as if it wanted to jump up to his hat. “Here she comes!
Look, look!” he whispered.
Directing my eyes towards the lines of carriages which rolled past us,
I observed a girl in a victoria; by her side sat a portly lady of middle
age. The girl was decidedly like the lady; a description of the lady
would not, I imagine, be interesting. The girl blushed slightly and
bowed. George and I lifted our hats. The victoria and its occupants were
gone. George leant back with a sigh. After a moment, he said:
“Well, that was her.”
There was expectancy in his tone.
“She has an extremely prepossessing appearance,” I observed.
“There isn’t,” said George, “a girl in London to touch her. Sam, old
boy, I believe--I believe she likes me a bit.”
“I’m sure she must, George,” said I; and indeed, I thought so.
“The Governor’s infernally unreasonable,” said George, fretfully.
“Oh, you’ve mentioned it to him?”
“I sounded him. Oh, you may be sure he didn’t see what I was up to. I
put it quite generally. He talked rot about getting on in the world. Who
wants to get on?”
“Who, indeed?” said I. “It is only changing what you are for something
no better.”
“And about waiting till I know my own mind. Isn’t it enough to look at
her?”
“Ample, in my opinion,” said I.
George rose to his feet.
“They
|
opportunities for this were meager enough. Mr. Lincoln himself has drawn
a vivid outline of the situation:
"It was a wild region, with many bears and other wild animals still in
the woods. There I grew up. There were some schools so called, but no
qualification was ever required of a teacher beyond readin', writin',
and cipherin' to the Rule of Three. If a straggler supposed to
understand Latin happened to sojourn in the neighborhood, he was looked
upon as a wizard. There was absolutely nothing to excite ambition for
education."
As Abraham was only in his eighth year when he left Kentucky, the little
beginnings he had learned in the schools kept by Riney and Hazel in that
State must have been very slight--probably only his alphabet, or
possibly three or four pages of Webster's "Elementary Spelling Book." It
is likely that the multiplication table was as yet an unfathomed
mystery, and that he could not write or read more than the words he
spelled. There is no record at what date he was able again to go to
school in Indiana. Some of his schoolmates think it was in his tenth
year, or soon after he fell under the care of his stepmother. The
school-house was a low cabin of round logs, a mile and a half from the
Lincoln home, with split logs or "puncheons" for a floor, split logs
roughly leveled with an ax and set up on legs for benches, and a log cut
out of one end and the space filled in with squares of greased paper for
window panes. The main light in such primitive halls of learning was
admitted by the open door. It was a type of school building common in
the early West, in which many a statesman gained the first rudiments of
knowledge. Very often Webster's "Elementary Spelling Book" was the only
text-book. Abraham's first Indiana school was probably held five years
before Gentryville was located and a store established there. Until then
it was difficult, if not impossible, to obtain books, slates, pencils,
pen, ink, and paper, and their use was limited to settlers who had
brought them when they came. It is reasonable to infer that the Lincoln
family had no such luxuries, and, as the Pigeon Creek settlement
numbered only eight or ten families there must have been very few pupils
to attend this first school. Nevertheless, it is worthy of special note
that even under such difficulties and limitations, the American thirst
for education planted a school-house on the very forefront of every
settlement.
Abraham's second school in Indiana was held about the time he was
fourteen years old, and the third in his seventeenth year. By this time
he probably had better teachers and increased facilities, though with
the disadvantage of having to walk four or five miles to the
school-house. He learned to write, and was provided with pen, ink, and a
copy-book, and probably a very limited supply of writing-paper, for
facsimiles have been printed of several scraps and fragments upon which
he had carefully copied tables, rules, and sums from his arithmetic,
such as those of long measure, land measure, and dry measure, and
examples in multiplication and compound division. All this indicates
that he pursued his studies with a very unusual purpose and
determination, not only to understand them at the moment, but to imprint
them indelibly upon his memory, and even to regain them in visible form
for reference when the school-book might no longer be in his hands or
possession.
Mr. Lincoln has himself written that these three different schools were
"kept successively by Andrew Crawford, ---- Swaney, and Azel W. Dorsey."
Other witnesses state the succession somewhat differently. The important
fact to be gleaned from what we learn about Mr. Lincoln's schooling is
that the instruction given him by these five different teachers--two in
Kentucky and three in Indiana, in short sessions of attendance scattered
over a period of nine years--made up in all less than a twelvemonth.
He said of it in 1860, "Abraham now thinks that the aggregate of all his
schooling did not amount to one year." This distribution of the tuition
he received was doubtless an advantage. Had it all been given him at his
first school in Indiana, it would probably not have carried him half
through Webster's "Elementary Spelling Book." The lazy or indifferent
pupils who were his schoolmates doubtless forgot what was taught them at
one time before they had opportunity at another; but to the exceptional
character of Abraham, these widely separated fragments of instruction
were precious steps to self-help, of which he made unremitting use.
It is the concurrent testimony of his early companions that he employed
all his spare moments in keeping on with some one of his studies. His
stepmother says: "Abe read diligently.... He read every book he could
lay his hands on; and when he came across a passage that struck him, he
would write it down on boards, if he had no paper, and keep it there
until he did get paper. Then he would rewrite it, look at it, repeat it.
He had a copy-book, a kind of scrap-book, in which he put down all
things, and thus preserved them." There is no mention that either he or
other pupils had slates and slate-pencils to use at school or at home,
but he found a ready substitute in pieces of board. It is stated that he
occupied his long evenings at home doing sums on the fire-shovel. Iron
fire-shovels were a rarity among pioneers; they used, instead a broad,
thin clapboard with one end narrowed to a handle. In cooking by the open
fire, this domestic implement was of the first necessity to arrange
piles of live coals on the hearth, over which they set their "skillet"
and "oven," upon the lids of which live coals were also heaped.
Upon such a wooden shovel Abraham was able to work his sums by the
flickering firelight. If he had no pencil, he could use charcoal, and
probably did so. When it was covered with figures he would take a
drawing-knife, shave it off clean, and begin again. Under these various
disadvantages, and by the help of such troublesome expedients, Abraham
Lincoln worked his way to so much of an education as placed him far
ahead of his schoolmates, and quickly abreast of the acquirements of his
various teachers. The field from which he could glean knowledge was very
limited, though he diligently borrowed every book in the neighborhood.
The list is a short one--"Robinson Crusoe," Aesop's "Fables," Bunyan's
"Pilgrim's Progress," Weems's "Life of Washington," and a "History of
the United States." When he had exhausted other books, he even
resolutely attacked the Revised Statutes of Indiana, which Dave Turnham,
the constable, had in daily use and permitted him to come to his house
and read.
It needs to be borne in mind that all this effort at self-education
extended from first to last over a period of twelve or thirteen years,
during which he was also performing hard manual labor, and proves a
degree of steady, unflinching perseverance in a line of conduct that
brings into strong relief a high aim and the consciousness of abundant
intellectual power. He was not permitted to forget that he was on an
uphill path, a stern struggle with adversity. The leisure hours which he
was able to devote to his reading, his penmanship, and his arithmetic
were by no means overabundant. Writing of his father's removal from
Kentucky to Indiana, he says:
"He settled in an unbroken forest, and the clearing away of surplus wood
was the great task ahead. Abraham, though very young, was large of his
age, and had an ax put into his hands at once; and from that till within
his twenty-third year he was almost constantly handling that most useful
instrument--less, of course, in plowing and harvesting seasons."
John Hanks mentions the character of his work a little more in detail.
"He and I worked barefoot, grubbed it, plowed, mowed, and cradled
together; plowed corn, gathered it, and shucked corn." The sum of it all
is that from his boyhood until after he was of age, most of his time was
spent in the hard and varied muscular labor of the farm and the forest,
sometimes on his father's place, sometimes as a hired hand for other
pioneers. In this very useful but commonplace occupation he had,
however, one advantage. He was not only very early in his life a tall,
strong country boy, but as he grew up he soon became a tall, strong,
sinewy man. He early attained the unusual height of six feet four
inches, with arms of proportionate length. This gave him a degree of
power and facility as an ax-man which few had or were able to acquire.
He was therefore usually able to lead his fellows in efforts of both
muscle and mind. He performed the tasks of his daily labor and mastered
the lessons of his scanty schooling with an ease and rapidity they were
unable to attain.
Twice during his life in Indiana this ordinary routine was somewhat
varied. When he was sixteen, while working for a man who lived at the
mouth of Anderson's Creek, it was part of his duty to manage a
ferry-boat which transported passengers across the Ohio River. It was
doubtless this which three years later brought him a new experience,
that he himself related in these words:
"When he was nineteen, still residing in Indiana, he made his first
trip upon a flatboat to New Orleans. He was a hired hand merely, and he
and a son of the owner, without other assistance, made the trip. The
nature of part of the 'cargo load,' as it was called, made it necessary
for them to linger and trade along the sugar-coast, and one night they
were attacked by seven negroes with intent to kill and rob them. They
were hurt some in the mêlée, but succeeded in driving the negroes from
the boat, and then 'cut cable,' 'weighed anchor,' and left."
This commercial enterprise was set on foot by Mr. Gentry, the founder of
Gentryville. The affair shows us that Abraham had gained an enviable
standing in the village as a man of honesty, skill, and judgment--one
who could be depended on to meet such emergencies as might arise in
selling their bacon and other produce to the cotton-planters along the
shores of the lower Mississippi.
By this time Abraham's education was well advanced. His handwriting, his
arithmetic, and his general intelligence were so good that he had
occasionally been employed to help in the Gentryville store, and Gentry
thus knew by personal test that he was entirely capable of assisting his
son Allen in the trading expedition to New Orleans. For Abraham, on the
other hand, it was an event which must have opened up wide vistas of
future hope and ambition. Allen Gentry probably was nominal supercargo
and steersman, but we may easily surmise that Lincoln, as the "bow oar,"
carried his full half of general responsibility. For this service the
elder Gentry paid him eight dollars a month and his passage home on a
steamboat. It was the future President's first eager look into the wide,
wide world.
Abraham's devotion to his books and his sums stands forth in more
striking light from the fact that his habits differed from those of most
frontier boys in one important particular. Almost every youth of the
backwoods early became a habitual hunter and superior marksman. The
Indiana woods were yet swarming with game, and the larder of every cabin
depended largely upon this great storehouse of wild meat.[2] The Pigeon
Creek settlement was especially fortunate on this point. There was in
the neighborhood of the Lincoln home what was known in the West as a
deer-lick--that is, there existed a feeble salt-spring, which
impregnated the soil in its vicinity or created little pools of brackish
water--and various kinds of animals, particularly deer, resorted there
to satisfy their natural craving for salt by drinking from these or
licking the moist earth. Hunters took advantage of this habit, and one
of their common customs was to watch in the dusk or at night, and secure
their approaching prey by an easy shot. Skill with the rifle and success
in the chase were points of friendly emulation. In many localities the
boy or youth who shot a squirrel in any part of the animal except its
head became the butt of the jests of his companions and elders. Yet,
under such conditions and opportunities Abraham was neither a hunter nor
a marksman. He tells us:
"A few days before the completion of his eighth year, in the absence of
his father, a flock of wild turkeys approached the new log cabin, and
Abraham, with a rifle gun, standing inside, shot through a crack and
killed one of them. He has never since pulled a trigger on any larger
game."
[Footnote 2: Franklin points out how much this resource of the
early Americans contributed to their spirit of independence by
saying:
"I can retire cheerfully with my little family into the boundless
woods of America, which are sure to afford freedom and subsistence
to any man who can bait a hook or pull a trigger."
(See "The Century Magazine," "Franklin as a Diplomatist," October,
1899, p. 888.)]
The hours which other boys spent in roaming the woods or lying in ambush
at the deer-lick, he preferred to devote to his effort at mental
improvement. It can hardly be claimed that he did this from calculating
ambition. It was a native intellectual thirst, the significance of which
he did not himself yet understand. Such exceptional characteristics
manifested themselves only in a few matters. In most particulars he grew
up as the ordinary backwoods boy develops into the youth and man. As he
was subjected to their usual labors, so also he was limited to their
usual pastimes and enjoyments.
The varied amusements common to our day were not within their reach. The
period of the circus, the political speech, and the itinerant show had
not yet come. Schools, as we have seen, and probably meetings or church
services, were irregular, to be had only at long intervals. Primitive
athletic games and commonplace talk, enlivened by frontier jests and
stories, formed the sum of social intercourse when half a dozen or a
score of settlers of various ages came together at a house-raising or
corn-husking, or when mere chance brought them at the same time to the
post-office or the country store. On these occasions, however, Abraham
was, according to his age, always able to contribute his full share or
more. Most of his natural aptitudes equipped him especially to play his
part well. He had quick intelligence, ready sympathy, a cheerful
temperament, a kindling humor, a generous and helpful spirit. He was
both a ready talker and appreciative listener. By virtue of his tall
stature and unusual strength of sinew and muscle, he was from the
beginning a leader in all athletic games; by reason of his studious
habits and his extraordinarily retentive memory he quickly became the
best story-teller among his companions. Even the slight training he
gained from his studies greatly quickened his perceptions and broadened
and steadied the strong reasoning faculty with which nature had endowed
him.
As the years of his youth passed by, his less gifted comrades learned to
accept his judgments and to welcome his power to entertain and instruct
them. On his own part, he gradually learned to write not merely with the
hand, but also with the mind--to think. It was an easy transition for
him from remembering the jingle of a commonplace rhyme to the
constructing of a doggerel verse, and he did not neglect the opportunity
of practising his penmanship in such impromptus. Tradition also relates
that he added to his list of stories and jokes humorous imitations from
the sermons of eccentric preachers. But tradition has very likely both
magnified and distorted these alleged exploits of his satire and
mimicry. All that can be said of them is that his youth was marked by
intellectual activity far beyond that of his companions.
It is an interesting coincidence that nine days before the birth of
Abraham Lincoln Congress passed the act to organize the Territory of
Illinois, which his future life and career were destined to render so
illustrious. Another interesting coincidence may be found in the fact
that in the same year (1818) in which Congress definitely fixed the
number of stars and stripes in the national flag, Illinois was admitted
as a State to the Union. The Star of Empire was moving westward at an
accelerating speed. Alabama was admitted in 1819, Maine in 1820,
Missouri in 1821. Little by little the line of frontier settlement was
pushing itself toward the Mississippi. No sooner had the pioneer built
him a cabin and opened his little farm, than during every summer
canvas-covered wagons wound their toilsome way over the new-made roads
into the newer wilderness, while his eyes followed them with wistful
eagerness. Thomas Lincoln and his Pigeon Creek relatives and neighbors
could not forever withstand the contagion of this example, and at length
they yielded to the irrepressible longing by a common impulse. Mr.
Lincoln writes:
"March 1, 1830, Abraham having just completed his twenty-first year, his
father and family, with the families of the two daughters and
sons-in-law of his stepmother, left the old homestead in Indiana and
came to Illinois. Their mode of conveyance was wagons drawn by ox-teams,
and Abraham drove one of the teams. They reached the county of Macon,
and stopped there some time within the same month of March. His father
and family settled a new place on the north side of the Sangamon River,
at the junction of the timber land and prairie, about ten miles westerly
from Decatur. Here they built a log cabin, into which they removed, and
made sufficient of rails to fence ten acres of ground, fenced and broke
the ground, and raised a crop of sown corn upon it the same year.... The
sons-in-law were temporarily settled in other places in the county. In
the autumn all hands were greatly afflicted with ague and fever, to
which they had not been used, and by which they were greatly
discouraged, so much so that they determined on leaving the county. They
remained, however, through the succeeding winter, which was the winter
of the very celebrated 'deep snow' of Illinois."
II
Flatboat--New Salem--Election Clerk--Store and Mill--Kirkham's
"Grammar"--"Sangamo Journal"--The Talisman--Lincoln's Address, March 9,
1832--Black Hawk War--Lincoln Elected Captain--Mustered out May 27,
1832--Reënlisted in Independent Spy Battalion--Finally Mustered out, June
16, 1832--Defeated for the Legislature--Blacksmith or Lawyer?--The
Lincoln-Berry Store--Appointed Postmaster, May 7, 1833--National Politics
The life of Abraham Lincoln, or that part of it which will interest
readers for all future time, properly begins in March, 1831, after the
winter of the "deep snow." According to frontier custom, being then
twenty-one years old, he left his father's cabin to make his own fortune
in the world. A man named Denton Offutt, one of a class of local traders
and speculators usually found about early Western settlements, had
probably heard something of young Lincoln's Indiana history,
particularly that he had made a voyage on a flatboat from Indiana to New
Orleans, and that he was strong, active, honest, and generally, as would
be expressed in Western phrase, "a smart young fellow." He was therefore
just the sort of man Offutt needed for one of his trading enterprises,
and Mr. Lincoln himself relates somewhat in detail how Offutt engaged
him and the beginning of the venture:
"Abraham, together with his stepmother's son, John D. Johnston, and
John Hanks, yet residing in Macon County, hired themselves to Denton
Offutt to take a flatboat from Beardstown, Illinois [on the Illinois
River], to New Orleans; and for that purpose were to join
him--Offutt--at Springfield, Illinois, so soon as the snow should go
off. When it did go off, which was about the first of March, 1831, the
county was so flooded as to make traveling by land impracticable, to
obviate which difficulty they purchased a large canoe, and came down the
Sangamon River in it. This is the time and the manner of Abraham's first
entrance into Sangamon County. They found Offutt at Springfield, but
learned from him that he had failed in getting a boat at Beardstown.
This led to their hiring themselves to him for twelve dollars per month
each, and getting the timber out of the trees and building a boat at Old
Sangamon town on the Sangamon River, seven miles northwest of
Springfield, which boat they took to New Orleans, substantially upon the
old contract."
It needs here to be recalled that Lincoln's father was a carpenter, and
that Abraham had no doubt acquired considerable skill in the use of
tools during his boyhood and a practical knowledge of the construction
of flatboats during his previous New Orleans trip, sufficient to enable
him with confidence to undertake this task in shipbuilding. From the
after history of both Johnston and Hanks, we know that neither of them
was gifted with skill or industry, and it becomes clear that Lincoln was
from the first leader of the party, master of construction, and captain
of the craft.
It took some time to build the boat, and before it was finished the
Sangamon River had fallen so that the new craft stuck midway across the
dam at Rutledge's Mill, at New Salem, a village of fifteen or twenty
houses. The inhabitants came down to the bank, and exhibited great
interest in the fate of the boat, which, with its bow in the air and its
stern under water, was half bird and half fish, and they probably
jestingly inquired of the young captain whether he expected to dive or
to fly to New Orleans. He was, however, equal to the occasion. He bored
a hole in the bottom of the boat at the bow, and rigged some sort of
lever or derrick to lift the stern, so that the water she had taken in
behind ran out in front, enabling her to float over the partly submerged
dam; and this feat, in turn, caused great wonderment in the crowd at the
novel expedient of bailing a boat by boring a hole in her bottom.
This exploit of naval engineering fully established Lincoln's fame at
New Salem, and grounded him so firmly in the esteem of his employer
Offutt that the latter, already looking forward to his future
usefulness, at once engaged him to come back to New Salem, after his New
Orleans voyage, to act as his clerk in a store.
Once over the dam and her cargo reloaded, partly there and partly at
Beardstown, the boat safely made the remainder of her voyage to New
Orleans; and, returning by steamer to St. Louis, Lincoln and Johnston
(Hanks had turned back from St. Louis) continued on foot to Illinois,
Johnston remaining at the family home, which had meanwhile been removed
from Macon to Coles County, and Lincoln going to his employer and
friends at New Salem. This was in July or August, 1831. Neither Offutt
nor his goods had yet arrived, and during his waiting he had a chance to
show the New Salemites another accomplishment. An election was to be
held, and one of the clerks was sick and failed to come. Scribes were
not plenty on the frontier, and Mentor Graham, the clerk who was
present, looking around for a properly qualified colleague, noticed
Lincoln, and asked him if he could write, to which he answered, in local
idiom, that he "could make a few rabbit tracks," and was thereupon
immediately inducted into his first office. He performed his duties not
only to the general satisfaction, but so as to interest Graham, who was
a schoolmaster, and afterward made himself very useful to Lincoln.
Offutt finally arrived with a miscellaneous lot of goods, which Lincoln
opened and put in order in a room that a former New Salem storekeeper
was just ready to vacate, and whose remnant stock Offutt also purchased.
Trade was evidently not brisk at New Salem, for the commercial zeal of
Offutt led him to increase his venture by renting the Rutledge and
Cameron mill, on whose historic dam the flatboat had stuck. For a while
the charge of the mill was added to Lincoln's duties, until another
clerk was engaged to help him. There is likewise good evidence that in
addition to his duties at the store and the mill, Lincoln made himself
generally useful--that he cut down trees and split rails enough to make
a large hog-pen adjoining the mill, a proceeding quite natural when we
remember that his hitherto active life and still growing muscles
imperatively demanded the exercise which measuring calico or weighing
out sugar and coffee failed to supply.
We know from other incidents that he was possessed of ample bodily
strength. In frontier life it is not only needed for useful labor of
many kinds, but is also called upon to aid in popular amusement. There
was a settlement in the neighborhood of New Salem called Clary's Grove,
where lived a group of restless, rollicking backwoodsmen with a strong
liking for various forms of frontier athletics and rough practical
jokes. In the progress of American settlement there has always been a
time, whether the frontier was in New England or Pennsylvania or
Kentucky, or on the banks of the Mississippi, when the champion wrestler
held some fraction of the public consideration accorded to the victor in
the Olympic games of Greece. Until Lincoln came, Jack Armstrong was the
champion wrestler of Clary's Grove and New Salem, and picturesque
stories are told how the neighborhood talk, inflamed by Offutt's fulsome
laudation of his clerk, made Jack Armstrong feel that his fame was in
danger. Lincoln put off the encounter as long as he could, and when the
wrestling match finally came off neither could throw the other. The
bystanders became satisfied that they were equally matched in strength
and skill, and the cool courage which Lincoln manifested throughout the
ordeal prevented the usual close of such incidents with a fight. Instead
of becoming chronic enemies and leaders of a neighborhood feud,
Lincoln's self-possession and good temper turned the contest into the
beginning of a warm and lasting friendship.
If Lincoln's muscles were at times hungry for work, not less so was his
mind. He was already instinctively feeling his way to his destiny when,
in conversation with Mentor Graham, the schoolmaster, he indicated his
desire to use some of his spare moments to increase his education, and
confided to him his "notion to study English grammar." It was entirely
in the nature of things that Graham should encourage this mental
craving, and tell him: "If you expect to go before the public in any
capacity, I think it the best thing you can do." Lincoln said that if he
had a grammar he would begin at once. Graham was obliged to confess that
there was no such book at New Salem, but remembered that there was one
at Vaner's, six miles away. Promptly after breakfast the next morning
Lincoln walked to Vaner's and procured the precious volume, and,
probably with Graham's occasional help, found no great difficulty in
mastering its contents. While tradition does not mention any other study
begun at that time, we may fairly infer that, slight as may have been
Graham's education, he must have had other books from which, together
with his friendly advice, Lincoln's intellectual hunger derived further
stimulus and nourishment.
In his duties at the store and his work at the mill, in his study of
Kirkham's "Grammar," and educational conversations with Mentor Graham,
in the somewhat rude but frank and hearty companionship of the citizens
of New Salem and the exuberant boys of Clary's Grove, Lincoln's life for
the second half of the year 1831 appears not to have been eventful, but
was doubtless more comfortable and as interesting as had been his
flatboat building and New Orleans voyage during the first half. He was
busy in useful labor, and, though he had few chances to pick up scraps
of schooling, was beginning to read deeply in that book of human nature,
the profound knowledge of which rendered him such immense service in
after years.
The restlessness and ambition of the village of New Salem was many times
multiplied in the restlessness and ambition of Springfield, fifteen or
twenty miles away, which, located approximately near the geographical
center of Illinois, was already beginning to crave, if not yet to feel,
its future destiny as the capital of the State. In November of the same
year that aspiring town produced the first number of its weekly
newspaper, the "Sangamo Journal," and in its columns we begin to find
recorded historical data. Situated in a region of alternating spaces of
prairie and forest, of attractive natural scenery and rich soil, it was
nevertheless at a great disadvantage in the means of commercial
transportation. Lying sixty miles from Beardstown, the nearest landing
on the Illinois River, the peculiarities of soil, climate, and primitive
roads rendered travel and land carriage extremely difficult--often
entirely impossible--for nearly half of every year. The very first
number of the "Sangamo Journal" sounded its strongest note on the then
leading tenet of the Whig party--internal improvements by the general
government, and active politics to secure them. In later numbers we
learn that a regular Eastern mail had not been received for three weeks.
The tide of immigration which was pouring into Illinois is illustrated
in a tabular statement on the commerce of the Illinois River, showing
that the steamboat arrivals at Beardstown had risen from one each in the
years 1828 and 1829, and only four in 1830, to thirty-two during the
year 1831. This naturally directed the thoughts of travelers and traders
to some better means of reaching the river landing than the frozen or
muddy roads and impassable creeks and sloughs of winter and spring. The
use of the Sangamon River, flowing within five miles of Springfield and
emptying itself into the Illinois ten or fifteen miles from Beardstown,
seemed for the present the only solution of the problem, and a public
meeting was called to discuss the project. The deep snows of the winter
of 1830-31 abundantly filled the channels of that stream, and the winter
of 1831-32 substantially repeated its swelling floods. Newcomers in that
region were therefore warranted in drawing the inference that it might
remain navigable for small craft. Public interest on the topic was
greatly heightened when one Captain Bogue, commanding a small steamer
then at Cincinnati, printed a letter in the "Journal" of January 26,
1832, saying: "I intend to try to ascend the river [Sangamo] immediately
on the breaking up of the ice." It was well understood that the chief
difficulty would be that the short turns in the channels were liable to
be obstructed by a gorge of driftwood and the limbs and trunks of
overhanging trees. To provide for this, Captain Bogue's letter added: "I
should be met at the mouth of the river by ten or twelve men, having
axes with long handles under the direction of some experienced man. I
shall deliver freight from St. Louis at the landing on the Sangamo River
opposite the town of Springfield for thirty-seven and a half cents per
hundred pounds." The "Journal" of February 16 contained an advertisement
that the "splendid upper-cabin steamer _Talisman_" would leave for
Springfield, and the paper of March 1 announced her arrival at St. Louis
on the 22d of February with a full cargo. In due time the citizen
committee appointed by the public meeting met the _Talisman_ at the
mouth of the Sangamon, and the "Journal" of March 29 announced with
great flourish that the "steamboat _Talisman_, of one hundred and fifty
tons burden, arrived at the Portland landing opposite this town on
Saturday last." There was great local rejoicing over this demonstration
that the Sangamon was really navigable, and the "Journal" proclaimed
with exultation that Springfield "could no longer be considered an
inland town."
President Jackson's first term was nearing its close, and the Democratic
party was preparing to reëlect him. The Whigs, on their part, had held
their first national convention in December, 1831, and nominated Henry
Clay to dispute the succession. This nomination, made almost a year in
advance of the election, indicates an unusual degree of political
activity in the East, and voters in the new State of Illinois were
fired with an equal party zeal. During the months of January and
February, 1832, no less than six citizens of Sangamon County announced
themselves in the "Sangamo Journal" as candidates for the State
legislature, the election for which was not to occur until August; and
the "Journal" of March 15 printed a long letter, addressed "To the
People of Sangamon County," under date of the ninth, signed A. Lincoln,
and beginning:
"FELLOW-CITIZENS: Having become a candidate for the honorable office of
one of your representatives in the next general assembly of this State,
in accordance with an established custom and the principles of true
republicanism, it becomes my duty to make known to you, the people whom
I propose to represent, my sentiments with regard to local affairs." He
then takes up and discusses in an eminently methodical and practical way
the absorbing topic of the moment--the Whig doctrine of internal
improvements and its local application, the improvement of the Sangamon
River. He mentions that meetings have been held to propose the
construction of a railroad, and frankly acknowledges that "no other
improvement that reason will justify us in hoping for can equal in
utility the railroad," but contends that its enormous cost precludes any
such hope, and that, therefore, "the improvement of the Sangamon River
is an object much better suited to our infant resources." Relating his
experience in building and navigating his flatboat, and his observation
of the stage of the water since then, he draws the very plausible
conclusion that by straightening its channel and clearing away its
driftwood the stream can be made navigable "to vessels of from
twenty-five to thirty tons burden for at least one half of all common
years, and to vessels of much greater burden a part of the time," His
letter very modestly touches a few other points of needed legislation--a
law against usury, laws to promote education, and amendments to estray
and road laws. The main interest for us, however, is in the frank avowal
of his personal ambition.
"Every man is said to have his peculiar ambition. Whether it be true or
not, I can say, for one, that I have no other so great as that of being
truly esteemed of my fellow-men by rendering myself worthy of their
esteem. How far I shall succeed in gratifying this ambition is yet to be
developed. I am young, and unknown to many of you. I was born, and have
ever remained, in the most humble walks of life. I have no wealthy or
popular relations or friends to recommend me. My case is thrown
exclusively upon the independent voters of the country, and if elected
they will have conferred a favor upon me for which I shall be
unremitting in my labors to compensate. But if the good people in their
wisdom shall see fit to keep me in the background, I have been too
familiar with disappointments to be very much chagrined."
This written and printed address gives us an accurate measure of the man
and the time. When he wrote this document he was twenty-three years old.
He had been in the town and county only about nine months of actual
time. As Sangamon County covered an estimated area of twenty-one hundred
and sixty square miles, he could know but little of either it or its
people. How dared a "friendless, uneducated boy, working on a flatboat
at twelve dollars a month," with "no wealthy or popular friends to
recommend" him, aspire to the honors and responsibilities of a
legislator? The only answer is that he was prompted by that intuition of
genius, that consciousness of powers which justify their claims by their
achievements. When we scan the circumstances more closely, we find
distinct evidence of some reason for his confidence. Relatively
speaking, he was neither uneducated nor friendless. His acquirements
were already far beyond the simple elements of reading, writing, and
ciphering. He wrote a good, clear, serviceable hand; he could talk well
and reason cogently. The simple, manly style of his printed address
|
the contacts
to it.
The next operation is to remove the upper electrode and place it in the
lower electrode holder. (The length of electrode necessary should be
known. The lower one generally burns out first--it being shorter--and if
the arc reaches the lower electrode holder, will begin to consume it; if
the lower carbon is too long, the arc is liable to reach the upper
electrode holder and destroy it.) The upper electrode may then be placed
in position and aligned with the lower. To do this it is best to turn it
about and try it until it aligns in all positions. The two electrodes
should form a straight line, up and down, no matter which way the upper
is turned.
In some forms of enclosed lamps, the clutch grips the electrode direct.
In such a case all of the upper electrode must be carefully examined to
see that it is straight and free from burs, and that it can pass freely
into the opening at the top of the inner globe. The successful operation
of enclosed arcs depends upon the confinement of the gas in the inner
globe. This globe must, therefore, be kept as tight as possible without
interfering with the operation of the electrodes which pass through it.
With enclosed arcs, the care of the inner globe is of great importance,
because impurities are cast off which soon coat the inner globe and
absorb much of the light.
The care of the outer globes in general is also an important matter. A
dirty globe looks very unsightly and absorbs much light.
The following points should be carefully considered in handling and
trimming lamps:
(1) Be sure that you understand your system and know whether it is a
constant-current or a constant-potential system of distribution. With
constant-current systems, the current is constant and the voltage over
the arc is regulated; while with constant-potential systems, the voltage
is constant and the current through the arc is regulated.
(2) With constant-current or series lamps, the line must never be
opened, but must be shunted around the lamp if a lamp is to be cut out.
(3) With constant-potential lamps, the lamp must never be shunted but
the circuit must be opened.
(4) In all cases each lamp should be controlled by a double pole switch.
(5) Constant-potential lamps cannot be operated without resistance in
the circuit; this resistance may be in the lamp itself or outside.
(6) Never handle high tension lamps without insulating yourself from the
ground; and handle live wires only with one hand at a time.
(7) Provide spark arresters for all open-arc lamps in the vicinity of
inflammable material.
(8) Never leave a lamp without globes where the wind can strike it. It
will be blown out or feed often, thus consuming the electrodes very fast
and at the same time yielding a very poor light.
Green light emitted by the lamp will indicate that the electrode
holders are burning. Strong shadows cast upwards indicate a lamp burning
“upside down”. The positive electrode retains heat longer than the
negative. The quality and size of electrodes has much to do with
successful operation. Always use the kind of electrodes recommended by
the maker of the lamp.
Direct-current arc lamps do not require much in the shape of reflectors
as they naturally throw most of the light downward, when the upper
electrode is positive. They should as a rule be suspended high.
Alternating-current arc lamps throw most of the light from the upper
electrode slightly below the horizontal and that from the lower
electrode somewhat above. If the light is wanted in a downward
direction, suitable reflectors must be provided.
_Testing of Arc Lamps._--The constant-potential arc lamp is usually
designed for a certain current and voltage. The enclosed arcs as a rule
operate singly on 110 volts, while open arcs are run two in series on
the same voltage. In order to test and see that the voltage and current
are right, an ammeter and a voltmeter are needed. The current and
voltage can both be adjusted by altering the resistance, which is always
in series with such lamps. To get the correct voltage over the arc, be
sure to connect the voltmeter to the two electrode holders so as to
eliminate any other potential drops that may affect the reading.
_Testing Carbons._--The color of the light and the steadiness of it can
of course only be determined by actual operation tests. The arc obtained
by using large electrodes with low current density is liable to rotate
around the electrodes, burn unsteadily, and flicker. This is due to the
fact that the arc tends to establish itself at the point of least
resistance. In order that the arc may burn uniformly, the current
density must be great enough to force all of the electrode points into
use.
As a rule the best electrode is the one that has the longest range from
the low voltage point of hissing to the high voltage point of flaming.
With such an electrode the greatest range in light can be obtained
without either the hissing or the flaming.
The same qualities that give an electrode long range, as above, also
indicate its purity and if we make a test for range, we shall therefore
at the same time make a test for purity.
The test for range can be carried out by any ordinary hand-feed lamp. To
make it, the electrodes are inserted and allowed to burn until their
points have assumed the proper shape. The arc can then be shortened
until the familiar hissing sound is heard. Note the voltage at which
this occurs, being careful to have the voltmeter connected so as to get
the voltage across the arc only. Now separate the electrodes slowly
until they begin to flame and note this voltage. Ordinarily the hissing
voltage will be about 42 and the flaming voltage about 62. The greater
the difference between the two, the better the carbons are assumed to
be. In making comparative tests on electrodes in this manner, care
should be taken that all of the conditions of current and size of
electrodes be the same.
The test for comparative life of electrodes is best made by arranging
the different electrodes so that the same current will pass through each
for the same length of time. If this is done, all that is necessary is
to weigh the electrodes before and after burning. The approximate useful
life of an electrode can be easily determined by burning it for a stated
length of time, noting the length consumed and comparing it with the
length available for burning.
CHAPTER III.
PROJECTION.
_Setting and Adjustment of Carbons._--To project a picture upon a screen
properly is an art and requires close study and some knowledge of all
the factors involved. The most important factor is that of the light.
Electric light is so universally used at the present time that it is
hardly necessary to mention the other sources of illumination.
[Illustration: FIGURE 7.]
The electric current with which the operator has to deal may be either
alternating or direct, and the kind is of great importance. The color of
the light obtained from a direct-current arc is not only superior to
that obtained from an alternating-current arc but is obtained at a much
lower cost since, as we shall presently see, it is so much more
efficient.
To project clear white light upon the screen is impossible, some color
will always be in it. But by careful attention and by training himself
to notice slight degrees of color, the operator can learn to render a
light which will be clear enough to satisfy the majority of the
spectators. In order to obtain this light, the source from whence it
comes should be located exactly in the optical axis of the lens system;
that is, a straight line drawn through the center of all of the lenses
should pass also directly through the center of the arc as indicated in
Figure 7. (For comprehensive treatise on lenses, see Chapter XII.)
[Illustration: FIGURE 8.]
[Illustration: FIGURE 9.]
[Illustration: FIGURE 10.]
[Illustration: FIGURE 11.]
[Illustration: FIGURE 12.]
[Illustration: FIGURE 13.]
Most of the light, we have already seen, is emitted from the crater of
an arc of which there is but one in a direct-current arc and two in an
alternating current arc. In order to obtain the most light with the
least expenditure of current and heat in the lamp house, the crater must
be formed in such a manner as to face the center of the condensers as
nearly as possible. Since, however, there are always two electrodes and
the current must pass from one to the other, the crater always tends to
face the lower electrode if the upper one is positive. It is, therefore,
impossible to get the full benefit of the light for the condenser; we
must be satisfied with getting a part of it, and to do this such
settings of electrodes as are shown in Figures 8 to 13 are used. About
the relative merits of these various settings there is considerable
dispute and the best advice that can be given to any new comer in the
operating line is to make his own experiments and find out for himself.
The fact that a certain point is much disputed, alone indicates that
there is no exact knowledge available; for we very seldom have any
differences of opinion about the things that we can prove.
In the operating line very much depends upon the judgment of the
operator. Electrode setting like that of Figure 8 may be good for an
operator who is extremely careful and has a reliable machine which
requires a minimum of attention. But it can readily be seen that if the
top electrode were fed a trifle too far forward, the crater would form
underneath and the lenses would receive but a small part of the light.
Each of the settings given has its peculiarities and it is best for any
operator who has not done so, to try them all out and find which one
best suits him and his conditions.
Figures 8 to 10 show the settings used with direct-current arcs; while
those illustrated by Figures 11 to 13 are used with alternating-current
arcs.
With alternating-current arcs the problem is even more difficult than
with direct, for we have here two craters to deal with; and if we wish
to use the light from both, we shall have to be very careful about it.
If the electrodes are not set exactly right, we may get a double spot
and poor illumination at the center of the screen. Perhaps most
operators will soon give up the idea of using the light of both craters
and will settle down to an electrode setting something like that shown
in _A_, Figure 7. In this setting both electrodes are angled and the
lower one is set a little ahead of the upper. This has a tendency to
draw the crater of the upper electrode forward, thus improving the light
on the condenser; but if this be carried too far, the lower electrode
will obstruct the lower part of the lens. The lower electrode must
always be set so that it allows all parts of the condenser to receive
direct rays of light from the crater of the upper. The electrode must
align perfectly in the vertical plane as shown in _B_, Figure 7, or the
arc will move while burning.
In order to enable the operator to arrange his electrodes at any angle
and to bring them into the center of the optical system, arc lamps are
made up in various ways as illustrated in Figures 14 to 19. The simpler
types are used only in stage lighting lamps where the centering is not
so important. The more elaborate lamps are provided for motion picture
arc lamps and allow of all necessary adjustments which are: feed
electrodes; move lamps forward or back; up or down; sideways and angle
electrodes.
Where direct current is used, the upper electrode must be fed
approximately twice as fast as the lower; but with alternating current,
they both feed at practically the same rate.
[Illustration: FIGURE 14.]
Figure 14 shows a form of McIntosh stereopticon lamp.
[Illustration: FIGURE 15.]
Figure 15 is a Kliegl lamp for open arc lamps.
[Illustration: FIGURE 16.]
Figure 16 is an Edison lamp used for motion picture work.
[Illustration: FIGURE 17.]
Figure 17 is a Kliegl lamp used for focusing purposes.
[Illustration: FIGURE 18.]
Figure 18 shows the Powers lamp.
[Illustration: FIGURE 19.]
Figure 19 shows one of the Motiograph Company lamps.
_Optical System._--In Figure 20 we have the complete optical system of
the moving picture or stereopticon outfit. The crater of the arc lamp
and the center of the objective lens are at the conjugate focal points
(see Optics) and must always be in this relation. The size of the
picture projected upon the screen is governed entirely by the focal
length of the objective lens and the distance of the screen from this
lens. The shorter the focal length, the greater will be the bulging out
or rounding of the lens, and the larger the picture projected. The
objective lens is always fitted with an adjusting device of some kind by
which it can be moved forward or back a little to focus the picture
properly.
[Illustration: FIGURE 20.]
In order to project a picture properly, it is necessary that the center
of the arc or other illuminant, the center of the condensers, and the
center of the objective, all fall in one straight line as indicated in
Figure 20. The condensers are provided for the purpose of gathering and
condensing as many of the scattering light rays of the arc lamp as
possible and bringing them to bear upon the slide and the objective.
The light used must come either from a reasonably small source or from a
larger source far enough away so that the rays can be considered as
parallel. The focal point for parallel rays would, however, differ
somewhat from that of a point source and such illumination is seldom
used; in fact, it is used only where special arrangements are made for
it.
One of the principal points to be borne in mind in trying to project a
good clear picture is to keep the arc down to as small a point as is
practicable. A long arc can be tolerated only when it is absolutely
impossible to obtain sufficient illumination from a short arc; as, for
instance, in operating the Kinemacolor machines, in which from 80 to 100
amperes are used with a very long arc. The above expedient is imperative
because the colored discs through which the light must pass absorb a
great amount of it and the definition or outline of the picture is apt
to be poor.
The position of the arc with reference to the condensers is also an
important point to consider. The focal length of the condensers
determines the point at which the arc must be maintained. The flatter
the condensers are, the farther away the arc may be, and the less will
be the heating; but this position is accompanied with considerable loss
of light.
For the purpose of projection we can use only the light which strikes
the condensers direct from the arc. Rays reflected by the lamp house do
not pass through the condensers in the same direction as those coming
directly from the crater and will not focus with them. Hence, the
farther the arc is from the condensers, the smaller will be the
percentage of light used; the shorter the focal length of the
condensers, the closer to them must the arc be maintained, and the
greater will be the percentage of light used. But if the light is
brought too close, there will be undue heating of the condensers and
these, especially the one nearest the light, will be likely to break. So
great is the heat produced that sometimes the two lenses are partially
melted and welded together. This is a frequent occurrence in cases where
very heavy currents are used. It must be recalled that the heat produced
is proportional to the square of the current and that other things being
equal, 80 amperes would produce four times the heat of 40 amperes.
Condenser breakage is quite an important subject and one upon which
there is much argument among operators. Many of the theories held are,
however, not plausible enough to merit mention. The principal cause is
no doubt overheating without allowing sufficient room for expansion in
the setting. No lens should ever be set so that it does not move freely
even while it is hot. Even if free while cold, the expansion, where the
heating is great, may be sufficient to tighten it in the casing, and
this is likely to cause breakage. The best methods of preventing heating
are: a large lamp house well ventilated and condensers of such focal
length as to allow the arc to be maintained at some distance from them.
Drafts of air are often given as the cause of breakage, but the truth of
this is rather problematical. There is no doubt that sudden contraction,
due to rapid cooling, would have a strong tendency to break them; but
the air in operating rooms is not often cold and is not likely to
strike the lens anyway. It must be noted that it is usually the inner
lens, which is ordinarily enclosed, that breaks.
[Illustration: FIGURE 21.]
In the projection of moving pictures there are two important points that
must always be considered. (1) the size of the spot on the gate at which
the film appears, and (2) the clearness of the field or light on the
screen. By properly adjusting the arc, we can make the spot any size we
desire; and the smaller we make it, so long as it covers the whole
aperture, the brighter the light will be. But if we make this spot too
small, we shall bring in the fringe of color which always appears at the
outer edge. Color of this kind is objectionable and must be avoided as
much as possible; but it is not necessary to go to extremes. A little
coloring will not be noticed by the audience and will therefore not be
objectionable. With a given system there will thus be a certain size of
spot which gives the best results obtainable. Considering that if the
spot is increased in size, the light becomes clearer but also less
intense; and that if the spot is decreased in size, the light on the
screen, though more brilliant, is liable to show coloring, a good
operator should practice distinguishing the coloring and make himself as
proficient in this art as possible. The customary proportions of spot
and aperture are shown in Figure 21.
Coloring appears, however, from another cause also, viz., improper
centering or adjustment of the arc lamp with reference to the
condensers. If the arc is not properly adjusted, bands of color such as
are indicated in Figure 22 may appear in any of the positions shown.
This is commonly spoken of as the “ghost”, and it must be eliminated. It
is not possible to get rid of it entirely, but by a little skill,
patience, and experience, it can be reduced to a negligible amount. When
the spot is right and the screen clear, the picture may be focused by
adjusting the objective lens.
[Illustration: FIGURE 22.]
To focus sharply, it is advisable to move the lens in one direction
until the picture appears a trifle blurred; then move it in the opposite
direction until at this point there is also a blurred picture. The
exact focus will be at a point half way between the two. To focus the
lens in this manner is important where the slide or film has some play,
as when the aperture plate on a machine is worn and allows the film some
movement.
_Current Required._--The measurement of the candle power of arc lamps
has never been satisfactorily taken, and the difficulties encountered in
determining it for a projecting arc are especially great because only a
small part of the total light can be utilized and this is constantly
varying. The light may, however, be assumed as proportional to the
wattage of the arc, hence, we can best judge it by noting the volts and
amperes. Where a very strong light is desirable, the arc is usually
drawn out to some length; and as there is a rise in voltage, with a long
arc, in such a case, the light increases at a greater rate than the
amperage. In ordinary projection work, the arc is kept quite short
because of the better definition obtainable by the use of such an arc;
and we may assume that the light obtained is nearly directly
proportional to the amperage. This relation of light and the current
input to the lamp will be practically correct, especially if the size of
the electrodes chosen is proportional to the amperage.
_Current Required for Projecting._--The value of the current to be used
for projection is a matter of some dispute among operators and probably
much of this is caused by the absence of ammeters, most operators merely
guessing at what they are using, or being guided by markings of
rheostats or compensators. In most cases something like 40 amperes seems
to be the rule.
In order to give the reader a clear understanding of the theoretical
requirements, Table I has been prepared. This table is not intended to
act as an accurate guide, but merely to show the amperage theoretically
required with different sized pictures, to bring about the same
illumination in each case.
TABLE I.
CURRENT REQUIRED FOR DIFFERENT SIZE PICTURES.
-----------+--------------+------------------------
Greatest | | Amperes
Dimension | Area +----------+-------------
of Picture | Illuminated. | Direct | Alternating
in feet. | | Current. | Current.
-----------+--------------+----------+-------------
5 | 39 | 8 | 12
6 | 56 | 11 | 16
7 | 77 | 15 | 22
8 | 100 | 20 | 30
9 | 127 | 25 | 37
10 | 157 | 31 | 45
11 | 189 | 38 | 57
12 | 224 | 45 | 67
13 | 260 | 52 | 78
14 | 307 | 60 | 90
-----------+--------------+----------+-------------
Two errors are very common in the computation of the light intensity for
a given picture: (1) the length of throw governs the amperage; and (2)
the amperage depends upon the actual space to be illuminated. Apparently
only an oblong square of exactly the proportions of the aperture in the
machine is illuminated, but in reality the light must be spread out so
that its total illumination covers a circle enclosing the actual visible
picture. This is illustrated in Figure 23 where the enclosed oblong
square represents the space illuminated on the screen and the circle
represents the area over which the light must be spread. The portion
shown by shading is nearly equal to the clear portion and shows that
half of the light is wasted since it is blocked out by the cooling plate
in the machine or the framework of the slides. With increasing size of
picture, the light is, however, diminished in proportion to the area of
the circle and not in proportion to the area of the picture. If, for
instance, the picture were to retain its width and be reduced in height
by one half, or even more, there would still be about the same quantity
of illumination required. For this reason we have, in Table I, given
only the maximum dimension of the picture and have based the amperage
calculation upon the area of the circle which encloses the picture.
[Illustration: FIGURE 23.]
The values given are less than are generally used for small pictures and
more than are generally used for large pictures. As a rule much light is
wasted on small pictures because the apparatus is at hand to deliver it;
with large pictures, the illumination is often poor because transformers
and rheostats are seldom fitted to deliver more than 60 amperes. Much
light can easily be wasted if the picture is made too bright. In such a
case, much of the light is reflected back to the auditorium and this in
turn makes the picture appear less bright.
In determining the amperage necessary to show a picture properly, the
following conditions must be borne in mind, any one of which may
appreciably affect the result:
(1) _Nature of Screen._--A good screen will reflect more light than a
poor one.
(2) _Size of Picture._--The larger the picture, the more light will be
required.
(3) _Character of Film._--Some films are very dark and require extra
illumination.
(4) _House Illumination._--In some cities the law requires fairly bright
illumination of auditoriums and this makes the picture appear less
bright.
(5) _Atmosphere._--Where the air is full of dust, or where smoking is
allowed; much light will be absorbed.
(6) _Lenses._--Some lenses are badly discolored and absorb much light.
(7) _Electrodes and Electrode Setting._--This is a very important factor
and one which a good operator will never neglect.
_Selection of Lenses._--Upon the proper selection of lenses depends very
much the quality of the picture. The size of the picture, under given
circumstances, depends entirely upon the focal length of the objective.
With a given distance between lens and screen there is practically but
one size of picture obtainable. If we wish to obtain a picture of
another size by the use of the same lens, this can be done only by
sacrificing the definition and had better not be attempted.
Very large pictures are desirable only in large halls in which portions
of the audience are very far from the screen. Such a picture requires
very much light and, on account of its size, shows many imperfections to
those who sit in the front rows. It is better to limit the size of the
picture to one which can be easily illuminated, and thus avoid such
imperfections.
TABLE II.
MOTION PICTURE LENSES.
TABLE SHOWING SIZE OF SCREEN IMAGE WHEN MOVING-PICTURE FILMS ARE
PROJECTED.
Size of Mat opening 11-16 × 15-16 inch.
-----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----
E.E. | 15 | 20 | 25 | 30 | 35 | 40 | 45 | 50 | 60 | 70 | 80 | 90 |100
In. | ft.| ft.| ft.| ft.| ft.| ft.| ft.| ft.| ft.| ft.| ft.| ft.| ft.
-----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----
2-1/8| 4.8| 6.4| 8.0| 9.6|11.3|12.9|14.5|16.1| | | | |
| 6.5| 8.7|11.0|13.2|15.4|17.6|19.8|22.0| | | | |
-----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----
2-1/2| | 5.4| 6.8| 8.2| 9.6|10.9|12.3|13.7|16.4| | | |
| | 7.4| 9.3|11.2|13.1|14.9|16.8|18.7|22.4| | | |
-----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----
3 | | 4.5| 5.7| 6.8| 8.0| 9.1|10.3|11.4|13.7|16.0| | |
| | 6.2| 7.7| 9.3|10.9|12.4|14.0|15.6|18.7|21.8| | |
-----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----
3-1/2| | | 4.9| 5.8| 6.8| 7.8| 8.8| 9.8|11.7|13.7|15.7| |
| | | 6.6| 8.0| 9.3|10.6|12.0|13.3|16.0|18.7|21.4| |
-----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----
4 | | | 4.2| 5.1| 6.0| 6.8| 7.7| 8.5|10.3|12.0|13.7|15.4|
| | | 5.8| 7.0| 8.1| 9.3|10.5|11.6|14.0|16.3|18.7|21.0|
-----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----
4-1/2| | | | 4.5| 5.3| 6.2| 6.8| 7.7| 9.1|10.6|12.2|13.7|15.4
| | | | 6.2| 7.2| 8.4| 9.3|10.5|12.4|14.5|16.6|18.7|21.0
-----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----
5 | | | | | 4.8| 5.4| 6.1| 6.8| 8.2| 9.6|10.9|12.3|13.7
| | | | | 6.5| 7.4| 8.4| 9.3|11.2|13.0|14.9|16.8|18.7
-----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----
5-1/2| | | | | 4.3| 4.9| 5.6| 6.2| 7.4| 8.7| 9.9|11.2|12.4
| | | | | 5.9| 6.7| 7.6| 8.4|10.2|11.9|13.6|15.3|17.0
-----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----
6 | | | | | | 4.5| 5.1| 5.7| 6.8| 8.0| 9.1|10.3|11.4
| | | | | | 6.2| 7.0| 7.7| 9.3|10.9|12.4|14.0|15.6
-----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----
6-1/2| | | | | | | 4.7| 5.2| 6.3| 7.3| 8.4| 9.6|10.6
| | | | | | | 6.4| 7.1| 8.6|10.0|11.4|13.0|14.5
-----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----
7 | | | | | | | 4.4| 4.9| 5.8| 6.8| 7.8| 8.8| 9.8
| | | | | | | 6.0| 6.6| 8.0| 9.3|10.6|12.0|13.3
-----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----
7-1/2| | | | | | | | 4.5| 5.4| 6.4| 7.3| 8.2| 9.1
| | | | | | | | 6.2| 7.4| 8.7|10.0|11.2|12.3
-----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----
8 | | | | | | | | | 5.1| 6.0| 6.8| 7.7| 8.5
| | | | | | | | | 7.0| 8.1| 9.3|10.5|11.6
-----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----
=Example=: With a lens of 5-1/2 inch focus at a distance of 35 ft. the
screen image will be 4.3×5.9; at 40 ft., 4.9×6.7; at 45 ft., 5.6×7.6;
etc.
=Note=: When ordering lenses, give size of picture wanted, and distance
from machine to screen.
TABLE III.
STEREOPTICON LENSES.
TABLE SHOWING SIZE OF SCREEN IMAGE WHEN LANTERN SLIDES ARE PROJECTED.
Size of Mat opening 2-3/4 × 3 inches.
------+---+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----
E.F. |15 | 20 | 25 | 30 | 35 | 40 | 45 | 50 | 60 | 70 | 80 | 90 |100
In. |ft.| ft.| ft.| ft | ft.| ft.| ft.| ft.| ft.| ft.| ft.| ft.| ft.
------+---+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----
5 |8.0|10.8|13.5|16.3|19.0| | | | | | | |
|8.8|11.8|14.8|17.8|20.8| | | | | | | |
------+---+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----
5-1/2|7.3| 9.8|12.3|14.8|17.3|19.8| | | | | | |
|7.9|10.7|13.4|16.1|18.8|21.6| | | | | | |
------+---+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----
6 |6.6| 8.9|11.2|13.5|15.8|18.1|20.4| | | | | |
|7.3| 9.8|12.3|14.8|17.3|19.8|22.3| | | | | |
------+---+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----
6-1
|
her uncle change his mind again.
The next three days she waited in a tremor of excitement for a response.
On the fourth day the postman brought the letter from Kitty. It was brief
but very much to the point.
“Dear Dory:” it read. “Will I come? I’ll jump at the chance! Here’s to a
high old time at Locked Gates, and may we discover when they were locked
and why! Meet me Wednesday on the 4:40 train. Yours, Kitty.”
It was already Monday and that left only two days before Kitty’s arrival.
Doris flew about putting the suite in order and spent a great deal of
time getting her clothes ready to pack. The problem was made somewhat
difficult due to the fact that she did not know what sort of reception
awaited her.
“I don’t know whether they’ll give any parties or not,” she told herself,
“but my guess is they won’t. I’ll take a chance on it and leave my
evening gown at home.”
Late Wednesday afternoon, Doris and her uncle drove to the station to
meet Kitty. She was nearly the last one off the train and Doris was
beginning to think she had not come, when she caught sight of her in the
crowd.
The girls exchanged enthusiastic hugs and fell to jabbering as excitedly
as two magpies, or at least so it seemed to Uncle Ward, who was quite
ignored until Doris recalled that she had failed to introduce him.
“I feel as though I know you already,” he told Kitty with his genial
smile. “Doris has talked about you almost continually.”
He placed her suitcase in the back of the coupé, and the girls squeezed
in beside him on the front seat. As they drove toward home, Doris told
her chum more about Locked Gates and the reason why she had planned the
trip.
Though not as pretty as Doris, Kitty had a charming personality and was
one of the most popular girls at Barry Manor. She was very talkative and
always ready for a good time. If she excelled in basketball and tennis
rather than in French and English, it was not because of lack of ability,
but rather because she could never find the time to study. At Barry Manor
her room had always been the gathering place for friends and the scene of
many tea parties.
“I’m so excited about this place we’re going to,” she told Doris. “When
do we leave?”
“Tomorrow, if that isn’t rushing you off too soon. Uncle Ward is going
out of town to raise money for some charity—”
“A little hot air for a fresh air fund,” Mr. Force interposed. “A speech
at the Rotary Club, one at the church, and one at the Chamber of
Commerce. That’s the opening day’s program and it will be about the same
for the next month.”
“Unless we leave for Locked Gates tomorrow, we’ll be left here by
ourselves,” Doris explained.
“Let’s go, by all means.”
“I thought you would want to start right away. Dave said he would take us
down in his roadster.”
“We’ll have a wonderful time, too!” Kitty declared enthusiastically.
Doris nodded in agreement. In spite of what Dave and Jake had said
concerning Locked Gates, she little dreamed of the adventure that lay
before her.
“I just hope we have a real interesting session at this place,” continued
Kitty gleefully, “something to tell the sorority about when we return to
school in the fall. Just fancy the crowd gathered around us while we tell
in a solemn voice the mysteries of Locked Gates. I really hope something
exciting does happen to us, Dory,” she exulted, as the roadster swung
around the corner, throwing her little hat a bit more rakishly over one
eye. “I’ll be disappointed if it doesn’t.”
“Kitty, you are very brave just at present. Be sure to keep up your
present demeanor as we go forth on our big adventure,” admonished Doris
Force thoughtfully.
CHAPTER VI
LOCKED GATES
Kitty Norris had always been popular at school, for she had a charming
way of fitting into things. Before she had been in Chilton an hour she
felt perfectly acquainted with Wardell Force, Mrs. Mallow, Marshmallow
and even Jake. Marshmallow in particular took an immediate liking to her
and tried to monopolize her time.
“You know,” Kitty admitted that night, after the girls had gone to their
room, “I sort of like Marshall. He’s so jolly.”
“I thought you were quite taken by him,” Doris laughed. “It’s plain to
see Marshmallow has taken a distinct liking to you.”
“Doris Force!”
“Well, he has. Too bad he’s so fat.”
“He is a little stout,” Kitty admitted.
“Stout!” Doris teased. “How you have fallen!”
“Well, then I guess we’re even,” Kitty retorted. “You and Dave—”
“We’d better be tumbling into bed,” Doris interposed hastily, “or we
won’t be rested for our trip tomorrow to Locked Gates.”
Shortly after eleven o’clock the following morning, David Chamberlin
called for the girls. Wardell Force had of necessity taken an early train
out of the city, so there were only Jake, Marshmallow and his mother to
see them off.
“Wish I were going,” the plump youth murmured enviously. “Still, I have a
sneaking notion it won’t be as jolly as you think down there at Locked
Gates.”
“Then we’ll liven the place up,” Doris declared lightly.
Dave drove rather slowly, for neither he nor the girls were eager to
reach Rumson before the middle of the afternoon. Doris and Kitty had gone
to great pains to prepare and pack a dainty lunch and the three planned
to stop some place along the road for a picnic.
The day was unpleasantly warm and sultry. As they took the main highway
leading to Rumson, Doris glanced anxiously at the scattered clouds which
were to be seen overhead.
“I hope it doesn’t rain and spoil our picnic,” she said.
“Oh, I don’t think it will,” Dave replied. “The sky is almost clear.”
It was true that the sun was shining brightly, but the sky had a dull
appearance which Doris did not like. However, as they motored along
enjoying the scenery, she forgot the matter completely.
“I’m beginning to get hungry,” Dave announced as it approached noon. “We
may as well begin to look for a good place to stop.”
Presently, Doris caught sight of an attractive grove of trees ahead.
“That’s just the spot!” she declared. “Cool and shady and not too close
to the road.”
Dave parked the roadster just off the highway and they took the hamper
over to the grove.
“This is a dandy place,” Kitty approved. “I believe there’s a spring back
there among the rocks.”
Dave had been gazing thoughtfully toward a sign.
“I’m not sure that we should have stopped here,” he said.
“Why not?” Doris demanded quickly.
“We seem to have camped pretty close to the entrance to the Glenville
Roadhouse. However, we’re not on their property.”
“What difference does it make?” Kitty asked innocently.
“Well—” Dave hesitated. “This roadhouse doesn’t have much of a
reputation, so I’ve been told.”
“Perhaps we had better leave,” Doris suggested.
“We have everything all spread out,” Kitty complained, “and this is the
nicest grove we’ve passed. We’re not even within sight of the roadhouse.”
“I don’t believe it will do any harm to stay here,” Dave agreed. “We’ll
soon be on our way again.”
They sat down and began to eat luncheon. There were thin sandwiches,
ice-cold lemonade, salad, pickles, and some of Mrs. Mallow’s delicious
cookies and cake. Long before they had finished, they realized that their
imaginations had been more ambitious than their appetites.
“I can’t eat another thing,” Kitty groaned.
“It’s a shame to let these sandwiches go to waste,” Dave excused himself,
selecting one made of chicken.
“Bet you can’t take it all in one bite,” Doris dared him on.
“A little thing like that? Just watch me! Why you’re not looking!”
It was true that Doris was no longer interested. A red roadster had
turned into the lane leading to the roadhouse, and she had caught a
glimpse of the driver’s face.
“It’s that same man we saw at the aviation meet!” she exclaimed.
“Evidently, he intends to have luncheon at the roadhouse.”
“Must not care much for his reputation,” Dave returned.
“You know, I don’t like this place,” Doris said quietly. “Now that we’ve
finished eating, let’s be on our way.”
“Right-o!” Dave sprang up and began to pack the dishes into the hamper.
As he placed the basket into the rear of the roadster he surveyed the sky
and frowned slightly.
“It’s beginning to look more like rain than it did,” he admitted. “I’m
afraid we’d better make full steam ahead or we may get caught in a
storm.”
Kitty and Doris did not hear, for their attention had been attracted to a
little brown dog which stood in the roadway regarding them with wistful,
friendly eyes.
“Oh, isn’t he cute!” Doris exclaimed. “Here, doggie! Come here!”
The little animal first backed timidly away and then, as the girls
continued to coax, hesitated, and finally came a few steps toward them,
wagging his tail in a friendly way. As Doris stooped to pat him on the
head he gave a pleased bark, and raising up on his hind legs, eagerly
offered her his right paw.
“He knows tricks,” Doris declared. “Oh, I wonder who owns him?”
“Looks to me like a stray dog,” Dave told her. “He hasn’t any collar or
license. The dog catcher will likely get him before long.”
“Not if I can help it!” Doris declared. “If he doesn’t belong to anyone,
we can take him with us.”
“What will the Misses Gates say when you come dragging him in?” Dave
asked with a smile.
“Oh, they won’t care. He’s such a darling!”
“What shall we name him?” Kitty questioned.
“Let’s call him Wags,” Doris exclaimed impulsively. “The name seems
appropriate.”
Wags had no objection to entering the car and snuggled down comfortably
between the two girls. With an anxious glance at the sky, Dave started
the engine.
“Looks like a big storm is rolling up,” he said.
The girls had been so interested in Wags that they had paid scant
attention to the clouds, but now as Doris looked about, she was alarmed.
The air was oppressive and not a breath of wind was stirring. Heavy black
clouds had loomed up in the west and rapidly were spreading over the
entire sky.
“I think I can get you to Locked Gates before it strikes us,” Dave said
grimly, as he shifted gears and stepped heavily on the gas pedal. “Hold
tight!”
The roadster fairly shot down the road. As the figures crept upwards on
the tape of the speedometer, Doris and Kitty clung to each other. Not
until the car began to rock and weave on the road, did Dave reduce his
speed and then only slightly. However, he held the roadster steady and
handled the wheel with such a sure hand, that the girls had confidence in
his driving.
It was the appearance of the sky which frightened them. The sun had been
entirely blotted from sight, and though it was mid-afternoon, it seemed
nearly as dark as night. Dave snapped on the headlights.
“I’ll get you to Locked Gates before the storm breaks,” he announced in
relief as they rounded a sharp curve and came within sight of Rumson.
“Fortunately, the place is right at the edge of town.”
A few minutes later, he brought the car to a groaning halt in front of
the old Gates estate. In the gathering darkness the girls caught but a
glimpse of the large, rambling house which was set back some distance
from the road, but that was sufficient to assure them that it was gloomy
and forbidding.
“Here you are,” Dave said briskly. “Nice place for a murder!”
“Ugh!” Doris murmured. “You make my hair stand on end!”
“I almost wish we hadn’t come,” Kitty said nervously.
“Oh, everything’s all right. I was only joking.” Dave sprang from the car
and went over to try the double gates which barred the entrance. “Just as
I thought! Locked!”
“Then how are we to get in?” Doris questioned.
“There’s an entrance at the rear. Guess these gates are always kept
locked. We’ll try the other gate.”
Driving the roadster down a side street, he found the back entrance and
helped the girls to alight. As he picked up their suitcases to take them
to the door, Doris glanced again at the storm clouds. A streak of
lightning flashed across the sky, and she knew that unless Dave started
back at once, he would be caught in the rain.
“Don’t bother to take us to the door,” she commanded. “Start for Chilton
this minute!”
“I don’t like to leave you here until I know everything is O. K.,” he
protested.
“It’s only a step to the door, Dave. Be a good boy and don’t wait.”
“Well, since you insist, I will start, because it looks like a storm and
the roads may get slippery.”
Hastily the three said goodbye and Dave sprang into the roadster. He
slammed the door shut and was gone before the girls had managed to
unfasten the gate.
“It does look spooky,” Kitty quavered.
Doris laughed uncertainly. She managed to open the gate and it swung back
on creaking hinges. A sudden breath of wind struck her face and went
whistling through the trees.
The house, half-hidden by shrubbery, was shrouded in deepest gloom, and
no light glimmered from the windows. Doris hesitated as she picked up her
suitcase. Kitty held back, and even Wags seemed reluctant to venture down
the path.
“Come on, Kitty,” Doris admonished, “Everything is all right.”
As she spoke, a gust of wind whined through the trees, and to the girls
it sounded strangely like the wailing of a human being in distress.
“Oh, I don’t like it here,” Kitty murmured timidly. “I’m afraid.”
“There’s nothing to be afraid of, Kit. Just follow me.”
Carrying their heavy suitcases, the girls groped their way down the path.
It was so dark now that they could not see where they were going and
frequently brushed against shrubbery. Wags had disappeared.
Suddenly, Kitty gave a frightened cry as she stumbled over the root of a
tree. Catching Doris’s arm to save herself from a bad fall, she permitted
her pocketbook to slip from her hand. It opened as it struck the ground,
and the contents spilled in every direction.
“Look what I’ve done now!” Kitty wailed.
Doris set her suitcase down and helped her chum search for the things she
had lost. They found a pencil, a compact and a number of bills, when
another flash of lightning momentarily illumined the path.
“Never mind the rest,” Kitty said nervously. “I’ve found everything
except a quarter, and I’ll look for that tomorrow.”
They continued on up the path and came to the old mansion. The place
appeared dark and deserted and Kitty would have retreated, had not Doris
gripped her firmly by the arm. Bravely, she lifted the old-fashioned
knocker.
Huddled together on the veranda, the girls waited. When no one came to
admit them, Doris again knocked. Just as she was beginning to think that
it was no use, they heard a heavy step. Then the door opened and a man,
bearing an oil light, peered out at them.
Before either Doris or Kitty could explain their mission, there came an
unexpected yelp. To their horror, Wags, suddenly appearing from beneath a
lilac bush, rushed past them straight at the man in the doorway, striking
him with such force that he toppled him over.
A heavy peal of thunder resounded as the man slumped to the floor in a
queer sort of kneeling position which, at any other time, would have been
provokingly funny to Doris Force and her chum. But this was serious
business and such a dilemma!
“Wags!” shouted Doris, “Come here, come here!”
The dog bounded into the kitchen, around a table, sniffed at some cake
placed dangerously near the table edge, madly rushed to a basket of
potatoes throwing the potatoes in all directions over the smooth floor,
and then at the call from Doris headed again towards the doorway with a
dish towel playfully dragging between his teeth.
“Here, puppy, here!” commanded Kitty, catching her breath and setting
down her suitcase, while Doris tried to catch a corner of the linen as
the dog jumped over the bewildered man, pulling the cloth over the man’s
head.
“Help, oh, ouch, help!” shouted the man. “Call your mutt off! Help! Let
me get up!”
“Wags, doggie, doggie, come here!” pleaded Doris, as she realized the man
was now in no mood to be trifled with.
She and Kitty decided that they now must command their new pet’s
attention.
CHAPTER VII
A STRANGE RECEPTION
Frantically, Doris and Kitty called to Wags and in response to their
commands he reluctantly returned to them. The man who had fallen
scrambled to his feet, and stood glaring angrily at the girls.
“Oh, I’m dreadfully sorry,” Doris apologized. “Wags isn’t really vicious.
He was just playing.”
“Playing!” the man snapped. “You call that playing!” As Wags again came
toward him he raised his foot to kick him.
“Don’t!” Doris pleaded. “I tell you it was an accident.”
She caught the dog up in her arms and held him away.
“What do you want here anyway?” the man asked rudely.
The first drops of rain were beginning to fall and as a vivid streak of
lightning flashed above the house, the girls cringed.
“Please, may we come in?” Doris begged.
Silently the man held the door open for them but he scowled as they
passed through. They entered a large kitchen. Before they had time to
take stock of it, a stout, slovenly woman who was mopping the floor, bore
wrathfully down upon them.
“You can’t come in here with that dog!” she told them. “Can’t you see
I’ve just finished mopping up this big ark of a kitchen?”
Chilled by this reception, the girls hastily backed toward the door.
“What is it you want?” the woman asked, less harshly.
“We came to see the Misses Gates,” Doris explained. “They’re expecting
us.”
“Oh!” A peculiar expression flashed over the woman’s face. She was silent
for an instant and then she said: “You came to the wrong door. This is
our quarter.”
“And you are—”
“Cora Sully. I take care of the house. This is my husband, Henry, and
I’ll tell you right now there ain’t a lazier man alive!”
Somewhat embarrassed at such brutal frankness, Doris and Kitty continued
to edge toward the door.
“Go around to the side door and I’ll let you in proper, else the old
maids’ll be put out.” Then she added more gently: “We’re not much used to
company here.”
As the girls were about to close the door behind them, she called
shrilly:
“You can’t take the dog in!”
Still carrying their suitcases, and with Wags trotting at their heels,
Doris and Kitty made their way toward the side door. It was beginning to
rain hard.
“What a horrible woman!” Kitty shuddered. “Now, what can we do with
Wags?”
“We can’t let him run wild in the storm, that’s certain. I have an idea!”
They had reached the shelter of the side veranda and Doris set her
suitcase down and began to unfasten the strap.
“What are you doing?” Kitty demanded.
“I’m going to tie Wags under the porch. He’ll be out of the rain there.”
“It’s mean of that woman not to let us take him in,” Kitty said.
She helped her chum fix the dog, but they were forced to drag him under
the porch by main force, for he was reluctant to leave them. By the time
they had fastened him securely in his shelter, they were thoroughly
drenched themselves.
“What sights we are!” Doris declared. “I wonder if that woman ever will
let us in?”
“Here she comes now,” Kitty said in a low tone.
The door swung open and Cora, wearing a clean white apron which she had
donned for the occasion, ushered them into a long hall.
“Right this way,” she directed.
They followed her into a spacious living room, bright and cheerful, but
furnished in rather prim and old-fashioned style. A fire was burning in
the grate.
“Two young ladies to see you,” Cora announced.
The Misses Gates promptly arose and, putting aside their sewing, eagerly
came forward to greet the girls. Cora took their suitcases and wraps and
left them.
“I am so glad you came,” one of the ladies said in a soft, sweet voice.
“When this storm gathered so quickly, we were afraid you might be caught
in it.” She smiled apologetically. “Our home isn’t as modern as it once
was, but Azalea and I will try to make you comfortable here.”
As she sank back into the restful depths of a big chair, Doris had an
opportunity to study the two sisters.
Iris and Azalea quite obviously were twins, for they looked alike and
they dressed identically. Their voices, too, were similar—low, musical
and soft. They looked rather frail and delicate, Doris thought, and their
faces were finely chiseled like that of a cameo. They wore simple, long,
white cotton dresses. Had it not been for their snow white hair, Doris
would not have guessed that they had long since left their youth behind.
If the girls had been disappointed at their first reception, they no
longer had any doubt of their welcome. Azalea and Iris set them at ease
by maintaining a pleasant, light conversation. It was apparent to Doris
that they were both well educated, though they seemed to take little
interest in modern-day topics.
“I don’t believe they know much about what has been going on in the world
for the last ten years,” Doris told herself.
Before fifteen minutes had elapsed, she found herself quite captivated by
the two ladies, and Kitty, too, had forgotten her former uneasiness.
As the afternoon advanced, the girls found themselves more and more
comfortable, looking forward to a pleasant visit.
“No doubt you wondered why we invited you here,” Iris said after a time,
addressing Doris.
“Well, yes, I did,” she admitted.
“It’s a long story. Azalea and I—”
Her voice trailed off as Cora Sully appeared in the doorway.
“Supper is served,” she announced.
Iris arose to lead the way to the dining room.
“The story must wait,” she said with a smile. “I know you girls are far
more interested in food just now.”
“I am a bit hungry,” acknowledged Doris with a pleasant smile, as she and
Kitty followed the twins into the next room where Cora was putting the
finishing touches to the table.
Kitty kept close to her chum. Doris caught her eye. In a whisper she
heard Kitty ask her about the dog outside, as she motioned toward the
food—Kitty wanted Wags to be remembered.
“Wait!” signalled Doris, as the group took seats about the table.
But would the dog wait?
CHAPTER VIII
A VISITOR
Supper at the mansion was always a rather stiff and formal affair, but on
this evening the tension was somewhat relaxed. The Misses Gates chatted
pleasantly with the girls, making them feel entirely at their ease.
The table had been laid with an elaborately embroidered tablecloth, of
good quality but slightly yellowed with age. The dishes, the cut glass,
and the silver were of the best. Two tall candles in pewter holders
lighted the room. Cora Sully, fairly presentable in white cap and apron,
brought the food in from the kitchen, but she served it in an indifferent
fashion.
“Cora really is an excellent cook,” Iris said half apologetically, when
the woman had returned to the kitchen.
“Yes, indeed,” Doris agreed quickly.
She had no fault to find with the supper, for the creamed chicken was
delicious, the biscuits light, the salad crisp and fresh. It was only
that she had taken a dislike to Cora and wondered why the Misses Gates
kept such a slouchy, sullen woman.
“Mrs. Sully has been with us for some time,” Iris continued. “She was the
daughter of our former dressmaker, but she married a man that was no
good. Undoubtedly he means well but he is shiftless, and finds it hard to
obtain work. We took them both in.”
“I see,” Doris murmured.
She scarcely knew what to reply, and Kitty was leaving the burden of the
conversation to her.
Mrs. Sully cleared away the dishes and appeared with the dessert, a
steaming rich pudding which she placed before Azalea, who served it upon
individual plates.
“Iris and I seldom indulge ourselves when we are here alone,” Azalea
remarked, “but we remember how young girls like sweets.”
“I’m afraid you have gone to a great deal of trouble on our account,”
Doris said.
“Not at all,” Azalea assured her. “It is a pleasure to have you here. We
have so few visitors.”
It seemed to Doris, who chanced to be watching Mrs. Sully, that an
irritated expression passed over her face.
“_She_ doesn’t like it because we are here,” Doris thought. “Probably
thinks we’ll make her more work!”
She picked up her dessert spoon, but before she could start eating her
pudding, there came an unexpected interruption. A loud barking and
growling grated upon the ears of the diners.
Doris and Kitty exchanged guilty glances. It was Wags!
“Gracious!” Iris murmured. “What can be the matter?”
Embarrassed, Kitty looked down at her plate.
“I’m so sorry,” Doris apologized, “but I’m afraid it must be Wags.”
“Wags?” Azalea asked, a glimmer of amusement in her eyes.
Doris nodded unhappily.
“He’s the cutest little brown dog you ever saw—I know you’ll just love
him! Kitty and I picked him up on the road this afternoon and brought him
along. We didn’t want to leave him out in the storm, so we tied him up
under the porch. I don’t know what set him off like that.”
Before either of the women could reply, Wags again let out a series of
savage yelps and Doris heard the sound of a man’s voice. Hastily, she
pushed back her chair.
“I’ll see what is the matter,” she said, excusing herself.
Hurrying to the door, she opened it and stared straight into the face of
the man who had made such a disturbance at the aviation meet! Wags, still
securely tied under the porch, had taken exception to the appearance of
the stranger and continued to bark excitedly.
“Be quiet, Wags!” Doris commanded.
“So that’s your mutt, eh?” the stranger asked unpleasantly. “Vicious dogs
shouldn’t be at large!”
Doris stifled a sharp retort. Now that she saw the man at close range she
was more unfavorably impressed than before. He was dressed in a new suit
of loud pattern, and carried a cane. His face was hard and cold and his
eyes had an unpleasant way of boring into one.
Before Doris could recover from her surprise, the Misses Gates came
rushing into the hall.
“I thought I recognized your voice,” Iris murmured, self-consciously.
“We were wondering if you would come tonight,” Azalea added, a tell-tale
blush creeping over her pale cheeks.
The stranger bestowed upon each a smile which to Doris seemed to fairly
drip sentiment.
“Did you think I could stay away from two such charming young ladies?” he
asked in a strangely softened voice.
Kitty, who had followed the Misses Gates into the hall, looked at her
chum in disgust. Azalea and Iris saw nothing amiss. One of them took his
hat and stick, the other his dripping coat.
Miss Azalea gazed admiringly at the cane which he bestowed upon her with
all the grace of a sleight-of-hand performer.
“How’s that?” he asked in self-satisfied tones as he twirled the stick
jauntily before handing it to the enraptured hostess.
“Oh, aren’t you clever, Ronald?”
“Well,” he shrugged his shoulders as if to appear very modest, “they do
say I’m a good entertainer.”
Iris shook the raindrops from his topcoat solicitously and hung it up to
dry on the antique coat rack in the corner.
“You know, I brought that cane over with me from Monte Carlo. That was my
lucky day. My side of the argument was right, as usual, so the cane fell
to my lot. I told the chap at the Casino how the play of a friend of mine
would come out, and of course it came out as I said it would. You
understand, ladies, that it was just a friendly little bet, nothing to
disturb one’s conscience,” hoping that these last words of his would
vindicate any doubts in their minds as to his moral standing. “A friendly
little wager,” he concluded, as with a wave of his hand he dismissed the
subject entirely.
For a minute or two they were so excited and flustered that they entirely
forgot the presence of the two girls. Recovering herself, Azalea turned
to introduce them.
“Doris,” she said, beaming happily, “I am sure this will be a pleasant
surprise for you. May I present Ronald Trent, the son of your long-lost
uncle?”
“Pleased to meet ’chu,’” the stranger mumbled.
Doris managed a perfunctory reply, but she really was too stunned to
consider what she was saying. She could not believe that she had heard
correctly, and after Kitty had acknowledged the introduction, she turned
to Azalea.
“Did I understand you to say Mr. Trent is a relative of mine?”
“Sure, your cousin,” the man broke in, before Azalea could answer. “Don’t
worry, kid. You and me will hit it off together.”
Doris could not trust herself to reply. She glanced toward Kitty and saw
the puzzled look in her eyes. What must her chum think!
“That man my cousin!” she thought dismally. “Oh, dear, I wish I hadn’t
found it out.”
“Well, we had a heavy shower, girlies,” boomed the new arrival as he
adjusted his glaring tie carefully, “but I found a chummy roadhouse with
a big welcome during the heaviest thunder. I certainly enjoy good
company.” He smacked his lips thoughtfully.
Kitty carefully kept her eyes turned away from her embarrassed chum. This
was an unexpected turn to events. She was more surprised and worried at
meeting this flashy stranger than she cared to have the group know.
Reared in a refined and cultured environment, she feared her family might
call her away at once, if they should become aware of the fact that such
a man as this one were to spend any time in the company of the girls. She
pictured the faculty at Barry Manor as being highly shocked and amazed
should anybody tell them that these two pupils were spending their
vacation in a place where they were obliged to associate with a person of
the type of Ronald Trent. Would she have to desert her friend and leave
for home on account of the sudden appearance of this relative of Doris?
Kitty pondered this matter seriously in her mind.
Doris was equally worried in her own way.
CHAPTER IX
A CONVERSATION OVERHEARD
The Misses Gates escorted Ronald Trent to the living room, forgetting in
their excitement that supper had not been finished. Doris and Kitty were
too polite to mention that they had not had their dessert.
“You girlies get prettier every day,” the man gushed, playfully
straightening Iris’s lace collar and slyly giving Azalea’s hand a
squeeze.
Iris giggled, and her sister cast down her eyes in confusion. Ronald
Trent winked at Doris and Kitty as much as to say: “How easy they fall!”
Iris and Azalea, unaware that they were appearing in a slightly
ridiculous light, continued to beam and to blush, listening intently to
every word Ronald Trent said, and laughing at everything which might be
remotely interpreted as a joke. Doris was completely disgusted at the way
the man was acting, and when he tried to cajole her into a more friendly
attitude, she could not hide her indifference. Azalea and Iris did not
notice how quiet she was, but Ronald Trent was aware of her attitude and
frowned slightly.
“What’s the matter, girlie?” he teased.
“Nothing,” Doris returned quietly.
She felt that if he continued to plague her she surely would disgrace
herself by saying something which would offend the Gates sisters. How
could they like such a man? He was cheap and coarse and obviously
insincere.
“Poor things,” she told herself. “They haven’t had much attention from
men and it flatters them.”
The tension was somewhat relieved when Iris asked Kitty if she could sing
or play the piano.
“I’m not in the least musical,” Kitty returned, “but Doris sings
beautifully.”
Upon being urged to entertain the group, Doris obediently went to the
piano. After looking over the music she selected a familiar piece, struck
a few chords, and began to sing. A hush fell over the group, and even
Ronald Trent, who was talking to Iris, became quiet.
“Lovely,” Azalea murmured when she had finished. “You have a wonderful
voice.”
“Pretty keen,” Ronald Trent agreed, “but can’t you sing something
livelier? I don’t like them church hymns.”
“You call those songs church hymns?” Doris asked with an amused smile.
“Really, if you want popular music, I can’t oblige you. My teacher
permits me to sing only classical.”
After she had left the piano, Ronald Trent launched into a lengthy tale
concerning his recent exploits in South America. In many particulars the
story did not hang together, and Doris and Kitty were bored. Iris and
Azalea were flattering listeners and, whenever he showed signs of
pausing, urged him on with interested questions.
As Doris listened, doubts began to form in her mind. It seemed
incomprehensible that this boasting, crude stranger could really be her
cousin. There must be a mistake, she told herself. Ronald Trent was _not_
a relative; of that she felt certain.
“Well, girlies, isn’t it about time you trundled off to your little
beds?” he asked, looking insinuatingly at Doris and Kitty.
“I imagine you girls are tired,” Azalea murmured. “If you like, I can
have Cora show you to your room.”
“Oh, we’re not sleepy yet,” Kitty said mischievously.
Ronald Trent fairly glared at her.
“Run along now,” he said lightly, but with a look which warned the girls
he expected to be obeyed. “I have some business to talk over with Iris
and Azalea.”
Iris rang for Cora, and the girls reluctantly followed her upstairs
through a long hall and down a number of steps into a wing which branched
off to the right. Cora showed them their room and left them alone.
“Looks as if we’re to be off in this wing all by ourselves,” Kitty said
uneasily. “This place is too spooky to suit me.”
The room was large and austere with long mirrors and an old-fashioned
four-poster bed and dresser. Several rag rugs were scattered over the
bare floor. Double windows looked down over the side veranda and the
branches of a sprawling maple tree brushed against the panes.
As a precautionary measure Kitty looked under the bed and peeped into the
closet.
“Wasn’t that man terrible?” Doris said, sitting down on the edge of the
bed. “And the way he sent us to bed just as though we were infants! Do
you think he really could be a cousin of mine?”
“I don’t see how he could be,” Kitty comforted. “He doesn’t look or act
like any of your relatives that I ever saw.”
“Well, I hope not! Wonder what he wants of
|
that the music does not admit the expressions "eat _up_," and "drink
_up_;" quoting from Haldorson's _Icelandic Lexicon_, Eysill, m.
Haustrum en Ose allsa; and asking what if Shakspeare meant either a
pump or a bucket? We have also received a Note from G. F. G. showing
that _eisel_ in Dutch, German, and Anglo-Saxon, &c., meant _vinegar_,
and stating, that during his residence in Florence in 1817, 1818, and
1819, he had often met with wormwood wine at the table of the Italians,
a weak white wine of Tuscany, in which wormwood had been infused, which
was handed round by the servants immediately after the soup, and was
believed to promote digestion.]
_Saxon Coin struck at Derby._--In the reign of Athelstan there was a royal
mint at Derby, and a coinage was struck, having on the obverse merely the
name of the town, Deoraby, and on the other side the legend "HEGENREDES MO
. ON. DEORABY." What is the meaning of this inscription?
R. C. P.
Derby, Feb. 26. 1851.
[If HEGENREDES is rightly written, it is the name of a moneyer. MO. ON
. DEORABY signifies _Monetarius_ (or Moneyer) _in Derby_. Coins are
known with MEGENFRED and MEGNEREDTES, and our correspondent may have
read his coin wrongly.]
* * * * *
Replies.
SCANDAL AGAINST QUEEN ELIZABETH.
(Vol. ii., p. 393.; Vol. iii., pp. 11. 151. 197.)
The Marquis of Ormonde having been informed that certain statements, little
complimentary to the reputation of Queen Elizabeth, and equally
discreditable to the name of his ancestor, Thomas, Earl of Ormonde, have
appeared in "NOTES AND QUERIES," wherein it is stated "that the Ormonde
family possess documents which afford proof of this," begs to assure the
editor of the journal in question, that the Ormonde collection of papers,
&c. contains nothing that bears the slightest reference to the very
calumnious attack on the character of good Queen Bess.
Hampton Court, March 17. 1851.
[If the Marquis of Ormonde will do us the favour to refer to our Number
for the 8th March (No. 71.), he will find he has not been correctly
informed with respect to the article to which his note relates. The
family in which the papers are stated to exist, is clearly not that of
the noble Marquis, but the family with which our correspondent "J. BS."
states himself to be "connected;" and we hope J. BS. will, in justice
both to himself and to Queen Elizabeth, adopt the course suggested in
the following communication. We believe the warmest admirers of that
great Queen cannot better vindicate her character than by making a
strict inquiry into the grounds for the scandals, which, as has been
already shown (_antè_, No. 62. p. 11.), were so industriously
circulated against her.]
{226}
J. BS. says papers are "said to exist in the family which prove the
statement." As it is one of _scandal_ against a female, and that female a
great sovereign, should he not ascertain the fact of the existence of any
such paper, before supporting the scandal, and not leave a _tradition_ to
be supported by another tradition, when a little trouble might show whether
any papers exist, and when found what their value may be.
Q. G.
* * * * *
THE MISTLETOE ON THE OAK.
(Vol. ii., pp. 163. 214.; Vol. iii., p. 192.)
From having been a diligent searcher for the mistletoe on the oak, I may be
allowed to make a few remarks upon the question. Is it ever found now on
other trees? Now, it not only occurs abundantly on other trees, but it is
exceedingly rare on the oak. This may be gathered from the following list,
in which numbers have been used to express comparative frequency, as near
as my observations enable me to form a judgment:--
_On Native Trees._
Apple (various sorts) 25
Poplar (mostly the black) 20
Whitethorn 10
Lime 4
Maple 3
Willow 2
OAK 1
_On Foreign Trees._
Sycamore 1
Robinia 1
From this it would appear that notwithstanding the BRITISH OAK grows
everywhere, it is at present only favoured by the companionship of the
mistletoe in equal ratio with two comparatively recently introduced trees.
Indeed such objection does this parasite manifest to the brave old tree,
even in his teens, that, notwithstanding a newly-planted line of mixed
trees will become speedily attacked by it, the oak is certain to be left in
his pride alone.
I have, however, seen the mistletoe on the oak in two instances during my
much wandering about amid country scenes, especially of Gloucester and
Worcester, two great mistletoe counties. One was pointed out to me by my
friend, Mr. Lees, from whom we may expect much valuable information on this
subject, in his forthcoming edition of the _Botanical Looker-out_--it was
on a young tree, perhaps of fifty years, in Eastnor Park, on the Malvern
chain. The other example is at Frampton-on-Severn, to which the President
of the Cotteswold Naturalists' Club, T. B. L. Baker, Esq., and myself, were
taken by Mr. Clifford, of Frampton. The tree is full a century old, and the
branch, on which was a goodly bunch of the parasite, numbered somewhere
about forty years. That the plant is propagated by seeds there can, I
think, be but little doubt, as the seeds are so admirably adapted for the
peculiar circumstances under which alone they can propagate; and the want
of attention to the facts connected therewith, is probably the cause why
the propagation of the mistletoe by artificial means is usually a failure.
I should be inclined to think that the mistletoe never was abundant on the
oak; so that it may be that additional sanctity was conferred on the
_Viscum guerneum_ on account of its great rarity.
JAMES BUCKMAN.
Cirencester.
_Mistletoe upon Oak_ (Vol. ii., p. 214.).--Besides the mistletoe-bearing
oak mentioned by your correspondent, there is one in Lord Somers' park,
near Malvern. It is a very fine plant, though it has been injured by
sight-seeing marauders.
H. A. B.
Trinity College, Cambridge.
_Mistletoe_ (Vol. ii., pp. 163., 214.).--Do I understand your correspondent
to ask whether mistletoe is found now except on oaks? The answer is, as at
St. Paul's, "Circumspice." Just go into the country a little. The
difficulty is generally supposed to be to find it _on_ the oak.
C. B.
* * * * *
UNIVERSALITY OF THE MAXIM, "LAVORA COME SE TU," ETC.
(Vol. iii., p. 188.)
I have not been able to trace this sentence to its source, but it would
most probably be found in that admirable book, _Monosinii Floris Italicæ
Linguæ_, 4to, Venet., 1604; or in Torriano's _Dictionary of Italian
Proverbs and Phrases_, folio, Lond., 1666, a book of which Duplessis doubts
the existence! Most of Jeremy Taylor's citations from the Italian are
proverbial phrases. Your correspondent has probably copied the phrase as it
stands in Bohn's edition of the _Holy Living and Dying_, but there is a
trifling variation as it stands in the first edition of _Holy Living_,
1650:--
"Lavora come se tu _havesti_ a campar ogni hora:
Adora come se tu _havesti_ a morir _alhora_."
The universality of this maxim, in ages and countries remote from each
other, is remarkable. Thus we find it in the HITOPADÉSA:
"A wise man should think upon knowledge and wealth as if he were
undecaying and immortal. He should practise duty as if he were seized
by the hair of his head by Death."--Johnson's _Translation_, Intr. S.
So Democratis of Abdera, more sententiously:
"[Greek: Houtos peirô zên, hôs kai oligon kai polun chronon
biôsomenos]."
Then descending to the fifteenth century, we {227} have it thus in the racy
old Saxon _Laine Doctrinal_:
"Men schal leven, unde darumme sorgen,
Alse men Stärven sholde morgen,
Unde leren êrnst liken,
Alse men leven sholde ewigliken."
Where the author of the _Voyage autour de ma Chambre_, Jean Xavier Maitre,
stumbled upon it, or whether it was a spontaneous thought, does not appear;
but in his pleasing little book, _Lettres sur la Vieillesse_, we have it
thus verbatim:
"Il faut vivre comme si l'on avoit à mourir demain, mais s'arranger en
même temps sa vie, autant que cet arrangement peut dépendre de notre
prévoyance, comme si l'on avoit devant soi quelques siècles, et même
une éternité d'existence."
Some of your correspondents may possibly be able to indicate other
repetitions of this truly "golden sentence," which cannot be too often
repeated, for we all know that
"A verse may reach him who a sermon flies."
S. W. SINGER.
* * * * *
Replies to Minor Queries.
_Tennyson's In Memoriam_ (Vol. iii., p. 142.).--
"Before the crimson-circled star
Had fallen into her father's grave."
means "before the planet Venus had sunk into the sea."
In Smith's _Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology_, under
the word Aphrodite or Venus, we find that--
"Some traditions stated that she had sprung from the foam ([Greek:
aphros]) of the sea which had gathered around the mutilated parts of
Uranus, that had been thrown into the sea by Kronos, after he had
unmanned his father."--Hesiod. _Theog._ 190.
The allusion in the first stanza of _In Memoriam_ is, I think, to Shelley.
The doctrine referred to is common to him and many other poets; but he
perhaps inculcates it more frequently than any other. (See _Queen Mab_ sub
finem. _Revolt of Islam_, canto xii. st. 17. _Adonais_, stanzas 39. 41. et
passim.) Besides this, the phrase "clear harp" seems peculiarly applicable
to Shelley, who is remarkable for the simplicity of his language.
X. Z.
_Tennyson's In Memoriam._--The word _star_ applies in poetry to all the
heavenly bodies; and therefore, to the _crescent moon_, which is often near
enough to the sun to be within or to be _encircled_ by, the crimson colour
of the sky about sunset; and the sun may, figuratively, be called _father_
of the moon, because he dispenses to her all the light with which she
shines; and, moreover, because _new_, or waxing moons, must _set_ nearly in
the same point of the horizon as the sun; and because that point of the
horizon in which a heavenly body sets, may, figuratively, be called its
_grave_; therefore, I believe the last two lines of the stanza of the poem
numbered lxxxvii., or 87, in Tennyson's _In Memoriam_, quoted by W. B. H.,
to mean simply--
_We returned home between the hour of sunset and the setting of the moon,
then not so much as a week old._
ROBERT SNOW.
_Bishop Hooper's Godly Confession, &c._ (Vol. iii., p. 169.).--The Rev.
CHARLES NEVINSON may be informed that there are two copies of the edition
of the above work for which he inquires, in the library of Trinity College,
Dublin.
TYRO.
Dublin.
_Machell's MS. Collections for Westmoreland and Cumberland_ (Vol. iii., p.
118.).--In reply to the inquiry of EDWARD F. RIMBAULT, that gentleman may
learn the extent to which the _Machell MS. collections of the Rev. Thomas
Machell, who was chaplain to King Charles II._, have been examined, and
published, by referring, to Burn and Nicholson's _History of Westmoreland
and Cumberland_, edit. 1778. A great part of the MS. is taken up with an
account of the antiquary's own family, the "Mali Catuli," or Machell's
Lords of Crakenthorpe in Westmoreland. the papers in the library of
Carlisle contain only copies and references to the original papers, which
are carefully preserved by the present representatives of the family. There
are above one thousand deeds, charters, and other documents which I have
carefully translated and collated with a view to their being printed
privately for the use of the family, and I shall feel pleasure in replying
to any inquiry on the subject. Address:
G.P. at the Post Office, Barrow upon Humber, Lincolnshire.
Two impressions of the seal of the Abbey of Shapp (anciently Hepp), said
not to be attainable by the editors of the late splendid edition of the
_Monasticon_, are preserved in the Machell MSS.
_Oration against Demosthenes_ (Vol. iii., p. 141.).--For the information of
your correspondent KENNETH R. H. MACKENZIE, I transcribe the title of the
oration against Demosthenes, for which he makes inquiry, which was not
"privately printed" as he supposes, but _published_ last year by Mr. J. W.
Parker.
"The Oration of Hyperides against Demosthenes, respecting the Treasure
of Harpalus. The Fragments of the Greek Text, now first edited from the
Fac-simile of the MS. discovered at Egyptian Thebes in 1847; together
with other Fragments of the same Oration cited in Ancient Writers. With
a Preliminary Dissertation and Notes, and a Fac-simile of a Portion of
the MS. By Churchill Babington, M.A. London: J. W. Parker, 1850."
The discovery of the MS. was made by Mr. {228} A. C. Harris of Alexandria,
who placed a fac-simile in the hand of Mr. Churchill Babington, who edited
it as above described.
My information is derived from an article on the work in the _Christian
Remembrancer_ for October, 1850, to which I refer MR. MACKENZIE for further
particulars.
TYRO.
Dublin
[MR. EDWARD SHEARE JACKSON, B.A., to whom we are indebted for a similar
reply, adds, "Mr. Harris contributed a paper on the MS. to the Royal
Society of Literature"]
Mr. Sharpe has also published "Fragments of Orations in Accusation and
Defence of Demosthenes, respecting the money of Harpalus, arranged and
translated," in the _Journal of the Philological Society_, vol. iv.; and
the German scholars Boeckh (in the _Hallische Litteratur-Zeitung_ for 1848)
and Sauppe have also written critical notices on the fragments; but whether
their notices include the old and new fragments, I am unable to say, having
only met with a scanty reference to their learned labours.
J. M.
Oxford.
_Borrow's Danish Ballads_ (Vol. iii., p. 168).--The following is the title
of Mr. Borrow's book, referred to by BRUNO:--
"Targum; or, Metrical Translations from Thirty Languages and Dialects.
By George Borrow. 'The Raven ascended to the Nest of the
Nightingale.'--Persian Poem. St. Petersburgh. Printed by Schulz and
Beneze. 1835."
R. W. F.
_Borrow's Danish Ballads._--The title of the work is--
"Romantic Ballads, translated from the Danish, and Miscellaneous
Pieces; by George Borrow. 8vo. Printed by S. Wilkin, Norwich; and
published at London by John Taylor, 1826."
In the preface it is stated that the ballads are translated from
Oehlenslöger, and from the _Kiæmpé Viser_, the old Norse book referred to
in _Lavengro_.
[mu].
_Head of the Saviour_ (Vol. iii., p. 168.).--The correspondent who inquires
about the "true likeness" of the Saviour exposed in some of the London
print-shops, is not perhaps aware that there is preserved in the church of
St. Peter's at Rome a much more precious and genuine portrait than the one
to which he alludes--a likeness described by its possessors as "far more
sublime and venerable than any other, since it was neither painted by the
hands of men nor angels, but by the divinity himself who makes both men and
angels." It is not delineated upon wood or canvass, ivory, glass, or
stucco, but upon "a pocket handkerchief lent him by a holy woman named
Veronica, to wipe his face upon at the crucifixion" (Aringhi, _Roma
Subterran._, vol. ii. p. 543.). When the handkerchief was returned it had
this genuine portrait imprinted on its surface. It is now one of the
holiest of relics preserved in the Vatican basilica, where there is
likewise a magnificent altar constructed by Urban VIII., with an
inscription commemorating the fact, a mosaic above, illustrative of the
event, and a statue of the holy female who received the gift, and who is
very properly inscribed in the Roman catalogue of saints under the title of
ST. VERONICA. All this is supported by "pious tradition," and attested by
authorities of equal value to those which establish the identity of St.
Peter's chair. The only difficulty in the matter lies in this, that the
woman Veronica never had any corporeal existence, being no other than the
name by which the picture itself was once designated, viz., the VERA ICON,
or "True Image" (Mabillon, _Iter. Ital._, p. 88.). This narrative will
probably relieve your correspondent from the trouble of further inquiries
by enabling him to judge for himself whether "there is any truth" about the
other true image.
A. R., Jun.
In your 70th Number I perceived that some correspondent asked, "What is the
truth respecting a legend attached to the head of our Saviour for some time
past in the print-shops?" I ask the same question. True or false, I found
in a work entitled _The Antiquarian Repertory_, by Grose, Astle, and
others, vol. iii., an effigy of our Saviour, much inferior in all respects
to the above, with the following attached:--
"This present figure is the similitude of our Lord [=IHV], oure Saviour
imprinted in amirvld by the predecessors of the greate turke, and sent
to the Pope Innosent the 8. at the cost of the greate turke for a token
for this cawse, to redeme his brother that was taken presonor."
This was painted on board. The Rev. Thomas Thurlow, of Baynard's Park,
Guildford, has another painted on board with a like inscription, to the
best of my recollection: his has a date on it, I think.
Pope Innocent VIII. was created Pope in 1484, and died in 1492.
The variation in the three effigies is an argument against the truth of the
story, or the two on board must have been ill-executed. That in the shops
is very beautiful.
The same gentleman possesses a Bible, printed by Robert Barker, and by the
assignees of John Bill, 1633; and on a slip of paper is, "Holy Bible
curiously bound in tapestry by the nuns of Little Gidding, 12mo., Barker."
In a former Number a person replies that a Bible, bound by the nuns of
Gidding for Charles I., now belongs to the Marquis of Salisbury. Query the
_size of that_?
E. H.
Norwich, March 9.
{229}
_Lady Bingham_ (Vol. iii., p. 61.).--If C. W. B. will refer to the
supplementary volume of Burke's _Landed Gentry_, p. 159, he will see that
Sarah, daughter of John Heigham, of Giffords Hall, co. Suffolk (son of
William Heigham, of Giffords, second son of Clement Heigham, of Giffords,
second son of Thomas Heigham, of Heigham, co. Suffolk) married, first, Sir
Richard Bingham, Knt., of Melcombe Bingham, co. Dorset, governor of
Connaught in 1585, &c.; and secondly, Edward Waldegrave, of Lawford, co.
Essex. This, I presume, is the lady whose maiden name he enquires for.
C. R. M.
_Shakepeare's Use of Captious_ (Vol. ii., p. 354.).--In _All's Well that
Ends Well_, Act I. Sc. 3.:
"I know I love in vain; strive against hope;
Yet in this _captious_ and intenible sieve,
I still pour in the waters of my love,
And lack not to lose still:"
has not MR. SINGER, and all the other commentators upon this passage,
overlooked a most apparent and satisfactory solution? Is it not evident
that the printer simply omitted the vowel "a," and that the word, as
written by Shakespeare, was "cap_a_tious," the "t," according to the
orthography of the time, being put for the "c" used by modern writers?
With great deference to former critics, I think this emendation is the most
probable, as it accords with the sentiment of Helena, who means to depict
her _vast_ but unretentive sieve, into which she poured the waters of her
love.
W. F. S.
P.S.--I hope MR. SINGER and J. S. W. will tell us what they think of this
proposed alteration.
Bognor, Feb, 22. 1851.
_Tanthony_ (Vol. iii., p. 105.).--I would suggest that the "tanthony" at
Kimbolton is a corruption or mis-pronunciation of "tintany,"
_tintinnabulum_. I have failed to discover any legend of St. Anthony,
confirmatory of ARUN'S suggestion.
A.
Newark, Notts., Feb. 12.
_By the bye_ (Vol. iii., p 73.).--Is your correspondent S. S. not aware
that the phrase "Good bye" is a contraction of our ancestors' more
devotional one of "God be wi' ye!"
D. P. W.
Rotherhithe, Jan. 21. 1851.
_Lama Beads_ (Vol. iii., p. 115.).--It is a pretty bold assertion that Lama
beads are derived from the Lamas of Asia. _Lamma_, according to Jamieson,
is simply the Scotch for _amber_. He says _Lamertyn steen_ means the same
in Teutonic. I do not find it in Wachter's _Lexicon_.
Your correspondent's note is a curious instance of the inconvenience of
half quotation. He says the Lamas are an order of priests among the Western
Tartars. I was surprised at this, since their chief strength, as everybody
knows, is in Thibet. On referring to Rees's _Cyclopædia_, I found that the
words are taken from thence; but they are not wrong there, since, by the
context they have reference to China.
C. B.
_Language given to Men, &c._ (Vol. i., p. 83.).--The saying that language
was given to men to conceal their thoughts is generally fathered upon
Talleyrand at present. I did not know it was in Goldsmith; but the real
author of it was Fontenelle.
C. B.
_Daresbury, the White Chapel of England_ (Vol. iii., p. 60.).--This
_jeu-d'esprit_ was an after-dinner joke of a learned civilian, not less
celebrated for his wit than his book-lore. Some stupid blockhead inserted
it in the newspapers, and it is now unfortunately chronicled in your
valuable work. It is not at all to be wondered at that "the people in the
neighbourhood know nothing on the subject."
ECHO.
_Holland Land_ (Vol. ii., pp. 267. 345.; Vol. iii., pp. 30. 70.).--Were not
the Lincolnshire estates of Count Bentinck, a Dutch nobleman who came over
with William III., and the ancestor of the late Lord George Bentinck, M.P.
for Lynn Regis, denominated _Little Holland_, which he increased by
reclaiming large portions in the Dutch manner from the Wash?
E. S. TAYLOR.
_Passage in the Tempest_ (Vol. ii., p. 259, &c.).--I do not profess to
offer an opinion as to the right reading; but with reference to the
suggestion of A. E. B. (p. 338.) that it means--
"Most busy when least I do it,"
or--
"Most busy when least employed,"
allow me to refer you to the splendid passage in the _De Officiis_, lib.
iii. cap. i., where Cicero expresses the same idea:--
"Pub. Scipionem,... eum, qui primus Africanus appellatus sit, dicere
solitum scripsit Cato,... _Nunquam se minus otiosum esse, quam cum
otiosus_; nec minus solum, quam cum solus esset. Magnifica vero vox, et
magno viro, ac sapiente digna; quæ declarat, illum et in otio de
negotiis cogitare, et in solitudine secum loqui solitum: ut neque
cessaret unquam, et interdum colloquio alterius non egeret."
ACHE.
_Damasked Linen_ (Vol. iii., p. 13.).--I believe it has always been
customary to damask the linen used by our royal family with appropriate
devices. I have seen a cloth of Queen Anne's, with the "A. R." in double
cypher, surrounded by buds and flowers; and have myself a cloth with a view
of London, and inscribed "Der Konig Georg II.," which was purchased at
Brentford, no doubt having come from Kew adjoining.
H. W. D.
_Straw Necklaces_ (Vol. ii., p. 511.).--Having only lately read the "NOTES
AND QUERIES" (in fact, this being the first number subscribed for), I do
not know the previous allusion. It makes me mention a curious custom at
Carlisle, of the {230} servants who wish to be hired going into the
marketplace of Carlisle, or as they call it "Carel," with a straw in their
mouths. It is fast passing away, and _now_, instead of keeping the straw
constantly in the mouth, they merely put it in a few seconds if they see
any one looking at them. Anderson, in his _Cumberland Ballads_, alludes to
the custom:--
"At Carel I stuid wi' a strae i' my mouth,
The weyves com roun me in clusters:
'What weage dus te ax, canny lad?' says yen."
H. W. D.
_Library of the Church of Westminster_ (Vol. iii., p. 152.).--The statement
here quoted from the _Délices de la Grande Bretagne_ is scarcely likely to
be correct. We all know how prone foreigners are to misapprehension, and
therefore, how unsafe it is to trust to their observations. In this case,
may not the description of the _Bibliothèque Publique_, which was open
night and morning, during the sittings of the courts of justice, have
originated merely from the rows of booksellers' stalls in Westminster-hall?
J. G. N.
_The Ten Commandments_ (Vol. iii., p. 166.).--Waterland (vol. vi. p. 242.,
2nd edition, Oxford, 1843) gives a copy of the Decalogue taken from an old
MS. In this the first two commandments are embodied in one. Leighton, in
his _Exposition of the Ten Commandments_, when speaking on the point of the
manner of dividing them, refers in a vague manner to Josephus and Philo.
R. V.
_Sitting crosslegged to avert Evil_ (Vol. ii.,p. 407.).--Browne says:--
"To set crosselegg'd, or with our fingers pectinated or shut together,
is accounted bad, and friends will perswade us from it. The same
conceit religiously possessed the ancients, as is observable from
Pliny: 'Poplites alternis genibus imponere nefas olim;' and also from
Athenæus, that it was an old veneficious practice."--_Vulg. Err._, lib.
v. cap. xxi. § 9.
ACHE.
_George Steevens_ (Vol. iii., p. 119.).--A. Z. wishes to know whether a
memoir of George Steevens, the Shakspearian commentator, was ever
published, and what has become of the manuscripts.
I believe the late Sir James Allen Park wrote his life, but whether for
public or private circulation I cannot tell.
The late George Steevens had a relative, a Mrs. Collinson, and daughters
who lived with him at Hampstead, and with him when he died, in Jan. 1800.
Miss Collinson married a Mr. Pyecroft, whose death, I think, is in the
_Gentleman's Magazine_ for this month: perhaps the Pyecroft family may give
information respecting the manuscripts.
"The house he lived in at Hampstead, called the Upper Flask, was
formerly a place of public entertainment near the summit of Hampstead
Hill. Here Richardson sends his Clarissa in one of her escapes from
Lovelace. Here, too, the celebrated Kit-Cat Club used to meet in the
summer months; and here, after it became a private abode, the no less
celebrated George Steevens lived and died."--Vide Park's _Hampstead_,
pp. 250. 352.
I just recollect Mr. Steevens, who was very kind to us, as children. My
mother, who is an octogenarian, remembers him well, and says he always took
a nosegay, tied to the top of his cane, every day to Sir Joseph Banks.
JULIA R. BOCKETT.
Southcote Lodge, near Reading.
_The Waistcoat bursted, &c._ (Vol. ii., p. 505.).--The general effect of
melancholy: digestion is imperfectly performed, and melancholy patients
generally complain of being "blown up." BODVAR'S "blowing up," on the
contrary, is the mere effect of the generation of gases in a dead body,
well illustrated by a floating dead dog on the river side, or the bursting
of a leaden coffin.
H. W. D.
_Love's Labour's Lost_ (Vol. iii., p. 163.).--Your correspondent has very
neatly and ably made out how the names of the ladies ought to have been
placed; but the error is the poet's, not the printer's. It is impossible to
conceive how, in printing or transcribing, such a mistake should arise; the
names are quite unlike, and several lines distant from one another. Such
forgetfulness is not very uncommon in poets, especially those of the
quickest and liveliest spirit. It is the old mistake of Bentley and other
commentators, to think that whatever is wrong must be spurious. These, too,
we must recollect, are fictitious characters.
C. W. B.
* * * * *
Miscellaneous.
NOTES ON BOOKS, SALES, CATALOGUES, ETC.
Agreeing with Mr. Lower, that they who desire to know the truth as to the
earlier periods of our national history, will do wisely to search for it
among the mists and shadows of antiquity, and rather collect it for
themselves out of the monkish chronicles than accept the statements of
popular historiographers, we receive with great satisfaction the addition
to our present list of translations of such chronicles, which Mr. Lower has
given us in _The Chronicle of Battel Abbey from 1066 to 1176, now first
translated, with Notes, and an Abstract of the subsequent History of the
Establishment_. The original Chronicle, which is preserved among the
Cottonian MSS., though known to antiquaries and historians, was never
committed to the press until the year 1846, when it was printed by the
_Anglia Christiana Society_ from a transcript made by the late Mr. Petrie.
Mr. Lower's translation has been made from that edition; and though
undertaken by him as an illustration of local history, will be found well
deserving the perusal of the general reader, not only from the light it
throws upon the Norman invasion and upon the {231} history of the abbey
founded by the Conqueror in fulfilment of his vow, but also for the
pictures it exhibits of the state of society during the period which it
embraces.
BOOKS RECEIVED.--_The Embarrassment of the Clergy in the Matter of Church
Discipline._ Two ably written letters by Presbyter Anglicanus, reprinted,
by request, from the _Morning Post_;--_Ann Ash, or the Foundling_, by the
_Author of 'Charlie Burton' and 'The Broken Arm.'_ If not quite equal to
_Charlie Burton_, and there are few children's stories which are so, it is
a tale well calculated to sustain the writer's well-deserved
reputation;--_Burns and his Biographers, being a Caveat to Cavillers, or an
Earnest Endeavour to clear the Cant and Calumnies which, for half a
Century, have clung, like Cobwebs, round the Tomb of Robert Burns._
Messrs. Sotheby and Wilkinson, of 93. Wellington Street, Strand, will sell
on Monday next, and five following days, the valuable Library of the late
Mr. Andrews of Bristol, containing, besides a large collection of works of
high character and repute, some valuable Historical, Antiquarian, and
Heraldic Manuscripts.
CATALOGUES RECEIVED.--John Gray Bell's (17. Bedford Street, Covent Garden)
Catalogue of Autograph Letters and other Documents; John Alex. Wilson's
(20. Upper Kirkgate, Aberdeen) Catalogue of Cheap Books, many Rare and
Curious; E. Stibbs' (331. Strand) Catalogue Part III. of Books in all
Languages.
* * * * *
BOOKS AND ODD VOLUMES
|
such a measure. On the contrary, they are not fond
of uniformity, because, under that pretext, many inroads have of late
years been made upon laws and institutions which hitherto have worked
well, and against which, intrinsically, it was impossible to bring
any tangible ground of complaint. Nor is it without some reason that
they view with jealousy that endless multiplication of offices which
the Whigs seem determined to effect. No doubt it is convenient for a
political leader to extend the sphere of his patronage; but the public
have, at the present time, too many stringent motives for economy,
to acquiesce in the creation of a new staff as the indispensable
consequence of every ministerial bill. They do not want to be visited
by a fresh flight of locusts, whose period of occupation is to be
everlasting, whenever it is thought expedient to make some change
in the form and not the essence of our institutions. And therefore
it is that the Registration, apart altogether from its connexion
with the Marriage Bill, has been regarded as a measure not strictly
objectionable in principle, but exceedingly ill-timed, inconvenient,
and unlikely to produce any results commensurate with the cost which it
must entail.
We believe that the above is a fair statement of the public feeling
with regard to the Registration Bill; but, notwithstanding all these
objections, it might very possibly have been carried had it stood
alone. The ministerial phalanx in the House of Commons would probably
have regarded the advantages of uniformity as a thorough answer to the
arguments which might be adduced on the other side; and English members
might naturally have been slow to discover any valid objections to
the extension of a system already in full operation within their own
domestic bounds. But the promoters of the bill had, at the very outset,
to encounter a difficulty of no ordinary weight and magnitude. That
difficulty arose from the peculiar position of the law of Scotland with
regard to marriage. There could be no mistake about births and death,
for these are distinct contingencies; but how to register marriages,
which required no legal formality at all, save consent, to render them
binding, was indeed a puzzle, which even the wisest of the innovators
could not pretend to solve. There stood the law as it had done for
ages; not demanding any ceremony to render the deliberate consent of
contracting parties binding; shielding the weaker sex against the
machinations of fraud, and interposing an effectual barrier to the
designs of the unscrupulous seducer. There it stood, so merciful in its
provisions that it left open a door to reparation and repentance, and
did not render it imperative that the birthright of the child should be
irretrievably sacrificed on account of the error of the parents. At the
same time, that law drew, or rather established, a wide distinction
in point of character between regular and irregular marriages. It
had wrought so upon the people that instances of the latter were of
comparatively rare occurrence, except, perhaps, upon the Border, which
was crossed by English parties, less scrupulous in their feelings of
decorum. Irregular marriages were discountenanced by the church, not by
the establishment only, but by every religious body; and, to constitute
a regular marriage, publication of the banns was required. No complaint
had been heard from Scotland against the law; on the contrary, it was
considered, both by jurists and by the people, as equitable in its
principle, and less liable than that of other nations to abuse in the
mode of its operation.
The existence of this law effectually interfered with the establishment
of such a system of registration as was contemplated by the reforming
Whigs. So long as it stood intact, their efforts in behalf of
uniformity, additional taxation, and increased patronage, were
hopeless; and no alternative remained save the desperate one of
deliberately smiting down the law. It was not difficult for men so
purposed and inspired to find out defects in the marriage law, for
never yet was law framed by human wisdom in which some defect could
not be detected. It was, first of all, urged, that the state of the
Scottish law gave undue encouragement to the contract of Gretna-green
marriages by fugitive English couples. The answer to that was
obvious--Pass a law prohibiting such marriages until, by residence,
English parties have obtained a Scottish domicile. That would at once
have obviated any such ground of complaint, and such a measure actually
was introduced to parliament by Lord Brougham in 1835, but never was
carried through. Next, the whole fabric of the law was assailed.
The facilities given to the contraction of irregular marriages were
denounced as barbarous and disgraceful to any civilised country. Old
cases were raked up to show the uncertainty of the law itself, and the
difficulty of ascertaining who were and who were not married persons.
According to one noble and learned authority, the time of the House of
Peers, while sitting in its judicial capacity, was grievously occupied
in considering cases which arose out of the anomalous condition of
the Scottish law with regard to marriage; and yet, upon referring
to an official return, it appeared very plainly that, for the last
seventeen or eighteen years, only six cases of declarator of marriage
or legitimacy had been brought before that august tribunal, and that
of these six, three had no connexion with the subject-matter of the
proposed bill! Lord Brougham, who entertains strong opinions on the
subject, felt himself compelled to admit, in evidence, that most of
the hypothetical abuses which might take place under the existing
system, did not, in practice, occur amongst natives and residenters in
Scotland. Lord Brougham is to this extent a Malthusian, that he thinks
minors ought to be, in some way or other, protected against the danger
of an over-hasty marriage. His lordship's sympathies are strongly
enlisted in behalf of the youthful aristocracy, more especially of
the male sex; and he seems to regard Scotland as an infinitely more
dangerous place of residence for a young man of rank and fortune than
Paris or Vienna. In the latter places, the morals may be sapped, but
personal liberty is preserved; in the former, the heir-expectant is not
safe, for at any moment he is liable to be trapped like vermin. The
red-haired daughters of the Gael, thinks Lord Brougham, are ever on the
watch for the capture of some plump and unsuspecting squire. Penniless
lads and younger sons may be insured at a reasonable rate against the
occurrence of the matrimonial calamity, but wary indeed must be the
eldest son who can escape the _perfervidum ingenium Scotarum_. This
is, no doubt, an amusing picture, and the leading idea might be worked
out to great advantage in a novel or a farce; but, unfortunately, it
is not drawn from the usual occurrences of life. Isolated cases of
hasty marriages may, no doubt, have taken place, but our memory does
not supply us with a single instance of a clandestine marriage having
been contracted under such circumstances as the above. In Scotland, a
stranger may, for the base purposes of seduction, pledge his solemn
faith to a woman, and so obtain possession of her person. If he does
so, the law most justly interferes to prevent him resiling from his
contract, and declares that he is as completely bound by the simple
interchange of consenting vows, as though he had solicited and received
the more formal benediction of the priest. Will any man gravely
maintain that in such a case the tenor of the law is hurtful to morals,
or prejudicial to the interests of society? Even if the woman should
happen to be of inferior rank in life to the intending seducer, is she
on that account to be consigned to shame, and the man permitted to
violate his engagement, and escape the consequences of his dastardly
fraud? In England, it is notorious to every one, and the daily press
teems with instances, that seduction under promise of marriage is a
crime of ordinary occurrence. We call it a crime, for though it may not
be so branded by statute, seduction under promise of marriage is as
foul an act as can well be perpetrated by man. In Scotland, seduction
under such circumstances is next to impossible. The Scottish people
are not without their vices, but seduction is not one of these; and we
firmly believe that the existing law of marriage has operated here as
an effectual check to that license which is far too common in England.
Would it be wise, then, to remove that check, when no flagrant abuse,
no common deviation even from social distinctions, can be urged against
it? If seduction does not prevail in Scotland, still less do hasty and
unequal marriages. Lord Brougham is constrained to admit that it is
most unusual for Scottish heirs, or persons possessed of large estates,
or the heirs to high honours, to contract irregular marriages when in
a state of minority. The law, in the opinion of Lord Brougham, may be
theoretically bad, but its very badness raises a protection against
its own mischiefs--it ceases, in fact, to do any harm, because the
consequences which it entails are clearly and generally understood.
We confess that, according to our apprehension, a law which is
theoretically bad, but practically innocuous, is decidedly preferable
to one which may satisfy theorists, but which, when we come to apply
it, is productive of actual evil. It requires no great stretch of legal
ingenuity to point out possible imperfections in the best law that ever
was devised by the wit of man. That is precisely what the advocates of
the present measure have attempted to do with the established marriage
law of Scotland; but when they are asked to specify the practical evils
resulting from it, they are utterly driven to the wall, and forced to
take refuge under the convenient cover of vague and random generalities.
It is said that, under the operation of the present law, persons
in Scotland may be left in doubt whether they are married or not.
This is next thing to an entire fallacy, for though there have been
instances of women claiming the married status in consequence of
a habit-and-repute connexion, without distinct acknowledgment of
matrimony, such cases are remarkably rare, and never can occur save
under most peculiar circumstances. The distinction between concubinage
and matrimony is quite as well established in Scotland as elsewhere.
Nothing short of absolute public recognition, so open and avowed
that there can be no doubt whatever of the position of the parties,
can supply the place of that formal expressed consent which is the
proper foundation of matrimony. If the consent once has been given,
if the parties have seriously accepted each other for spouses, or if
a promise has been given, _subsequente copulâ_, there is an undoubted
marriage, and the parties themselves cannot be ignorant of their mutual
relationship. It is, however, quite true that proof may be wanting.
It is possible to conceive cases in which the contract cannot be
legally established, and in which the actual wife may be defrauded
of her conjugal rights. But granting all this, why should the whole
character of marriage be changed on account of possible cases of
deficient evidence? For if this bill were to pass into law, consent
must necessarily cease to be the principal element of marriage. No
marriage could be contracted at all unless parties went either before
the priest or the registrar; and the fact of the mutual contract would
be ignored without the addition of the imposed formality. Upon this
point the commentary of Mr M'Neill seems to us peculiarly lucid and
quite irresistible in its conclusions.
"The law of Scotland being now as heretofore, that consent,
given in the way he had described, makes marriage--that it
is, in the language of Archbishop Cranmer, 'beyond all doubt
_ipsum matrimonium_'--the present bill says that henceforth
it shall not make marriage, whatever may have followed upon
it, unless the consent is given in presence of a clergyman, or
by signing the register. It does not say that all marriages
must be celebrated in presence of a clergyman; but, professing
to recognise the principle that consent, though not given in
presence of a clergyman, may constitute marriage, it says that
the consent shall be of non-avail whatever may have followed
upon it, unless it was given in the particular form of signing
the register, and can be there pointed out. No matter how
deliberately the consent may have been interchanged, and how
completely susceptible of proof. No matter although the parties
may have lived all their lives as man and wife--may have so
published themselves to the world every day, by acts a thousand
times more public than any entry in a register can possibly
be--by a course of life more clearly indicating deliberate and
continued purpose than a single entry in a register can do. All
that shall not avail them or their families; they are to be
denied the rights and privileges of legitimacy unless they can
point to their names in the journal kept by the registrar. To
borrow the language of a high authority, relied upon in support
of the bill, 'It may be according to the law of Scotland that
it is a complete marriage, and so it may be by the law of
God; but if the woman is put to prove that marriage after the
birth of children, of that she is or may be without proof.'
_That which, by the law of Scotland and by the law of God, is
a marriage, the people of Scotland wish to be allowed to prove
by all the evidence of which it is susceptible._ They do not
wish that parties should be allowed to escape from such solemn
obligations undertaken towards each other, to their offspring,
and to society. They are unwilling that any man should be
enabled, with the confidence of perfect impunity, to impose
upon an unsuspecting community, by wearing a mask of pretended
matrimony, behind which is concealed the reality of vice. I do
not wonder that the people of Scotland have no liking to this
measure. There may occasionally be cases in which the proof
of marriage is attended with difficulty; and so there may be
with regard to any matter of fact whatever. So there may be
in regard to the fact of marriage under the proposed bill,
even where the marriage has been celebrated in the most solemn
manner in presence of a clergyman. Occasional difficulty of
proof is not a satisfactory or adequate reason for so great a
change in the law. Certainty is desirable in all transactions,
and is especially desirable in regard to marriage; and the
means of preserving evidence of such contracts is also
desirable; but although these objects are desirable, they
should not be prized so highly, or pursued so exclusively, as
to endanger other advantages not less valuable."
We think it is impossible for any one to peruse the foregoing
extract from the speech of the Dean of Faculty, without being
forcibly impressed by the soundness and strength of his argument.
He is not contending against registration; he simply demands that
through no pedantic desire for uniformity or precision, shall the
general principle of the law of Scotland regarding marriage be
virtually repealed. We are indeed surprised to find a lawyer of great
professional reputation attributing to the established clergy of the
Church of Scotland a desire to arrogate to themselves the functions
of the Church of Rome, whilst, in the same breath, he asks the
legislature to constitute itself into an ecclesiastical court, and to
enact new preliminaries, without the observance of which there shall
henceforward be no marriage at all. If the old principle of the law is
to be abandoned, if consent is no longer to be held as sufficient for
the contraction of a marriage, but if some further ceremony or means
of publication are thought to be essential, we have no hesitation in
saying that we would infinitely prefer the proscription and annulment
of all marriages which are not performed _in facie ecclesiæ_, with
the previous proclamation of the banns, to a hybrid measure such as
this, which neither declares marriage to be the proper subject of
ecclesiastical function, nor permits it to remain a civil contract
which may be established and proved by any mode of evidence within the
reach of either of the parties. If marriage is not a sacrament, but a
civil contract, why take it out of the operation of the common law? Why
make it null without the observance of certain civil ceremonies, unless
it is intended virtually to confer upon the legislature regulating
powers which have been claimed by none of the reformed churches,
and which, when arrogated by that of Rome, have been bitterly and
universally opposed?
Another objection to our present law of marriage has been frequently
urged, and great use has been made of it to prejudice the minds
of English members in favour of the proposed alteration. We have
already shown that there is in reality no doubt of what constitutes
a Scottish marriage; that parties so contracting know very well what
they are about, and are fully sensible of the true nature of their
obligations. If any doubt should by possibility exist, it can be set
at rest by a simple form of process--a form, however, which is never
resorted to, unless there has been gross intention to deceive on the
one part, or a most unusual degree of imprudence on the other. But it
is said that the possible existence of a private marriage may entail
the most cruel of all injuries upon innocent parties--that it is easy
for a man who has already contracted a private marriage, to present
himself in the character of an unfettered suitor, and to enter into a
second matrimonial engagement, which may be, at any moment, shamefully
terminated by the appearance of the first wife. No ordinary amount
of rhetoric has been expended in depicting the terrible consequences
of such a state of things; the misery of the deceived wife, and the
wrongs of the defrauded children, have, in their turn, been employed as
arguments against the existing marriage law of Scotland.
This is a most unfair mode of reasoning. Unless it can be shown,
which we maintain it cannot, that the law of Scotland, with regard
to matrimony, is so loose that a party may really be married without
knowing it, the argument utterly fails. Without distinct matrimonial
consent there is no marriage, and no one surely can be ignorant of
his own intention and act upon an occasion of that kind. He may try
to suppress proofs, but for all that he is married, and if, during
the lifetime of the other party, he shall contract a second marriage,
he has committed bigamy, and is guilty of a criminal offence. Lord
Campbell, in his evidence, admits that the marriage law of Scotland
has been perfectly well ascertained upon most points--that there can
be no doubt what is, and what is not, a marriage; but that the real
difficulty consists in getting at the facts. Armed with this testimony,
we may fairly conclude that unintentional bigamy is impossible; but
that bigamy, when it takes place, is the deliberate act of a party.
Bigamy is beyond all dispute a crime of a heinous nature. Its
consequences are so obviously calamitous, that no power of oratory can
make them appear greater than they are; and we should rejoice to see
any legislative measure introduced which could render its perpetration
impossible. But, unfortunately, the eradication of bigamy, like that
of every other crime, is beyond the power of statute. It may perhaps
be lessened by decreasing facilities, or by augmenting its punishment,
but we cannot see how it is to be prevented altogether by any effort of
human ingenuity. But if the marriage law of Scotland is to be assailed
upon this ground, it is incumbent upon its opponents to show that it
really tends to promote bigamy. If the wrongs so pathetically deplored
have a real existence, let us be made aware of that fact, and we shall
all of us be ready to lend our assistance towards the remedy. No paltry
scruples shall stand in the way of such a reformation, and we shall
willingly pay even for registration, if it can be made the means of
averting an actual social calamity.
But here again we find, on examination, that we are dealing with a pure
hypothesis. We are told of horrible private injuries that may occur
under the operation of a law which has been in force for centuries:
we ask for instances of those injuries; and, as in the former case,
it turns out that they have no existence save in the imagination of
the promoters of the new bills. If the present law of Scotland has a
tendency to promote bigamy, surely by this time it would have been
extremely fruitful in its results. On the contrary, we are told by
Lord Campbell that the Scots are a very virtuous people; and certainly,
in so far as bigamy is concerned, no one will venture to contradict
that opinion. One case, it appears, has occurred, in which a man of
high rank, having previously contracted a private marriage under
peculiar circumstances, married a second time, and that union was
found to be illegal. The case is a notorious one in the books and in
the records of society, and it occurred forty years ago. "About forty
years ago," said the Dean of Faculty, "a gentleman of high position in
society, so far forgot for the time what was worthy of, and due to that
position in point of honour, and truth, and observance of the law, as
to marry a lady in England, while he had a wife living in Scotland--and
so he might have done if he had had a wife living in France or Holland.
In short, he committed bigamy. And this one case of bigamy, forty years
ago, without even an allegation of any similar case since that time,
is brought forward at the present day, as a reason for now altering
the law of Scotland in regard to the constitution of marriage." The
individual in question lived and died in exile, and the case is never
quoted without expressions of deep reprobation. It is the only one
of the kind which can be brought forward; and surely it cannot be
taken as any ground for altering the established law of the country.
But does registration prevent bigamy? Unfortunately it is shown by
numerous instances in England that it does not. In that country,
registration is already established, but, notwithstanding registration,
bigamy is infinitely more prevalent there than in Scotland. It is,
indeed, impossible by any means of legislation to prevent imposition,
fraud, and crime, if men are determined to commit them. Registration
at Manchester will not hinder a heartless villain from committing
deliberate bigamy in London. The thing is done every day, and will be
done in spite of all the efforts of law-makers. Why, then, make the law
of Scotland conformable to that of England, since, under the operation
of the latter, the very grievance complained of flourishes fourfold? We
pause for a reply, and are likely to pause long before we receive any
answer which can be accepted as at all satisfactory.
Under the Scottish law, it is admitted that there is far less
seduction, and far less bigamy, than under the English law, which is
here propounded as the model. And having come to this conclusion--which
is not ours only, but that of the witnesses examined in favour of the
bill, all evidence against it having been refused--what need have we of
saying anything further? Surely there is enough on the merits of the
question to explain and justify the unanimous opposition which has been
given to the Marriage Bill by men of every shade of opinion throughout
Scotland, without exposing them to the imputation either of obstinacy
or caprice: indeed we are distinctly of opinion that the promoters of
the bill have laid themselves palpably open to the very charges which
they rashly bring against their opponents.
We cannot, however, take leave of the subject, without making a few
remarks upon the evidence of a noble and learned lord, who was kind
enough to take charge of this bill during its passage through the
upper house. Lord Campbell is not a Scottish peer, nor, strictly
speaking, a Scottish lawyer, though he is in the habit of attending
pretty regularly at the hearing of Scottish appeals. But he is of
Scottish extraction; he has sat in the House of Commons as member for
Edinburgh, and he ought therefore to be tolerably well conversant with
the state of the law. Now we presume it will be generally admitted,
that any person who undertakes to show that an amendment of the law is
necessary, ought, in the first place, to be perfectly cognisant of the
state of the law as it exists. That amount of knowledge we hold to be
indispensably necessary for a reformer, since he must needs establish
the superiority of his novel scheme, by contrasting its advantages
with the deficiencies of the prevalent system. But in reading over the
evidence of Lord Campbell, as given before the Committee of the House
of Commons, a very painful suspicion must arise in every mind, that the
learned peer is anything but conversant with the Scottish marriage law:
nay, that upon many important particulars he utterly misunderstands
its nature. Take for example the following sentence:--
"With regard to this bill which has been introduced, I am
very much surprised and mortified to find the grounds upon
which it has been opposed; for it has been opposed on the
ground that it introduces clandestine marriages into Scotland.
I think, with deference to those who may have a contrary
opinion, that its direct tendency, as well as its object, is
to prevent clandestine marriages. I may likewise observe, that
I am very sorry--being the son of a clergyman of the Church
of Scotland--to find that it is opposed, and I believe very
violently opposed, by the clergy of the Established Church of
Scotland. I think that they proceed upon false grounds; _and I
am afraid_, although I would say nothing at all disrespectful
of a body for whom I feel nothing but respect and affection,
_that they are a little influenced by the notion, that a
marriage by a clergyman who is not of the Established Church,
is hereafter to be put upon the same footing with a marriage
celebrated by a clergyman of the Established Church_: but I
should be glad if they would consider, that they are placed
nearly in the same situation as the clergy of the Church of
England, who, without the smallest scruple or repining, have
submitted to it, because a marriage before a Baptist minister,
or before a Unitarian minister, is just as valid now as if
celebrated by the Archbishop of Canterbury; and I should trust
that, upon consideration, they would be of opinion that their
dignity is not at all compromised, and that their opposition to
it may subside."
We can conceive the amazement with which a minister of the Established
Church, could he have been present at the deliberations of the select
committee, must have listened to the reasons so calmly assigned for
his opposition, and that of his brethren, to the progress of the
present bill! Never for a moment could it have crossed his mind, that a
marriage celebrated by him was of more value in the eye of the law than
that which had received the benediction of a dissenter; and yet here
was a distinct assumption that he was in possession of some privilege,
of which, up to that hour, he had been entirely ignorant. "At present,"
continued Lord Campbell, "a marriage by a dissenting clergyman, I
rather think, is not strictly regular!" Here a hint was interposed from
the chair to the following effect:--"He cannot marry without banns; he
is subject to punishment if he marries without banns?" But the hint,
though dexterously given, fell dead on the ear of the ex-chancellor of
Ireland. He proceeded deliberately to lay down the law,--"There are
statutes forbidding marriages unless by clergymen of the Established
Church."
This is, to say the least of it, a singular instance of delusion. No
such statutes are in force; they have long been repealed; and every
clergyman is free to perform the ceremony of marriage, whatever be
his denomination, provided he receives a certificate of the regular
proclamation of the banns. So that Lord Campbell, if he again girds
himself to the task, must be prepared to account on some more
intelligible grounds for the opposition which his father's brethren
have uniformly given to this bill. But, to do him justice, Lord
Campbell does not stand alone in error with regard to the present
requirements for the celebration of a regular marriage. Unless there is
a grievous error in the reported debate before us, the Lord Advocate
of Scotland is not quite so conversant with statute law as might be
expected from a gentleman of his undoubted eminence. Whilst advocating
a system which is to entail the inevitable payment of a fee to the
registrar, he at the same time considers the fee which is presently
exigible for proclaiming the banns a grievance. "He was astonished to
hear the honourable baronet opposite (Sir George Clerk) state that it
was the first time he had heard it considered a grievance, that persons
could not marry without proclamation of banns in the parish church,
by the payment of a large fee to the precentor or other officer of
the church. That had always been considered a very great grievance
by the dissenting body throughout Scotland, so far as he understood.
The members of the Episcopal communion were, however, saved from that
grievance, because they were in possession of an act of parliament,
which provided that the proclamation of banns made in their own chapel
was sufficient to authorise a clergyman to solemnise the marriage." We
should like very much indeed to know what act of parliament gives any
such dispensation from parochial proclamation to the Episcopalians.
Certain we are that the statute 10 Anne, cap. 7, confers no such
privilege; for though it _allows_ proclamation of banns to be made in
an Episcopal chapel, it at the same time enjoins, under a penalty, that
proclamation shall also be made "in the churches to which they belong
as parishioners by virtue of their residence;" and accordingly, in
practice, no Episcopalian marriage is ever celebrated without previous
proclamation of the banns in the parish church. We do not attribute
much importance to this error, though it is calculated to mislead
those who are not conversant with the law and practice of Scotland. We
were rather impressed, on reading the debate, with the circumstance,
that the old system of proclaiming by banns in the parish church was
denounced, and we therefore directed our attention the more closely to
the provisions of the bill, in order to discover the exact nature of
the new method by which it was to be superseded. The bill is singularly
ill-drawn and worded; but we comprehend it sufficiently to see that,
had it passed into law, regular marriages could have been contracted
under its sanction without any difficulty, and with no publicity at all.
The bill declares that henceforward marriage shall be contracted in
Scotland in one of the following modes, and not otherwise:--1st, By
solemnisation in presence of a clergyman; or, 2d, by registration, the
parties proposing so to marry appearing "in presence of the registrar,
and there and then signing, before witnesses, the entry of their
marriage in the register."
It is evident, however, that without some precaution for publicity,
the registrar's office would be as much a temple of Hymen as the
blacksmith's forge at Gretna-green, and accordingly, previous to
registration--that is, legal marriage--residence for fourteen days was
required; and, besides that, a written notice to the registrar, with
the names and designations of the parties, seven days previous to the
fated entry. A copy of such notice was to be affixed upon the door of
the parish church for one Sunday, and this was to be the whole of the
publication. Notwithstanding this, if the registrar chose to take the
risk of a penalty, and allow the parties to sign the register without
their having proved their residence or given notice of their intention,
the marriage was, nevertheless, to be valid and effectual.
Worse regulations, we are bound to say, never were invented. Why select
the church door? Why post up the names amidst lists of candidates
for registration, notices of roups, and advertisements of the sale
of cattle? Is not the present mode of announcing the names _within_
the church more decent than the other, and likely to attract greater
notice? But the whole thing is a juggle. The bill gives ample facility
for evasion, should that be contemplated; for it is easy to divine
that, with the whole proof in his own hand, and no check whatever
placed upon him, no registrar would be hard-hearted enough to refuse
dispensing with the preliminaries in any case where the amorous
couple were ready and willing to remunerate him for the risk of his
complaisance.
So much for marriage by registration, which, instead of throwing any
obstacle in the way of ill-advised or hasty unions, would, in effect,
have a direct tendency to increase them. But the case is absolutely
worse when we approach the other form of marriage, which was to
supersede that solemnity which is at present in every case preceded by
the formal proclamation of banns. The provisions of the bill were as
follows:--
No clergymen could solemnise a marriage, unless,
1st. Both or one parties should have been resident for fourteen
days within the parish in which the marriage was to take place;
_or_,
2d. In some other parish in Scotland: the certificate in both
cases to be granted by the Registrar; _or_,
3d. Unless both or one of the parties had been for a fortnight
a member or members of the congregation resorting to the church
or chapel in which the clergyman solemnising the marriage
usually officiates; _or_,
4th. Unless they had similarly attended _some other place of
worship_; the same to be certified by the minister of such
congregation; _or_,
5th. Unless they could produce the registrar's certificate of a
week's notice; _or_
6th. Unless they had been regularly proclaimed by banns.
Such is the species of hotch-potch, which it was seriously proposed to
substitute, instead of the present clear, simple, cheap, and decent
mode of celebrating regular marriages; and it is not at all surprising
that hardly one native of Scotland could be found to raise his voice
in favour of such an enormity. So far from publicity being obtained
or increased, it would have afforded the most ample facilities for
the celebration of marriage without the slightest warning given to
the friends of either party. In reality, this pretended mode of
marriage _in facie ecclesiæ_, would have been far more objectionable
than the simple method of registration; for, in the latter case, the
registrar, if he did his duty, was bound to give some kind of notice;
in the former, none whatever was required by the clergyman. What is
a member of a congregation? Abounding as Scotland is in sects, we
apprehend that any one who pays for a sitting in any place of worship
is entitled to that denomination. For ten shillings, or five shillings,
or half-a-crown, a seat may be readily purchased in some place of
worship; and if any one held that seat for a fortnight, he was to be
entitled, according to this bill, to ask the officiating minister
to marry him, without any further process whatever. If it should,
however, be held, that no one is a member of a congregation unless
he is in full communion, all difficulty could have been got over, by
resorting to the fourth method. The member of the Established Church
had simply to ask from his minister a certificate of his membership,
and, armed with that, he might be legally married anywhere, and by
any kind of clergyman, without the slightest notice to the public! We
confess that, when we arrived at this portion of the provisions of
the bill, we could scarcely credit the testimony of our eyesight. We
have heard it proclaimed, over and over again, by those who supported
the measure, that its principal aim was to put an end to hasty and
ill-advised marriages; and on perusing the evidence, we found Lord
Brougham most clamorous against the facilities given by the present law
of Scotland for tying the nuptial knot, without due warning afforded
to parents, more especially when young noblemen
|
monition. An instant, and it was over. But all agreed that the fire
could have had nothing to do with it.
Pigot, meanwhile, had spread his men out along the docks, where they
listened to every one, asked questions of every one. Not a rumour
escaped them, but, alas, for no rumour could they find foundation. The
wreck in the harbour was illuminated by the searchlights of the other
battleships, and Pigot caused himself to be rowed out to it, introduced
himself to Admiral Marin-Dabel, Maritime Prefect of Toulon, who had
taken personal charge of the rescue work, and spent half an hour
inspecting the melancholy scene. Then he landed again, and listened for
a time to the reports of his lieutenants. There was among them not a
single ray of light--not the slightest evidence to show that the
disaster had been anything but an accident. The fire in the store-room
had, it was whispered, been much more serious than the officers would
admit.
Pigot made his way slowly toward the hotel to report to his chief, but
as he crossed the Place d'Armes, a hand was laid upon his sleeve. He
turned, expecting to see one of his men. Instead, he found himself
looking into a face he did not know.
"Pardon, sir," he said. "You are, perhaps, mistaken."
"Oh, no, Pigot," said the stranger, with a little smile, "I am not
mistaken. It is you whom I wish to see."
"I do not remember you, sir," said Pigot, looking at him more closely.
"Have we met before?"
"Many times."
"Many times!" echoed Pigot, incredulously. "Surely not!" and he looked
again to make certain that the stranger was not intoxicated. "Where have
we met?"
"We met last," said the stranger, smiling again, "on _La Savoie_, in the
harbour of New York City. To be sure, I was not in this incarnation, but
I am sure you will recall the incident."[1]
Pigot drew a deep breath, and his face flushed.
"Ah," he said quietly, after a moment. "I remember. I wish you good
evening, M. Crochard."
"One moment," Crochard commanded, his grasp tightening on Pigot's arm.
"Forgive my recalling that meeting to your memory. It was indelicate of
me. Nevertheless you would do well to listen to what I have to say."
Pigot stopped and turned.
"Well," he said, after gazing for a moment into Crochard's eyes, "speak
quickly. What is it you have to say?"
"I wish to say to you, Pigot, that I have come to offer you my help."
"Your help?"
"In solving the mystery of this disaster."
Pigot looked at him coldly.
"We do not require your help," he said, at last.
"Perhaps not; and yet you would be mistaken to refuse it. I was at Nice;
I have been on the ground since morning; I have discovered...."
"Well, what have you discovered?" asked Pigot, as Crochard hesitated.
"I have discovered," Crochard continued slowly, "what I can reveal only
to M. Delcassé himself. I demand that you cause me to be introduced to
him at once."
Pigot shrugged his shoulders impatiently.
"Impossible!" he said, and started on.
"Wait!" said Crochard sternly. "Consider whether you are willing to take
the responsibility of this refusal!"
"Responsibility!" Pigot burst out, his anger getting the upper hand at
last. "Responsibility! Yes, I take it! Who are you? A notorious
character--a thief...."
Crochard's eyes were blazing, and his hand grasped Pigot's arm with a
vise-like grip.
"And with it all," he sneered, "a better man than you, Pigot! Is it not
so? A better man than you! How often have I proved it!"
Pigot's hand turned and closed like a flash upon the other's wrist.
"You will come with me," he said.
The anger faded from Crochard's face, and an ironic amusement took its
place.
"Where would you conduct me?" he asked.
"To the Prefecture!"
"You are mistaken. You will conduct me to M. Delcassé. You cannot
conduct me to the Prefecture, Pigot; I will not allow it!"
"Allow it!" sneered Pigot, and pressed forward.
"Fool!" hissed Crochard in his ear. "Thick-headed fool! Have you learned
no wisdom yet? I would smite you, Pigot, but that I have need of you.
Listen! I and only I can save France! I demand that you take me to M.
Delcassé."
Pigot felt himself waver; a vague uneasiness stirred within him as he
met his companion's flaming gaze.
"On what pretext can I introduce you to M. Delcassé?" he asked at last.
"You will leave me outside the door," said Crochard rapidly, almost in a
whisper. "You will go in to M. Delcassé alone; you will say to him,
'Sir, I have outside a man who asserts that _La Liberté_ was blown up by
the Germans, and that he can prove it!' Then let M. Delcassé decide
whether or not he will receive me!"
Pigot was staring at the speaker with distended eyes.
"By the Germans!" he repeated, hoarsely. "By the Germans!"
Crochard answered with an impatient pressure of the arm.
"You are wasting time," he said.
"You are right," Pigot agreed. "Come with me," and he led the way across
the square.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 1: See "The Mystery of the Boule Cabinet."]
CHAPTER III
TWO GREAT MEN MEET
M. Delcassé and M. Lépine were still in conference when Pigot was
announced. He was admitted without delay, and made his report briefly
and clearly. It could have been summed up in a sentence: neither by him
nor by his agents had anything been discovered to indicate, even
remotely, that the catastrophe had been the result of intention; every
rumour to that effect had been sifted and disproved; _La Liberté_ had
been destroyed from within and not from without.
"Another 'accident,' then," grunted Delcassé gloomily. "But I do not
believe it! Something--something here"--and he smote his
forehead--"tells me that it was not an accident!"
Pigot, as a practical detective, had no faith in intuition; but whatever
his thoughts may have been, he managed to mask them behind an
impenetrable countenance.
"Our investigations have but just begun," Lépine pointed out. "They will
be continued without pause. I will conduct them in person. No
circumstance, however trivial, will be overlooked."
"I know you are a good man, Lépine," said the Minister wearily; "I know
there is none more clever. But something more than cleverness is needed
here--we need genius, inspiration." He stopped abruptly and rose from
his chair. "I am sure you will do your best. Remember, if there is any
discovery, I am to be told at once."
Pigot, who had been standing with lips compressed, undergoing a violent
inward struggle, at last managed to open them.
"I have a man outside," he said, as though repeating a lesson, "who
requests an audience with M. Delcassé. He asserts that _La Liberté_ was
blown up by the Germans, and that he can prove it."
Delcassé whirled as on a pivot and stared at the speaker.
"But, name of God!" he stammered, barely able to speak for excitement,
"why have you not introduced this man at once? Why have you wasted our
time...."
He stopped and took a rapid turn up and down the room. When he spoke
again, his voice was quite composed.
"Introduce the man at once," he commanded.
"I think it would be well," said Pigot tonelessly, "that M. Delcassé
should first be informed as to the name and character of this man."
Again Delcassé stared.
"Explain yourself!" he cried. "Who is the man?"
"His name is Crochard, sir," Pigot replied.
Delcassé evidently did not recognise the name, but Lépine's face was
suddenly illumined.
"Crochard," he explained, "is the most adroit, the most daring, the most
accomplished scoundrel with whom I have ever had to deal. Surely
Monsieur remembers the affair of the Michaelovitch diamonds?"
"Ah, yes!" cried Delcassé, his face, too, lighting. "So that was
Crochard!"
"Crochard the Invincible, he calls himself," growled Pigot. "He is a
great braggart."
"And with some reason," added Lépine. "We have never yet been able to
convict him."
"He restored the Mazarin diamond to the Louvre, did he not?" queried the
Minister. "And also the Mona Lisa?"
"The Mazarin certainly," assented Lépine. "As for the Mona Lisa, I have
never been quite certain. There is a rumour that the original is now
owned by an American millionaire, and that the picture returned to the
Louvre is only a copy--a wonderful one, it is true. Where did you meet
him, Pigot?"
Pigot related the story of the meeting, while Delcassé listened
thoughtfully.
"Is he to be trusted?" he asked, when Pigot had finished.
"In this affair I believe so," answered Lépine quietly. "He may be as
good a patriot as you or I. If he is really in earnest, he can be of
immense assistance. He has absolute command of the underworld, and a
thousand sources of information which are closed to the police. At
least, it can do no harm to hear what he has to say."
Delcassé agreed with a nod, and sat down again.
"Bring him in," he said, and a moment later Crochard entered.
If M. Delcassé had expected to perceive anything of the criminal in the
man who bowed to him respectfully from the threshold, he was most
thoroughly disappointed. What he _did_ see was a well-built man in the
very prime of life, with clear and fearless eyes of greenish-grey
flecked with yellow, a face singularly open and engaging, and a manner
as easy and self-possessed as Delcassé's own. The only sign of
approaching age was the sprinkle of grey in the crisp, brown hair, but
this served rather to accentuate the youthfulness of the face, covered
now by a coat of tan which bespoke a summer spent in the open. In any
company, this man would have been notable.
"M. Crochard, I believe," said Delcassé, and involuntarily the great
Minister arose and returned his visitor's bow. "Be seated, sir."
"Thank you," said Crochard, and sat down. "I see that we are going to
appreciate each other," he added, and looked at Delcassé with a friendly
smile.
That gentleman's eyes were twinkling behind his glasses, and his lips
twitched under his heavy moustache.
"It always pleases me to meet a distinguished man," he said, "in
whatever field of endeavour. M. Lépine tells me that you are most
distinguished."
"M. Lépine has every reason to know," agreed Crochard, and glanced
smilingly toward the Prefect.
"Though, since I have eyes, I can see that for myself," added the
Minister. "Why did you wish to see me?"
"I wished to see you, sir," answered Crochard, suddenly serious,
"because I have long recognised in you the only man whom France
possesses who sees clearly the struggle which is ahead of her, who
prepares ceaselessly for that struggle, and who is strong enough to
guide her through it triumphantly."
"To what struggle do you refer?" inquired the Minister, but his shining
eyes belied his careless tone.
"The struggle to regain possession of Alsace-Lorraine and to avenge
ourselves upon the nation which once humiliated us."
A slow flush crept into Delcassé's cheeks, and his lips tightened.
"You foresee such a struggle?" he asked.
"As clearly as you do yourself, sir."
"Well, yes!" cried Delcassé, and smote the arm of his chair a heavy
blow. "I _do_ foresee such a struggle--I have never denied it; and for
twenty years I have laboured to prepare for it. You can understand,
then, what a blow it is to me--how terrible, how disheartening--to have
all my calculations blasted by such accidents as that of to-day!"
"Pardon me, sir," said Crochard, in a low tone, "but the destruction of
_La Liberté_ was not an accident!"
"You assert that?"
"I do. And furthermore I assert that it was the work of Germany!"
Delcassé sprang from his chair, his face livid.
"The proof!" he cried. "The proof!"
"The proof, sir, is this: at five minutes before dawn, this morning, two
strangers, attired as pedestrians, with knapsacks on their backs,
stopped in the recess of the doorway of Number Ten, Quai de Cronstadt.
They stepped well within the shadow, as though not wishing to be seen,
and stood gazing out on the harbour. Directly before them, at a distance
of not more than three hundred yards, _La Liberté_ was moored. It was at
her they stared, with eyes expectant and uneasy. At dawn, _La Liberté_
blew up, and one of these men cried out some words of German."
"What were they?"
"Unfortunately the person who overheard them does not know German. He
understood only the first two words, 'Ach Gott!'"
"And the men?" cried Delcassé. "What became of them?"
"They strode rapidly away along the quay, and were lost to sight."
Delcassé dropped into his chair, his face dark with passion.
"What do you infer from this circumstance?" he demanded.
"There is only one possible inference," answered Crochard. "At five
minutes before dawn this morning, there were, in this city of Toulon,
two Germans who knew that _La Liberté_ was to be destroyed."
A moment's silence followed. Those words, terrible as they were,
astounding as they were, carried conviction with them.
"Tell me," said Delcassé, at last, "how you discovered all this."
"I have been spending the month at Nice," Crochard explained. "I learned
of the disaster as soon as I was up this morning, and I came at once to
Toulon. Monsieur will understand that, in the many years during which I
have been at variance with society, I have made many friends and gained
a certain power in quarters of which Monsieur knows little. One of
these friends is the proprietor of the café which occupies the ground
floor of the house on the Quai de Cronstadt. I stopped to see him,
because his house is close to the scene of the disaster--so close,
indeed, that all of its windows were shattered. It was he who gave me
the first clue."
"Go on," said Delcassé, who had been listening intently. "I need not say
how deeply all this interests me."
"My friend had arranged to go to Marseilles this morning," Crochard
continued, "to make a purchase of wine. The train, he tells me, leaves
at six o'clock. It was about fifteen minutes before that hour when, as
he started to open his door, two men stepped into the little vestibule,
as though to screen themselves from observation. He peered through the
curtain, thinking they might be friends, and found that he did not know
them. Gazing from the darkness of the interior, he could see them very
well. They were staring at _La Liberté_, as I have said, their faces
rigid with emotion; and then came the explosion, which, without
question, they anticipated."
"You have a description of them?" broke in Delcassé.
"An excellent description. They were men of middle age, heavily built
and clean-shaven. Their faces were deeply tanned, as with long exposure,
and had that fulness about the lips which bespeaks the German. They
wore caps and walking-suits with knee trousers. Each had strapped upon
his back a small knapsack."
Lépine, who had been taking rapid notes, looked up with gleaming eyes.
"We shall find these men," he said. "It will not be difficult."
"More difficult than you suppose, M. Lépine," said Crochard dryly.
Lépine looked at him.
"What do you mean?" he asked.
Crochard turned to Delcassé with a little deprecating gesture.
"Before I proceed," he said, "I must be certain of my position here.
With you, sir, no explanations are necessary; we understand each other
and we have no past to prejudice us. But M. le Prefect and I are old
enemies. We respect each other, but we always welcome an opportunity to
try conclusions. Until this affair is ended, I propose a truce."
"I will go further than that," retorted Lépine, "and call it an
alliance. I shall welcome your help. I have already told M. Delcassé
that you are probably as good a patriot as he or I."
"I shall try to prove that you are right," said Crochard, his eyes
shining. "There is one more condition. In this affair, it may be
necessary for me to call to my assistance certain persons for whom the
police are looking. Should they be recognised while so engaged, no
effort must be made to arrest them."
"I agree," said Lépine, instantly.
Crochard leaned back in his chair with a sigh of satisfaction.
"I am ready to proceed," he said. "Let us, for the time, forget our
differences."
"I have already forgotten them," said Lépine.
Delcassé had listened to this interchange with smiling lips.
"Magnificent!" he cried. "I shall remember this scene all my life. And
now to work!"
"First," said Lépine, "permit me to inquire of Inspector Pigot how it
happened that neither he nor his men heard anything of these two
strangers?"
Pigot flushed darkly and opened his lips to defend himself, but Crochard
silenced him with a little gesture.
"I can explain that," he said. "Pigot is not a genius, it is true, but
neither is he quite a fool, and I should grieve to see him blamed for
something not his fault. I was careful to warn my friend to repeat his
story to no one. That, I think, was the wisest course. Those men must
not know that we suspect them."
Delcassé nodded.
"You are right," he agreed. "Are you possessed of any further
information?"
"I had only a few hours," Crochard apologised; "but I did what I could.
I learned that two men resembling these, and undoubtedly the same, had
been staying since Friday at the Hotel du Nord. The proprietor of that
house informed me that they left before daybreak this morning to walk to
Frejus."
"Ah, then," began Delcassé.
"But they did not go to Frejus," Crochard added. "They stopped at
Salins, which they reached about ten o'clock, boarded a small
steam-yacht which was waiting there, and at once put out to sea. I fear
they are beyond our reach."
Delcassé stamped his foot.
"What, then, is to be done?" he demanded.
"It seems to me most important that we identify these men," said
Crochard; "then we shall know where to look for them."
"Yes," agreed Delcassé; "but how are they to be identified?"
"There are, no doubt, in the files of your department, photographs of
the most prominent German officers, both of army and navy. I believe
these men to be officers--one, at least--the other may belong to the
secret service. I would suggest that these photographs be brought to
Toulon, and that it also be ascertained which officers are on leave of
absence, or not with their commands. Probably it will be necessary to
search only among the general officers. An affair so important would
not be entrusted to a subordinate."
Delcassé made a quick note.
"The photographs will be here to-morrow," he promised.
"I would further suggest that the innkeeper be strictly interrogated,"
Crochard went on. "I ventured to ask him only a careless question or
two; he does not know me, and I did not wish to arouse his suspicions."
Lépine arose.
"I will see him at once," he said.
Crochard rose also.
"And I will accompany you. That is all the information I have at
present, sir," he added to Delcassé.
"It is a great deal," said the Minister quickly. "Just before you came,
I was remarking to Lépine that what we needed in this affair was a man
of genius. Well, I think that we have found him!"
Crochard flushed with pleasure.
"I thank you, sir," he said.
"And I thank you for coming to me," said Delcassé. "You are doing France
a great service. I shall not forget it. Until morning, then."
Crochard bowed and left the room with the two detectives.
Delcassé sat for a moment deep in thought; then he summoned his
secretary, gave the necessary order about the photographs and dictated a
cipher telegram to the chief of his secret service at Berlin. That done,
he bade his secretary good night, dismissed him and went to bed.
But not to sleep. Turning at full length upon his back, his arms above
his head, he stared steadily up into the darkness until his brain, freed
of all lesser problems, all vagrant thoughts, was concentrated upon the
great problem which now confronted it:
How had the destruction of _La Liberté_ been accomplished?
It was, of course, the work of Germany. Those two strangers, who spoke
German in a moment of great excitement, who had arrived five minutes
before the disaster, who had hastened away immediately afterwards, who
had lied about their destination, and for whom a steam-yacht had been
waiting--all this, as Crochard said, could have but one meaning.
And then Delcassé fairly bounded in the bed. Fool that he had been not
to think of it! There was another proof! The telegram from the Emperor!
He lay a moment trembling, then calmed himself by a mighty effort. How
was it the Emperor had learned so promptly of the disaster? There was
only one possible answer: an emissary had hastened to flash the news to
him--an emissary dressed, prepared, who needed to delay for no
investigation, since the roar of the explosion told him everything--one
of the men, perhaps, who had waited on the quay. And Delcassé, biting
his nails, his face wet with perspiration, pictured to himself the
Emperor also waiting, pacing restlessly back and forth, until the word
should come! He gnashed his teeth with rage, this good Frenchman, and
shook trembling fists up into the darkness. Ah, Germany should pay!
Germany should pay!
But again he calmed himself, wiped his forehead, and composed himself
for thought.
How had _La Liberté_ been destroyed? There was the question which must
be answered, and at once.
By a mine, set to explode at a certain hour? Delcassé shook his head. It
was absurd to suppose that a mine could be planted in a harbour as
strictly guarded and policed as that of Toulon. By a torpedo, then,
which could be launched some distance away? But that was even more
absurd. The launching of a torpedo required a complex mechanism; as well
suppose that an enemy would be able to install a cannon on the docks
unobserved. By a submarine? But _La Liberté_ had lain at anchor in an
enclosed basin; besides there were the outer basins, patrol boats,
sentries, the constant coming and going of sailors and marines, of
launches, of boats of all kinds. How could an enemy creep unobserved
past all these?
True, the accident had occurred at dawn, when every one but the sentries
was asleep. But even at that hour the harbour was strictly guarded. An
enemy, to enter unseen, would have to be impalpable, invisible....
Besides, how could a mine or a torpedo or a submarine have caused the
explosion of the magazines, one after the other, at regular
intervals--"spaced," one of the officers had said, "like the reports of
a heavy gun." First one had been fired, and then a second, and then a
third; Delcassé, closing his eyes, had a vision of a ghostly figure
stealing from one to another, torch in hand....
His mind roved back again over his talk with Lépine. Could it have been
done by wireless? Not the ordinary wireless, but some subtle variant of
ether waves, some new form of radio-activity, which in some way caused
combustion? There was an enemy which could flit unseen from magazine to
magazine, which no locks nor bars could guard against....
His heart faltered at the thought. The possessor of such a secret would
have the world at his mercy. No ship would be safe, no fort, no
artillery-caisson. Armies and navies alike would melt before him,
destroyed by the explosion of their own ammunition. Ah, if France
possessed that secret....
He shook his head impatiently and turned on his side.
"I am dreaming foolish dreams," he told himself. "It is time to sleep."
CHAPTER IV
THE ALLIES AT WORK
It was nearly four o'clock when Crochard, Lépine and Pigot took their
leave of M. Delcassé and made their way through the dark and silent
streets in the direction of the Hotel du Nord. The people who had leaped
from their beds at sunrise, wearied at last by the emotions of the day
and dampened by the fine rain which had begun to fall, had gone to bed
again. Only about the harbour were there any signs of life. There the
searchlights of the battleships still played about the wreck, where
squads of marines were searching for the bodies of their comrades.
The three men, their coats buttoned about them, their hats pulled down,
hurried on in silence, each busy with his own thoughts. Crochard and
Lépine were planning the campaign; Pigot had not yet recovered from his
confusion at the sight of these two working hand in hand.
Five minutes brought them to the door of the Hotel du Nord, and Lépine
applied to it a vigorous fist. There was no response, and he pounded
again. At last there came the sound of a window being raised, and a
night-capped head was thrust out from the upper story.
"Who is there?" asked a voice.
"Are you the proprietor?" demanded Lépine.
"Yes, sir."
"Then come down at once."
"But what is wrong, sir?" stammered Brisson, to whose frightened eyes
those three dark figures huddled in his doorway appeared most sinister.
"What is it you require?"
"No matter," said Lépine, sternly. "Come down at once and open the
door."
The window was lowered and some minutes passed. Had the three men at the
door been able to see inside the house, they would have been amused at
what occurred there, could anything have amused them at that moment. As
it was, they merely stamped with impatience and crowded closer to the
door, for the rain was falling more heavily.
Brisson retreated from the window, his fat countenance fallen into
creases of dismay, and plunged back into his bedroom, where his wife,
who had also been awakened by the knocking, was sitting up in bed.
"What is it, Brisson?" she asked.
"There are three men below," gasped Aristide, fumbling for his trousers.
"They command that I descend at once and admit them. There is something
which tells me it is the police--the police at this hour!"
"The police?" and Madame Gabrielle cast a rapid mental glance over their
affairs. "Well, admit them; we have no reason to fear the police."
"There is that little matter of the wine from your nephew which did not
pay the octroi," Brisson reminded her.
"Bah!" retorted Madame, who was by far the stronger spirit; "it cannot
be that! No one could suspect that; besides, even if they did, they
would not come hammering here in the middle of the night. Descend at
once and admit them. Assume a bold front, Brisson! Do not let them
suspect that you have fear! Go at once! Hasten! I will come as soon as I
have found a petticoat."
Thus encouraged, Brisson descended and opened the door, holding a
lighted candle above his head and presenting as bold a front as his
not-too-courageous spirit could muster. The three men crowded past him,
without waiting for an invitation or saying a word, and one of them took
the door from his hand and closed and bolted it. The horrible thought
flashed through Brisson's head that they were robbers, bandits, and he
had opened his mouth to cry for help, when one of them, the little,
lean, grey-bearded one, with the fierce eyes, spoke.
"We belong to the police," he said. "We desire a few moments'
conversation with you."
"Certainly, sir," stammered Brisson, thinking, as he met those eyes,
that perhaps he would have preferred the bandits. "Come this way, if you
please, sirs," and he led the way into his bureau.
He placed the candle on the table and dropped into a chair. His visitors
remained standing, facing him. Brisson realised that for him to sit
while they stood was anything but courteous, and he struggled to arise,
but the strength seemed departed from his legs, and he sank helplessly
back again.
"What is your name?" asked the little man, looking at him with those
gimlet eyes.
"Aristide Brisson, sir."
"You have been long in this house?"
"For twenty years, sir. My record is of the best."
"We will investigate it," said Lépine curtly.
"Do so!" cried a voice behind them. "Nothing would please us better!"
They turned to find Madame Brisson on the threshold, her eyes flashing,
her bosom heaving, one plump hand holding together at the throat the
garment which threatened every moment to disclose her still plumper
shoulders. "We are honest people--our neighbours will speak a good word
for us--all of them!"
"I do not doubt it, Madame," said Lépine, courteously, realising that
here he had to do with the head of the house. "Meanwhile we wish to make
certain inquiries of you, which you need not hesitate to answer. But I
wish first to warn you that of these inquiries you must not breathe so
much as a word to any one. Do you understand?"
"We understand, sir; you may rely upon us," said Madame Brisson, and sat
down beside her husband.
"Our inquiry," pursued Lépine, "concerns the two gentlemen who departed
so early yesterday morning."
At the words, Brisson bounded in his chair, and the colour swept back
into his cheeks. He was himself again.
"So!" he cried, and suddenly found that he could stand erect, and did
so. "So! It is about those swine! I knew that all was not right; I knew
that they were not as they pretended!"
"What was it they pretended?"
"That they were of America. But it did not deceive me--no, not for one
instant. They had not the air of Americans. Besides, do Americans go
tramping about the country with knapsacks on their backs? No; only
Germans do that! To Gabrielle, as they departed, I said, 'Americans, no;
Germans perhaps, or Austrians--but not Americans!'"
"Yes, gentlemen, those were his very words!" said Madame Brisson, with
an emphatic nod.
"And there is a final proof," went on Brisson, excitedly; "a proof
conclusive. When I present my bill, the one who takes it grows quite
red with anger. It was a most reasonable bill--ninety-six francs for
three days, with many extras--a most reasonable bill, for Americans. It
was then that I knew there was something wrong--that they were imposters
who feared the police. It was only that which prevented a scene.
'Gabrielle,' I said, as they went away down the street, 'those men have
something to conceal.'"
"Yes, gentlemen," put in Gabrielle, "he said just that."
"There is even worse to come, sirs," and Brisson dropped his voice as
one does in speaking of great horrors. "You will scarcely credit it,
but, after having had us at their heels for three days, upstairs,
downstairs; after compelling us to arise in the dark of night to prepare
their breakfasts--this person handed me a note for a hundred francs and
said with a lordly air, 'You may keep the change.' The change--four
francs! And yet from his manner you would have thought he was giving me
a fortune!"
"Have you still that hundred-franc note?" Lépine inquired.
"But certainly, sir," answered Madame Gabrielle, and, turning her back
to the company, she stooped quickly and arose with the bill in her hand.
Lépine took it and examined it carefully by the light of the candle. It
was a new note, apparently fresh from the bank, and the Prefect's eyes
were shining with satisfaction when he raised his head.
"I shall have to retain this," he said. "One moment," he added, as
Madame Brisson opened her lips to protest; "I shall, of course, give you
another for it," and he drew out his purse, placed the new note
carefully in a flapped compartment, selected another and handed it to
the anxious lady, who received it with a sigh of relief. "And now!" went
on Lépine, "please tell us all that you can remember about these
men--every small detail."
Both Monsieur and Madame Brisson grew voluble at once, for rarely had it
been their fortune to address so attentive an audience. But there were
few grains of wheat among the chaff. The two strangers had arrived, it
appeared, on the evening of the twenty-second, Friday. They were
Americans, they said, on a walking tour. Their names? Brisson did not
remember; but they would be found on the police registration slip which
he had caused them to fill out at once and had sent to the Prefecture
that very evening. He had noticed on the slip that they had come from
Marseilles and were on their way to Nice. Their bags had already arrived
from Marseilles, and, at their direction, he had had them brought up
from the station.
"Where are the bags now?" asked Lépine.
"They directed that they be sent to Nice," explained Brisson. "I
despatched them yesterday morning, as I agreed."
"You have the receipt?"
"But certainly, sir," and Brisson, while his wife held the light,
rummaged in his desk and finally produced the paper in question.
Lépine placed it in his purse beside the hundred-franc note.
"Proceed," he said. "In what way did these strangers occupy themselves
during their stay?"
They were absent from morning till night, it appeared, walking about the
streets, about the docks, visiting the ships in the harbour, climbing
the hills back of the town, and even going as far as Cape Cepet, where
the great fort is--penetrating, in a word, to every nook and corner
which it is possible for visitors to enter. In fact, in the two days of
their stay, they had seen more of Toulon than had Brisson in the twenty
years of his residence.
The details of these expeditions Brisson had learned with the greatest
difficulty, for his guests had talked but little, had kept to
themselves, had discouraged his advances, resented his questions, and
often pretended that they did not understand--all of which was in itself
suspicious. When talking together, they used a language which Brisson
supposed to be English; but he was not familiar with English; knew only
a few words of it, indeed--"money," "damn,"--such
|
worship soon convinced him: God's blessing upon your head
for it!"
The stranger silently sat himself down in the settle, which the old
woman placed for him with a thousand thanks and gratulations, and
suffered them to proceed undisturbed with all the garrulity of age,
while his own thoughts seemed, from some unapparent cause, to have
wandered far upon a different track. Whether it was that the swift
wings of memory had retraced in a moment a space that, in the dull
march of time, had occupied many a long year, or that the lightning
speed of hope had already borne him to a goal which was still far
beyond probability's short view, matters little. Most likely it was
one or the other; for the present is but a point to which but little
thought appertains, while the mind hovers backwards and forwards
between the past and the future, expending the store of its regrets
upon the one, and wasting all its wishes on the other. He awoke with a
sigh. "But tell me," said he to the old man, "what was the cause of
all this?"
"Why, heaven bless your worship!" replied the cottager, who had been
talking all the time, "I have just been telling you."
"Nay, but I mean, why you came to live here?" said the traveller, "for
this is but a poor place;" and he glanced his eye over the interior of
the cottage, which was wretched enough. Its floor formed of hardened
clay; its small lattice windows, boasting no glass in the wicker
frames of which they were composed, but showing in its place some thin
plates of horn (common enough in the meaner cottages of those times),
admitting but a dull and miserable light to the interior; its bare
walls of lath, through the crevices of which appeared the mud that had
been plastered on the outside: all gave an air of poverty and
uncomfort difficult to find in the poorest English cottage of to-day.
"I think you said that you had been in better circumstances?"
continued the traveller.
"I did not say so, your worship," replied the old man, "but it was
easy to guess; yet for twelve long years have I known little but
misery. I was once gate-porter to my good Lord Fitzbernard, at Chilham
Castle, here hard-by; your worship knows it, doubtless. Oh! 'twas a
fair place in those days, for my lord kept great state, and never a
day but what we had the tilt-yard full of gallants, who would bear
away the ring from the best in the land. My old lord could handle a
lance well, too, though he waxed aged; but 'twas my young Lord Osborne
that was the darling of all our hearts. Poor youth! he was not then
fourteen, yet so strong, he'd break a lance and bide a buffet with the
best. He's over the seas now, alas! and they say, obliged to win his
food at the sword's point."
"Nay, how so?" asked the traveller. "If he were heir of Chilham
Castle, how is it he fares so hardly, this Lord Osborne?"
"We call him still Lord Osborne," answered the old woman, "for I was
his nurse, when he was young, your worship, and his christened name
was Osborne. But his title was Lord Darnley, by those who called him
properly. God bless him for ever! Now, Richard, tell his honour how
all the misfortunes happened."
"'Twill but tire his honour," said the old man. "In his young day he
must have heard how Empson and Dudley, the two blackest traitors that
ever England had, went through all the country, picking holes in every
honest man's coat, and sequestrating their estates, as 'twas then
called. Lord bless thee, Kate! his worship knows it all."
"I have heard something of the matter, but I would fain understand it
more particularly," said the stranger. "I had learned that the
sequestrated estates had been restored, and the fines remitted, since
this young king was upon the throne."
"Ay, truly, sir, the main part of them," answered the old man; "but
there were some men who, being in the court's displeasure, were not
likely to have justice done them. Such a one was my good lord and
master, who, they say, had been heard to declare, that he held Perkyn
Warbeck's title as good as King Harry the Seventh's. So, when they
proved the penal statutes against him, as they called it, instead of
calling for a fine, which every peasant on his land would have brought
his mite to pay, they took the whole estate, and left him a beggar in
his age. But that was not the worst, for doubtless the whole would
have been given back again when the good young king did justice on
Empson and Dudley; but as this sequestration was a malice, and not an
avarice like the rest, instead of transferring the estate to the
king's own hand, they gave it to one Sir Payan Wileton, who, if ever a
gallows was made higher than Haman's, would well grace it. This man
has many a friend at the court, gained they say by foul means; and
though much stir was made some eight years agone, by the Lord Stafford
and the good Duke of Buckingham, to have the old lord's estates given
back again, Sir Payan was strong enough in abettors to outstand them
all, and then----; but I hear horses' feet. 'Tis surely Sir Payan sent
to hound me out even from this poor place."
As he spoke, the loud neighing of the stranger's horse announced the
approach of some of his four-footed fraternity, and opening the
cottage door, the old man looked forth to ascertain if his
apprehensions were just.
The cloud, however, was cleared off his brow in a moment, by the
appearance of the person who rode into the garden.
"Joy, good wife! joy!" cried the old man; "it is Sir Cesar! It is Sir
Cesar! We are safe enough now!"
"Sir Cesar!" cried the traveller; "that is a strange name!" and he
turned to the cottage door to examine the person that approached.
Cantering through the garden on a milk-white palfrey, adorned with
black leather trapping, appeared a little old man, dressed in singular
but elegant habiliments. His doublet was of black velvet, his hose of
crimson stuff, and his boots of buff. His cloak was black like his
coat, but lined with rich miniver fur, of which also was his bonnet.
He wore no arms except a small dagger, the steel hilt of which
glittered in his girdle; and to turn and guide his palfrey he made use
of neither spur nor rein, but seemed more to direct than urge him with
a peeled osier stick, with which he every now and then touched the
animal on either ear.
His person was as singular as his dress. Extremely diminutive in
stature, his limbs appeared well formed, and even graceful. He was not
a dwarf, but still considerably below the middle size; and though not
misshapen in body, his face had that degree of prominence, and his eye
that keen vivacious sparkle, generally discovered in the deformed. In
complexion he was swarthy to excess, while his long black hair,
slightly mingled with gray, escaped from under his bonnet and fell
upon his shoulders. Still, the most remarkable feature was his eye,
which, though sunk deep in his head, had a quickness and a fire that
contradicted the calm, placid expression of the rest of his
countenance, and seemed to indicate a restless, busy spirit; for,
glancing rapidly from object to object, it rested not a moment upon
any one thing, but appeared to collect the information it sought with
the quickness of lightning, and then fly off to something new.
In this manner he approached the cottage, his look at first rapidly
running over the figures of the two cottagers and their guest; but
then turning to their faces, his eye might be seen scanning every
feature, and seeming to extract their meaning in an instant: as in the
summer we see the bee darting into every flower, and drawing forth its
sweet essence, while it scarcely pauses to fold its wings. It seemed
as if the face was to him a book, where each line was written with
some tale or some information, but in a character so legible, and a
language so well known, that a moment sufficed him for the perusal of
the whole.
At the cottage-door the palfrey stopped of itself, and slipping down
out of the saddle with extraordinary activity, the old gentleman stood
before the traveller and his host with that sort of sharp, sudden
motion which startles although expected. The old man and his wife
received their new guest with reverence almost approaching to awe; but
before noticing them farther than by signing them each with the cross,
he turned directly towards the traveller, and doffing his cap of
miniver, he made him a profound bow, while his long hair, parted from
the crown, fell over his face and almost concealed it. "Sir Osborne
Maurice," said he, "well met!"
The traveller bowed in some surprise to find himself recognised by the
singular person who addressed him. "Truly, sir," he answered, "you
have rightly fallen upon the name I bear, and seem to know me well,
though in truth I can boast no such knowledge in regard to you. To my
remembrance, this is the first time we have met."
"Within the last thousand years," replied the old man, "we have met
more than a thousand times; but I remember you well before that, when
you commanded a Roman cohort in the first Punic war."
"He's mad!" thought the traveller, "profoundly insane!" and he turned
an inquiring glance to the old cottager and his wife; but far from
showing any surprise, they stood regarding their strange visiter with
looks of deep awe and respect. However, the traveller at length
replied, "Memory, with me, is a more treacherous guardian of the past;
but may I crave the name of so ancient an acquaintance?"
"In Britain," answered the old man, "they call me Sir Cesar; in Spain,
Don Cesario; and in Padua, simply Cesario il dotto."
"What!" cried Sir Osborne, "the famous----?"
"Ay, ay!" interrupted the old man; "famous if it may so be called. But
no more of that. Fame is but like a billow on a sandy shore, that when
the tide is in, it seems a mighty thing, and when 'tis out, 'tis
nothing. If I have learned nought beside, I have learned to despise
fame."
"That your learning must have taught you far more, needs no farther
proof than your knowledge of a stranger that you never saw, at least
with human eyes," said Sir Osborne; "and in truth, this your knowledge
makes me a believer in that art which, hitherto, I had held as
emptiness."
"Cast from you no ore till you have tried it seven times in the fire,"
replied Sir Cesar; "hold nothing as emptiness that you have not
essayed. But, hark! bend down thine ear, and thou shalt hear more
anon."
The young traveller bowed his head till his ear was on a level with
the mouth of the diminutive speaker, who seemed to whisper not more
than one word, but that was of such a nature as to make Sir Osborne
start back, and fix his eyes upon him with a look of inquiring
astonishment, that brought a smile upon the old man's lip. "There is
no magic here," said Sir Cesar: "you shall hear more hereafter. But,
hush! come into the cottage, for hunger, that vile earthly want, calls
upon me for its due: herein, alas! we are all akin unto the hog:
come!"
They accordingly entered the lowly dwelling, and sat down to a small
oaken table placed in the midst; Sir Cesar, as if accustomed to
command there, seating the traveller as his guest, and demanding of
the old couple a supply of those things he deemed necessary. "Set down
the salt in the middle, Richard Heartley; now bring the bread; take
the bacon from the pot, dame, and if there be a pompion yet not
mouldy, put it down to roast in the ashes. Whet Sir Osborne's dagger,
Richard. Is it all done? then sit with us, for herein are men all
alike. Now tell me, Richard Heartley, while we eat, what has happened
to thee this morning, for I learn thou hast been in jeopardy."
Thus speaking, he carved the bacon with his dagger, and distributed to
every one a portion, while Sir Osborne Maurice looked on, not a little
interested in the scene, one of the most curious parts of which was
the profound taciturnity that had succeeded to garrulity in the two
old cottagers, and the promptitude and attention with which they
executed all their guest's commands.
The old gentleman's question seemed to untie Richard Heartley's lips,
and he communicated, in a somewhat circumlocutory phrase, that though
he had built his house and enclosed his garden on common land, which,
as he took it, "was free to every one, yet within the last year Sir
Payan Wileton had demanded for it a rent of two pounds per annum,
which was far beyond his means to pay, as Sir Payan well knew; but he
did it only in malice," the old man said, "because he was the last of
the good old lord's servants who was left upon the ground; and he, Sir
Payan, was afraid, that even if he were to die there, his bones would
keep possession for his old master; so he wished to drive him away
altogether."
"Go forth on no account!" interrupted Sir Cesar. "Without he take thee
by force and lead thee to the bound, and put thee off, go not beyond
the limits of the lordship of Chilham Castle; neither pay him any
rent, but live house free and land free, as I have commanded you."
"In truth," answered the old man, "he has not essayed to put me off;
but he sent his bailiff this morning to demand the rent, and to drive
me out of the cottage, and to pull off the thatch, though our Richard,
who has returned from the army beyond the seas, is up at the manor to
do him man service for the sum."
"Hold!" cried Sir Cesar, "let thy son do him man service, if he will,
but do thou him no man service, and own to him no lordship. Sir Payan
Wileton has but his day; that will soon be over, and all shall be
avenged; own him no lordship, I say!"
"Nay, nay, sir, I warrant you," replied the old man; "'twas even that
that provoked Peter Wilson, the young bailiff, to strike me, because I
said Sir Payan was not my lord, and I was not his tenant, and that if
he stood on right, I had as much a right to the soil as he."
"Strike thee! strike thee! Did he strike thee?" cried Sir Cesar, his
small black eyes glowing like red-hot coals, and twinkling like stars
on a frosty night. "Sure he did not dare to strike thee?"
"He felled him, Sir Cesar," cried the old woman, whose tongue could
refrain no longer; "he felled him to the ground. He, a child I have
had upon my knee, felled old Richard Heartley with a heavy blow!"
"My curse upon him!" cried the old knight, while anger and indignation
gave to his features an expression almost sublime; "my curse upon him!
May he wither heart and limb like a blasted oak! like it, may he be
dry and sapless, when all is sunshine and summer, without a green leaf
to cover the nakedness of his misery; without flower or fruit may he
pass away, and fire consume the rottenness of his core!"
"Oh! your worship, curse him not so deeply; we know how heavy your
curses fall, and he has had some payment already," said the old
cottager: "this honourable gentleman heard my housewife cry, and came
riding up. So, when he saw the clumsy coward strike a feeble old man
like me, he takes him up by the jerkin and the slops, and casts him as
clean over the wall on the heath as I've seen Hob Johnson cast a truss
out of a hay-cart."
"Sir Osborne, you did well," said the old knight; "you acted like your
race. But yet I could have wished that this had not happened; 'twould
have been better that your coming had not been known to your enemies
before your friends, which I fear me will now be the case. He with
whom you have to do is one from whose keen eye nought passes without
question. The fly may as well find its way through the spider's web,
without wakening the crafty artist of the snare, as one on whom that
man has fixed his eye may stir a step without his knowing it. But
there is one who sees more deeply than even he does."
"Yourself, of course," replied Sir Osborne; "and indeed I cannot doubt
that it is so; for I sit here in mute astonishment to find that all I
held most secret is as much known to you as to myself."
"Oh, this is all simplicity!" replied the old man; "these are no
wonders, though I may teach you some hereafter. At present I will tell
you the future, against which you must guard, for your fortune is
a-making."
"But if our fate be fixed," said Sir Osborne, "so that even mortal
eyes can see it in the stars, prudence and caution, wisdom and action,
are in vain; for how can we avoid what is certainly to be?"
"Not so, young man," replied Sir Cesar: "some things are certain, some
are doubtful: some fixed by fate, some left to human will; and those
who see such things are certain, may learn to guide their course
through things that are not so. Thus, even in life, my young friend,"
he continued, speaking more placidly, for at first Sir Osborne's
observation seemed to have nettled him; "thus, even in life, each
ordinary mortal sees before him but one thing sure, which is death. It
he cannot avoid; yet, how wholesome the sight to guide us in
existence! So, in man's destiny, certain points are fixed, some of
mighty magnitude, some that seem but trivial; and the rest are
determined by his own conduct. Yet there are none so clearly marked
that they may not be influenced by man's own will, so that when the
stars are favourable he may carry his good fortune to the highest
pitch by wisely seizing opportunity; and when they threaten evil or
danger, he may fortify himself against the misfortunes that must
occur, by philosophy; and guard against the peril that menaces, by
prudence. Thus, what study is nobler, or greater, or more beneficial,
than that which lays open to the eye the book of fate?"
The impressive tone and manner of the old man, joined even with the
singularity of his appearance, and a certain indescribable, almost
unearthly fire, that burned in his eye, went greatly in the minds of
his hearers to supply any deficiency in the chain of his reasoning.
The extraordinary, if it be not ludicrous, is always easily
convertible into the awful; and where, as in the present instance, it
becomes intimately interwoven with all the doubtful, the mysterious,
and the fearful in our state of being, it reaches that point of the
sublime to which the heart of every man is most sensible. Those always
who see the least of what is true are most likely to be influenced by
what is doubtful; and in an age where little was certainly known, the
remote, the uncertain, and the wild, commanded man's reason by his
imagination.
Sir Osborne Maurice mused. If it be asked whether he believed
implicitly in that art which many persons were then said to possess,
of reading in the stars the future fate of individuals or nations, it
may be answered, No. But if it be demanded whether he rejected it
absolutely, equally No. He doubted; and that was a stretch of
philosophy to which few attained in his day, when the study of
judicial astrology was often combined with the most profound learning
in other particulars; when, as a science, it was considered the
highest branch of human knowledge, and its professors were regarded as
almost proceeding a step beyond the just boundary of earthly research:
we might say even more, when they produced such evidence of their
extraordinary powers as might well convince the best-informed of an
unlettered age, and which affords curious subjects of inquiry even to
the present time.
In the mean while, Sir Cesar proceeded: "I speak thus as preface to
what I have to tell you; not that I suppose you will be dismayed when
you hear that immediate danger menaces you, because I know you are
incapable of fear; but it is because I would have you wisely guard
against what I foretell. Know, then, I have learned that you are
likely to be in peril to-morrow, towards noon; therefore, hold
yourself upon your guard. Divulge not your proceedings to any one.
Keep a watchful eye and a shrewd ear. Mark well your company, and see
that your sword be loose in the sheath."
"Certainly, good Sir Cesar, will I follow your counsel," replied Sir
Osborne. "But might I not crave that you would afford me farther
information, and by showing me what sort of danger threatens me, give
me the means of avoiding it altogether?"
"What you ask I cannot comply with," answered the old man. "Think not
that the book of the stars is like a child's horn-book, where every
word is clearly spelled. Vague and undefined are the signs that we
gain. Certain it is, that some danger threatens you; but of what
nature, who can say? Know that, at the same time as yourself, were
born sixty other persons, to whom the planets bore an equal
ascendancy; and at the same hour to-morrow, each will undergo some
particular peril. Be you on your guard against yours."
"Most assuredly I will, and I give you many thanks," replied Sir
Osborne. "But I would fain know for what reason you take an interest
in my fate more than in any of the other sixty persons you have
mentioned."
"How know you that I do so?" demanded Sir Cesar drily. "Perchance had
I met any one of them in this cottage, I might have done him the same
good turn. However, 'tis not so. I own I do take an interest in your
fate, more than that of any mortal being. Look not surprised, young
man, for I have cause: nay more--you shall know more. Mark me! our
fates are united for ever in this world, and I _will_ serve you;
though I see, darkling through the obscurity of time, that the moment
which crowns all your wishes and endeavours is the last that I shall
draw breath of life. Yet your enemy is my enemy, your friends are my
friends, and I will serve you, though I die!"
He rose and grasped Sir Osborne's hand, and fixed his dark eye upon
his face. "'Tis hard to part with existence--the warm ties of life,
the soft smiling realities of a world we know--and to begin it all
again in forms we cannot guess. Yet, if my will could alter the law of
fate, I would not delay your happiness an hour; though I know, I feel,
that this thrilling blood must then chill, that this quick heart must
stop, that the golden light and the glorious world must fade away; and
that my soul must be parted from its fond companion of earth for ever
and for ever. Yet it shall be so. It is said. Reply not! Speak not!
Follow me! Hush! hush!" And proceeding to the door of the cottage, he
mounted his palfrey, which stood ready, and motioned Sir Osborne to do
the same. The young knight did so in silence, and rode along with him
to the garden-gate, followed by the old cottagers. There Richard
Heartley, as if accustomed so to do, held out his hand; Sir Cesar
counted into it nine nobles of gold, and proceeded on the road in
silence.
CHAPTER III.
Illusive dreams in mystic forms expressed.--Blackmore.
That which is out of the common course of nature, and for which we can
see neither cause nor object, requires of course a much greater body
of evidence to render it historically credible than is necessary to
authenticate any event within the ordinary operation of visible
agents. Were it not so, the many extraordinary tales respecting the
astrologers, and even the magicians of the middle ages, would now rest
as recorded truth, instead of idle fiction, being supported by much
more witness than we have to prove many received facts of greater
importance.
Till the last century, the existence of what is called the second
sight, amongst the Scots, was not doubted: even in the present day it
is not disproved; and we can hardly wonder at our ancestors having
given credence to the more ancient, more probable, more reasonable
superstition of the fates of men being influenced by the stars, or at
their believing that the learned and wise could see into futurity,
when many in this more enlightened age imagine that some of the rude
and illiterate possess the same faculty.
It is not, however, my object here to defend long-gone superstitions,
or to show that the predictions of the astrologers were ever really
verified, except by those extraordinary coincidences for which we
cannot account, and some of which every man must have observed in the
course of his own life. That they were so verified on several
occasions is nevertheless beyond doubt; for it is _not_ the case that,
in the most striking instances of this kind, as many writers have
asserted, the prediction, if it may be so called, was fabricated after
its fulfilment. On the contrary, any one who chooses to investigate
may convince himself that the prophecy was, in many instances,
enounced, and is still to be found recorded by contemporary writers,
before its accomplishment took place. As examples might be cited the
prognostication made by an astrologer to Henry the Second of France,
that he should be slain in single combat; a thing so unlikely that it
became the jest of his whole court, but which was afterwards
singularly verified, by his being accidentally killed at a tournament
by Montgomery, captain of the Scottish guards. Also the prediction by
which the famous, or rather infamous, Catherine de Medicis was warned
that St. Germains should be the place of her death. The queen, fully
convinced of its truth, never from that moment set foot in town or
palace which bore the fatal name; but in her last moments, her
confessor being absent, a priest was called to her assistance, by mere
accident, whose name was St. Germains, and actually held her in his
arms during the dying struggle.
These two instances took place about fifty years after the period to
which this history refers, and may serve to show how strongly rooted
in the minds of the higher classes was this sort of superstition, when
even the revival of letters, and the diffusion of mental light, for
very long did not seem at all to affect them. The habits and manners
of the astrologers, however, underwent great changes; and it is,
perhaps, at the particular epoch of which we are now writing, namely,
the reigns of Henry the Eighth of England and Francis the First of
France, that this singular race of beings was in its highest
prosperity.
Before that time, they had in general affected strange and retired
habits, and, whether as magicians or merely astrologers, were both
feared and avoided. Some exceptions, however, must be made to this, as
instances are on record where, even in years long before, such studies
were pursued by persons of the highest class, and won them both love
and admiration; the most brilliant example of which was in the person
of Tiphaine Raguenel, wife of the famous Constable du Guesclin, whose
counsels so much guided her husband through his splendid career.
The magicians and astrologers, however, who were scattered through
Europe towards the end of the fifteenth century, and the beginning of
that which succeeded, though few in number, from many circumstances,
bore a much higher rank in the opinion of the world than any who had
preceded them. This must be attributed to their being in general
persons of some station in society, of profound erudition, of courtly
and polished manners, and also to their making but little pretension
on the score of their supposed powers, and never any display thereof,
except they were earnestly solicited to do so.
There was likewise always to be observed in them a degree of
eccentricity, if a habitual difference from their fellow-beings might
be so called, which, being singular, but not obtrusive, gave them an
interest in the eyes of the higher, and a dignity in the estimation of
the lower classes, as a sort of beings separated by distinct knowledge
and feeling from the rest of mankind. In those ages, a thousand
branches of useful knowledge lay hid, like diamonds in an undiscovered
mine; and many minds, of extraordinary keenness and activity, wanting
legitimate objects of research, after diving deep in ancient lore, and
exhausting all the treasures of antiquity, still unsated, devoted
themselves to those dark and mysterious sciences that gratified their
imagination with all the wild and the sublime, and gained for them a
reverence amongst their fellow-creatures approaching even to awe.
As we have said before, whatever was the reality of their powers, or
however they contrived to deceive themselves, as well as others, they
certainly received not only the respect of the weak and vulgar; but if
they used their general abilities for the benefit of mankind, they
were sure to meet with the admiration and the friendship of the great,
the noble, and the wise. Thus, the famous Earl of Surrey, the poet,
the courtier, the most accomplished gentleman and bravest cavalier of
that very age, is known to have lived on terms of intimacy with
Cornelius Agrippa, the celebrated Italian sorcerer, to whose renown
the fame of Sir Cesar of England is hardly second; though early
sorrows, of the most acute kind, had given a much higher degree of
wildness and eccentricity to the character of the extraordinary old
man of whom we speak, than the accomplished Italian ever suffered to
appear.
In many circumstances there was still a great degree of similarity
between them: both were deeply versed in classical literature, and
were endowed with every elegant attainment; and both possessed that
wild and vivid imagination which taught them to combine in one strange
and heterogeneous system the pure doctrines of Christianity, the
theories of the Pagan philosophers, and the strange, mysterious
notions of the dark sciences they pursued. Amongst many fancies
derived from the Greeks, it seems certain that both Sir Cesar and
Cornelius Agrippa received, as an undoubted fact, the Pythagorean
doctrine of the transmission of the souls through the various human
bodies for a long period of existence: the spirit retaining, more or
less, in different men, the recollection of events which had occurred
to them at other periods of being.
One striking difference, however, existed between these two celebrated
men. Cornelius Agrippa was all mildness, gentleness, and suavity;
while Sir Cesar, irritated by the memory of much sorrow, was wild,
vehement, and impetuous; ever striving to do good, it is true, but
hasty and impatient under contradiction. The same sort of mental
excitement hurried him on to move from land to land and place to
place, without seeming ever to pause for any length of time; and as he
stood not upon the ceremony of introduction, but made himself known to
whomsoever the fancy of the moment might lead him, he was celebrated
in almost every part of the world.
So much as we have said seemed necessary, in order to give our readers
some insight into the character of the extraordinary man whose history
is strongly interwoven with the web of the present narrative, and to
prevent its being supposed that he was an imaginary being devised for
the nonce; but we shall now proceed with him in his proper person.
"Let us reason," said Sir Cesar, breaking form abruptly, after he had
ridden on with the young knight some way in silence; "let us reason of
nature and philosophy; of things that are, and of things that may be;
for I would fain expel from my brain a crowd of sad thoughts and dark
imaginings, that haunt the caverns of memory."
"I should prove but a slow reasoner," replied the young knight, "when
compared with one whose mind, if report speak truth, has long explored
the deepest paths of science, and discovered the full wealth of
nature."
"Nay, nay, my friend," answered the old man; "something I have
studied, it is true; but nature's full wealth who shall ever discover?
Look through the boundless universe, and you shall find that were the
life of man extended a thousand fold, and all his senses refined to
the most exquisite perfection, and had his mind infinite faculty to
comprehend, yet the portion he could truly know would be to the great
whole as one grain of sand to the vast foundation of the sea. As it
is, man not only contemplates but few of nature's works, but also only
sees a little part of each. Thus, when he speaks of life, he means but
that which inspires animals, and never dreams that everything has
life; and yet it is so. Is it not reasonable to suppose that
everything that moves feels? and we cannot but conclude that
everything that feels has life. The Indian tree that raises its
branches when any living creature approaches must feel, must have
sensation; the loadstone that flies to its fellow must know, must
perceive that that fellow is near. Motion is life; and if viewed near,
everything would be found to have motion, to have life, to have
sensation."
Sir Osborne smiled. "Then do you suppose," demanded he, "that all
vegetables and plants feel?"
"Nay, more, much more!" answered the old man. "I doubt not that
everything in nature feels in its degree, from the rude stone that the
mason cuts, to man, the most sensitive of substantial beings."
"It is a bold doctrine," said the young knight, who, willing to gain
what insight he could into his companion's character, pressed him for
a still further exposition of his opinions, though at the same time he
himself felt not a little carried away by the energy of manner and
rich modulation of tone with which the old man communicated his
singular ideas. "It is a bold doctrine, and would seem to animate the
whole of nature. Could it be proved, the world would acquire a glow of
life, and activity of existence, where it now appears cold and
silent."
"The whole of nature _is_ animated," replied Sir Cesar. "Life combined
with matter is but a thousandth part of life existent. The world teems
with spirits: the very air is thick with them. They dance in the
sunshine, they ride upon the beams of the stars, they float about in
the melodies of music, they nestle in the cups of the flowers; and I
am forced to believe that never a flower fades, or a beam passes away,
without some being mourning the brief date of loveliness on earth.
Doubt not, for this is true; and though no one can prove that matter
is sensitive, yet it _can_ be _proved_ that such spirits do exist, and
that they may be compelled to clothe themselves with a visible form.
It can be proved, I say, and I have proved it."
"I have heard the same reported of you," replied Sir Osborne, "when
you, with the renowned Cornelius Agrippa, called up a spirit to
ascertain what would be the issue of the battle of Ravenna. Was it not
so?"
"Speak not of it!" cried the old man, "speak not of it! In that battle
fell the bright, the gallant, the amiable Nemours. Though warned by
counsel, by prophecy, and by portent, he would venture his life on
that fatal battle, and
|
Countess, Herbert, who will joyfully exchange the privileges of her
station for the dear preference shown to the serving-maid.”
A smile came to the lips of Von Schonburg as he held out his hands, in
which the Countess placed her own.
“My Lady Beatrix,” he said, “how can I refuse my pardon for the first
encroachment on my liberty, now that you have made me your prisoner for
life?”
“Indeed, my captured lord,” cried the girl, “you are but now coming to
a true sense of your predicament. I marvelled that you felt so resentful
about the first offence, when the second was so much more serious. Am I
then forgiven for both?”
It seemed that she was, and the Count insisted on returning to his
captivity, and coming forth the next day, freed by her commands,
whereupon, in the presence of all her vassals, he swore allegiance to
her with such deference that her advisers said to her that she must now
see they had been right in counselling his imprisonment. Prison, they
said, had a wonderfully quieting effect upon even the most truculent,
the Count being quickly subdued when he saw his sword-play had but
little effect on the chain. The Countess graciously acknowledged that
events had indeed proved the wisdom of their course, and said it was not
to be wondered at that men should know the disposition of a turbulent
man, better than an inexperienced woman could know it.
And thus was the feud between Gudenfels and Schonburg happily ended, and
Count Herbert came from the Crusades to find two castles waiting for
him instead of one as he had expected, with what he had reason to prize
above everything else, a wife as well.
CHAPTER II
THE REVENGE OF THE OUTLAW
The position of Count Herbert when, at the age of thirty-one he took
up his residence in the ancient castle of his line, was a most enviable
one. His marriage with Beatrix, Countess von Falkenstein, had added the
lustre of a ruling family to the prestige of his own, and the renown of
his valour in the East had lost nothing in transit from the shores of
the Mediterranean to the banks of the Rhine. The Counts of Schonburg had
ever been the most conservative in counsel and the most radical in the
fray, and thus Herbert on returning, found himself, without seeking
the honor, regarded by common consent as leader of the nobility whose
castles bordered the renowned river. The Emperor, as was usually
the case when these imperial figure-heads were elected by the three
archbishops and their four colleagues, was a nonentity, who made no
attempt to govern a turbulent land that so many were willing to govern
for him. His majesty left sword and sceptre to those who cared for
such baubles, and employed himself in banding together the most notable
company of meistersingers that Germany had ever listened to. But
although harmony reigned in Frankfort, the capital, there was much lack
of it along the Rhine, and the man with the swiftest and heaviest
sword, usually accumulated the greatest amount of property, movable and
otherwise.
Among the truculent nobles who terrorised the country side, none was
held In greater awe than Baron von Wiethoff, whose Schloss occupied a
promontory Some distance up the stream from Castle Schonburg, on the
same side of the river. Public opinion condemned the Baron, not because
he exacted tribute from the merchants who sailed down the Rhine, for
such collections were universally regarded as a legitimate source of
revenue, but because he was in the habit of killing the goose that laid
the golden egg, which action was looked upon with disfavour by those who
resided between Schloss Wiethoff and Cologne, as interfering with their
right to exist, for a merchant, although well-plucked, is still of
advantage to those in whose hands he falls, if life and some of his
goods are left to him. Whereas, when cleft from scalp to midriff by
the Baron’s long sword, he became of no value either to himself or to
others. While many nobles were satisfied with levying a scant five
or ten per cent on a voyager’s belongings, the Baron rarely rested
contented until he had acquired the full hundred, and, the merchant
objecting, von Wiethoff would usually order him hanged or decapitated,
although at times when he was in good humour he was wont to confer
honour upon the trading classes by despatching the grumbling seller
of goods with his own weapon, which created less joy in the commercial
community than the Baron seemed to expect. Thus navigation on the swift
current of the Rhine began to languish, for there was little profit in
the transit of goods from Mayence to Cologne if the whole consignment
stood in jeopardy and the owner’s life as well, so the merchants got
into the habit of carrying their gear overland on the backs of mules,
thus putting the nobility to great inconvenience in scouring the
forests, endeavouring to intercept the caravans. The nobility, with that
stern sense of justice which has ever characterised the higher classes,
placed the blame of this diversion of traffic from its natural channel
not upon the merchants but upon the Baron, where undoubtedly it rightly
belonged, and although, when they came upon an overland company which
was seeking to avoid them, they gathered in an extra percentage of the
goods to repay in a measure the greater difficulty they had in
their woodland search, they always informed the merchants with much
politeness, that, when river traffic was resumed, they would be pleased
to revert to the original exaction, which the traders, not without
reason pointed out was of little avail to them as long as Baron von
Wiethoff was permitted to confiscate the whole.
In their endeavours to resuscitate the navigation interests of the
Rhine, several expeditions had been formed against the Baron, but his
castle was strong, and there were so many conflicting interests among
those who attacked him that he had always come out victorious, and after
each onslaught the merchants suffered more severely than before.
Affairs were in this unsatisfactory condition when Count Herbert of
Schonburg returned from the Holy Land, the fame of his deeds upon him,
and married Beatrix of Gudenfels. Although the nobles of the Upper Rhine
held aloof from all contest with the savage Baron of Schloss Wiethoff,
his exactions not interfering with their incomes, many of those further
down the river offered their services to Count Herbert, if he would
consent to lead them against the Baron, but the Count pleaded that he
was still a stranger in his own country, having so recently returned
from his ten contentious years in Syria, therefore he begged time to
study the novel conditions confronting him before giving an answer to
their proposal.
The Count learned that the previous attacks made upon Schloss Wiethoff
had been conducted with but indifferent generalship, and that failure
had been richly earned by desertions from the attacking force, each
noble thinking himself justified in withdrawing himself and his men,
when offended, or when the conduct of affairs displeased him, so von
Schonburg informed the second deputation which waited on him, that he
was more accustomed to depend on himself than on the aid of others, and
that if any quarrel arose between Castle Schonburg and Schloss Wiethoff,
the Count would endeavour to settle the dispute with his own sword,
which reply greatly encouraged the Baron when he heard of it, for he
wished to try conclusions with the newcomer, and made no secret of
his disbelief in the latter’s Saracenic exploits, saying the Count had
returned when there was none left of the band he took with him, and had,
therefore, with much wisdom, left himself free from contradiction.
There was some disappointment up and down the Rhine when time passed and
the Count made no warlike move. It was well known that the Countess was
much averse to war, notwithstanding the fact that she was indebted to
war for her stalwart husband, and her peaceful nature was held to excuse
the non-combative life lived by the Count, although there were others
who gave it as their opinion that the Count was really afraid of the
Baron, who daily became more and more obnoxious as there seemed to be
less and less to fear. Such boldness did the Baron achieve that he even
organised a slight raid upon the estate of Gudenfels which belonged to
the Count’s wife, but still Herbert of Schonburg did not venture from
the security of his castle, greatly to the disappointment and the
disgust of his neighbours, for there are on earth no people who love a
fight more dearly than do those who reside along the banks of the placid
Rhine.
At last an heir was born to Castle Schonburg, and the rejoicings
throughout all the district governed by the Count were general and
enthusiastic. Bonfires were lit on the heights and the noble river
glowed red under the illumination at night. The boy who had arrived
at the castle was said to give promise of having all the beauty of
his mother and all the strength of his father, which was admitted by
everybody to be a desirable combination, although some shook their heads
and said they hoped that with strength there would come greater courage
than the Count appeared to possess. Nevertheless, the Count had still
some who believed in him, notwithstanding his long period of inaction,
and these said that on the night the boy was born, and word was brought
to him in the great hall that mother and child were well, the cloud
that had its habitual resting-place on the Count’s brow lifted and his
lordship took down from its place his great broadsword, rubbed from its
blade the dust and the rust that had collected, swung the huge weapon
hissing through the air, and heaved a deep sigh, as one who had come to
the end of a period of restraint.
The boy was just one month old on the night that there was a thunderous
knocking at the gate of Schloss Wiethoff. The Baron hastily buckled
on his armour and was soon at the head of his men eager to repel the
invader. In a marvellously short space of time there was a contest in
progress at the gates which would have delighted the heart of the most
quarrelsome noble from Mayence to Cologne. The attacking party which
appeared in large force before the gate, attempted to batter in the
oaken leaves of the portal, but the Baron was always prepared for such
visitors, and the heavy timbers that were heaved against the oak made
little impression, while von Wiethoff roared defiance from the top of
the wall that surrounded the castle and what was more to the purpose,
showered down stones and arrows on the besiegers, grievously thinning
their ranks. The Baron, with creditable ingenuity, had constructed above
the inside of the gate a scaffolding, on the top of which was piled a
mountain of huge stones. This scaffold was arranged in such a way that
a man pulling a lever caused it to collapse, thus piling the stones
instantly against the inside of the gate, rendering it impregnable
against assault by battering rams. The Baron was always jubilant when
his neighbours attempted to force the gate, for he was afforded much
amusement at small expense to himself, and he cared little for the
damage the front door received, as he had built his castle not for
ornament but for his own protection. He was a man with an amazing
vocabulary, and as he stood on the wall shaking his mailed fist at
the intruders he poured forth upon them invective more personal than
complimentary.
While thus engaged, rejoicing over the repulse of the besiegers, for the
attack was evidently losing its vigour, he was amazed to note a sudden
illumination of the forest-covered hill which he was facing. The
attacking party rallied with a yell when the light struck them, and
the Baron, looking hastily over his shoulder to learn the source of the
ruddy glow on the trees, saw with dismay that his castle was on fire and
that Count Herbert followed by his men had possession of the battlements
to the rear, while the courtyard swarmed with soldiers, who had
evidently scaled the low wall along the river front from rafts or boats.
“Surrender!” cried Count Herbert, advancing along the wall. “Your castle
is taken, and will be a heap of ruins within the hour.”
“Then may you be buried beneath them,” roared the Baron, springing to
the attack.
Although the Baron was a younger man than his antagonist, it was soon
proven that his sword play was not equal to that of the Count, and
the broadsword fight on the battlements in the light of the flaming
stronghold, was of short duration, watched breathlessly as it was by men
of both parties above and below. Twice the Baron’s guard was broken, and
the third time, such was the terrific impact of iron on iron, that the
Baron’s weapon was struck from his benumbed hands and fell glittering
through the air to the ground outside the walls. The Count paused in his
onslaught, refraining from striking a disarmed man, but again demanding
his submission. The Baron cast one glance at his burning house, saw that
it was doomed, then, with a movement as reckless as it was unexpected,
took the terrific leap from the wall top to the ground, alighting on his
feet near his fallen sword which he speedily recovered. For an instant
the Count hovered on the brink to follow him, but the swift thought of
his wife and child restrained him, and he feared a broken limb in
the fall, leaving him thus at the mercy of his enemy. The moment for
decision was short enough, but the years of regret for this hesitation
were many and long. There were a hundred men before the walls to
intercept the Baron, and it seemed useless to jeopardise life or limb
in taking the leap, so the Count contented himself by giving the loud
command: “Seize that man and bind him.”
It was an order easy to give and easy to obey had there been a dozen men
below as brave as their captain, or even one as brave, as stalwart and
as skilful; but the Baron struck sturdily around him and mowed his way
through the throng as effectually as a reaper with a sickle clears a
path for himself in the standing corn. Before Herbert realised what was
happening, the Baron was safe in the obscurity of the forest.
The Count of Schonburg was not a man to do things by halves, even though
upon the occasion of this attack he allowed the Baron to slip through
his fingers. When the ruins of the Schloss cooled, he caused them to be
removed and flung stone by stone into the river, leaving not a vestige
of the castle that had so long been a terror to the district, holding
that if the lair were destroyed the wolf would not return. In this the
Count proved but partly right. Baron von Wiethoff renounced his
order, and became an outlaw, gathering round him in the forest all the
turbulent characters, not in regular service elsewhere, publishing along
the Rhine by means of prisoners he took and then released that as the
nobility seemed to object to his preying upon the merchants, he would
endeavour to amend his ways and would harry instead such castles as fell
into his hands. Thus Baron von Wiethoff became known as the Outlaw of
the Hundsrück, and being as intrepid as he was merciless, soon made
the Rhenish nobility withdraw attention from other people’s quarrels in
order to bestow strict surveillance upon their own. It is possible
that if the dwellers along the river had realised at first the kind of
neighbour that had been produced by burning out the Baron, they might,
by combination have hunted him down in the widespread forests of the
Hundsrück, but as the years went on, the Outlaw acquired such knowledge
of the interminable mazes of this wilderness, that it is doubtful
whether all the troops in the Empire could have brought his band to bay.
The outlaws always fled before a superior force, and always massacred
an inferior one, and like the lightning, no man could predict where the
next stroke would fall. On one occasion he even threatened the walled
town of Coblentz, and the citizens compounded with him, saying they had
no quarrel with any but the surrounding nobles, which expression the
thrifty burghers regretted when Count Herbert marched his men through
their streets and for every coin they, had paid the Outlaw, exacted ten.
The boy of Castle Schonburg was three years old, when he was allowed
to play on the battlements, sporting with a wooden sword and imagining
himself as great a warrior as his father had ever been. He was a brave
little fellow whom nothing could frighten but the stories his nurse told
him of the gnomes and goblins who infested the Rhine, and he longed
for the time when he would be a man and wear a real sword. One day just
before he had completed his fourth year, a man came slinking out of
the forest to the foot of the wall, for the watch was now slack as the
Outlaw had not been heard of for months, and then was far away in
the direction of Mayence. The nurse was holding a most absorbing
conversation with the man-at-arms, who should, instead, have been pacing
up and down the terrace while she should have been watching her charge.
The man outside gave a low whistle which attracted the attention of the
child and then beckoned him to come further along the wall until he had
passed the west tower.
“Well, little coward,” said the man, “I did not think you would have the
courage to come so far away from the women.”
“I am not a coward,” answered the lad, stoutly, “and I do not care about
the women at all.”
“Your father was a coward.”
“He is not. He is the bravest man in the world.”
“He did not dare to jump off the wall after the Baron.”
“He will cut the Baron in pieces if he ever comes near our castle.”
“Yet he dared not jump as the Baron did.”
“The Baron was afraid of my father; that’s why he jumped.”
“Not so. It was your father who feared to follow him, though he had a
sword and the Baron had none. You are all cowards in Castle Schonburg.
I don’t believe you have the courage to jump even though I held out my
arms to catch you, but if you do I will give you the sword I wear.”
The little boy had climbed on the parapet, and now stood hovering on the
brink of the precipice, his childish heart palpitating through fear of
the chasm before him, yet beneath its beatings was an insistent command
to prove his impugned courage. For some moments there was deep silence,
the man below gazing aloft and holding up his hands. At last he lowered
his outstretched arms and said in a sneering tone:
“Good-bye, craven son of a craven race. You dare not jump.”
The lad, with a cry of despair, precipitated himself into the empty air
and came fluttering down like a wounded bird, to fall insensible into
the arms that for the moment saved him from death or mutilation. An
instant later there was a shriek from the negligent nurse, and the
man-at-arms ran along the battlements, a bolt on his cross-bow which he
feared to launch at the flying abductor, for in the speeding of it he
might slay the heir of Schonburg. By the time the castle was aroused and
the gates thrown open to pour forth searchers, the man had disappeared
into the forest, and in its depths all trace of young Wilhelm was lost.
Some days after, the Count von Schonburg came upon the deserted camp
of the outlaws, and found there evidences, not necessary to be here set
down, that his son had been murdered. Imposing secrecy on his followers,
so that the Countess might still retain her unshaken belief that not
even an outlaw would harm a little child, the Count returned to his
castle to make preparations for a complete and final campaign of
extinction against the scourge of the Hundsrück, but the Outlaw had
withdrawn his men far from the scene of his latest successful exploit
and the Count never came up with him.
Years passed on and the silver came quickly to Count Herbert’s hair,
he attributing the change to the hardships endured in the East, but all
knowing well the cause sprang from his belief in his son’s death. The
rapid procession of years made little impression on the beauty of the
Countess, who, although grieving for the absence of her boy, never
regarded him as lost but always looked for his return. “If he were
dead,” she often said to her husband, “I should know it in my heart; I
should know the day, the hour and the moment.”
This belief the Count strove to encourage, although none knew better
than he how baseless it was. Beatrix, with a mother’s fondness, kept
little Wilhelm’s room as it had been when he left it, his toys in their
places, and his bed prepared for him, allowing no one else to share the
task she had allotted to herself. She seemed to keep no count of the
years, nor to realise that if her son returned he would return as a
young man and not as a child. To the mind of Beatrix he seemed always
her boy of four.
When seventeen years had elapsed after the abduction of the heir of
Schonburg, there came a rumour that the Outlaw of Hundsrück was again at
his depredations in the neighbourhood of Coblentz. He was at this time
a man of forty-two, and if he imagined that the long interval had led to
any forgetting on the part of the Count von Schonburg, a most unpleasant
surprise awaited him. The Count divided his forces equally between his
two castles of Schonburg and Gudenfels situated on the west bank and
the east bank respectively. If either castle were attacked, arrangements
were made for getting word to the other, when the men in that other
would cross the Rhine and fall upon the rear of the invaders,
hemming them thus between two fires. The Count therefore awaited with
complacency whatever assault the Outlaw cared to deliver.
It was expected that the attack would be made in the night, which was
the usual time selected for these surprise parties that kept life
from stagnating along the Rhine, but to the amazement of the Count the
onslaught came in broad daylight, which seemed to indicate that the
Outlaw had gathered boldness with years. The Count from the battlements
scanned his opponents and saw that they were led, not by the Outlaw
in person, but by a young man who evidently held his life lightly, so
recklessly did he risk it. He was ever in the thick of the fray, dealing
sword strokes with a lavish generosity which soon kindled a deep respect
for him in the breasts of his adversaries. The Count had not waited for
the battering in of his gates but had sent out his men to meet the enemy
in the open, which was rash generalship, had he not known that the men
of Gudenfels were hurrying round to the rear of the outlaws. Crossbowmen
lined the battlements ready to cover the retreat of the defenders of
the castle, should they meet a reverse, but now they stood in silence,
holding their shafts, for in the mêslée there was a danger of destroying
friend as well as foe. But in spite of the superb leadership of the
young captain, the outlaws, seemingly panic-stricken, when there was no
particular reason, deserted their commander in a body and fled in
spite of his frantic efforts to rally them. The young man found himself
surrounded, and, after a brave defence, overpowered. When the Gudenfels
men came up, there was none to oppose them, the leader of the enemy
being within the gates of Schonburg, bound, bleeding and a prisoner. The
attacking outlaws were nowhere to be seen.
The youthful captive, unkempt as he was, appeared in the great hall
of the castle before its grey-headed commander, seated in his chair of
state.
“You are the leader of this unwarranted incursion?” said the Count,
sternly, as he looked upon the pinioned lad.
“Warranted or unwarranted, I was the leader.”
“Who are you?”
“I am Wilhelm, only son of the Outlaw of Hundsrück.”
“The only son,” murmured the Count, more to himself than to his
auditors, the lines hardening round his firm mouth. For some moments
there was a deep silence in the large room, then the Count spoke in a
voice that had no touch of mercy in it:
“You will be taken to a dungeon and your wounds cared for. Seven days
from now, at this hour, you will appear again before me, at which time
just sentence will be passed upon you, after I hear what you have to say
in your own defence.”
“You may hear that now, my Lord. I besieged your castle and would
perhaps have taken it, had I not a pack of cowardly dogs at my heels.
I am now in your power, and although you talk glibly of justice, I know
well what I may expect at your hands. Your delay of a week is the mere
pretence of a hypocrite, who wishes to give colour of legality to an
act already decided upon. I do not fear you now, and shall not fear you
then, so spare your physicians unnecessary trouble, and give the word to
your executioner.”
“Take him away, attend to his wounds, and guard him strictly. Seven days
from now when I call for him; see to it that you can produce him.”
Elsa, niece of the Outlaw, watched anxiously for the return of her
cousin from the long prepared for expedition. She had the utmost
confidence in his bravery and the most earnest belief in his success,
yet she watched for the home-coming of the warriors with an anxious
heart. Perhaps a messenger would arrive telling of the capture of the
castle; perhaps all would return with news of defeat, but for what
actually happened the girl was entirely unprepared. That the whole
company, practically unscathed, should march into camp with the
astounding news that their leader had been captured and that they
had retreated without striking a blow on his behalf, seemed to her so
monstrous, that her first thought was fear of the retribution which
would fall on the deserters when her uncle realised the full import of
the tidings. She looked with apprehension at his forbidding face and was
amazed to see something almost approaching a smile part his thin lips.
“The attack has failed, then. I fear I sent out a leader incompetent
and too young. We must make haste to remove our camp or the victorious
Count, emboldened by success, may carry the war into the forest.”
With this amazing proclamation the Outlaw turned and walked to his hut
followed by his niece, bewildered as one entangled in the mazes of a
dream. When they were alone together, the girl spoke.
“Uncle, has madness overcome you?”
“I was never saner than now, nor happier, for years of waiting are
approaching their culmination.”
“Has, then, all valour left your heart?”
“Your question will be answered when next I lead my band.”
“When next you lead it? Where will you lead it?”
“Probably in the vicinity of Mayence, toward which place we are about to
journey.”
“Is it possible that you retreat from here without attempting the rescue
of your son, now in the hands of your lifelong enemy?”
“All things are possible in an existence like ours. The boy would
assault the castle; he has failed and has allowed himself to be taken.
It is the fortune of war and I shall not waste a man in attempting his
rescue.”
Elsa stood for a moment gazing in dismay at her uncle, whose shifty eyes
evaded all encounter with hers, then she strode to the wall, took down
a sword and turned without a word to the door. The Outlaw sprang between
her and the exit.
“What are you about to do?” he cried.
“I am about to rally all who are not cowards round me, then at their
head, I shall attack Castle Schonburg and set Wilhelm free or share his
fate.”
The Outlaw stood for a few moments, his back against the door of the
hut, gazing in sullen anger at the girl, seemingly at a loss to know
how she should be dealt with. At last his brow cleared and he spoke: “Is
your interest in Wilhelm due entirely to the fact that you are cousins?”
A quick flush overspread the girl’s fair cheeks with colour and her eyes
sought the floor of the hut. The point of the sword she held lowered
until it rested on the stone flags, and she swayed slightly, leaning
against its hilt, while the keen eyes of her uncle regarded her
critically. She said in a voice little above a whisper, contrasting
strongly with her determined tone of a moment before:
“My interest is due to our relationship alone.”
“Has no word of love passed between you?”
“Oh, no, no. Why do you ask me such a question?”
“Because on the answer given depends whether or not I shall entrust you
with knowledge regarding him. Swear to me by the Three Kings of Cologne
that you will tell to none what I will now impart to you.”
“I swear,” said Elsa, raising her right hand, and holding aloft the
sword with it.
“Wilhelm is not my son, nor is he kin to either of us, but is the heir
of the greatest enemy of our house, Count Herbert of Schonburg. I lured
him from his father’s home as a child and now send him back as a man.
Some time later I shall acquaint the Count with the fact that the young
man he captured is his only son.”
The girl looked at her uncle, her eyes wide with horror.
“It is your purpose then that the father shall execute his own son?”
The Outlaw shrugged his shoulders.
“The result lies not with me, but with the Count. He was once a crusader
and the teaching of his master is to the effect that the measure he
metes to others, the same shall be meted to him, if I remember aright
the tenets of his faith. Count Herbert wreaking vengeance upon my
supposed son, is really bringing destruction upon his own, which seems
but justice. If he show mercy to me and mine, he is bestowing the
blessed balm thereof on himself and his house. In this imperfect world,
few events are ordered with such admirable equity as the capture of
young Lord Wilhelm, by that haughty and bloodthirsty warrior, his
father. Let us then await with patience the outcome, taking care not to
interfere with the designs of Providence.”
“The design comes not from God but from the evil one himself.”
“It is within the power of the Deity to overturn even the best plans of
the fiend, if it be His will. Let us see to it that we do not intervene
between two such ghostly potentates, remembering that we are but puny
creatures, liable to err.”
“The plot is of your making, secretly held, all these years, with
unrelenting malignity. The devil himself is not wicked enough to send
an innocent, loyal lad to his doom in his own mother’s house, with his
father as his executioner. Oh, uncle, uncle, repent and make reparation
before it is too late.”
“Let the Count repent and make reparation. I have now nothing to do with
the matter. As I have said, if the Count is merciful, he is like to be
glad of it later in his life; if he is revengeful, visiting the sin
of the father on the son, innocent, I think you called him, then he
deserves what his own hand deals out to himself. But we have talked too
much already. I ask you to remember your oath, for I have told you this
so that you will not bring ridicule upon me by a womanish appeal to my
own men, who would but laugh at you in any case and think me a dotard in
allowing women overmuch to say in the camp. Get you back to your women,
for we move camp instantly. Even if I were to relent, as you term it,
the time is past, for Wilhelm is either dangling from the walls of
Castle Schonburg or he is pardoned, and all that we could do would be of
little avail. Prepare you then instantly for our journey.”
Elsa, with a sigh, went slowly to the women’s quarters, her oath, the
most terrible that may be taken on the Rhine, weighing heavily upon her.
Resolving not to break it, yet determined in some way to save Wilhelm,
the girl spent the first part of the journey in revolving plans of
escape, for she found as the cavalcade progressed that her uncle did not
trust entirely to the binding qualities of the oath she had taken, but
had her closely watched as well. As the expedition progressed farther
and farther south in the direction of Mayence, vigilance was relaxed,
and on the evening of the second day, when a camp had been selected for
the night, Elsa escaped and hurried eastward through the forest until
she came to the Rhine, which was to be her guide to the castle of
Schonburg. The windings of the river made the return longer than the
direct journey through the wilderness had been, and in addition to this,
Elsa was compelled to circumambulate the numerous castles, climbing the
hills to avoid them, fearing capture and delay, so it was not until the
sun was declining on the sixth day after the assault on the castle that
she stood, weary and tattered and unkempt, before the closed gates of
Schonburg, and beat feebly with her small hand against the oak, crying
for admittance. The guard of the gate, seeing through the small lattice
but a single dishevelled woman standing there, anticipating treachery,
refused to open the little door in the large leaf until his captain
was summoned, who, after some parley, allowed the girl to enter the
courtyard.
“What do you want?” asked the captain, curtly.
She asked instead of answered:
“Is your prisoner still alive?”
“The son of the Outlaw? Yes, but he would be a confident prophet who
would predict as much for him at this hour to-morrow.”
“Take me, I beg of you, to the Countess.”
“That is as it may be. Who are you and what is your business with her?”
“I shall reveal myself to her Ladyship, and to her will state the object
of my coming.”
“Your object is plain enough. You are some tatterdemalion of the forest
come to beg the life of your lover, who hangs to-morrow, or I am a
heathen Saracen.”
“I do beseech you, tell the Countess that a miserable woman craves
permission to speak with her.”
What success might have attended her petition is uncertain, but the
problem was solved by the appearance of the Countess herself on the
terrace above them, which ran the length of the castle on its western
side. The lady leaned over the parapet and watched with evident
curiosity the strange scene in the courtyard below, the captain and his
men in a ring around the maiden of the forest, who occupying the centre
of the circle, peered now in one face, now in another, as if searching
for some trace of sympathy in the stolid countenances of the warriors
all about her. Before the captain could reply, his lady addressed him.
“Whom have you there, Conrad?”
It seemed as if the unready captain would get no word said, for again
before he had made answer the girl spoke to the Countess.
“I do implore your Ladyship to grant me speech with you.”
The Countess looked down doubtfully upon the supplicant, evidently
prejudiced by her rags and wildly straying hair. The captain cleared his
throat and opened his mouth, but the girl eagerly forestalled him.
“Turn me not away, my Lady, because I come in unhandsome guise, for
I have travelled far through forest and over rock, climbing hills and
skirting the river’s brink to be where I am. The reluctant wilderness,
impeding me, has enviously torn my garments, leaving me thus ashamed
before you, but, dear Lady, let not that work to my despite. Grant my
petition and my prayer shall ever be that the dearest wish of your own
heart go not unsatisfied.”
“Alas!” said the Countess, with a deep sigh, “my dearest wish gives
little promise of fulfilment.”
Conrad, seeing that the lady thought of her lost son, frowned angrily,
and in low growling tones bade the girl have a care what she said, but
Elsa was not to be silenced and spoke impetuously.
“Oh, Countess, the good we do often returns to us tenfold; mercy calls
forth mercy
|
know his right hand from
his left, they say that he isn’t clever but that he is full of game.”
Skene looked with secret wonder at his pupil, whose powers of
observation and expression sometimes seemed to him almost to rival those
of Mrs. Skene. “Sam was saying something like that to-day,” he remarked.
“He says you’re only a sparrer, and that you’d fall down with fright if
you was put into a twenty-four-foot ring.”
The novice flushed. “I wish I had been here when Sum Ducket said that.”
“Why, what could you ha’ done to him?” said Skene, his small eyes
twinkling.
“I’d have punched his head; that’s what I could and would have done to
him.”
“Why, man, he’d eat you.”
“He might. And he might eat you too, Ned, if he had salt enough with
you. He talks big because he knows I have no money; and he pretends he
won’t strip for less than fifty pounds a side.”
“No money!” cried Skene. “I know them as’ll make up fifty pound before
twelve to-morrow for any man as I will answer for. There’d be a start
for a young man! Why, my fust fight was for five shillings in Tott’nam
Fields; and proud I was when I won it. I don’t want to set you on to
fight a crack like Sam Ducket anyway against your inclinations; but
don’t go for to say that money isn’t to be had. Let Ned Skene pint to a
young man and say, ‘That’s the young man as Ned backs,’ and others will
come for’ard--ay, crowds of ‘em.”
The novice hesitated. “Do you think I ought to, Ned?” he said.
“That ain’t for me to say,” said Skene, doggedly. “I know what I would
ha’ said at your age. But perhaps you’re right to be cautious. I tell
you the truth, I wouldn’t care to see you whipped by the like of Sam
Ducket.”
“Will you train me if I challenge him?”
“Will I train you!” echoed Skene, rising with enthusiasm. “Ay will I
train you, and put my money on you, too; and you shall knock fireworks
out of him, my boy, as sure as my name’s Ned Skene.”
“Then,” cried the novice, reddening with excitement, “I’ll fight him.
And if I lick him you will have to hand over your belt as champion of
the colonies to me.”
“So I will,” said Skene, affectionately. “Don’t out late; and don’t for
your life touch a drop of liquor. You must go into training to-morrow.”
This was Cashel Byron’s first professional engagement.
CHAPTER I
Wiltstoken Castle was a square building with circular bastions at the
corners, each bastion terminating skyward in a Turkish minaret. The
southwest face was the front, and was pierced by a Moorish arch fitted
with glass doors, which could be secured on occasion by gates of
fantastically hammered iron. The arch was enshrined by a Palladian
portico, which rose to the roof, and was surmounted by an open pediment,
in the cleft of which stood a black-marble figure of an Egyptian, erect,
and gazing steadfastly at the midday sun. On the ground beneath was
an Italian terrace with two great stone elephants at the ends of the
balustrade. The windows on the upper story were, like the entrance,
Moorish; but the principal ones below were square bays, mullioned.
The castle was considered grand by the illiterate; but architects and
readers of books on architecture condemned it as a nondescript
mixture of styles in the worst possible taste. It stood on an eminence
surrounded by hilly woodland, thirty acres of which were enclosed as
Wiltstoken Park. Half a mile south was the little town of Wiltstoken,
accessible by rail from London in about two hours.
Most of the inhabitants of Wiltstoken were Conservatives. They stood in
awe of the castle; and some of them would at any time have cut half a
dozen of their oldest friends to obtain an invitation to dinner, or oven
a bow in public, from Miss Lydia Carew, its orphan mistress. This Miss
Carew was a remarkable person. She had inherited the castle and park
from her aunt, who had considered her niece’s large fortune in railways
and mines incomplete without land. So many other legacies had Lydia
received from kinsfolk who hated poor relations, that she was now, in
her twenty-fifth year, the independent possessor of an annual income
equal to the year’s earnings of five hundred workmen, and under no
external compulsion to do anything in return for it. In addition to the
advantage of being a single woman in unusually easy circumstances, she
enjoyed a reputation for vast learning and exquisite culture. It was
said in Wiltstoken that she knew forty-eight living languages and
all dead ones; could play on every known musical instrument; was an
accomplished painter, and had written poetry. All this might as well
have been true as far as the Wiltstokeners were concerned, since she
knew more than they. She had spent her life travelling with her father,
a man of active mind and bad digestion, with a taste for sociology,
science in general, and the fine arts. On these subjects he had written
books, by which he had earned a considerable reputation as a critic and
philosopher. They were the outcome of much reading, observation of men
and cities, sight-seeing, and theatre-going, of which his daughter had
done her share, and indeed, as she grew more competent and he weaker and
older, more than her share. He had had to combine health-hunting with
pleasure-seeking; and, being very irritable and fastidious, had schooled
her in self-control and endurance by harder lessons than those which had
made her acquainted with the works of Greek and German philosophers long
before she understood the English into which she translated them.
When Lydia was in her twenty-first year her father’s health failed
seriously. He became more dependent on her; and she anticipated that he
would also become more exacting in his demands on her time. The contrary
occurred. One day, at Naples, she had arranged to go riding with an
English party that was staying there. Shortly before the appointed
hour he asked her to make a translation of a long extract from Lessing.
Lydia, in whom self-questionings as to the justice of her father’s yoke
had been for some time stirring, paused thoughtfully for perhaps two
seconds before she consented. Carew said nothing, but he presently
intercepted a servant who was bearing an apology to the English party,
read the note, and went back to his daughter, who was already busy at
Lessing.
“Lydia,” he said, with a certain hesitation, which she would have
ascribed to shyness had that been at all credible of her father when
addressing her, “I wish you never to postpone your business to literary
trifling.”
She looked at him with the vague fear that accompanies a new and
doubtful experience; and he, dissatisfied with his way of putting the
case, added, “It is of greater importance that you should enjoy yourself
for an hour than that my book should be advanced. Far greater!”
Lydia, after some consideration, put down her pen and said, “I shall not
enjoy riding if there is anything else left undone.”
“I shall not enjoy your writing if your excursion is given up for it,”
he said. “I prefer your going.”
Lydia obeyed silently. An odd thought struck her that she might end the
matter gracefully by kissing him. But as they were unaccustomed to make
demonstrations of this kind, nothing came of the impulse. She spent the
day on horseback, reconsidered her late rebellious thoughts, and made
the translation in the evening.
Thenceforth Lydia had a growing sense of the power she had unwittingly
been acquiring during her long subordination. Timidly at first, and more
boldly as she became used to dispense with the parental leading-strings,
she began to follow her own bent in selecting subjects for study, and
even to defend certain recent developments of art against her father’s
conservatism. He approved of this independent mental activity on her
part, and repeatedly warned her not to pin her faith more on him than
on any other critic. She once told him that one of her incentives to
disagree with him was the pleasure it gave her to find out ultimately
that he was right. He replied gravely:
“That pleases me, Lydia, because I believe you. But such things are
better left unsaid. They seem to belong to the art of pleasing, which
you will perhaps soon be tempted to practise, because it seems to all
young people easy, well paid, amiable, and a mark of good breeding. In
truth it is vulgar, cowardly, egotistical, and insincere: a virtue in
a shopman; a vice in a free woman. It is better to leave genuine praise
unspoken than to expose yourself to the suspicion of flattery.”
Shortly after this, at his desire, she spent a season in London, and
went into English polite society, which she found to be in the main a
temple for the worship of wealth and a market for the sale of virgins.
Having become familiar with both the cult and the trade elsewhere, she
found nothing to interest her except the English manner of conducting
them; and the novelty of this soon wore off. She was also incommoded by
her involuntary power of inspiring affection in her own sex. Impulsive
girls she could keep in awe; but old women, notably two aunts who had
never paid her any attention during her childhood, now persecuted her
with slavish fondness, and tempted her by mingled entreaties and bribes
to desert her father and live with them for the remainder of their
lives. Her reserve fanned their longing to have her for a pet; and, to
escape them, she returned to the Continent with her father, and ceased
to hold any correspondence with London. Her aunts declared themselves
deeply hurt, and Lydia was held to have treated them very injudiciously;
but when they died, and their wills became public, it was found that
they had vied with one another in enriching her.
When she was twenty-five years old the first startling event of her life
took place. This was the death of her father at Avignon. No endearments
passed between them even on that occasion. She was sitting opposite to
him at the fireside one evening, reading aloud, when he suddenly said,
“My heart has stopped, Lydia. Good-bye!” and immediately died. She had
some difficulty in quelling the tumult that arose when the bell was
answered. The whole household felt bound to be overwhelmed, and took
it rather ill that she seemed neither grateful to them nor disposed to
imitate their behavior.
Carew’s relatives agreed that he had made a most unbecoming will. It
was a brief document, dated five years before his death, and was to the
effect that he bequeathed to his dear daughter Lydia all he possessed.
He had, however, left her certain private instructions. One of these,
which excited great indignation in his family, was that his body
should be conveyed to Milan, and there cremated. Having disposed of
her father’s remains as he had directed, she came to set her affairs
in order in England, where she inspired much hopeless passion in
the toilers in Lincoln’s Inn Fields and Chancery Lane, and agreeably
surprised her solicitors by evincing a capacity for business, and a
patience with the law’s delay, that seemed incompatible with her age and
sex. When all was arranged, and she was once more able to enjoy perfect
tranquillity, she returned to Avignon, and there discharged her last
duty to her father. This was to open a letter she had found in his desk,
inscribed by his hand: “For Lydia. To be read by her at leisure when I
and my affairs shall be finally disposed of.” The letter ran thus:
“MY DEAR LYDIA,--I belong to the great company of disappointed men. But
for you, I should now write myself down a failure like the rest. It is
only a few years since it first struck me that although I had failed in
many ambitions with which (having failed) I need not trouble you now,
I had achieved some success as a father. I had no sooner made this
discovery than it began to stick in my thoughts that you could draw no
other conclusion from the course of our life together than that I have,
with entire selfishness, used you throughout as my mere amanuensis
and clerk, and that you are under no more obligation to me for your
attainments than a slave is to his master for the strength which
enforced labor has given to his muscles. Lest I should leave you
suffering from so mischievous and oppressive an influence as a sense of
injustice, I now justify myself to you.
“I have never asked you whether you remember your mother. Had you at any
time broached the subject, I should have spoken quite freely to you on
it; but as some wise instinct led you to avoid it, I was content to let
it rest until circumstances such as the present should render further
reserve unnecessary. If any regret at having known so little of the
woman who gave you birth troubles you, shake it off without remorse. She
was the most disagreeable person I ever knew. I speak dispassionately.
All my bitter personal feeling against her is as dead while I write as
it will be when you read. I have even come to cherish tenderly certain
of her characteristics which you have inherited, so that I confidently
say that I never, since the perishing of the infatuation in which I
married, felt more kindly toward her than I do now. I made the best,
and she the worst, of our union for six years; and then we parted. I
permitted her to give what account of the separation she pleased, and
allowed her about five times as much money as she had any right
to expect. By these means I induced her to leave me in undisturbed
possession of you, whom I had already, as a measure of precaution,
carried off to Belgium. The reason why we never visited England during
her lifetime was that she could, and probably would, have made my
previous conduct and my hostility to popular religion an excuse for
wresting you from me. I need say no more of her, and am sorry it was
necessary to mention her at all.
“I will now tell you what induced me to secure you for myself. It was
not natural affection; I did not love you then, and I knew that you
would be a serious encumbrance to me. But, having brought you into the
world, and then broken through my engagements with your mother, I felt
bound to see that you should not suffer for my mistake. Gladly would
I have persuaded myself that she was (as the gossips said) the fittest
person to have charge of you; but I knew better, and made up my mind to
discharge my responsibility as well as I could. In course of time
you became useful to me; and, as you know, I made use of you without
scruple, but never without regard to your own advantage. I always kept
a secretary to do whatever I considered mere copyist’s work. Much as you
did for me, I think I may say with truth that I never imposed a task of
absolutely no educational value on you. I fear you found the hours you
spent over my money affairs very irksome; but I need not apologize for
that now: you must already know by experience how necessary a knowledge
of business is to the possessor of a large fortune.
“I did not think, when I undertook your education, that I was laying the
foundation of any comfort for myself. For a long time you were only a
good girl, and what ignorant people called a prodigy of learning.
In your circumstances a commonplace child might have been both. I
subsequently came to contemplate your existence with a pleasure which
I never derived from the contemplation of my own. I have not succeeded,
and shall not succeed in expressing the affection I feel for you, or
the triumph with which I find that what I undertook as a distasteful
and thankless duty has rescued my life and labor from waste. My literary
travail, seriously as it has occupied us both, I now value only for
the share it has had in educating you; and you will be guilty of no
disloyalty to me when you come to see that though I sifted as much sand
as most men, I found no gold. I ask you to remember, then, that I did my
duty to you long before it became pleasurable or even hopeful. And, when
you are older and have learned from your mother’s friends how I failed
in my duty to her, you will perhaps give me some credit for having
conciliated the world for your sake by abandoning habits and
acquaintances which, whatever others may have thought of them, did much
while they lasted to make life endurable to me.
“Although your future will not concern me, I often find myself thinking
of it. I fear you will soon find that the world has not yet provided a
place and a sphere of action for wise and well-instructed women. In my
younger days, when the companionship of my fellows was a necessity
to me, I voluntarily set aside my culture, relaxed my principles, and
acquired common tastes, in order to fit myself for the society of the
only men within my reach; for, if I had to live among bears, I had
rather be a bear than a man. Let me warn you against this. Never attempt
to accommodate yourself to the world by self-degradation. Be patient;
and you will enjoy frivolity all the more because you are not frivolous:
much as the world will respect your knowledge all the more because of
its own ignorance.
“Some day, I expect and hope, you will marry. You will then have an
opportunity of making an irremediable mistake, against the possibility
of which no advice of mine or subtlety of yours can guard you. I think
you will not easily find a man able to satisfy in you that desire to be
relieved of the responsibility of thinking out and ordering our course
of life that makes us each long for a guide whom we can thoroughly
trust. If you fail, remember that your father, after suffering a bitter
and complete disappointment in his wife, yet came to regard his marriage
as the happiest event in his career. Let me remind you also, since you
are so rich, that it would be a great folly for you to be jealous of
your own income, and to limit your choice of a husband to those already
too rich to marry for money. No vulgar adventurer will be able to
recommend himself to you; and better men will be at least as much
frightened as attracted by your wealth. The only class against which
I need warn you is that to which I myself am supposed to belong. Never
think that a man must prove a suitable and satisfying friend for
you merely because he has read much criticism; that he must feel
the influences of art as you do because he knows and adopts the
classification of names and schools with which you are familiar; or
that because he agrees with your favorite authors he must necessarily
interpret their words to himself as you understand them. Beware of men
who have read more than they have worked, or who love to read better
than to work. Beware of painters, poets, musicians, and artists of all
sorts, except very great artists: beware even of them as husbands and
fathers. Self-satisfied workmen who have learned their business well,
whether they be chancellors of the exchequer or farmers, I recommend to
you as, on the whole, the most tolerable class of men I have met.
“I shall make no further attempt to advise you. As fast as my counsels
rise to my mind follow reflections that convince me of their futility.
“You may perhaps wonder why I never said to you what I have written down
here. I have tried to do so and failed. If I understand myself aright,
I have written these lines mainly to relieve a craving to express
my affection for you. The awkwardness which an over-civilized man
experiences in admitting that he is something more than an educated
stone prevented me from confusing you by demonstrations of a kind I had
never accustomed you to. Besides, I wish this assurance of my love--my
last word--to reach you when no further commonplaces to blur the
impressiveness of its simple truth are possible.
“I know I have said too much; and I feel that I have not said enough.
But the writing of this letter has been a difficult task. Practised as I
am with my pen, I have never, even in my earliest efforts, composed with
such labor and sense of inadequacy----”
Here the manuscript broke off. The letter had never been finished.
CHAPTER II
In the month of May, seven years after the flight of the two boys from
Moncrief House, a lady sat in an island of shadow which was made by
a cedar-tree in the midst of a glittering green lawn. She did well
to avoid the sun, for her complexion was as delicately tinted as
mother-of-pearl. She was a small, graceful woman, with sensitive lips
and nostrils, green eyes, with quiet, unarched brows, and ruddy gold
hair, now shaded by a large, untrimmed straw hat. Her dress of Indian
muslin, with half-sleeves terminating at the elbows in wide ruffles,
hardly covered her shoulders, where it was supplemented by a scarf
through which a glimpse of her throat was visible in a nest of soft
Tourkaris lace. She was reading a little ivory-bound volume--a miniature
edition of the second part of Goethe’s “Faust.”
As the afternoon wore on and the light mellowed, the lady dropped her
book and began to think and dream, unconscious of a prosaic black object
crossing the lawn towards her. This was a young gentleman in a
frock coat. He was dark, and had a long, grave face, with a reserved
expression, but not ill-looking.
“Going so soon, Lucian?” said the lady, looking up as he came into the
shadow.
Lucian looked at her wistfully. His name, as she uttered it, always
stirred him vaguely. He was fond of finding out the reasons of things,
and had long ago decided that this inward stir was due to her fine
pronunciation. His other intimates called him Looshn.
“Yes,” he said. “I have arranged everything, and have come to give an
account of my stewardship, and to say good-bye.”
He placed a garden-chair near her and sat down. She laid her hands one
on the other in her lap, and composed herself to listen.
“First,” he said, “as to the Warren Lodge. It is let for a month only;
so you can allow Mrs. Goff to have it rent free in July if you still
wish to. I hope you will not act so unwisely.”
She smiled, and said, “Who are the present tenants? I hear that they
object to the dairymaids and men crossing the elm vista.”
“We must not complain of that. It was expressly stipulated when they
took the lodge that the vista should be kept private for them. I had
no idea at that time that you were coming to the castle, or I should of
course have declined such a condition.”
“But we do keep it private for them; strangers are not admitted. Our
people pass and repass once a day on their way to and from the dairy;
that is all.”
“It seems churlish, Lydia; but this, it appears, is a special case--a
young gentleman, who has come to recruit his health. He needs daily
exercise in the open air; but he cannot bear observation, and he has
only a single attendant with him. Under these circumstances I agreed
that they should have the sole use of the elm vista. In fact, they are
paying more rent than would be reasonable without this privilege.”
“I hope the young gentleman is not mad.”
“I satisfied myself before I let the lodge to him that he would be a
proper tenant,” said Lucian, with reproachful gravity. “He was strongly
recommended to me by Lord Worthington, whom I believe to be a man of
honor, notwithstanding his inveterate love of sport. As it happens,
I expressed to him the suspicion you have just suggested. Worthington
vouched for the tenant’s sanity, and offered to take the lodge in his
own name and be personally responsible for the good behavior of this
young invalid, who has, I fancy, upset his nerves by hard reading.
Probably some college friend of Worthington’s.”
“Perhaps so. But I should rather expect a college friend of Lord
Worthington’s to be a hard rider or drinker than a hard reader.”
“You may be quite at ease, Lydia. I took Lord Worthington at his word
so far as to make the letting to him. I have never seen the real tenant.
But, though I do not even recollect his name, I will venture to answer
for him at second-hand.”
“I am quite satisfied, Lucian; and I am greatly obliged to you. I will
give orders that no one shall go to the dairy by way of the warren. It
is natural that he should wish to be out of the world.”
“The next point,” resumed Lucian, “is more important, as it concerns
you personally. Miss Goff is willing to accept your offer. And a most
unsuitable companion she will be for you!”
“Why, Lucian?”
“On all accounts. She is younger than you, and therefore cannot
chaperone you. She has received only an ordinary education, and her
experience of society is derived from local subscription balls. And, as
she is not unattractive, and is considered a beauty in Wiltstoken, she
is self-willed, and will probably take your patronage in bad part.”
“Is she more self-willed than I?”
“You are not self-willed, Lydia; except that you are deaf to advice.”
“You mean that I seldom follow it. And so you think I had better employ
a professional companion--a decayed gentlewoman--than save this
young girl from going out as a governess and beginning to decay at
twenty-three?”
“The business of getting a suitable companion, and the pleasure or duty
of relieving poor people, are two different things, Lydia.”
“True, Lucian. When will Miss Goff call?”
“This evening. Mind; nothing is settled as yet. If you think better of
it on seeing her you have only to treat her as an ordinary visitor and
the subject will drop. For my own part, I prefer her sister; but she
will not leave Mrs. Goff, who has not yet recovered from the shock of
her husband’s death.”
Lydia looked reflectively at the little volume in her hand, and seemed
to think out the question of Miss Goff. Presently, with an air of having
made up her mind, she said, “Can you guess which of Goethe’s characters
you remind me of when you try to be worldly-wise for my sake?”
“When I try--What an extraordinary irrelevance! I have not read Goethe
lately. Mephistopheles, I suppose. But I did not mean to be cynical.”
“No; not Mephistopheles, but Wagner--with a difference. Wagner taking
Mephistopheles instead of Faust for his model.” Seeing by his face
that he did not relish the comparison, she added, “I am paying you a
compliment. Wagner represents a very clever man.”
“The saving clause is unnecessary,” he said, somewhat sarcastically. “I
know your opinion of me quite well, Lydia.”
She looked quickly at him. Detecting the concern in her glance, he shook
his head sadly, saying, “I must go now, Lydia. I leave you in charge of
the housekeeper until Miss Goff arrives.”
She gave him her hand, and a dull glow came into his gray jaws as he
took it. Then he buttoned his coat and walked gravely away. As he went,
she watched the sun mirrored in his glossy hat, and drowned in his
respectable coat. She sighed, and took up Goethe again.
But after a little while she began to be tired of sitting still, and she
rose and wandered through the park for nearly an hour, trying to find
the places in which she had played in her childhood during a visit to
her late aunt. She recognized a great toppling Druid’s altar that had
formerly reminded her of Mount Sinai threatening to fall on the head of
Christian in “The Pilgrim’s Progress.” Farther on she saw and avoided a
swamp in which she had once earned a scolding from her nurse by filling
her stockings with mud. Then she found herself in a long avenue of green
turf, running east and west, and apparently endless. This seemed the
most delightful of all her possessions, and she had begun to plan a
pavilion to build near it, when she suddenly recollected that this must
be the elm vista of which the privacy was so stringently insisted upon,
by her invalid tenant at the Warren Lodge. She fled into the wood at
once, and, when she was safe there, laughed at the oddity of being a
trespasser in her own domain. She made a wide detour in order to avoid
intruding a second time; consequently, after walking for a quarter of
an hour, she lost herself. The trees seemed never ending; she began to
think she must possess a forest as well as a park. At last she saw an
opening. Hastening toward it, she came again into the sunlight, and
stopped, dazzled by an apparition which she at first took to be a
beautiful statue, but presently recognized, with a strange glow of
delight, as a living man.
To so mistake a gentleman exercising himself in the open air on a
nineteenth-century afternoon would, under ordinary circumstances, imply
incredible ignorance either of men or statues. But the circumstances in
Miss Carew’s case were not ordinary; for the man was clad in a jersey
and knee-breeches of white material, and his bare arms shone like those
of a gladiator. His broad pectoral muscles, in their white covering,
were like slabs of marble. Even his hair, short, crisp, and curly,
seemed like burnished bronze in the evening light. It came into Lydia’s
mind that she had disturbed an antique god in his sylvan haunt. The
fancy was only momentary; for she perceived that there was a third
person present; a man impossible to associate with classic divinity. He
looked like a well to do groom, and was contemplating his companion much
as a groom might contemplate an exceptionally fine horse. He was the
first to see Lydia; and his expression as he did so plainly showed that
he regarded her as a most unwelcome intruder. The statue-man, following
his sinister look, saw her too, but with different feelings; for his
lips parted, his color rose, and he stared at her with undisguised
admiration and wonder. Lydia’s first impulse was to turn and fly; her
next, to apologize for her presence. Finally she went away quietly
through the trees.
The moment she was out of their sight she increased her pace almost to
a run. The day was too warm for rapid movement, and she soon stopped
and listened. There were the usual woodland sounds; leaves rustling,
grasshoppers chirping, and birds singing; but not a human voice or
footstep. She began to think that the god-like figure was only the
Hermes of Praxiteles, suggested to her by Goethe’s classical Sabbat, and
changed by a day-dream into the semblance of a living reality. The
groom must have been one of those incongruities characteristic of
dreams--probably a reminiscence of Lucian’s statement that the tenant
of the Warren Lodge had a single male attendant. It was impossible that
this glorious vision of manly strength and beauty could be substantially
a student broken down by excessive study. That irrational glow of
delight, too, was one of the absurdities of dreamland; otherwise she
should have been ashamed of it.
Lydia made her way back to the castle in some alarm as to the state of
her nerves, but dwelling on her vision with a pleasure that she would
not have ventured to indulge had it concerned a creature of flesh
and blood. Once or twice it recurred to her so vividly that she
asked herself whether it could have been real. But a little reasoning
convinced her that it must have been an hallucination.
“If you please, madam,” said one of her staff of domestics, a native of
Wiltstoken, who stood in deep awe of the lady of the castle, “Miss Goff
is waiting for you in the drawing-room.”
The drawing-room of the castle was a circular apartment, with a
dome-shaped ceiling broken into gilt ornaments resembling thick
bamboos, which projected vertically downward like stalagmites. The
heavy chandeliers were loaded with flattened brass balls, magnified
fac-similes of which crowned the uprights of the low, broad,
massively-framed chairs, which were covered in leather stamped with
Japanese dragon designs in copper-colored metal. Near the fireplace was
a great bronze bell of Chinese shape, mounted like a mortar on a black
wooden carriage for use as a coal-scuttle. The wall was decorated with
large gold crescents on a ground of light blue.
In this barbaric rotunda Miss Carew found awaiting her a young lady
of twenty-three, with a well-developed, resilient figure, and a clear
complexion, porcelain surfaced, and with a fine red in the cheeks.
The lofty pose of her head expressed an habitual sense of her
own consequence given her by the admiration of the youth of the
neighborhood, which was also, perhaps, the cause of the neatness of her
inexpensive black dress, and of her irreproachable gloves, boots, and
hat. She had been waiting to introduce herself to the lady of the castle
for ten minutes in a state of nervousness that culminated as Lydia
entered.
“How do you do, Miss Goff, Have I kept you waiting? I was out.”
“Not at all,” said Miss Goff, with a confused impression that red hair
was aristocratic, and dark brown (the color of her own) vulgar. She had
risen to shake hands, and now, after hesitating a moment to consider
what etiquette required her to do next, resumed her seat. Miss Carew
sat down too, and gazed thoughtfully at her visitor, who held herself
rigidly erect, and, striving to mask her nervousness, unintentionally
looked disdainful.
“Miss Goff,” said Lydia, after a silence that made her speech
impressive, “will you come to me on a long visit? In this lonely place I
am greatly in want of a friend and companion of my own age and position.
I think you must be equally so.”
Alice Goff was very young, and very determined to accept no credit that
she did not deserve. With the unconscious vanity and conscious honesty
of youth, she proceeded to set Miss Carew right as to her social
position, not considering that the lady of the castle probably
understood it better than she did herself, and indeed thinking it quite
natural that she should be mistaken.
“You are very kind,” she replied, stiffly; “but our positions are quite
different, Miss Carew. The fact is that I cannot afford to live an
idle life. We are very poor, and my mother is partly dependent on my
exertions.”
“I think you will be able to exert yourself to good purpose if you come
to me,” said Lydia, unimpressed. “It is true that I shall give you very
expensive habits; but I will of course enable you to support them.”
“I do not wish to contract expensive habits,” said Alice, reproachfully.
“I shall have to content myself with frugal ones throughout my life.”
“Not necessarily. Tell me, frankly: how had you proposed to exert
yourself? As a teacher, was it not?”
Alice flushed, but assented.
“You are not at all fitted for it; and you will end by marrying. As
a teacher you could not marry well. As an idle lady, with expensive
habits, you will marry very well indeed. It is quite an art to know how
to be rich--an indispensable art, if you mean to marry a rich man.”
“I have no intention of marrying,” said Alice, loftily. She thought
it time to check this cool aristocrat. “If I come at all I shall come
without any ulterior object.”
“That is just what I had hoped. Come without condition, or second
thought of any kind.”
“But--” began Alice, and stopped, bewildered by the pace at which the
negotiation was proceeding. She murmured a few words, and waited for
Lydia to proceed. But Lydia had said her say, and evidently expected a
|
th. Then, loyal to our country, Wm. Lindley
Dean and I appeared before the Provost Marshal with a statement of our
cases. We were ordered for a hearing on the 29th. On the afternoon of
that day W.L.D. was rejected upon examination of the Surgeon, but my
case not coming up, he remained with me,--much to my strength and
comfort. Sweet was his converse and long to be remembered, as we lay
together that warm summer night on the straw of the barracks. By his
encouragement much was my mind strengthened; my desires for a pure life,
and my resolutions for good. In him and those of whom he spoke I saw
the abstract beauty of Quakerism. On the next morning came Joshua M.
Dean to support me and plead my case before the Board of Enrollment. On
the day after, the 31st, I came before the Board. Respectfully those men
listened to the exposition of our principles; and, on our representing
that we looked for some relief from the President, the marshal released
me for twenty days. Meanwhile appeared Lindley M. Macomber and was
likewise, by the kindness of the marshal, though they had received
instructions from the Provost Marshal General to show such claims no
partiality, released to appear on the 20th day of the eighth month.
All these days we were urged by our acquaintances to pay our commutation
money; by some through well-meant kindness and sympathy; by others
through interest in the war; and by others still through a belief they
entertained it was our duty. But we confess a higher duty than that to
country; and, asking no military protection of our Government and
grateful for none, deny any obligation to support so unlawful a system,
as we hold a war to be even when waged in opposition to an evil and
oppressive power and ostensibly in defence of liberty, virtue, and free
institutions; and, though touched by the kind interest of friends, we
could not relieve their distress by a means we held even more sinful
than that of serving ourselves, as by supplying money to hire a
substitute we would not only be responsible for the result, but be the
agents in bringing others into evil. So looking to our Father alone for
help, and remembering that "Whoso loseth his life for my sake shall find
it; but whoso saveth it shall lose it," we presented ourselves again
before the Board, as we had promised to do when released. Being offered
four days more of time, we accepted it as affording opportunity to
visit our friends; and moreover as there would be more probability of
meeting Peter Dakin at Rutland.
Sweet was the comfort and sympathy of our friends as we visited them.
There was a deep comfort, as we left them, in the thought that so many
pure and pious people follow us with their love and prayers. Appearing
finally before the marshal on the 24th, suits and uniforms were selected
for us, and we were called upon to give receipts for them. L.M.M. was on
his guard, and, being first called upon, declared he could not do so, as
that would imply acceptance. Failing to come to any agreement, the
matter was postponed till next morning, when we certified to the fact
that the articles were "with us." Here I must make record of the
kindness of the marshal, Rolla Gleason, who treated us with respect and
kindness. He had spoken with respect of our Society; had given me
furloughs to the amount of twenty-four days, when the marshal at Rutland
considered himself restricted by his oath and duty to six days; and here
appeared in person to prevent any harsh treatment of us by his
sergeants; and though much against his inclinations, assisted in putting
on the uniform with his own hands. We bade him farewell with grateful
feelings and expressions of fear that we should not fall into as tender
hands again; and amid the rain in the early morning, as the town clock
tolled the hour of seven, we were driven amongst the flock that was
going forth to the slaughter, down the street and into the cars for
Brattleboro. Dark was the day with murk and cloud and rain; and, as we
rolled down through the narrow vales of eastern Vermont, somewhat of the
shadow crept into our hearts and filled them with dark apprehensions of
evil fortune ahead; of long, hopeless trials; of abuse from inferior
officers; of contempt from common soldiers; of patient endurance (or an
attempt at this), unto an end seen only by the eye of a strong faith.
Herded into a car by ourselves, we conscripts, substitutes, and the
rest, through the greater part of the day, swept over the fertile
meadows along the banks of the White River and the Connecticut, through
pleasant scenes that had little of delight for us. At Woodstock we were
joined by the conscripts from the 1st District,--altogether an inferior
company from those before with us, who were honest yeomen from the
northern and mountainous towns, while these were many of them
substitutes from the cities.
At Brattleboro we were marched up to the camp; our knapsacks and persons
searched; and any articles of citizen's dress taken from us; and then
shut up in a rough board building under a guard. Here the prospect was
dreary, and I felt some lack of confidence in our Father's arm, though
but two days before I wrote to my dear friend, E.M.H.,--
I go tomorrow where the din
Of war is in the sulphurous air.
I go the Prince of Peace to serve,
His cross of suffering to bear.
Brattleboro, _26th_, _8th_ month, 1863.--Twenty-five or thirty caged
lions roam lazily to and fro through this building hour after hour
through the day. On every side without, sentries pace their slow beat,
bearing loaded muskets. Men are ranging through the grounds or hanging
in synods about the doors of the different buildings, apparently without
a purpose. Aimless is military life, except betimes its aim is deadly.
Idle life blends with violent death-struggles till the man is unmade a
man; and henceforth there is little of manhood about him. Of a man he is
made a soldier, which is a man-destroying machine in two senses,--a
thing for the prosecuting or repelling an invasion like the block of
stone in the fortress or the plate of iron on the side of the Monitor.
They are alike. I have tried in vain to define a difference, and I see
only this. The iron-clad with its gun is the bigger soldier: the more
formidable in attack, the less liable to destruction in a given time;
the block the most capable of resistance; both are equally obedient to
officers. Or the more perfect is the soldier, the more nearly he
approaches these in this respect.
Three times a day we are marched out to the mess houses for our rations.
In our hands we carry a tin plate, whereon we bring back a piece of
bread (sour and tough most likely), and a cup. Morning and noon a piece
of meat, antique betimes, bears company with the bread. They who wish it
receive in their cups two sorts of decoctions: in the morning burnt
bread, or peas perhaps, steeped in water with some saccharine substance
added (I dare not affirm it to be sugar). At night steeped tea extended
by some other herbs probably and its pungency and acridity assuaged by
the saccharine principle aforementioned. On this we have so far
subsisted and, save some nauseating, comfortably. As we go out and
return, on right and left and in front and rear go bayonets. Some
substitutes heretofore have escaped and we are not to be neglected in
our attendants. Hard beds are healthy, but I query cannot the result be
defeated by the _degree_? Our mattresses are boards. Only the slight
elasticity of our thin blankets breaks the fall of our flesh and bones
thereon. Oh! now I praise the discipline I have received from uncarpeted
floors through warm summer nights of my boyhood.
The building resounds with petty talk; jokes and laughter and swearing.
Something more than that. Many of the caged lions are engaged with
cards, and money changes hands freely. Some of the caged lions read, and
some sleep, and so the weary day goes by.
L.M.M. and I addressed the following letter to Governor Holbrook and
hired a corporal to forward it to him.
BRATTLEBORO, VT., _26th_, _8th_ month, 1863.
FREDERICK HOLBROOK,
Governor of Vermont:--
We, the undersigned members of the Society of Friends, beg leave to
represent to thee, that we were lately drafted in the 3d Dist. of
Vermont, have been forced into the army and reached the camp near this
town yesterday.
That in the language of the elders of our New York Yearly Meeting, "We
love our country and acknowledge with gratitude to our Heavenly Father
the many blessings we have been favoured with under the government; and
can feel no sympathy with any who seek its overthrow."
But that, true to well-known principles of our Society, we cannot
violate our religious convictions either by complying with military
requisitions or by the equivalents of this compliance,--the furnishing
of a substitute or payment of commutation money. That, therefore, we are
brought into suffering and exposed to insult and contempt from those who
have us in charge, as well as to the penalties of insubordination,
though liberty of conscience is granted us by the Constitution of
Vermont as well as that of the United States.
Therefore, we beg of thee as Governor of our State any assistance thou
may be able to render, should it be no more than the influence of thy
position interceding in our behalf.
Truly Thy Friend,
CYRUS G. PRINGLE.
P.S.--We are informed we are to be sent to the vicinity of Boston
tomorrow.
_27th._--On board train to Boston. The long afternoon of yesterday
passed slowly away. This morning passed by,--the time of our stay in
Brattleboro, and we neither saw nor heard anything of our Governor. We
suppose he could not or would not help us. So as we go down to our trial
we have no arm to lean upon among all men; but why dost thou complain,
oh, my Soul? Seek thou that faith that will prove a buckler to thy
breast, and gain for thee the protection of an arm mightier than the
arms of all men.
_28th._ CAMP VERMONT: LONG ISLAND, BOSTON HARBOUR.--In the early morning
damp and cool we marched down off the heights of Brattleboro to take
train for this place. Once in the car the dashing young cavalry officer,
who had us in charge, gave notice he had placed men through the cars,
with loaded revolvers, who had orders to shoot any person attempting to
escape, or jump from the window, and that any one would be shot if he
even put his head out of the window. Down the beautiful valley of the
Connecticut, all through its broad intervales, heavy with its crops of
corn or tobacco, or shaven smooth by the summer harvest; over the hard
and stony counties of northern Massachusetts, through its suburbs and
under the shadow of Bunker Hill Monument we came into the City of
Boston, "the Hub of the Universe." Out through street after street we
were marched double guarded to the wharves, where we took a small
steamer for the island some six miles out in the harbour. A circumstance
connected with this march is worth mentioning for its singularity: at
the head of this company, like convicts (and feeling very much like
such), through the City of Boston walked, with heavy hearts and
down-cast eyes, two Quakers.
Here on this dry and pleasant island in the midst of the beautiful
Massachusetts Bay, we have the liberty of the camp, the privilege of air
and sunshine and hay beds to sleep upon. So we went to bed last night
with somewhat of gladness elevating our depressed spirits.
Here are many troops gathering daily from all the New England States
except Connecticut and Rhode Island. Their white tents are dotting the
green slopes and hilltops of the island and spreading wider and wider.
This is the flow of military tide here just now. The ebb went out to sea
in the shape of a great shipload just as we came in, and another load
will be sent before many days. All is war here. We are surrounded by the
pomp and circumstance of war, and enveloped in the cloud thereof. The
cloud settles down over the minds and souls of all; they cannot see
beyond, nor do they try; but with the clearer eye of Christian faith I
try to look beyond all this error unto Truth and Holiness immaculate:
and thanks to our Father, I am favoured with glimpses that are sweet
consolation amid this darkness.
This is one gratification: the men with us give us their sympathy. They
seem to look upon us tenderly and pitifully, and their expressions of
kind wishes are warm. Although we are relieved from duty and from drill,
and may lie in our tents during rain and at night, we have heard of no
complaint. This is the more worthy of note as there are so few in our
little (Vermont) camp. Each man comes on guard half the days. It would
probably be otherwise were their hearts in the service; but I have yet
to find the man in any of these camps or at any service who does not
wish himself at home. Substitutes say if they knew all they know now
before leaving home they would not have enlisted; and they have been but
a week from their homes and have endured no hardships. Yesterday L.M.M.
and I appeared before the Captain commanding this camp with a statement
of our cases. He listened to us respectfully and promised to refer us to
the General commanding here, General Devens; and in the meantime
released us from duty. In a short time afterward he passed us in our
tent, asking our names. We have not heard from him, but do not drill or
stand guard; so, we suppose, his release was confirmed. At that
interview a young lieutenant sneeringly told us he thought we had better
throw away our scruples and fight in the service of the country; and as
we told the Captain we could not accept pay, he laughed mockingly, and
said he would not stay here for $13.00 per month. He gets more than a
hundred, I suppose.
How beautiful seems the world on this glorious morning here by the
seaside! Eastward and toward the sun, fair green isles with outlines of
pure beauty are scattered over the blue bay. Along the far line of the
mainland white hamlets and towns glisten in the morning sun; countless
tiny waves dance in the wind that comes off shore and sparkle sunward
like myriads of gems. Up the fair vault, flecked by scarcely a cloud,
rolls the sun in glory. Though fair be the earth, it has come to be
tainted and marred by him who was meant to be its crowning glory. Behind
me on this island are crowded vile and wicked men, the murmur of whose
ribaldry riseth continually like the smoke and fumes of a lower world.
Oh! Father of Mercies, forgive the hard heartlessness and blindness and
scarlet sins of my fellows, my brothers.
PRISON EXPERIENCES FOR CONSCIENCE' SAKE--OUR PRISON
_31st._, _8th_ month, 1863. IN GUARD HOUSE.--Yesterday morning L.M.M.
and I were called upon to do fatigue duty. The day before we were asked
to do some cleaning about camp and to bring water. We wished to be
obliging, to appear willing to bear a hand toward that which would
promote our own and our fellows' health and convenience; but as we
worked we did not feel easy. Suspecting we had been assigned to such
work, the more we discussed in our minds the subject, the more clearly
the right way seemed opened to us; and we separately came to the
judgment that we must not conform to this requirement. So when the
sergeant bade us "Police the streets," we asked him if he had received
instructions with regard to us, and he replied we had been assigned to
"Fatigue Duty." L.M.M. answered him that we could not obey. He left us
immediately for the Major (Jarvis of Weathersfield, Vt.). He came back
and ordered us to the Major's tent. The latter met us outside and
inquired concerning the complaint he had heard of us. Upon our statement
of our position, he apparently undertook to argue our whimsies, as he
probably looked upon our principles, out of our heads. We replied to his
points as we had ability; but he soon turned to bullying us rather than
arguing with us, and would hardly let us proceed with a whole sentence.
"I make some pretension to religion myself," he said; and quoted the Old
Testament freely in support of war. Our terms were, submission or the
guard-house. We replied we could not obey.
This island was formerly occupied by a company, who carried on the large
farm it comprises and opened a great hotel as a summer resort.
The subjects of all misdemeanours, grave and small, are here confined.
Those who have deserted or attempted it; those who have insulted
officers and those guilty of theft, fighting, drunkenness, etc. In
_most_, as in the camps, there are traces yet of manhood and of the
Divine Spark, but some are abandoned, dissolute. There are many here
among the substitutes who were actors in the late New York riots. They
show unmistakably the characteristics and sentiments of those rioters,
and, especially, hatred to the blacks drafted and about camp, and
exhibit this in foul and profane jeers heaped upon these unoffending men
at every opportunity. In justice to the blacks I must say they are
superior to the whites in all their behaviour.
_31st._ P.M.--Several of us were a little time ago called out one by one
to answer inquiries with regard to our offences. We replied we could not
comply with military requisitions. P.D., being last, was asked if he
would die first, and replied promptly but mildly, _Yes_.
Here we are in prison in our own land for no crimes, no offence to God
nor man; nay, more: we are here for obeying the commands of the Son of
God and the influences of his Holy Spirit. I must look for patience in
this dark day. I am troubled too much and excited and perplexed.
_1st._, _9th_ month.--Oh, the horrors of the past night--I never before
experienced such _sensations_ and fears; and never did I feel so clearly
that I had nothing but the hand of our Father to shield me from evil.
Last night we three lay down together on the floor of a lower room of
which we had taken possession. The others were above. We had but one
blanket between us and the floor, and one over us. The other one we had
lent to a wretched deserter who had skulked into our room for _relief_,
being without anything of his own. We had during the day gained the
respect of the fellows, and they seemed disposed to let us occupy our
room in peace. I cannot say in quiet, for these caged beasts are
restless, and the resonant boards of this old building speak of bedlam.
The thin board partitions, the light door fastened only by a pine stick
thrust into a wooden loop on the casing, seemed small protection in case
of assault; but we lay down to sleep in quiet trust. But we had scarcely
fallen asleep before we were awakened by the demoniac howlings and
yellings of a man just brought into the next room, and allowed the
liberty of the whole house. He was drunk, and further seemed to be
labouring under delirium tremens. He crashed about furiously, and all
the more after the guard tramped heavily in and bound him with
handcuffs, and chain and ball. Again and again they left, only to return
to quiet him by threats or by crushing him down to the floor and gagging
him. In a couple of hours he became quiet and we got considerable sleep.
In the morning the fellow came into our room apologizing for the
intrusion. He appeared a smart, fine-looking young man, restless and
uneasy. P.D. has a way of disposing of intruders that is quite
effectual. I have not entirely disposed of some misgivings with respect
to the legitimacy of his use of the means, so he commenced reading aloud
in the Bible. The fellow was impatient and noisy, but he soon settled
down on the floor beside him. As he listened and talked with us the
recollections of his father's house and his innocent childhood were
awakened. He was the child of pious parents, taught in Sabbath School
and under pure home influences till thirteen. Then he was drawn into bad
company, soon after leaving home for the sea; and, since then, has
served in the army and navy,--in the army in Wilson's and Hawkins's
[brigades]. His was the old story of the total subjection of moral power
and thralldom to evil habits and associates. He would get drunk,
whenever it was in his power. It was wrong; but he could not help it.
Though he was awakened and recollected his parents looking long and in
vain for his return, he soon returned to camp, to his wallowing in the
mire, and I fear to his path to certain perdition.
_3d._ [9th month.]--A Massachusetts major, the officer of the day, in
his inspection of the guard-house came into our room today. We were
lying on the floor engaged in reading and writing. He was apparently
surprised at this and inquired the name of our books; and finding the
Bible and Thomas à Kempis's _Imitation of Christ_, observed that they
were good books. I cannot say if he knew we were Friends, but he asked
us why we were in here.
Like all officers he proceeded to reason with us, and to advise us to
serve, presenting no comfort if we still persisted in our course. He
informed us of a young Friend, Edward W. Holway of Sandwich, Mass.,
having been yesterday under punishment in the camp by his orders, who
was today doing service about camp. He said he was not going to put his
Quaker in the guard-house, but was going to bring him to work by
punishment. We were filled with deep sympathy for him and desired to
cheer him by kind words as well as by the knowledge of our similar
situation. We obtained permission of the Major to write to him a letter
open to his inspection. "You may be sure," said E.W.H. to us at W., "the
Major did not allow it to leave his hands."
This forenoon the Lieutenant of the Day came in and acted the same part,
though he was not so cool, and left expressing the hope, if we would not
serve our country like men, that God would curse us. Oh, the trials from
these officers! One after another comes in to relieve himself upon us.
Finding us firm and not lacking in words, they usually fly into a
passion and end by bullying us. How can we reason with such men? They
are utterly unable to comprehend the pure Christianity and spirituality
of our principles. They have long stiffened their necks in their own
strength. They have stopped their ears to the voice of the Spirit, and
hardened their hearts to his influences. They see no duty higher than
that to country. What shall we receive at their hands?
This Major tells us we will not be tried here. Then we are to be sent
into the field, and there who will deliver us but God? Ah, I have nursed
in my heart a hope that I may be spared to return home. Must I cast it
out and have no desire, but to do the will of my Master. It were better,
even so. O, Lord, Thy will be done. Grant I may make it my chief delight
and render true submission thereto.
Yesterday a little service was required of our dear L.M.M., but he
insisted he could not comply. A sergeant and two privates were engaged.
They coaxed and threatened him by turns, and with a determination not to
be baffled took him out to perform it. Though guns were loaded he still
stood firm and was soon brought back. We are happy here in
guard-house,--too happy, too much at ease. We should see more of the
Comforter,--feel more strength,--if the trial were fiercer; but this is
well. This is a trial of strength of patience.
_6th._ [9th month.]--Yesterday we had officers again for visitors. Major
J.B. Gould, 13th Massachusetts, came in with the determination of
persuading us to consent to be transferred to the hospital here, he
being the Provost Marshal of the island and having the power to make the
transfer. He is different in being and bearing from those who have been
here before. His motives were apparently those of pure kindness, and his
demeanour was that of a gentleman. Though he talked with us more than an
hour, he lost no part of his self-control or good humour. So by his
eloquence and kindness he made more impression upon us than any before.
As Congregationalist he well knew the courts of the temple, but the Holy
of Holies he had never seen, and knew nothing of its secrets. He
understood expediency; but is not the man to "lay down his life for my
sake." He is sincere and seems to think what Major Gould believes cannot
be far from right. After his attempt we remained as firm as ever. We
must expect all means will be tried upon us, and no less persuasion than
threats.
AT THE HOSPITAL, _7th._ [9th month.]--Yesterday morning came to us Major
Gould again, informing us that he had come to take us out of that dirty
place, as he could not see such respectable men lying there, and was
going to take us up to the hospital. We assured him we could not serve
there, and asked him if he would not bring us back when we had there
declared our purpose. He would not reply directly; but brought us here
and left us. When the surgeon knew our determination, he was for haling
us back at once; what he wanted, he said, was willing men. We sat on
the sward without the hospital tents till nearly noon, for some one to
take us back; when we were ordered to move into the tents and quarters
assigned us in the mess-room. The Major must have interposed,
demonstrating his kindness by his resolution that we should occupy and
enjoy the pleasanter quarters of the hospital, certainly if serving; but
none the less so if we declined. Later in the day L.M.M. and P.D. were
sitting without, when he passed them and, laughing heartily, declared
they were the strangest prisoners of war he ever saw. He stopped some
time to talk with them and when they came in they declared him a kind
and honest man.
If we interpret aright his conduct, this dangerous trial is over, and we
have escaped the perplexities that his kindness and determination threw
about us.
_13th._--Last night we received a letter from Henry Dickinson, stating
that the President, though sympathizing with those in our situation,
felt bound by the Conscription Act, and felt liberty, in view of his
oath to execute the laws, to do no more than detail us from active
service to hospital duty, or to the charge of the coloured refugees. For
more than a week have we lain here, refusing to engage in hospital
service; shall we retrace the steps of the past week? Or shall we go
South as overseers of the blacks on the confiscated estates of the
rebels, to act under military commanders and to report to such? What
would become of our testimony and our determination to preserve
ourselves clear of the guilt of this war?
P.S. We have written back to Henry Dickinson that we cannot purchase
life at cost of peace of soul.
_14th._--We have been exceeding sorrowful since receiving advice--as we
must call it--from H.D. to enter the hospital service or some similar
situation. We did not look for that from him. It is not what our Friends
sent us out for; nor is it what we came for. We shall feel desolate and
dreary in our position, unless supported and cheered by the words of
those who have at heart our best interests more than regard for our
personal welfare. We walk as we feel guided by Best Wisdom. Oh, may we
run and not err in the high path of Holiness.
_16th._--Yesterday a son-in-law of N.B. of Lynn came to see us. He was
going to get passes for one or two of the Lynn Friends, that they might
come over to see us today. He informed us that the sentiment of the
Friends hereabouts was that we might enter the hospital without
compromising our principles; and he produced a letter from W.W. to S.B.
to the same effect. W.W. expressed his opinion that we might do so
without doing it in lieu of other service. How can we evade a fact?
Does not the government both demand and accept it as in lieu of other
service? Oh, the cruelest blow of all comes from our friends.
_17th._--Although this trial was brought upon us by our friends, their
intentions were well meant. Their regard for our personal welfare and
safety too much absorbs the zeal they should possess for the maintenance
of the principle of the peaceableness of our Master's kingdom. An
unfaithfulness to this through meekness and timidity seems
manifest,--too great a desire to avoid suffering at some sacrifice of
principle, perhaps,--too little of placing of Faith and confidence upon
the Rock of Eternal Truth.
Our friends at home, with W.D. at their head, support us; and yesterday,
at the opportune moment, just as we were most distressed by the
solicitations of our visitors, kind and cheering words of Truth were
sent us through dear C.M.P., whose love rushes out to us warm and living
and just from an overflowing fountain.
I must record another work of kind attention shown us by Major Gould.
Before we embarked, he came to us for a friendly visit. As we passed him
on our way to the wharf he bade us Farewell and expressed a hope we
should not have so hard a time as we feared. And after we were aboard
the steamer, as the result of his interference on our behalf, we must
believe, we were singled out from the midst of the prisoners, among whom
we had been placed previous to coming aboard, and allowed the liberty of
the vessel. By this are we saved much suffering, as the other prisoners
were kept under close guard in a corner on the outside of the boat.
FOREST CITY UP THE POTOMAC. _22nd._ [9th month.]--It was near noon,
yesterday, when we turned in from sea between Cape Charles and Henry;
and, running thence down across the mouth of Chesapeake Bay, alongside
Old Point Comfort, dropped anchor off Fortress Monroe. The scene around
us was one of beauty, though many of its adornments were the results and
means of wrong. The sunshine was brighter, the verdure greener to our
eyes weary of the sea, and the calm was milder and more grateful that we
had so long tossed in the storm.
The anchor was soon drawn up again and the _Forest City_ steamed up the
James River toward Newport News, and turning to the left between the
low, pine-grown banks, passed Norfolk to leave the New Hampshire
detachment at Portsmouth.
Coming back to Fortress Monroe, some freight was landed; and in the calm
clear light of the moon, we swung away from shore and dropping down the
mouth of the river, rounded Old Point, and, going up the Chesapeake,
entered the Potomac in the night-time.
OFF SHORE, ALEXANDRIA. _23d._--Here we anchored last night after the
main detachment was landed, and the Vermont and Massachusetts men
remained on board another night. We hear we are to go right to the
field, where active operations are going on. This seems hard. We have
not till now given up the hope that we were not to go out into Virginia
with the rest of the men, but were to be kept here at Washington.
Fierce, indeed, are our trials. I am not discouraged entirely; but I am
weak from want of food which I can eat, and from sickness. I do not know
how I am going to live in such way, or get to the front.
P.S. We have just landed; and I had the liberty to buy a pie of a woman
hawking such things, that has strengthened me wonderfully.
CAMP NEAR CULPEPER. _25th._--My distress is too great for words; but I
must overcome my disinclination to write, or this record will remain
unfinished. So, with aching head and heart, I proceed.
Yesterday morning we were roused early for breakfast and for preparation
for starting. After marching out of the barracks, we were first taken to
the armory, where each man received a gun and its equipments and a piece
of tent. We stood in line, waiting for our turn with apprehensions of
coming trouble. Though we had felt free to keep with those among whom we
had been placed, we could not consent to carry a gun, even though we did
not intend to use it; and, from our previous experience, we knew it
would go harder with us, if we took the first step in the wrong
direction, though it might seem an unimportant one, and an easy and not
very wrong way to avoid difficulty. So we felt decided we must decline
receiving the guns. In the hurry and bustle of equipping a detachment
of soldiers, one attempting to explain a position and the grounds
therefor so peculiar as ours to junior, petty officers, possessing
liberally the characteristics of these: pride, vanity, conceit, and an
arbitrary spirit, impatience, profanity, and contempt for holy things,
must needs find the opportunity a very unfavourable one.
We succeeded in giving these young officers a slight idea of what we
were; and endeavoured to answer their questions of why we did not pay
our commutation, and avail ourselves of that provision made expressly
for such; of why we had come as far as that place, etc. We realized then
the unpleasant results of that practice, that had been employed with us
by the successive officers into whose hands we had fallen,--of shirking
any responsibility, and of passing us on to the next officer above.
A council was soon holden to decide what to do with us. One proposed to
place us under arrest, a sentiment we rather hoped might prevail, as it
might prevent our being sent on to the front; but another, in some spite
and impatience, insisted, as it was their duty to supply a gun to every
man and forward him, that the guns should be put upon us, and we be made
to carry them. Accordingly the equipment was buckled about us, and the
straps of the guns being loosened, they were thrust over our heads and
hung upon our shoulders. In this way we were urged forward through the
streets of Alexandria; and, having been put upon a long train of dirt
cars, were started for Culpeper. We came over a long stretch of
desolated and deserted country, through battlefields of previous
summers, and through many camps now lively with the work of this present
campaign. Seeing, for the first time, a country made dreary by the
war-blight, a country once adorned with groves and green pastures and
meadows and fields of waving grain, and happy with a thousand homes, now
laid with the ground, one realizes as he can in no other way something
of the ruin that lies in the trail of a war. But upon these fields of
Virginia, once so fair, there rests a two-fold blight, first that of
slavery, now that of war. When one contrasts the face of this country
with the smiling hillsides and vales of New England, he sees stamped
upon it in characters so marked, none but a blind man can fail to read,
the great irrefutable arguments against slavery and against war, too;
and must be filled with loathing for these twin relics of barbarism, so
awful in the potency of their consequences that they can change even the
face of the country.
Through the heat of this long ride, we felt our total lack of water and
the meagreness of our supply of food. Our thirst became so oppressive
as we were marched here
|
ced, together with a boy of fifteen, called Ponticus. He, like
Blandina, had been compelled daily to witness the torments to which the
rest had been subjected.
And now the same hideous round of tortures began, and Blandina in the
midst of her agony continued to encourage the brave boy till he died.
Blandina had been roasted in the iron chair and scourged.
As a variety she was placed in a net. Then the gate of one of the larger
dens was raised, and forth rushed a bull, pawed the sand, tossed his
head, looked round, and seeing the net, plunged forward with bowed head.
Next moment Blandina was thrown into the air, fell, was thrown again,
then gored—but was happily now unconscious. Thus she died, and “even the
Gentiles confessed that no woman among them had ever endured sufferings
as many and great.” But not even then was their madness and cruelty to
the saints satisfied, for “... those who were suffocating in prison were
drawn forth and cast to the dogs; and they watched night and day over
the remains left by beasts and fire, however mangled they might be, to
prevent us from burying them. The bodies, after exposure and abuse in
every possible way during six days, were finally cast into the Rhône.
These things they did as if they were able to resist God and prevent
their resurrection.”
The dungeons in which S. Pothinus, S. Blandina, and the rest of the
martyrs were kept through so many days, are shown beneath the abbey
church of Ainay at Lyons. It is possible enough that Christian tradition
may have preserved the remembrance of the site. They are gloomy cells,
without light or air, below the level of the river. The apertures by
which they are entered are so low that the visitor is obliged to creep
into them on his hands and knees. Traces of Roman work remain. Adjoining
is a crypt that was used as a chapel till the Revolution, when it was
desecrated. It is, however, again restored, the floor has been inlaid
with mosaics, and the walls are covered with modern frescoes,
representing the passion of the martyrs.
What makes it difficult to believe that these are the dungeons is that
the abbey above them is constructed on the site of the Athenæum founded
by Caligula, a great school of debate and composition, and it is most
improbable that the town prisons should have been under the university
buildings. In all likelihood in the early Middle Ages these vaults were
found and supposed to have been the prisons of the martyrs, and
supposition very rapidly became assurance that they were so. The prison
in which the martyrs were enclosed was the _lignum_ or _robur_, which
was certainly not below the level of the river.
The question arises, when one reads stories of such inhuman cruelties
done, did the victims suffer as acutely as we suppose? I venture to
think not _at the time_. There can be no question, as it is a thing
repeatedly attested, that in a moment of great excitement the nerves are
not very sensitive. The pain of wounds received in battle is not felt
till after the battle is over. Moreover, it may be questioned whether
the human system can endure pain above a certain grade—whether, in fact,
beyond a limit, insensibility does not set in.
I attended once a poor lady who was frightfully burnt. A paraffin lamp
set fire to a gauze or lace wrap she had about her neck. All her throat
and the lower portion of her face were frightfully burnt. I was
repeatedly with her, but she was unconscious or as in a sleep; there was
no expression of anguish in her face. She quietly sank through
exhaustion. I have questioned those who have met with shocking
accidents, and have always been assured that the pain began when nature
commenced its labour of repair. Pain, excruciating pain, can be endured,
and for a long period; but I think that when carried beyond a fixed
limit it ceases to be appreciable, as insensibility sets in.
This is a matter for investigation, and it were well if those who read
these lines were to endeavour to collect evidence to substantiate or
overthrow what is, with me, only an opinion.
[Illustration: S. CÆCILIA.]
II
_S. CÆCILIA_
In 1876, when I was writing the November volume of my “Lives of the
Saints,” and had to deal with the Acts of S. Cæcilia, I saw at once that
they were eminently untrustworthy—they were, in fact, a religious
romance, very similar to others of the like nature; and my mistrust was
deepened when I found that the name of Cæcilia did not appear in either
the Roman Kalendar of the fourth century, nor in the Carthagenian of the
fifth.
The Acts were in Greek, and it was not till the time of Pope Gelasius
(496) that her name appeared at all prominently; then he introduced it
into his Sacramentary.
The Acts as we have them cannot be older than the fifth century, and
contain gross anachronisms. They make her suffer when Urban was Pope,
under an apocryphal prefect, Turcius Almachius; but the date of Pope
Urban was in the reign of Alexander Severus, who did not persecute the
Church at all—who, in fact, favoured the Christians.
But although there is so much to make one suspicious as to the very
existence of S. Cæcilia, a good many facts have been brought to light
which are sufficient to show that it was the stupidity of the composer
of the apocryphal Acts which has thrown such doubt over the Virgin
Martyr.
If we eliminate what is obviously due to the romantic imagination of the
author of the Acts in the fifth century, the story reduces itself to
this.
Cæcilia was a maiden of noble family, and her parents were of senatorial
rank. From her earliest youth she was brought up as a Christian, but
that her father was one is doubtful, as he destined his daughter to
become the wife of an honourable young patrician named Valerian, who
was, however, a pagan.
Cæcilia would not hear of the marriage on this account; and Valerian,
who loved her dearly, by her advice went to Urban the Pope, who was
living in concealment in the Catacomb in the Appian Way, to learn
something about the Faith. Valerian took with him his brother,
Tiburtius; they were both convinced, were baptised, and, as they
confessed Christ, suffered martyrdom; and the officer who arrested them,
named Maximus, also believed and underwent the same fate. All three were
laid in the Catacomb of Prætextatus.
Cæcilia, in the meantime, had remained unmolested in her father’s house
in Rome.
The Prefect resolved to have her put to death privately, as she belonged
to an illustrious family, perhaps also in consideration for her father,
still a heathen.
He gave orders that the underground passages for heating the winter
apartments should be piled with wood, and an intense fire made, and that
the room in which Cæcilia was should be closed, so that she should die
of suffocation. This was done, but she survived the attempt. This is by
no means unlikely. The walls were heated by pipes through which the hot
air passed, and there was a thick pavement of concrete and mosaic
between the fires and the room. Everything depended on the chamber being
shut up, and there being no air admitted; but it is precisely this
latter requisite that could not be assured. In her own house, where the
slaves were warmly attached to her, nothing would be easier than to
withdraw the cover of the opening in the ceiling, by means of which
ventilation was secured. By some means or other air was admitted, and
although, doubtless, Cæcilia suffered discomfort from the great heat,
yet she was not suffocated.
The chamber was the _Calidarium_, or hot-air bath attached to the
palace, and in the church of S. Cæcilia in Trastevere a portion of this
is still visible.
As the attempt had failed, the Prefect sent an executioner to kill her
with the sword.
Her beauty, youth, and grace, so affected the man that, although he
smote thrice at her throat, he did not kill her. It was against the law
to strike more than thrice, so he left her prostrate on the mosaic floor
bathed in her blood.
No sooner was the executioner gone than from all sides poured in her
relatives, the slaves, and the faithful to see her, and to receive the
last sigh of the Martyr. They found her lying on the marble pavement,
half conscious only, and they dipped their kerchiefs in her blood, and
endeavoured to staunch the wounds in her throat.
She lingered two days and nights in the same condition, and without
moving, hanging between life and death; and then—so say the Acts—Pope
Urban arrived, braving the risk, from his hiding-place, to say farewell
to his dear daughter in the Faith. Thereupon she turned to him,
commended to him the care of the poor, entreated her father to surrender
his house to the Church, and expired. In the Acts she addresses the Pope
as “Your Beatitude,” an expression used in the fifth century, and
certainly not in the third.
She died, as she had lain, her face to the ground, her hands and arms
declining on the right, as she rested on that side.
The same night her body was enclosed in a cypress chest, and was
conveyed to the cemetery of S. Callixtus, where Urban laid it in a
chamber “near that in which reposed his brother prelates and martyrs.”
So far the legend. Now let us see whether it is possible to reconcile it
with history.
In the first place, it is to be observed that the whole of the
difficulty lies with Urban being Pope. If we suppose that in the
original Acts the name was simply “Urban the Bishop,” and that the
remodeller of the Acts took the liberty of transforming him into Pope
Urban, the difficulty vanishes at once. He may have been some regionary
bishop in hiding. He may not have been a bishop at all, but a priest;
and the writer, ignorant of history, and knowing only of the Urbans as
Popes, may have given rise to all this difficulty by transforming him
into a Pope.
Now, in the Acts, the Prefect does not speak of the Emperor, but of
“Domini nostri invictissimi principes” (our Lords the unconquered
Princes). The Emperor, therefore, cannot have been Alexander. Now, Ado
the martyrologist, in or about 850, must have referred to other Acts
than those we possess, for he enters S. Cæcilia as having suffered under
Marcus Aurelius and Commodus—that is to say, in 177. This explains the
Prefect referring to the orders of the Princes.
If we take this as the date, and Urban as being a priest or bishop of
the time, the anachronisms are at an end.
That the Acts should have been in Greek is no proof that they were not
drawn up in Rome, for Greek was the language of the Church there, and
indeed the majority of the most ancient inscriptions in the Catacombs
are in that language.
So much for the main difficulties. Now let us see what positive
evidences we have to substantiate the story.
The excavation of the Cemetery of S. Callixtus, which was begun in 1854,
and was carried on with great care by De Rossi, led to the clearing out
of a crypt in which the early Bishops of Rome had been laid. The bodies
had been removed when Paschal I. conveyed so many of those of the saints
and martyrs into Rome, on account of the ruin into which the Catacombs
had fallen, but their epitaphs remained, all of the third century, and
in Greek; among these, that of Urbanus, 230; and it was perhaps
precisely this fact which led the recomposer of the Acts to confound the
Urban of S. Cæcilia’s time with the Pope. The first Pope known to have
been laid there was Zephyrinus, in 218. Here also was found an
inscription set up by Damasus I., recording how that the bodies of
bishops and priests, virgins and confessors lay in that place.
Now by a narrow, irregular opening in the rock, entrance is obtained to
a further chamber, about twenty feet square, lighted by a _luminare_ in
the top, or an opening to the upper air cut in the tufa. This, there can
be no manner of doubt, is the crypt in which reposed the body of S.
Cæcilia.
In the Acts it was said to adjoin that in which were laid the Bishops of
Rome; though, as these bishops were of later date than Cæcilia, if we
take her death to have been in 177, their crypt must have been dug out
or employed for the purpose of receiving their bodies at a later period.
Again, it is an interesting fact, that here a number of the tombstones
that have been discovered bear the Cæcilian name, showing that this
cemetery must have belonged to that _gens_ or clan. Not only so, but one
is inscribed with that of Septimus Prætextatus Cæcilianus, a servant of
God during thirty years. It will be remembered that Prætextatus was the
name of the brother of Valerian, who was betrothed to Cæcilia, and it
leads one to suspect that the families of Valerian and of Cæcilia were
akin.
The chapel or crypt contains frescoes. In the _luminare_ is painted a
female figure with the hands raised in prayer. Beneath this a cross with
a lamb on each side. Below are three male figures with the names
Sebastianus, Curinus (Quirinus), and Polycamus. Sebastian is doubtless
the martyr of that name whose basilica is not far off. Quirinus, who has
the _corona_ of a priest, is the bishop and martyr of Siscia, whose body
was brought in 420 to Rome. Of Polycamus nothing is known, save that his
relics were translated in the ninth century to S. Prassede.
Against the wall lower down is a seventh-century representation of S.
Cæcilia, richly clothed with necklace and bracelets; below a head of
Christ of Byzantine type, and a representation of S. Urban. But these
paintings, which are late, have been applied over earlier decoration;
behind the figure of S. Cæcilia is mosaic, and that of Christ is painted
on the old porphyry panelling. There are in this crypt recesses for the
reception of bodies, and near the entrance an arched place low enough to
receive a sarcophagus; and there are traces as though the face had at
one time been walled up.
The walls are covered with _graffiti_, or scribbles made by pilgrims. An
inscription also remains, to state that this was the sepulchre of S.
Cæcilia the Martyr, but this inscription is not earlier than the ninth
or tenth century.
In 817 Paschal I. was Pope, and in the following year he removed
enormous numbers of the remains of martyrs from the Catacombs into the
churches of Rome, because the condition into which these subterranean
cemeteries were falling was one of ruin. They had been exposed to the
depredations of the Lombards, and then to decay. Some had fallen in, and
were choked.
Precisely this Catacomb had been plundered by the Lombard king, Astulf,
and it was not known whether he had carried off the body of S. Cæcilia
or not. All those of the former popes Paschal removed.
In 844, however, Paschal pretended that he had seen S. Cæcilia in a
dream, who had informed him that she still lay in her crypt in the
Catacomb of S. Callixtus. No reliance can be placed on the word of a man
so unprincipled as Paschal. At this very time two men of the highest
rank, who were supporters of Louis the Pious, the Emperor, had been
seized, dragged to the Lateran Palace, their eyes plucked out, and then
beheaded. The Pope was openly accused of this barbarous act. The Emperor
sent envoys to examine into it, but Paschal threw all sorts of
difficulties in their way. He refused to produce the murderers; he
asserted that they were guilty of no crime in killing these unfortunate
men, and he secured the assassins by investing them with a half-sacred
character as servants of the Church of S. Peter. Himself he exculpated
from all participation in the deed by a solemn, expurgatorial oath. Such
was the man who pretended to visions of the saints. His dream was an
afterthought. In the clearing out of the crypt of S. Cæcilia, the wall
that had closed the grave was broken through, and the cypress chest was
disclosed. Whereupon Paschal promptly declared he had dreamt that so it
would be found. The body was found in the coffin, incorrupt, and at its
feet were napkins rolled together and stained with blood.
This discovery, which seems wholly improbable, is yet not impossible. If
the _arcosolium_ had been hermetically sealed up, the body need not have
fallen to dust; and, as a fact, De Rossi did discover, along with
Marchi, in 1853, a body in the Via Appia, without the smallest trace of
alteration and decay in the bones.[1]
Paschal himself relates that he lined the chest with fringed silk, and
covered the body with a silk veil. It was then enclosed in a sarcophagus
of white marble, and laid under the high altar of the Church of S.
Cæcilia in Trastevere.
This church has been made out of the old house of S. Cæcilia, and to
this day, notwithstanding rebuildings, it bears traces of its origin.
Nearly eight hundred years after this translation, Sfondrati, cardinal
of S. Cæcilia, being about to carry on material alterations in the
basilica, came on the sarcophagus lying in a vault under the altar. It
was not alone—another was with it.
In the presence of witnesses one of these was opened. It contained a
coffin or chest of cypress wood. The Cardinal himself removed the cover.
First was seen the costly lining and the silken veil, with which nearly
eight centuries before Paschal had covered the body. It was faded, but
not decayed, and through the almost transparent texture could be seen
the glimmer of the gold of the garments in which the martyr was clad.
After a pause of a few minutes, the Cardinal lifted the veil, and
revealed the form of the maiden martyr lying in the same position in
which she had died on the floor of her father’s hall. Neither Urban nor
Paschal had ventured to alter that. She lay there, clothed in a garment
woven with gold thread, on which were the stains of blood; and at her
feet were the rolls of linen mentioned by Paschal, as found with the
body. She was lying on her right side, the arms sunk from the body, her
face turned to the ground; the knees slightly bent and drawn together.
The attitude was that of one in a deep sleep. On the throat were the
marks of the wounds dealt by the clumsy executioner.
Thus she had lain, preserved from decay through thirteen centuries.
When this discovery was made, Pope Clement VIII. was lying ill at
Frascati, but he empowered Cardinal Baronius and Bosio, the explorer of
the Catacombs, to examine into the matter; and both of these have left
an account of the condition in which the body was found. For five weeks
all Rome streamed to the church to see the body; and it was not until S.
Cæcilia’s Day that it was again sealed up in its coffin and marble
sarcophagus.
Cardinal Sfondrati gave a commission to the sculptor Maderna to
reproduce the figure of the Virgin Martyr in marble in the attitude in
which found, and beneath this is the inscription:—“So I show to you in
marble the representation of the most holy Virgin Cæcilia, in the same
position in which I myself saw her incorrupt lying in her sepulchre.”
A woodcut was published at the time of the discovery figuring it, but
this is now extremely scarce.
In the second sarcophagus were found the bones of three men; two, of the
same age and size, had evidently died by decapitation. The third had its
skull broken, and the abundant hair was clotted with blood, as though
the martyr had been beaten to death and his skull fractured with the
_plumbatæ_ or leaded scourges.
The Acts of S. Cæcilia expressly say that this was the manner of death
of Maximus. The other two bodies were doubtless those of Valerian and
Tiburtius.
Of the statue by Maderna, Sir Charles Bell says: “The body lies on its
side, the limbs a little drawn up; the hands are delicate and fine—they
are not locked, but crossed at the wrists; the arms are stretched out.
The drapery is beautifully modelled, and modestly covers the limbs....
It is the statue of a lady, perfect in form, and affecting from the
resemblance to reality in the drapery of the white marble, and the
unspotted appearance of the statue altogether. It lies as no living body
could lie, and yet correctly, as the dead when left to expire—I mean in
the gravitation of the limbs.”
S. Cæcilia is associated with music: she is regarded as the patroness of
the organ. This is entirely due to the highly imaginative Acts of the
Fifth and Sixth Century.
“Orpheus could lead the savage race;
And trees uprooted left their place,
Sequacious of the lyre:
But bright Cæcilia rais’d the wonder higher:
When to her organ vocal breath was given,
An angel heard, and straight appear’d,
Mistaking earth for heaven.”
So sang Dryden. Chaucer has given the Legend of S. Cæcilia as the Second
Nun’s Tale in the Canterbury Pilgrimage.
There is a marvellous collection of ancient statues in Rome, in the
Torlonia Gallery. It was made by the late Prince Torlonia. Unhappily, he
kept three sculptors in constant employ over these ancient statues,
touching them up, adding, mending, altering. It is a vast collection,
and now the Torlonia family desire to sell it; but no one will buy, for
no one can trust any single statue therein; no one knows what is ancient
and what is new. The finest old works are of no value, because of the
patching and correcting to which they have been subjected.
It is the same with the Acts of the Martyrs: they have been tinkered at
and “improved” in the fifth and sixth centuries, and even later, no
doubt with the best intention, but with the result that they have—or
many of them have—lost credit altogether.
What a buyer of statuary from the Torlonia Gallery would insist on
doing, would be to drag the statues out into the sunshine and go over
them with a microscope and see where a piece of marble had been added,
or where a new face had been put on old work. Then he would be able to
form a judgment as to the value of the statue or bust. And this is
precisely the treatment to which the legends of the martyrs have to be
subjected. But this treatment tells sometimes in their favour.
Narratives that at first sight seem conspicuously false or manufactured,
will under the critical microscope reveal the sutures, and show what is
old and genuine, and what is adventitious and worthless.
[Illustration: S. AGNES.]
III
_S. AGNES_
About a mile from the Porta Pia, beside the Nomentine road that leads
from Rome to the bridge over the Arno and to Montana, are the basilica
and catacomb of S. Agnese. We are there on high ground, and here the
parents of the saint had a villa and vineyard.
They were Christians, and their garden had an entrance to a catacomb in
which the faithful were interred. We know this, because some of the
burials in the passages underground are of more ancient date than the
martyrdom of S. Agnes, which took place in 304.
A little lane, very dirty, leads down hence into the Salarian road, and
there is a mean dribble of a stream in a hollow below.
The rock is all of the volcanic tufa that is so easily cut, but which in
the roads resolves itself into mud of the dirtiest and most consistent
description.
New Rome is creeping along the road, its gaunt and eminently vulgar
houses are destroying the beauty of this road, which commanded exquisite
views of the Sabine and Alban mountains, and the lovely Torlonia gardens
have already been destroyed. Nor is this all, for the foundations of
these useless and hideous buildings are being driven down into more than
one old catacomb, which as soon as revealed is destroyed.
Where now stands the basilica of S. Agnese was the catacomb in which her
body was laid. The church is peculiar, in that it is half underground.
One has to descend into it by a staircase of forty-five ancient marble
steps, lined with inscriptions taken from the catacomb. The cause for
this peculiarity is not that the soil has risen about the basilica, but
that when it was proposed to build the church over the tomb of the saint
who was below in the catacomb, the whole of the crust of rock and earth
above was removed, so that the subterranean passages were exposed to
light; and then the foundations of the sacred edifice were laid on this
level, and were carried up above the surface of the ground.
But this is not the only church that bears the name of S. Agnes: there
is another in Rome itself, opposite the Torre Mellina, on the site of
her martyrdom, in the Piazza Navona, which occupies the place of the old
circus of Domitian. It is a very ugly building of 1642, but contains a
tolerable representation, in relief, of the martyrdom of the saint.
Unfortunately we have not got the Acts of the martyrdom of S. Agnes in
their original form. It was the custom of the Church to have scribes
present at the interrogation and death of a martyr, who took down in
shorthand the questions put and the answers made, and the sentence of
the judge. These records, which were of the highest value, were
preserved in the archives of the Roman Church. Unhappily, at a later
age, such very simple accounts, somewhat crude maybe in style, and
entirely deficient in the miraculous, did not suit the popular taste.
Meanwhile the stories of the martyrs had been passed from mouth to
mouth, and various additions had been made to give them a smack of
romance; the account of the deaths was embellished with marvels, and
made excruciating by the piling up of tortures; and then the popular
voice declared that the persecutors must have been punished at once; so
it was fabled that lightning fell and consumed them, or that the earth
opened and swallowed them.
Now, when the Acts of Martyrs were found to contain nothing of all this,
then writers set to work—not with the intention of deceiving, but with
the idea that the genuine Acts were defective—to recompose the stories,
by grafting into the original narrative all the rubbish that had passed
current in popular legend. Thus it has come to pass that so few of the
Acts of the Martyrs, as we have them, are in their primitive form. They
have been more or less stuffed out with fabulous matter.
The Acts of S. Agnes are in this condition, although not so grossly
meddled with as some others have been. That she was a real martyr, and
that the broad outlines of her story are true, there can be no doubt.
The martyrdom took place during the reign of Diocletian.
In 304 he was in Italy. He had come to Rome the preceding year to
celebrate the twentieth year of the reign of his colleague, Maximian,
and at the same time the triumph over the Persians. He left Rome in ill
humour at the independence of the citizens, after having been accustomed
to the servility of the Easterns; the day was December 20th, and he went
to Ravenna. The weather was cold and wet, and he was chilled, so that he
suffered all the rest of the winter, and became irritable as his health
failed. However, he went back to Rome; and at this time several
martyrdoms ensued, as that of S. Soteris, a virgin of the noble family
from which sprang S. Ambrose, also the boy Pancras, and S. Sebastian.
But the most notable was Agnes.
She was aged only thirteen, and was the daughter of noble and wealthy
parents, who were, as already said, Christians.
Her riches and beauty induced the son of a former prefect to seek her
hand in marriage. Agnes, however, refused. She had no desire to become a
wife; at all events, at so early an age; and, moreover, she would on no
account be united to a pagan. “I am already engaged to One,” she said:
“to Him I shall ever keep my troth.”
Not understanding what she meant, he inquired further; and she is
reported to have replied in an allegorical strain: “He has already bound
me to Him by His betrothal ring, and has adorned me with precious
jewels. He has placed a sign upon my brow that I should love none as I
love Him. He has revealed unto me treasures incomparable, which He has
promised to give me if I persevere. Honey and milk has He bestowed on me
by His words. I have partaken of His body, and with His blood has He
adorned my cheeks.”
It must not, however, be supposed that this was actually what she said.
There was then no scribe present to take the sentences down; they are
words put into her mouth at a later period by a romance writer.
The young man was incensed, and complained to her father, who would in
no way force his daughter’s inclinations. The youth, unquestionably, did
not understand her, and supposed that she had already given her heart to
some earthly lover.
Presently it all came out. Agnes was a Christian, and, as a Christian,
would not listen to his suit.
Then, in a rage, the young man rushed off and denounced her to the
prefect, who sent immediately for her parents, and threatened them. They
were weak in the faith; and, returning home trembling, urged their
daughter to accept the youth. She, however, steadfastly refused.
There was now nothing for it but for her to appear before the Prefect of
Rome. She stood before his tribunal with calmness and confidence.
“Come,” said he, “be not headstrong: you are only a child, remember,
though forward for your age.”
“I may be a child,” replied Agnes; “but faith does not depend on years,
but on the heart.”
The prefect presently lost his temper, and declared roundly: “I will
tell you what shall be done with you; you shall be stripped and driven
naked forth to the jeers and insults of the rabble.”
Then the clothes were taken off the slender body of the girl. Thereupon
she loosened the band that confined her abundant golden hair, and it
fell in waves over her body and covered her to the knees.
“You may expose me to insult,” said she; “but I have the angel of God as
my defence. For the only-begotten Son of God, whom you know not, will be
to me an impenetrable wall and a guardian; never sleeping, and an
unflagging protector.”
“Let her be bound,” ordered the judge, sullenly.
Then the executioner turned over a quantity of manacles, and selected
the smallest pair he could find, and placed them round her wrists.
Agnes, with a smile, shook her hands, and they fell clanking at her
feet.
The prefect then ordered her to death by the sword.
The Roman tradition is that she suffered where is now her church, by the
Piazza Navona; but executions were never carried out within the walls of
Rome. She was taken to the place where she was to die. Here she knelt,
and with her own hands drew forward her hair, so as to expose her neck
to the blow. A pause ensued; the executioner was trembling with emotion,
and could not brandish his sword.
The interpolated Acts say that before this an angel had brought her a
white robe, which she put over her. What is probable is that the
magistrate, ashamed of what he had done, suffered one of those angels of
mercy, the deaconesses, to reclothe the girl.
As the child knelt in her white robe, with her head inclined, her arms
crossed on her breast, and her golden hair hanging to the ground, she
must have looked like a beautiful lily, stooping under its weight of
blossom.
“And thus, bathed in her rosy blood,” says the author of the Acts,
“Christ took to Himself His bride and martyr.”
Her parents received the body, and carried it to the cemetery they had
in their vineyard on the Nomentian Way, and there laid it in a
_loculus_, a recess cut in the side of one of the passages underground.
It was probably just under one of the _luminaria_, or openings to the
upper air, which allowed light to enter the Catacombs; for here, two
days later, Emerentiana, a catechumen, the foster-sister of Agnes, was
found kneeling by her grave; and the pagan rabble, peering in and seeing
her, pelted her with stones, stunned, and then buried her under the
earth and sand they threw in.
Constantine the Great built the church over the tomb, removing the upper
crust; but it was rebuilt by Honorius I., between 625 and 638. It was
altered in 1490 by Innocent VIII.; but retains more of the ancient
character than most of the Roman churches.
The day on which Agnes suffered was January 21st. The memory of her has
never faded from the Church. It is said that her parents dreamed, seven
days after her death, that they saw her in light, surrounded by a Virgin
band, and with a white lamb at her side. In commemoration of this
dream—which not improbably did take place—the Roman Church observes in
her honour the 28th of January as well as the actual day of her death.
So ancient is the cult of S. Agnes, that, next to the Evangelists and
Apostles, no saint’s effigy is older. It appears on the ancient glass
vessels used by the Christians in the early part of the century in which
she died, with her name inscribed, which leaves no doubt as to her
identity.
Mrs. Jameson says of the Church of S. Agnese, in Rome: “Often have I
seen the steps of this church, and the church itself, so crowded with
kneeling worshippers at Matins and Vespers, that I could not make my way
among them; principally the women of the lower orders, with their
distaffs and market baskets, who had come thither to pray, through the
intercession of the patron saint, for the gifts of meekness and
chastity.”
In the corrupted Acts, it is told that Agnes was set on a pyre to be
burned to death, but that the fire was miraculously extinguished. This
is purely apocryphal. It originates in a passage by S. Ambrose, in which
he speaks of her hands having been stretched over the fire on a pagan
altar, to force her to do sacrifice. This has been magnified into an
immense pyre.
“At this age,” said he, “a young girl trembles at an angry look from her
|
yes--no--yes, it _was_ in Horace! What an advantage it is to have
received a classical education! And how it will astonish the Yankees!
But we must not forget our Puppies, who have probably occupied their
time in lapping "something with strawberry in it." Puppy No. 1 (the Art
Puppy) has been telling Puppy No. 3 (the Doll Puppy) how much he admires
him. What is the answer? "I am less to you than your ivory Hermes or
your silver Faun. You will like them always. How long will you like me?
Till I have my first wrinkle, I suppose. I know now that when one loses
one's good looks, whatever they may be, one loses everything.... I am
jealous of the portrait you have painted of me. Why should it keep what
I must lose?... Oh, if it was only the other way! If the picture could
only change, and I could be always what I am now!"[6]
No sooner said than done! The picture _does_ change: the original
doesn't. Here's a situation for you! Théophile Gautier could have made
it romantic, entrancing, beautiful. Mr. Stevenson could have made it
convincing, humorous, pathetic. Mr. Anstey could have made it
screamingly funny. It has been reserved for Mr. Oscar Wilde to make it
dull and nasty. The promising youth plunges into every kind of mean
depravity, and ends in being "cut" by fast women and vicious men. He
finishes with murder: the New Voluptuousness always leads up to
blood-shedding--that is part of the cant. The gore and gashes wherein
Mr. Rider Haggard takes a chaste delight are the natural diet for a
cultivated palate which is tired of mere licentiousness. And every
wickedness of filthiness committed by Dorian Gray is faithfully
registered upon his face in the picture; but his living features are
undisturbed and unmarred by his inward vileness. This is the story which
Mr. Oscar Wilde has tried to tell; a very lame story it is, and very
lamely it is told.
Why has he told it? There are two explanations; and, so far as we can
see, not more than two. Not to give pleasure to his readers: the thing
is too clumsy, too tedious, and--alas! that we should say it--too
stupid. Perhaps it was to shock his readers, in order that they might
cry Fie! upon him and talk about him, much as Mr. Grant Allen recently
tried in the _Universal Review_ to arouse, by a licentious theory of the
sexual relations, an attention which is refused to his popular chatter
about other men's science. Are we then to suppose that Mr. Oscar Wilde
has yielded to the craving for a notoriety which he once earned by
talking fiddle faddle about other men's art, and sees his only chance of
recalling it by making himself obvious at the cost of being obnoxious,
and by attracting the notice which the olfactory sense cannot refuse to
the presence of certain self-asserting organisms? That is an
uncharitable hypothesis, and we would gladly abandon it. It may be
suggested (but is it more charitable?) that he derives pleasure from
treating a subject merely because it is disgusting. The phenomenon is
not unknown in recent literature; and it takes two forms, in appearance
widely separate--in fact, two branches from the same root, a root which
draws its life from malodorous putrefaction. One development is found in
the Puritan prurience which produced Tolstoi's "Kreutzer Sonata" and Mr.
Stead's famous outbursts. That is odious enough and mischievous enough,
and it is rightly execrated, because it is tainted with an hypocrisy not
the less culpable because charitable persons may believe it to be
unconscious. But is it more odious or more mischievous than the "frank
Paganism" (that is the word, is it not?) which delights in dirtiness and
confesses its delight? Still they are both chips from the same
block--"The Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon" and "The Picture of Dorian
Gray"--and both of them ought to be chucked into the fire. Not so much
because they are dangerous and corrupt (they are corrupt but not
dangerous) as because they are incurably silly, written by simple
_poseurs_ (whether they call themselves Puritan or Pagan) who know
nothing about the life which they affect to have explored, and because
they are mere catchpenny revelations of the non-existent, which, if they
reveal anything at all, are revelations only of the singularly
unpleasant minds from which they emerge.
[4] _St. James's Gazette_, June 24th, 1890.
[5] Pp. 16, 17.
[6] p. 19.
* * * * *
_Who can help laughing when an ordinary journalist seriously proposes to
limit the subject-matter at the disposal of the artist?_
* * * * *
MR. WILDE'S BAD CASE.
To the Editor of the _St. James's Gazette_.[7]
Sir,--I have read your criticism of my story, "The Picture of Dorian
Gray," and I need hardly say that I do not propose to discuss its merits
and demerits, its personalities or its lack of personality. England is a
free country, and ordinary English criticism is perfectly free and easy.
Besides, I must admit that, either from temperament or taste, or from
both, I am quite incapable of understanding how any work of art can be
criticised from a moral standpoint. The sphere of art and the sphere of
ethics are absolutely distinct and separate; and it is to the confusion
between the two that we owe the appearance of Mrs. Grundy, that amusing
old lady who represents the only original form of humour that the middle
classes of this country have been able to produce.
What I do object to most strongly is that you should have placarded the
town with posters on which was printed in large letters:--
MR. OSCAR WILDE'S
LATEST ADVERTISEMENT:
A BAD CASE.
Whether the expression "A Bad Case" refers to my book or to the present
position of the Government, I cannot tell. What was silly and
unnecessary was the use of the term "advertisement".
I think I may say without vanity--though I do not wish to appear to run
vanity down--that of all men in England I am the one who requires least
advertisement. I am tired to death of being advertised--I feel no thrill
when I see my name in a paper. The chronicle does not interest me any
more. I wrote this book entirely for my own pleasure, and it gave me
very great pleasure to write it. Whether it becomes popular or not is a
matter of absolute indifference to me. I am afraid, Sir, that the real
advertisement is your cleverly written article. The English public, as a
mass, takes no interest in a work of art until it is told that the work
in question is immoral, and your _réclame_ will, I have no doubt,
largely increase the sale of the magazine; in which sale, I may mention,
with some regret, I have no pecuniary interest.
I remain, Sir, your obedient servant,
OSCAR WILDE.
16, Tite Street, Chelsea, June 25th.
* * * * *
To this the following Editorial note was appended:--
In the preceding column will be found the best reply which Mr. Oscar
Wilde can make to our recent criticism of his mawkish and nauseous
story, "The Picture of Dorian Gray". Mr. Wilde tells us that he is
constitutionally unable to understand how any work of art can be
criticised from a moral standpoint. We were quite aware that ethics and
æsthetics are different matters, and that is why the greater part of our
criticism was devoted not so much to the nastiness of "The Picture of
Dorian Gray," but to its dulness and stupidity. Mr. Wilde pretends that
we have advertised it. So we have, if any readers are attracted to a
book which, we have warned them, will bore them insufferably.
That the story is corrupt cannot be denied; but we added, and assuredly
believe, that it is not dangerous, because, as we said, it is tedious
and stupid.
Mr. Wilde tells us that he wrote the story for his own pleasure, and
found great pleasure in writing it. We congratulate him. There is no
triumph more precious to your æsthete than the discovery of a delight
which outsiders cannot share or even understand. The author of "The
Picture of Dorian Gray" is the only person likely to find pleasure in
it.
[7] June 26th, 1890.
* * * * *
_Why should an artist be troubled by the shrill clamour of criticism?_
* * * * *
MR. OSCAR WILDE AGAIN.
Mr. Oscar Wilde continues to carry on the defence of his novelette, "The
Picture of Dorian Gray". Writing to us under yesterday's date[8], he
says:--
In your issue of to-day you state that my brief letter published in your
columns is the "best reply" I can make to your article upon "Dorian
Gray." This is not so. I do not propose to discuss fully the matter
here, but I feel bound to say that your article contains the most
unjustifiable attack that has been made upon any man of letters for many
years.
The writer of it, who is quite incapable of concealing his personal
malice, and so in some measure destroys the effect he wishes to produce,
seems not to have the slightest idea of the temper in which a work of
art should be approached. To say that such a book as mine should be
"chucked into the fire" is silly. That is what one does with newspapers.
Of the value of pseudo-ethical criticism; in dealing with artistic work
I have spoken already. But as your writer has ventured into the perilous
grounds of literary criticism I ask you to allow me, in fairness not
merely to myself, but to all men to whom literature is a fine art, to
say a few words about his critical method.
He begins by assailing me with much ridiculous virulence because the
chief personages in my story are puppies. They _are_ puppies. Does he
think that literature went to the dogs when Thackeray wrote about
puppydom? I think that puppies are extremely interesting from an
artistic as well as from a psychological point of view.
They seem to me to be certainly far more interesting than prigs; and I
am of opinion that Lord Henry Wotton is an excellent corrective of the
tedious ideal shadowed forth in the semi-theological novels of our age.
He then makes vague and fearful insinuations about my grammar and my
erudition. Now, as regards grammar, I hold that, in prose at any rate,
correctness should always be subordinate to artistic effect and musical
cadence; and any peculiarities of syntax that may occur in "Dorian Gray"
are deliberately intended, and are introduced to show the value of the
artistic theory in question. Your writer gives no instance of any such
peculiarity. This I regret, because I do not think that any such
instances occur.
As regards erudition, it is always difficult, even for the most modest
of us, to remember that other people do not know quite as much as one
does one's self. I myself frankly admit I cannot imagine how a casual
reference to Suetonius and Petronius Arbiter can be construed into
evidence of a desire to impress an unoffending and ill-educated public
by an assumption of superior knowledge. I should fancy that the most
ordinary of scholars is perfectly well acquainted with the "Lives of the
Cæsars" and with the "Satyricon."
"The Lives of the Cæsars," at any rate, forms part of the curriculum at
Oxford for those who take the Honour School of "Literæ Humaniores"; and
as for the "Satyricon" it is popular even among pass-men, though I
suppose they are obliged to read it in translations.
The writer of the article then suggests that I, in common with that
great and noble artist Count Tolstoi, take pleasure in a subject because
it is dangerous. About such a suggestion there is this to be said.
Romantic art deals with the exception and with the individual. Good
people, belonging as they do to the normal, and so, commonplace type,
are artistically uninteresting.
Bad people are, from the point of view of art, fascinating studies. They
represent colour, variety and strangeness. Good people exasperate one's
reason; bad people stir one's imagination. Your critic, if I must give
him so honourable a title, states that the people in any story have no
counterpart in life; that they are, to use his vigorous if somewhat
vulgar phrase, "mere catchpenny revelations of the non-existent." Quite
so.
If they existed they would not be worth writing about. The function of
the artist is to invent, not to chronicle. There are no such people. If
there were I would not write about them. Life by its realism is always
spoiling the subject-matter of art.
The superior pleasure in literature is to realise the non-existent.
And, finally, let me say this. You have reproduced, in a journalistic
form, the comedy of "Much Ado about Nothing" and have, of course, spoilt
it in your reproduction.
The poor public, hearing from an authority so high as your own, that
this is a wicked book that should be coerced and suppressed by a Tory
Government, will, no doubt, rush to it and read it. But, alas, they will
find that it is a story with a moral. And the moral is this: All excess,
as well as all renunciation, brings its own punishment.
The painter, Basil Hallward, worshipping physical beauty far too much,
as most painters do, dies by the hand of one in whose soul he has
created a monstrous and absurd vanity. Dorian Gray, having led a life of
mere sensation and pleasure, tries to kill conscience, and at that
moment kills himself. Lord Henry Wotton seeks to be merely the spectator
of life. He finds that those who reject the battle are more deeply
wounded than those who take part in it.
Yes, there is a terrible moral in "Dorian Gray"--a moral which the
prurient will not be able to find in it, but it will be revealed to all
whose minds are healthy. Is this an artistic error? I fear it is. It is
the only error in the book.
* * * * *
The Editor added to this letter:--
Mr. Oscar Wilde may perhaps be excused for being angry at the remarks
which we allowed ourselves to make concerning the "moral tale" of the
Three Puppies and the Magic Picture; but he should not misrepresent us.
He says we suggested that his novel was a "wicked book which should be
coerced and suppressed by a Tory Government." We did nothing of the
kind. The authors of books of much less questionable character have been
proceeded against by the Treasury or the Vigilance Society; but we
expressly said that we hoped Mr. Wilde's masterpiece would be left
alone.
Then, Mr. Wilde (like any young lady who has published her first novel
"at the request of numerous friends") falls back on the theory of the
critic's personal malice. This is unworthy of so experienced a literary
gentleman. We can assure Mr. Wilde that the writer of that article had,
and has, no "personal malice" or personal feeling towards him. We can
surely censure a work which we believe to be silly and know to be
offensive, without the imputation of malice--especially when that book
is written by one who is so clearly capable of better things.
* * * * *
As for the critical question, Mr. Wilde is beating the air when he
defends idealism and "romantic art" in literature. In the words of Mrs.
Harris to Mrs. Gamp, "Who's deniging of it?"
Heaven forbid that we should refuse to an author the supreme pleasure of
realising the non-existent; or that we should judge the "æsthetic" from
the purely ethical standpoint.
No; our criticism starts from lower ground. Mr. Wilde says that his
story is a moral tale, because the wicked persons in it come to a bad
end. We will not be so rude as to quote a certain remark about morality
which one Mr. Charles Surface made to Mr. Joseph Surface. We simply say
that every critic has the right to point out that a work of art or
literature is dull and incompetent in its treatment--as "The Picture of
Dorian Gray" is, and that its dulness and incompetence are not redeemed
because it constantly hints, not obscurely, at disgusting sins and
abominable crimes--as "The Picture of Dorian Gray" does.
[8] June 26th.
* * * * *
_A true artist takes no notice whatever of the public. The public is to
him non-existent. He has no poppied or honeyed cakes through which to
give the monster sleep or sustenance. He leaves that to the popular
novelist._
* * * * *
MR. OSCAR WILDE'S DEFENCE.
To the Editor of the _St. James's Gazette_.[9]
Sir,--As you still keep up, though in a somewhat milder form than
before, your attacks on me and my book you not only confer upon me the
right, but you impose on me the duty of reply.
You state, in your issue of to-day, that I misrepresented you when I
said that you suggested that a book so wicked as mine should be
"suppressed and coerced by a Tory Government." Now, you did not propose
this, but you did suggest it. When you declare that you do not know
whether or not the Government will take action about my book, and remark
that the authors of books much less wicked have been proceeded against
in law, the suggestion is quite obvious.
In your complaint of misrepresentation you seem to me, Sir, to have been
not quite candid.
However, as far as I am concerned, this suggestion is of no importance.
What is of importance is that the editor of a paper like yours should
appear to countenance the monstrous theory that the Government of a
country should exercise a censorship over imaginative literature. This
is a theory against which I, and all men of letters of my acquaintance,
protest most strongly; and any critic who admits the reasonableness of
such a theory shows at once that he is quite incapable of understanding
what literature is, and what are the rights that literature possesses. A
Government might just as well try to teach painters how to paint, or
sculptors how to model, as attempt to interfere with the style,
treatment and subject-matter of the literary artist, and no writer,
however eminent or obscure, should ever give his sanction to a theory
that would degrade literature far more than any didactic or so-called
immoral book could possibly do.
You then express your surprise that "so experienced a literary
gentleman" as myself should imagine that your critic was animated by any
feeling of personal malice towards him. The phrase "literary gentleman"
is a vile phrase, but let that pass.
I accept quite readily your assurance that your critic was simply
criticising a work of art in the best way that he could, but I feel that
I was fully justified in forming the opinion of him that I did. He
opened his article by a gross personal attack on myself. This, I need
hardly say, was an absolutely unpardonable error of critical taste.
There is no excuse for it except personal malice; and you, Sir, should
not have sanctioned it. A critic should be taught to criticise a work of
art without making any reference to the personality of the author. This,
in fact, is the beginning of criticism. However, it was not merely his
personal attack on me that made me imagine that he was actuated by
malice. What really confirmed me in my first impression was his
reiterated assertion that my book was tedious and dull.
Now, if I were criticising my book, which I have some thoughts of doing,
I think I would consider it my duty to point out that it is far too
crowded with sensational incident, and far too paradoxical in style, as
far, at any rate, as the dialogue goes. I feel that from a standpoint of
art there are true defects in the book. But tedious and dull the book is
not.
Your critic has cleared himself of the charge of personal malice, his
denial and yours being quite sufficient in the matter; but he has done
so only by a tacit admission that he has really no critical instinct
about literature and literary work, which, in one who writes about
literature is, I need hardly say, a much graver fault than malice of any
kind.
Finally, Sir, allow me to say this. Such an article as you have
published really makes me despair of the possibility of any general
culture in England. Were I a French author, and my book brought out in
Paris, there is not a single literary critic in France on any paper of
high standing who would think for a moment of criticising it from an
ethical standpoint. If he did so he would stultify himself, not merely
in the eyes of all men of letters, but in the eyes of the majority of
the public.
You have yourself often spoken against Puritanism. Believe me, Sir,
Puritanism is never so offensive and destructive as when it deals with
art matters. It is there that it is radically wrong. It is this
Puritanism, to which your critic has given expression, that is always
marring the artistic instinct of the English. So far from encouraging
it, you should set yourself against it, and should try to teach your
critics to recognise the essential difference between art and life.
The gentleman who criticised my book is in a perfectly hopeless
confusion about it, and your attempt to help him out by proposing that
the subject-matter of art should be limited does not mend matters. It is
proper that limitation should be placed on action. It is not proper that
limitation should be placed on art. To art belong all things that are
and all things that are not, and even the editor of a London paper has
no right to restrain the freedom of art in the selection of
subject-matter.
I now trust, Sir, that these attacks on me and my book will cease. There
are forms of advertisement that are unwarranted and unwarrantable.
I am, Sir, your obedient servant,
OSCAR WILDE.
16, Tite Street, S.W., June 27th.
[9] June 28th.
* * * * *
_The public... is always asking a writer why he does not write like
somebody else... quite oblivious of the fact that if he did anything of
the kind he would cease to be an artist._
* * * * *
Once more the Editor attempted to justify his reviewer's trenchant
criticism:--
Mr. Oscar Wilde makes his third and, we presume, his final reply to the
criticism which we published on "The Picture of Dorian Gray." Somewhat
grudgingly, but in sufficiently explicit terms, he withdraws the charge
of "personal malice" which he brought against the critic, and which, we
may again assure him, is absolutely unfounded.
But he adheres to the other charge of critical incapacity. Mr. Wilde
assures us that his book, so far from being dull and tedious, is full of
interest; an opinion which is shared (see the letter we print on another
page to-day) by his publishers' advertising agent-in-advance.
Well, we can only repeat that we disagree with Mr. Wilde and his
publishers' paragraphist.
Quite apart from "ethical" considerations, the book seems to us a feeble
and ineffective attempt at a kind of allegory which, in the hands of
abler writers (writers like Mr. Stevenson and Mr. Anstey, for instance)
can be made striking or amusing.
Mr. Wilde also says that we suggested that the author and publishers of
"The Picture of Dorian Gray" ought to be prosecuted by the Tory
Government, by which we presume he means the Treasury. No; we consider
that such prosecutions are ill-advised, and expressly suggested that
such action ought not to be taken against a book which we believed to be
rendered innocuous by the tedious and stupid qualities which the critic
discovered and explained. Secondly, Mr. Wilde hints that the "rights of
literature" include a right to say what it pleases, how it pleases and
where it pleases. That is a right not only not recognised by the law of
the land, but expressly denied by penalties which have been repeatedly
enforced. Then what does Mr. Oscar Wilde mean by talking about the
"rights of literature"? We will not insult an artist, who is by his own
account un-moral or supra-moral by suggesting that he means "moral
rights." But he tells us that limitations may be set on action but ought
not to be set on art. Quite so. But art becomes action when the work of
art is published. It is offensive publications that we object to, not
the offensive imaginings of such minds as find their pleasure therein.
* * * * *
LETTER FROM "A LONDON EDITOR."
In the same issue of June 28th appeared the following letter:--
To the Editor of the _St. James's Gazette_.
Sir,--If Mr. Oscar Wilde is the last man in England (according to his
own account) who requires advertisement, his friends and publishers do
not seem to be of the same opinion. Otherwise it is difficult to account
for the following audacious puff-postive which has been sent through the
halfpenny post to newspaper editors and others:--
Mr. Oscar Wilde will contribute to the July number of _Lippincott's
Magazine_ a complete novel, entitled "The Picture of Dorian Gray,"
which, as the first venture in fiction of one of the most prominent
personalities and artistic influences of the day, will be
everywhere read with wide interest and curiosity. But the story is
in itself so strong and strange, and so picturesque and powerful in
style, that it must inevitably have created a sensation in the
literary world, even if published without Mr. Wilde's name on the
title page.
Viewed merely as a romance, it is from the opening paragraph down
to the tragic and ghastly climax, full of strong and sustained
interest; as a study in psychology it is phenomenal; judged even
purely as a piece of literary workmanship it is one of the most
brilliant and remarkable productions of the year.
Such, Sir, is the estimate of Mr. Wilde's publishers or paragraph
writer. Note the adjectival exuberance of the puffer--complete, strong,
strange, picturesque, powerful, tragic, ghastly, sustained, phenomenal,
brilliant and remarkable. For a man who does not want advertisement this
is not bad.
I am, Sir, your obedient servant,
June 27th. A LONDON EDITOR.
* * * * *
_The sphere of art and the sphere of ethics are absolutely distinct and
separate._
* * * * *
MR. OSCAR WILDE'S DEFENCE.
To the Editor of the _St. James's Gazette_.[10]
Sir,--In your issue of this evening you publish a letter from "A London
Editor" which clearly insinuates in the last paragraph that I have in
some way sanctioned the circulation of an expression of opinion, on the
part of the proprietors of _Lippincott's Magazine_, of the literary and
artistic value of my story of the "Picture of Dorian Gray."
Allow me, Sir, to state that there are no grounds for this insinuation.
I was not aware that any such document was being circulated; and I have
written to the agents, Messrs. Ward and Lock--who cannot, I feel sure,
be primarily responsible for its appearance--to ask them to withdraw it
at once. No publisher should ever express an opinion of the value of
what he publishes. That is a matter entirely for the literary critic to
decide.
I must admit, as one to whom contemporary literature is constantly
submitted for criticism, that the only thing that ever prejudices me
against a book is the lack of literary style; but I can quite understand
how any ordinary critic would be strongly prejudiced against a work that
was accompanied by a premature and unnecessary panegyric from the
publisher. A publisher is simply a useful middle-man. It is not for him
to anticipate the verdict of criticism.
I may, however, while expressing my thanks to the "London Editor" for
drawing my attention to this, I trust, purely American method of
procedure, venture to differ from him in one of his criticisms. He
states that he regards the expression "complete" as applied to a story,
as a specimen of the "adjectival exuberance of the puffer." Here, it
seems to me, he sadly exaggerates. What my story is is an interesting
problem. What my story is not is a "novelette"--a term which you have
more than once applied to it. There is no such word in the English
language as novelette. It should not be used. It is merely part of the
slang of Fleet Street.
In another part of your paper, Sir, you state that I received your
assurance of the lack of malice in your critic "somewhat grudgingly."
This is not so. I frankly said that I accepted that assurance "quite
readily," and that your own denial and that of your critic were
"sufficient."
Nothing more generous could have been said. What I did feel was that you
saved your critic from the charge of malice by convicting him of the
unpardonable crime of lack of literary instinct. I still feel that. To
call my book an ineffective attempt at allegory that, in the hands of
Mr. Anstey might have been made striking, is absurd.
Mr. Anstey's sphere in literature and my sphere are different.
You then gravely ask me what rights I imagine literature possesses. That
is really an extraordinary question for the editor of a newspaper such
as yours to ask. The rights of literature, Sir, are the rights of
intellect.
I remember once hearing M. Renan say that he would sooner live under a
military despotism than under the despotism of the Church, because the
former merely limited the freedom of action, while the latter limited
the freedom of mind.
You say that a work of art is a form of action: It is not. It is the
highest mode of thought.
In conclusion, Sir, let me ask you not to force on me this continued
correspondence by daily attacks. It is a trouble and a nuisance.
As you assailed me first, I have a right to the last word. Let that last
word be the present letter, and leave my book, I beg you, to the
immortality that it deserves.
I am, Sir, your obedient servant,
OSCAR WILDE.
16, Tite Street, S.W., June 28th.
* * * * *
"THE LAST WORD."
We should be sorry to deny the ex-editor of the _Woman's World_ the
feminine privilege of "the last word" for which he pleads to-day. At the
same time we cannot admit that we force upon Mr. Oscar Wilde the burden
of a newspaper controversy by "daily attacks."
Mr. Wilde published a book, and (presumably) submitted it to criticism:
we exercised our rights as critics of contemporary literature by
pointing out that we thought the book feeble and offensive. Mr. Wilde
replies, defending his book against our unfavourable criticism, and we
have again the right to point out that we do not consider that he has
satisfactorily met our arguments and our objections. For the rest, we
are quite willing to leave "The Picture of Dorian Gray" to the
"immortality it deserves." We must add one word. We congratulate Mr.
Wilde on his emphatic disavowal of the ridiculous puff preliminary which
his publishers had chosen to circulate.
Two days later (July 2nd) the Editor could not resist one more word:--
Modest Mr. Oscar Wilde. He has been having a little dispute with the
_Daily Chronicle_ as well as with the _St. James's Gazette_ and this is
what he writes to our contemporary:--
My story is an essay on decorative art. It re-acts against the
crude brutality of plain realism. It is poisonous, if you like, but
you cannot deny that it is also perfect, and perfection is what we
artists aim at.
[10] June 30th.
* * * * *
_Art should never try to be popular. The public should try and make
itself artistic._
* * * * *
"THE DAILY CHRONICLE"[11] ON "DORIAN GRAY."
Dulness and dirt are the chief features of _Lippincott's_ this month.
The element in it that is unclean, though undeniably amusing, is
furnished by Mr. Oscar Wilde's story of "The Picture of Dorian Gray." It
is a tale spawned from the leprous literature of the French Décadents--a
poisonous book, the atmosphere of which is heavy with the mephitic
odours of moral and spiritual putrefaction--a gloating study of the
mental and physical corruption of a fresh, fair and golden youth, which
might be horrible and fascinating but for its effeminate frivolity, its
studied insincerity, its theatrical cynicism, its tawdry mysticism, its
flippant philosophisings and the contaminating trail of garish vulgarity
which is over all Mr. Wilde's elaborate Wardour-street æstheticism and
obtrusively cheap scholarship.
Mr. Wilde says his book has "a moral." The "moral," so far as we can
collect it, is that man's chief end is to develop his nature to the
fullest by "always searching for new sensations," that when the soul
gets sick the way to cure it is to deny the senses nothing, for
"nothing," says one of Mr. Wilde's characters, Lord Henry Wotton, "can
cure the soul but the senses, just as nothing can cure the senses but
the soul." Man is half angel and half ape, and Mr. Wilde's book has no
real use if it be not to inculcate the "moral" that when you feel
yourself becoming too angelic you cannot do better than rush out and
make a beast of yourself. There is not a single good and holy impulse of
human nature, scarcely a fine feeling or instinct that civilization, art
and religion have developed throughout the ages as part of the barriers
between Humanity and Animalism that is not held up to ridicule and
contempt in "Dorian Gray," if, indeed, such strong words can be fitly
applied to the actual effect of Mr. Wilde's airy levity and fluent
impudence. His desperate effort to vamp up a "moral" for the book at the
end is, artistically speaking, coarse and crude, because the whole
incident of Dorian Gray's death is, as they say on the stage, "out of
the picture." Dorian's only regret is that unbridled indulgence in every
form of secret and unspeakable vice, every resource of luxury and art,
and sometimes still more piquant to the jaded young man of fashion,
whose lives "Dorian Gray" pretends to sketch, by every abomination of
vulgarity and squalor is--what? Why, that it will leave traces of
premature age and loathsomeness on his pretty facy, rosy with the
loveliness that endeared youth of his odious type to the paralytic
patricians of the Lower Empire.
Dorian Gray prays that a portrait of himself which an artist (who raves
about him as young men do about the women they love not wisely but too
well) has painted may grow old instead of the original. This is what
happens by some supernatural agency, the introduction of which seems
purely farcical, so that Dorian goes on enjoying unfading youth year
after year, and might go on for ever using his senses with impunity "to
cure his soul," defiling English society with the moral pestilence which
is incarnate in him, but for one thing. That is his sudden impulse not
merely to murder the painter--which might be artistically defended on
|
ease. "Perhaps your lordship will now tell me why this fondness for my
society?"
"To confess truth, good Il Gobbo, I did not join you merely to meditate
upon the pleasant things of life. Rather to be inspired to some
extraordinary adventure such as my hungry soul yearns for. As for the
nature thereof, I shall leave that to the notoriously wicked fertility
of your imagination."
The lurid tone of the speaker startled the bravo.
"My lord, you would not lay hands on the Lord's anointed?"
Il Gobbo met a glance that made the blood freeze in his veins.
"Is it the thing you call your conscience that ails you, or some sudden
indigestion? Or is the bribe not large enough?"
The bravo doggedly shook his head.
"Courage lieth not always in bulk," he growled. "May my soul burn to
a crisp in the everlasting flames if I draw steel against the Lord's
anointed."
"Silence, fool! What you do in my service shall not burden your soul!
Have you forgotten our compact?"
"That I have not, my lord! But since the Senator of Rome has favored me
with his especial attention, I too have something to lose, which some
folk hereabout call their honor."
"Your honor!" sneered the Grand Chamberlain. "It is like the skin of an
onion. Peel off one, there's another beneath."
"My skin then--" the bravo growled doggedly. "However--if the lord
Basil will confide in me--"
"Pray lustily to your patron saint and frequent the chapel of the
Grand Penitentiary," replied Basil suavely, beckoning to Il Gobbo to
follow him. "But beware, lest in your zeal to confess you mistake my
peccadillos for your own."
With these words the two worthies slowly retraced their steps in the
direction of Mount Aventine and were soon lost to sight.
CHAPTER II
THE WEAVING OF THE SPELL
After they had disappeared Tristan stood at gaze,
puzzled where to turn, for the spectacle had suddenly changed.
New bands of revellers had invaded the Piazza Navona, and it seemed
indeed as if the Eve of St. John were assuming the character of the
ancient Lupercalia, for the endless variety of costumes displayed
by a multitude assembled from every corner of Italy, Spain, Greece,
Africa, and the countries of the North, was now exaggerated by a wild
fancifulness and grotesque variety of design.
Tristan himself did not escape the merry intruders. He was immediately
beset by importunate revellers, and not being able to make himself
understood, they questioned and lured him on, imploring his good
offices with the Enemy of Mankind.
Satyrs, fauns and other sylvan creatures accosted him, diverting
their antics, when they found themselves but ill repaid for their
efforts, and leaving the solitary stranger pondering the expediency of
remaining, or wending his steps toward the Inn of the Golden Shield,
where he had taken lodging upon his arrival.
These doubts were to be speedily dispelled by a spectacle which
attracted the crowds that thronged the Piazza, causing them to give
way before a splendid procession that had entered the Navona from the
region of Mount Aventine.
Down the Navona came a train of chariots, preceded by a throng of
persons, clad in rich and fantastic Oriental costumes, leaping, dancing
and making the air resound with tambourines, bells, cymbals and gongs.
They kept up an incessant jingle, which sounded weirdly above the
droning chant of distant processions of pilgrims, hermits and monks,
traversing the city from sanctuary to sanctuary.
The occupants of these chariots consisted of a number of young women in
the flower of youth and beauty, whose scant apparel left little to the
imagination either as regarded their person or the trade they plied.
The charioteers were youths, scarcely arrived at the age of puberty,
but skilled in their profession in the highest degree.
The first chariot, drawn by two milk-white steeds of the Berber breed,
was inlaid with mother-of-pearl, with gilded spokes and trappings that
glistened in the light of a thousand colored lanterns and torches, like
a vehicle from fairyland. The reins were in the hands of a youth hardly
over sixteen years of age, garbed in a snow white tunic, but the skill
with which he drove the shell-shaped car through the surging crowds
argued for uncommon dexterity.
Tristan, from his station by the fountain, was enabled to take in
every detail of the strange pageant which moved swiftly towards him, a
glittering, fantastic procession, as if drawn out of dreamland; and so
enthralled were his senses that he did not note the terrible silence
which had suddenly fallen upon the multitude.
As a half-slumbering man may note a sudden brilliant gleam of sunshine
flashing on the walls of his chamber, Tristan gazed in confused
bewilderment, when suddenly his stupefied senses were aroused to hot
life and pulsation, as he fixed his straining gaze on the supreme fair
form of the woman in the first car, standing erect like a queen,
surveying her subjects.
In the silence of a great multitude there is always something ominous.
But Tristan noted it not. Indeed he was deaf and blind to everything,
save the apparition in the shell-shaped car, as it bounded lightly over
the unevenly laid tufa of the Navona.
Was it a woman, or a goddess? A rainbow flame in mortal shape, a spirit
of earth, air, water or fire?
He saw before him a woman combining the charm of the girl with the
maturity of the thirties, dark-haired, exquisitely proportioned, with
clear-cut features and dark slumbrous eyes.
She wore a diaphanous robe of pale silk gauze. Her wonderful arms,
white as the fallen snow, were encircled by triple serpentine coils
of gold. Else, she was unadorned, save for a circlet of rubies which
crowned the dusky head.
Her sombre eyes rested drowsily on the swarming crowds, while a smile
of disdain curved the small red mouth, as her chariot proceeded through
the frozen silence.
Suddenly her eye caught the admiring gaze of Tristan, who had indeed
forgotten heaven and earth in the contemplation of this supremest
handiwork of the Creator. A word to the charioteer and the chariot came
to a stop.
Tristan and the woman faced each other in silence, the man with an
ill-concealed air of uneasiness, such as one may experience who finds
himself face to face with some unknown danger.
With utter disregard for the gaping crowds which had gathered around
the fountain she bent her gaze upon him, surveying him from head to
foot.
"Who are you?" she spoke at last, and he, confused, bewildered,
trembling, gazed into the woman's supremely fair face and stammered:
"A pilgrim!"
Her lips parted in a smile that revealed two rows of small white, even
teeth. There was something unutterable in that smile which brought the
color to Tristan's brow.
"A Roman?"
"From the North!"
"Why are you here?"
"For the salvation of my soul!"
He blushed as he spoke.
Again the strange smile curved the woman's lips, again the inscrutable
look shone in her eyes.
"For the salvation of your soul!" she repeated slowly after him. "And
you so young and fair. Ah! You have done some little wickedness, no
doubt?"
He started to reply, but she checked him with a wave of her hand.
"I do not wish to be told. Do you repent?"
Tristan's throat was dry. His lips refused utterance. He nodded
awkwardly.
"So much the worse! These little peccadillos are the spice of life!
What is your name?"
She repeated it lingeringly after him.
"From the North--you say--to do penance in Rome!"
She watched him with an expression of amusement. When he started back
from her, a strange fear in his heart, a wave of her hand checked him.
"Let me whisper a secret to you!" she said with a smile.
He felt her perfumed breath upon his cheek.
Inclining his ear he staggered away from her dizzy, bewildered.
Presently, with a dazzling smile, she extended one white hand and
Tristan, trembling as one under a spell, bent over and kissed it. He
felt the soft pressure of her fingers and his pulse throbbed with a
strange, insidious fire, as reluctantly he released it at last.
Raising his eyes, he now met her gaze, absorbing into his innermost
soul the mesmeric spell of her beauty, drinking in the warmth of those
dark, sleepy orbs that flashed on him half resentfully, half mockingly.
Then the charioteer jerked up the reins, the chariot began to move.
Like a dream the pageant vanished--and slowly, like far-away thunder,
the voice of the multitudes began to return, as they regarded the lone
pilgrim with mingled doubt, fear and disdain.
With a start Tristan looked about. He was as one bewitched. He felt he
must follow her at all risks, ascertain her name, her abode.
Dashing through the crowds that gave way before him, wondering and
commenting upon the unseemly haste of one wearing so austere a garb,
Tristan caught a last glimpse of the procession as it entered the
narrow gorge that lies between Mount Testaccio and Mount Aventine.
With a sense of great disappointment he slowly retraced his steps,
walking as in the thrall of a strange dream, and, after inquiring the
direction of his inn of some wayfarers he chanced to meet, he at last
reached the Inn of the Golden Shield, situated near the Flaminian Gate,
and entered the great guest-chamber.
The troubled light of a melancholy dusk was enhanced by the glimmer of
stone lamps suspended from the low and dirty ceiling.
Notwithstanding the late hour, the smoky precincts were crowded with
guests from many lands, who were discussing the events of the day. If
Tristan's wakeful ear had been alive to the gossip of the tavern he
might have heard the incident in the Navona, in which he played so
prominent a part, discussed in varied terms of wonder and condemnation.
Tristan took his seat near an alcove usually reserved for guests of
state. The unaccustomed scene began to exercise a singular fascination
upon him, stranger as he was among strangers from all the earth, their
faces dark against the darker background of the room. Brooding over
a tankard of Falernian of the hue of bronze, which his oily host had
placed before him, he continued to absorb every detail of the animated
picture, while the memory of his strange adventure dominated his mind.
Tristan's meagre fund of information was to be enriched by tidings of
an ominous nature. He learned that the Pontiff, John XI, was imprisoned
in the Lateran Palace, by his step-brother Alberic, the Senator of Rome.
While this information came to him, a loyal son of the Church, as a
distinct shock, Tristan felt, nevertheless, strangely impressed with
the atmosphere of the place. Even in the period of her greatest decay,
Rome seemed still the centre of the universe.
Thus he sat brooding for hours.
When, with a start, he roused himself at last, he found the vast
guest-chamber well-nigh deserted. The pilgrims had retired to their
respective quarters, small, dingy cells, teeming with evil odors, heat
and mosquitoes, and the oily Calabrian host was making ready for the
morrow.
The warmth of the Roman night and the fatigue engendered after many
leagues of tedious travel on a dusty road, under the scorching rays of
an Italian sky, at last asserted itself and, wishing a fair rest to his
host, who was far from displeased to see his guest-chamber cleared for
the night, Tristan climbed the crooked and creaking stairs leading to
the chamber assigned to him, which looked out upon the gate of Castello
and the Tiber, where it is spanned by the Bridge of San Angelo.
The window stood open to the night air, on which floated the perfumes
from oleander and almond groves. The roofs of the Eternal City formed a
dark, shadowy mass in the deep blue dusk, and the cylindrical masonry
of the Flavian Emperor's Tomb rose ominously against the deep turquoise
of the night sky.
Soon the events of the day and the scenes of the evening began to melt
into faint and indistinct memories.
Sleep, deep and tranquil, encompassed Tristan's weary limbs, but in his
dreams the events of the evening were obliterated before scenes of the
past.
CHAPTER III
THE DREAM LADY OF AVALON
Like a disk of glowing gold the sun had set upon hill
and dale. The gardens of Avalon lay wrapt in the mists of evening. Like
flowers seemed the fair women who thronged the winding paths. From
fragrant bosquets, borne on the wings of the night wind came the faint
sounds of zitherns and lutes.
He, too, was there, mingling joyous, carefree, with the rest, gathering
the white roses for the one he loved. Dimly he recalled his delight, as
he saw her approach in the waning light through the dim ilex avenue, an
apparition wondrous fair in the crimson haze of slowly departing day,
entering his garden of dreams. With strangely aching heart he saw them
throng about her in homage and admiration.
At last he knelt before her, kissing the white hand that lay passive
within his own.
How wonderful she was! Never had he seen anything like her, not even
in this land of flowers and of beautiful women. Her hair was warm
as if the sun had entered into it. Her skin had the tints of ivory.
The violet eyes with the long drooping lashes seemed to hold the
memories of a thousand love thoughts. And the small, crimson mouth, so
witch-like, so alluring, seemed to hold out promise of fulfilment of
dizzy hopes and desires.
"It is our golden hour," she smiled down at him, and the white fingers
twined the rose in her hair, wove a girdle of blossoms round her
exquisite, girlish form.
To Tristan she seemed an enchantment, an embodied rose. Never had he
seen her so fair, so beautiful. On her lips quivered a smile, yet there
was a strange light in her eyes, that gave him pause, a light he had
never seen therein before.
She beckoned him away from the throng. "Come where the moonlight
dreams."
Her smile and her wonderful eyes were his beacon light. He rose to his
feet and took her hand. And away they strayed from the rest of the
crowd, far away over green lawns, emerald in the moonlight, with, here
and there, the dark shadow of a cypress falling across the silvery
brightness of their path. Little by little the gardens were deserted.
Fainter and fainter came the sounds of lutes and harps. The shadows of
the grove now encompassed them, as silently they strode side by side.
"This is my Buen Retiro," she spoke at last. "Here we may rest--for
awhile--far from the world."
They entered the rose-bower, a wilderness, blossoming with roses and
hyacinths and fragrant shrubs--a very paradise for lovers.--
The bells of a remote convent began to chime. They smote the silence
with their silvery peals. The castle of Avalon lay dark in the
distance, shadowy against the deep azure of the night sky.
When the chimes of the Angelus had died away, she spoke.
"How wonderful is this peace!"
Her tone brought a sudden chill to his heart.
As she moved forward, he dropped his wealth of flowers and held out his
hands entreatingly.
"Dearest Hellayne," he said, "tarry but a little longer--"
She seemed to start at his words, and leaned over the back of the stone
bench, which was covered with climbing roses. And suddenly under this
new light, sad and silent, she seemed no longer his fair companion of
the afternoon, all youth, all beauty, all light. Motionless, as if
shadowed by some dire foreboding, she stood there and he dared not
approach. Once he raised his hand to take her own. But something in her
eyes caused the hand to fall as with its own weight.
He could not understand what stayed him, what stayed the one supreme
impulse of his heart. He did not understand what checked the words that
hovered on his lips. Was it the clear pure light of the eyes he loved
so well? Was it some dark power he wot not of?
At last he broke through his restraint.
"Hellayne--" he whispered low. "Hellayne--I love you!"
She did not move.
There was a deep silence.
Then she answered.
"Oh, why have you said the word!"
What did she mean? He cried, trembling, within himself. And now he was
no longer in the moonlit rose-bower in the gardens of Avalon, but in a
dense forest. The trees meeting overhead made a night so black, that he
saw nothing, not even their gnarled trunks.
Hellayne was standing beside him. A pale moonbeam flickered through the
interwoven branches.
She pointed to the castle of Avalon, dim in the distance. He made a
quick forward step to see her face. Her eyes were very calm.
"Let us go, Tristan!" she said.
"My answer first," he insisted, gazing longingly, wistfully into the
eyes that held a night of mystery.
"You have it," she said calmly.
"It was no answer," he pleaded, "from lover to lover--"
"Ah!" she replied, in her voice a great weariness which he had never
noted before. "But here are neither loves nor lovers.--Look!"
And he looked.
Before them lay a colorless and lifeless sea, under the arch of a
threatening sky. Across that sky dark clouds, with ever-changing
shapes, rolled slowly, and presently condensed into a vague shadowy
form, while the torpid waves droned a muffled and unearthly dirge.
He covered his eyes, overcome by a mastering fear of that dread shape
which he knew, yet knew not.
He knelt before her, took the hands he loved so well into his own and
pressed upon them his fevered lips.
"I do not understand--" he moaned.
She regarded him fixedly.
"I am another's wife--"
His head drooped.
"When my eyes first met yours they begged that my love for you might
find response in your heart," he said, still holding on to those
marvellous white hands. "Did you not accept my worship?"
She neither encouraged nor repulsed him by word or gesture. And he
covered her hands with burning kisses. After his passionate outburst
had died to silence she spoke quietly, tremulously.
"Tristan," she began, and paused as if she were summoning courage to do
that which she must. "Tristan, this may not be."
"I love you," he sobbed. "I love you! This is all I know! All I shall
ever know. How can I support life without you? heart of my heart--soul
of my soul?--What must I do, to win you for my own--to give you
happiness?"
A negative gesture came in response.
"Is sin ever happiness?"
"The priests say not! And yet--our love is not sinful--"
"The priests say truth." Hellayne interposed calmly.
He felt as if an immense darkness, the chaos of a thousand spheres,
suddenly encompassed him, threatening to plunge him into a bottomless
abyss of despair.
Then he made a quick forward step. Her face was close to his. Wide eyes
fastened upon him in a compelling gaze.
"Tell me!" he urged, his own eyes lost in those unfathomable
wells of dreams. "When love is with you--does aught matter? Does
sin--discovery--God himself--matter?"
With a frightened cry she drew back.
But those steady, questioning eyes, sombre, yet aflame, compelled the
shifting violet orbs.
"Tell me!" he urged again, his face very close to her face.
"Naught matters," she whispered faintly, as if under a spell.
Then her gaze relinquished his, as she looked dreamily out upon the
woods. There was absolute silence, lasting apace. It was the stillness
of a forest where no birds sing, no breezes stir. Then a twig snapped
beneath Hellayne's foot. He had taken her to his heart and, his strong
arms about her, kissed her eyes, her mouth, her hair. She suffered his
caresses dreamily, passively, her white arms encircling his neck.
Suddenly he stiffened. His form was as that of one turned to stone.
In the shadow of the forest beneath a great oak, hooded, motionless,
stood a man. His eyes seemed like glowing coals, as they stared at
them. Hellayne did not see them, but she felt the tremor that passed
through Tristan's frame. The mantle's hood was pulled far down over the
man's face. No features were visible.
And yet Tristan knew that cowled and muffled form. He knew the eyes
that had surprised their tryst.
It was Count Roger de Laval.
The muffled shadow was gone as quickly as it had come.
It was growing ever darker in the forest, and when he looked up again
he saw that Hellayne's white roses were scattered on the ground. Her
scarf of blue samite had fallen heedlessly beside them. He lifted it
and pressed it to his lips.
"Will you give it to me?" he said tremulously. "That it may be with me
always--"
There was no immediate response.
At last she said slowly:
"You shall have it--a parting gift--"
He seized her hands. They lay passively within his own.
There was a great fear in his eyes.
"I do not understand--"
She loosened the roses from her hair and garb before she made reply.
Silently, like dead leaves in autumn, the fragrant petals dropped one
by one to earth. Hellayne watched them with weary eyes as they drifted
to their sleep, then, as she held the last spray in her hand, gazing
upon it she said:
"When you gave them to me, Tristan, they were sweet and fresh, the
fairest you could find. Now they have faded, perished, died--"
He started to plead, to protest, to silence her, but she continued:
"Ah! Can you not see? Can you not understand? Perchance," she added
bitterly, "I was created to adorn the fleeting June afternoon of your
life, and when this scarf is torn and faded as these flowers, let the
wind carry it away,--like these dead petals at our feet--"
She let fall the withered spray, but he snatched it ere it touched the
ground.
"I love you," he stammered passionately. "I love you! Love you as no
woman was ever loved. You are my world--my fate-- Hellayne! Hellayne!
Know you what you say?"--
She gazed at him, with eyes from which all life had fled.
"I am another's," she said slowly. "I have sinned in loving you, in
giving to you my soul. And even as you stood there and held me in your
arms, it flashed upon me, like lightning in a dark stormy night--I saw
the abyss, at the brink of which we stand, both, you and I."--
"But we have done no wrong--we have not sinned," he protested wildly.
She silenced him with a gesture of her beautiful hands.
"Who may command the waters of the cataract, go here,--or go there?
Who may tell them to return to their lawful bed? I have neither power
nor strength, to resist your pleading. You have been life and love to
me, all,--all,--and all this you are to-day. And therefore must we
part,--part, ere it be too late--" she concluded with a wild cry of
anguish, "ere we are both engulfed in the darkness."--
And he fell at her feet as if stunned by a thunderbolt.
"Do not send me away--" he pleaded, his voice choked with anguish. "Do
not send me from you."
"You will go," she said softly, deaf to his prayers. "It is the supreme
test of your love, great as I know it is."
"But I cannot leave you, I cannot go, never to see you more--" and he
grasped the cool white hands of the woman as a drowning man will grasp
a straw.
She did not attempt, for the time, to take them from him. She looked
down upon him wistfully.
"Would you make me the mock of Avalon?" she said. "Once my lord
suspects we are lost. And, I fear, he does even now. For his gaze has
been dark and troubled. And I cannot, will not, expose you to his
cruelty. You know him not as I do--"
"Even therefore will I not leave you," he interposed, looking into
the sweet face. "He has not been kind to you. His pride was flattered
by your ready surrender, and your great beauty is but one of the many
dishes that go to satiate his varied appetites. Of the others you know
naught--"
She gave a shrug.
"If it be so," she said wearily, "so let it be. Nevertheless, I know
whereof I speak. This thing has stolen over us like a madness. And,
like a madness, it will hurl us to our doom."
Though he had seen the dark, glowering face among the branches, he
said nothing, not to alarm her, not to cause her fear and misgiving.
He loved her spotless purity as dearly as herself. To him they were
inseparable.
His head fell forward on her hands. Her fingers played in his soft
brown hair.
"What would you have me do?" he said, his voice choked by his anguish.
"Go on a pilgrimage to Rome, to obtain forgiveness, as I shall visit
the holy shrines of Mont Beliard and do likewise," she said, steadying
her voice with an effort. "Let us forget that we have ever met--that we
have ever loved,--or remember that we loved--a dream."--
"Can love forget so readily?" he said, bitter anguish and reproach in
his tones.
She shook her head.
"It is my fate,--for better--or worse--no matter what befall. As for
you--life lies before you. Love another, happier woman, one that is
free to give--and to receive. As for me--"
She paused and covered her face with her hands.
"What will you do?" he cried in his over-mastering anguish.
A faint, far-off voice made reply.
"I shall do that which I must!"
He staggered away from her. She should not see the scalding tears that
coursed down his cheeks. But, as he turned, he again saw the dark and
glowering face, the brow gloomy as a thunder-cloud, of the Count
de Laval. But again it was not he. It was the black-garbed, lithe
stranger, the companion of the hunchback, who was regarding Hellayne
with evil, leering eyes.
He wanted to cry out, warn her, entreat her to fly.--
But it was too late.
Like a bird that watches spellbound the approach of the snake, Hellayne
stood pale and trembling--her cheeks white as death--her eyes riveted
on the evil shape that seemed the fiend. But he, Tristan, also was
encompassed by the same spell. He could not move--he could not cry out.
With a bound, swift and noiseless as the panther's, he saw the sinewy
stranger hurl himself upon Hellayne, picking her up like a feather and
disappear in the gloom of the forest.
With a cry of horror, bathed from head to foot in perspiration, Tristan
started from his slumber.
The moonbeams flooded the chamber. The soft breeze of the summer night
stole through the open casement.
With a moan as of mortal pain he sat up and looked about.
Was he indeed in Rome?
Had it been but a dream, this echo of the past, this visualized parting
from the woman he had loved better than life?
Was he indeed in Rome, to do as she had bid him do, not in the misty,
flower-scented rose-gardens of Avalon in far Provence?--
And she--Hellayne--where was she at this hour?
Tristan stroked his clammy brow with a hot, dry hand. For a moment the
memories evoked by the magic wand of the God of Sleep seemed to banish
all consciousness of the present. He cast a fleeting, bewildered glance
at the dim, distant housetops, then fell back among his cushions,
his lips muttering the name of her who had filled his dream with her
never-to-be-forgotten presence, wondering and questioning if they
would ever meet again. Thus he tossed and tossed.
After a time he became still.
Once again consciousness was blotted out and the dream realm reigned
supreme.
CHAPTER IV
THE WAY OF THE CROSS
It was late on the following morning when Tristan
waked. The sun was high in the heavens and the perfumes from a thousand
gardens were wafted to his nostrils. He looked about bewildered. The
dream phantoms of the night still held his senses captive, and it was
some time ere he came to a realization of the present. In the dream of
the night he had lived over a scene in the past, conjuring back the
memory of one who had sent him on the Way of the Cross. The pitiless
rays of the Roman sun, which began to envelop the white houses and
walls, brought with them the realization of the present hour. He had
come to Rome to do penance, to start life anew and to forget. So she
had bade him do on that never-to-be forgotten eve of their parting. So
she had willed it, and he had obeyed.
How it all flooded back to him again in waves of anguish, the memory of
those days when the turrets of Avalon had faded from his aching sight,
when, together with a motley pilgrims' throng, he had tramped the dusty
sun-baked road, dead to all about him save the love that was cushioned
in his heart. How that parting from Hellayne still dominated all other
events, even though life and the world had fallen away from him and he
had only prayer for oblivion, for obliteration.
Yet even Hellayne's inexorable decree would not have availed to speed
him on a pilgrimage so fraught with hopelessness, that during all
that long journey Tristan hardly exchanged word or greeting with his
fellow pilgrims. It was her resolve, unfalteringly avowed, to leave the
world and enter a convent, if he refused to obey, which had eventually
compelled. Her own self-imposed penance should henceforth be to live,
lonely and heartbroken, by the side of an unbeloved consort, while
Tristan atoned far away, in the city of the popes, at the shrines of
the saints.
At night, when Tristan retired, at dawn, when he arose, Hellayne's
memory was with him, and every league that increased the distance
between them seemed to heighten his love and his anguish. But human
endurance has its limits, and at last he was seized by a great torpor,
a chill indifference that swept away and deadened every other feeling.
There was no longer a To-day, no longer a Yesterday, no longer a
To-morrow.
Such was Tristan's state of mind, when from the Tiburtine road he
first sighted the walls and towers of Rome, without definite purpose
or aim, drawn along, as it were, towards an uncertain goal by Fate's
invisible hand. Utterly indifferent as to what might befall among the
Seven Hills, he was at times dimly conscious of a presentiment that
ultimately he would end up his own days in one of those silent places
where all earthly hopes and desires are forever stilled. So much was
clear to him. Like the rest of the pilgrims who had wended their way to
St. Peter's seat, he would complete the circuit of the holy shrines,
kiss the feet of the Father of Christendom, do such penance as the
Pontiff should impose, and then attach himself to one party or another
in the pontifical city which held out hope for action, since the return
to his own native land was barred to him for evermore.
How he would bear up under the ordeal he did not know. How he would
support life away from Hellayne, without a word, a message, without
the assurance that all was well with her, whether now, his own fate
accomplished, others thronged about her in love and adulation,--he knew
not.
For the nonce he was resolved to let new scenes, new impressions sweep
away the great void of an aching heart, lighten the despair that filled
his soul.
In approaching the Eternal City he had felt scarcely any of the
elevation of spirit which has affected so many devout pilgrims. He
knew it was the seat of God's earthly Vice-regent, the capital of the
universal kingdom of the Church. He reminded himself of this and of the
priceless relics it contained, the tombs of the Apostles St. Peter and
St. Paul, the tombs of so many other martyrs, pontiffs and saints.
But in spite of all these memories he drew near the place with a
sinking dread, as if, by some instinct of premonition, he felt himself
dragged to the Cross on which at last he was to be crucified.
Many a pilgrim may have seen Rome for the first time with an
involuntary recollection of her past, with the hope that for him, too,
the future might hold the highest greatness.
Certainly no ambitious fancy cast a halo of romantic hope over the
great city as Tristan first saw her ancient walls. He felt safe enough
from any danger of greatness. He had nothing to recommend him. On the
contrary, something in his character would only serve to isolate him,
creating neither admiration nor sympathy.
All the weary road to Rome, the Rome he dreaded, had he prayed for
courage to cast himself at the feet of the Vicar of Christ. He did not
think then of the Pope, as of one of the great of the earth, but simply
as of one who stood in the world in God's place. So he would have
courage to seek him, confess to him and ask him what it was it behooved
him to do.
Thus he had walked on--with stammering steps, bruising his feet
against stones, tearing himself through briars--heeding nothing by the
way.
And now, the journey accomplished, he was here in supreme loneliness,
without guidance, human or divine, thrown upon himself, not knowing how
to still the pain, how to fill the void of an aching heart.
Would the light of Truth come to him out of the encompassing realms of
Doubt?
When Tristan descended into the great guest-chamber he found it almost
deserted. The pilgrims had set out early in the day to begin their
devotions before the shrines. The host of the Golden Shield placed
before his sombre and silent guest such viands as the latter found most
palatable, consisting of goat's milk, stewed lamb, barley bread and
figs, and Tristan did ample justice to the savory repast.
The heat of the day being intense, he resolved to wait until the sun
should be fairly on his downward course before he started out upon his
own business, a resolution which was strengthened by a suggestion from
the host, that few ventured abroad in Rome during the Siesta hours, the
Roman fever respecting neither rank nor garb.
Thus Tristan composed himself to patience, watching the host upon his
duties, and permitting his gaze to roam now and then through the narrow
windows upon the object he had first encountered upon his arrival: the
brown citadel, drowsing unresponsive in the noon-tide glow, a monument
of mystery and dark deeds, the Mausoleum of the Flavian Emperor--or, as
it was styled at the period of our story, the Castle of the Archangel.
From this stronghold, less than a decade ago, a woman had lorded it
over the city of Rome, as renowned for her evil beauty as for the
profligacy and licentiousness of her court. In time her regime had been
swept away,
|
to exist
in anything else”;(2) and after a few lines, “Substance,” he says, “is
that which has its existence in itself, and not in anything else”;(3) and
again in another chapter of the same work, “Substance,” he says, “is
anything which subsists by itself and has its own being, not in any other
thing, but in itself.”(4)
According to these definitions, which are identical, substance is a thing
which not only is able to support itself, but actually supports itself to
the exclusion of any other distinct supporter. This is quite manifest;
for, if substance, in the opinion of this great doctor and philosopher,
had been only a thing having _no need_ of support, how could he require so
pointedly and explicitly _the actual mode_ of existing in itself and not
in anything else?
S. Ambrose admits a notion of substance quite identical with that of
Aristotle and of all the ancients, and employs it even in speaking of God
himself. “God,” says he, “inasmuch as he remains in himself, and does not
subsist by extrinsic support, is called a substance.”(5) God, of course,
does not fall under the predicament of substance, as philosophers know;
and yet the substantiality even of his nature, according to this holy
doctor, implies the actual absence of extrinsic sustentation.(6)
S. Thomas, as we might expect, teaches the very same doctrine.
“Substance,” says he, “is a thing whose quiddity requires to exist
unsupported by anything else”—_cui convenit esse non in alio_;(7) and he
adds that this formality (_esse non in alio_) is a mere negation; which is
evident. And in another place, “_Substance_,” says he, “does not differ
from _being_ by any difference which would imply a new nature superadded
to the being itself; but the name of substance is given to a thing in
order to express its special mode of existing.”(8) Two things, then, or
two constituents, are needed, according to S. Thomas, that we may have a
substance: a physical being and a special mode of existing. The physical
being is a positive reality, a nature perfectly constituted, both
materially and formally, whilst the special mode is a mere negation; but,
though a mere negation, is that which causes the thing to be a substance,
as _the name of substance is given to the thing in order to express its
special mode of existing_. Therefore the thing itself apart from such a
special mode cannot be a substance, any more than a six‐pence apart from
its rotundity can be a circle.
Toletus includes in his definition of substance both _the thing_ and _the
special mode_ of existing. He says: “The first substance is a sensible
nature which is not predicated of any subject nor exists in any
subject.”(9)
Suarez says even more explicitly, “It is not necessary for the _essence_
of substance that it should have its own subsistence, but that it should
have the mode of substance.”(10) We cannot, then, overlook, and much less
discard, this special mode without destroying the _essential_ notion of
substance as such. Now, he who defines substance to be simply a thing
which has _no need_ of support overlooks and discards this special mode;
hence he destroys the essential notion of substance as such.
Balmes, in his _Fundamental Philosophy_, says: “In the notion of
substance, two other notions are implied—to wit, that of permanence and
that of non‐inherence. Non‐inherence is the true formal constituent of
substance, and is a negation; it is grounded, however, on something
positive—that is, on the aptitude of the thing to exist in itself without
the need of being supported by another.”(11) This passage establishes very
clearly the common doctrine that the aptitude of a thing to exist without
being supported is not the formal constituent of substance, but only the
ground on which the proper formal constituent of substance (non‐inherence)
is conceived to be possible.
Ferraris, a modern Italian Thomist, in his course of philosophy, says
explicitly that substance is destroyed if its “perseity”—_per se esse_—be
taken away.(12) The word “perseity” stands here for the “special mode” of
S. Thomas, the “mode of substance” of Suarez, the “non‐inherence” of
Balmes, etc.
Liberatore has the following: “Going back to the notion of substance, we
may consider three things which are implied in it: the first, that it
exists, not in any manner whatever, but in itself; the second, that it
consists of a determinate reality or essence, from which its determinate
active powers arise; the third, that it is in possession of itself—_sui
juris_—with regard to its manner of existing. Of these three things, the
first exhibits properly and precisely the notion of substance; the second
presents the concept of nature; the third expresses the notion of
suppositum.”(13)
The preceding quotations, to which others might be added, are more than
sufficient, in our opinion, to refute the assertion that substance at all
times was considered simply as a thing having _no need_ of support; for we
have seen that the most prominent philosophers and theologians of all
times uniformly consider the actual negation of support as an essential
principle of substance. Sanseverino, a very learned modern philosopher of
the Thomistic school, treating in his _Logic_ of the predicament of
substance, establishes the fact that, according to the common teaching of
the scholastics, “not the essence of the thing, but its mode of existing,
formally constitutes the predicament of substance.” Although that special
mode of existing is not implied in the essential concept of the thing,
_inasmuch as it is a thing_, yet, according to the doctrine of the
schoolmen, the same special mode is implied, as a formal constituent, in
the essential concept of the same thing, _inasmuch as it falls under the
predicament of substance_; so that, in the constitution of substance, the
essence of the thing is to be ranked as its material, and the special mode
of existing as its formal, principle. And the learned writer sums up all
this doctrine in one general conclusion of Henry of Ghent, which runs
thus: “Every predicament arises out of two constituents, of which one is
the thing which is to be put under the predicament, the other is its mode
of being which determines the predicament, and by these same constituents
are the predicaments distinguished from one another”(14)—a doctrine
explicitly taught by S. Thomas himself.(15) And here let us reflect that,
if all the schoolmen, as Sanseverino with the authority of his
philosophical erudition declares, affirm that the mode of substance, the
non‐inherence, the negation of support, is an _essential_ constituent of
substance as such, we are free to conclude that to affirm the contrary is
to give a false notion of substance; while to say that philosophers have
at all times, or at any time, taught the contrary, is to give a very false
statement of facts.
This may suffice to convince the student that the essential formality of
substance as such is _the negation of actual support_. And now let us
inquire what is the formal constituent of suppositum. Suppositum and
substance, though not identical, are similarly constituted. The positive
entity of both is the same, and the difference between them arises
entirely from the different character of their negative formality, as we
are going to explain. For the essence or nature of every created being is
naturally accompanied by two negations, of which neither is essential to
it, while either of them, absolutely speaking, can be made to disappear.
The first is the negation of anything _underlying_ as a supporter and
acting the part of a subject; and it is to this negation, as we have
proved, that any complete nature formally owes its name and rank of
substance. The second is the negation of anything _overlying_, so to say,
and possessing itself of the created being in such a manner as to endue it
with an additional complement and a new subsistence; and it is to this
negation that a complete nature formally owes its name and rank of
suppositum. The complete nature, or the thing in question, when considered
apart from these two negations, does not, therefore, convey the idea
either of substance or of suppositum, but exhibits a mere potency of being
either or both; as it is evident that there cannot be a substance without
the formal constituent of substance, nor a suppositum without the formal
constituent of suppositum.
This doctrine, which is so simple and clear, and which fully explains the
true meaning of those phrases, “it exists in itself,” and “it subsists by
itself,” can be confirmed by what S. Thomas teaches on the subject. And
since we have already said enough in regard to the mode of substance, we
shall give only what he says concerning subsistence or suppositality. That
the words _per se_—“by itself”—which strictly exhibit the formality of the
suppositum, are the expression of a _mere negation_, is admitted by S.
Thomas in a passage above mentioned. This would lead us immediately to
conclude that the formal constituent of suppositum, in the judgment of the
holy doctor, is a mere negation. But we may find a more perspicuous proof
of this in those passages where he explains how the human nature in Christ
subsists without the human personality. The absence of the human
personality in Christ does not depend, says he, “on the absence of
anything pertaining to the perfection of the human nature—but on the
addition of something that ranks above the human nature, to wit, on the
union of the human nature with a divine Person.”(16) And again: “The
divine Person, by his union, prevented the human nature from having its
own personality.”(17) It is manifest from these two passages that,
according to S. Thomas, the absence of the human personality in Christ is
to be accounted for by the _addition_ of something above the human nature,
and not by the suppression or subtraction of any positive entity belonging
to the human nature. If, then, the absence of the human personality
entails no absence of positive reality, it is obvious that the human
personality is not a positive reality, but a real negation. Such is S.
Thomas’s doctrine, endorsed by Scotus and many others.
There are, however, some philosophers and theologians, Suarez among
others, who consider personality as something positive; and we must
briefly discuss the grounds of their opinion.
They say that, if the human personality is nothing positive, human person
will be the same reality as human nature, and therefore the one will not
be really distinct from the other; and if so, the one cannot be assumed
without the other. How, then, can we say that the Eternal Word assumed the
human nature without the human person?
We reply that all negation which belongs to a real being is a _real_
negation, and constitutes a _real_ mode of being. Accordingly, although
the human personality is only a negation, the nature existing under that
negation _really_ differs from itself existing without that negation, no
less than a body at rest really differs from itself in movement, although
rest is only a negation of movement. And this suffices to show that the
objection is wholly grounded on the false supposition that nothing is real
which is not positive.
They affirm that subsistence or suppositality gives the last complement to
the nature, as it terminates it and makes it subsistent. Hence
subsistence, as they infer, must add something positive to the nature;
which it cannot do unless it be a positive reality.
We deny the assumption altogether. Subsistence, in fact, gives no
complement whatever to the nature, but, on the contrary, presupposes the
complete nature, which, when simply left to itself, cannot but be
subsistent by itself, and therefore is said to have its own subsistence.
It is not subsistence that causes the thing to subsist; it is the thing
which abides by itself that, in consequence of this same abiding by
itself, has subsistence, and is called subsistent; just in the same manner
as it is not _rest_ that causes the body to be at rest, but _the concrete
resting_; as rest is evidently the consequence of the resting. Hence this
second objection, too, is based on a false assumption.
Another of their reasons is the following: In God, personality is a
positive reality, therefore in creatures also; for the created person is a
participation of divine person, which is a positive reality.
We do not see how this assertion can be true. In God there are three
Persons, but neither of them is participated or communicated to creatures.
Indeed, creatures bear in themselves a faint imitation of the three divine
Persons, inasmuch as they involve three intrinsic principles in their
constitution, as we have explained in the preceding article; but these
three principles are not three persons. Yet, if divine personality were in
any way communicable to creatures, creatures would subsist in three
persons; for how could the personality of the Father be communicated in
any degree without the personality of the Son and of the Holy Ghost being
communicated in the same degree? Personality in God is a relative entity,
and cannot be conceived without its correlative; and consequently, if the
human personality were a participation of divine personality, it would be
impossible for man to be a single person; whence it appears that human
personality is not a communication of divine personality, and is not even
analogous to it. What we call a human person is nothing but a human
individual nature which is _sui juris_—that is, not possessed by a
superior being, but left to itself and free to dispose of its acts. It
therefore imitates, not the divine Persons, but the divine absolute Being,
inasmuch as it is independent in disposing of everything according to his
will. Now, independence, even in God, implies the negation or absence of
any necessary connection or conjunction with anything distinct from the
divine nature. It is but reasonable, then, to hold that the human nature
also exists free and independent by the very absence or negation of
personal union with a higher being. We remark, however, that such a
negation in God is a negation of imperfection, while in creatures an
analogous negation is a negation of a higher perfection, since it is the
negation of their union with a more perfect nature.
It has been argued, also, that to be a person is better than not to be a
person; whence it would follow that personality is a perfection. On the
other hand, negations are not perfections; hence personality cannot be a
negation.
To this we answer that the proposition, “to be a person is better than not
to be a person,” can be understood in two different manners. It may mean
that to have a nature which is capable of personality, and is naturally
personal, is better than to have a nature incapable of personality; and in
this sense the proposition is true, for it is certainly better to have the
nature of man than the nature of an ox. This, however, would not show that
personality is a positive formality. But the same proposition might be
taken to mean that to have one’s natural personality is better than to
exist without it, in consequence of hypostatic union with a higher being;
and in this sense, which is the sense of the objection, the proposition is
evidently false. For the whole perfection of the human person is the
perfection of its nature; so that human personality, instead of being a
new perfection, is only an exponent of the perfection and dignity of human
nature, which is such that the same nature can naturally guide itself and
control its actions. We therefore concede that human personality is a
formality _of a perfect nature_, but we cannot admit that it is _a
perfection_ of itself. If human personality were a perfection of human
nature, we would be compelled to say that human nature is less perfect in
Christ than in all other men; for, though the Eternal Word assumed the
whole human nature, he did not assume that pretended perfection, human
personality. But S. Paul assures us that Christ’s human nature “is like
ours in all things, except sin.” We cannot therefore suppose that the
human nature is less perfect in him than in other men; and this leads us
to the conclusion that human personality is not a positive perfection.
Some have pretended that the mystery of the Incarnation would become quite
inexplicable if the human person were nothing more than the human nature
left to itself. Their reason is that by the Incarnation the human nature
is separated from the human person; which they deem to be impossible if
the person is nothing else than the nature alone.
This is, however, a manifest paralogism. If, in fact, the human person is
the human nature _left to itself_, the nature assumed by the Word will
certainly not be a human person, since it is clear that the nature thus
assumed is _not left to itself_. This suffices to show the inconsistency
of the objection. Let us add that it is not entirely correct to say that
by the Incarnation the human nature is separated from the human person; it
would be more correct to say that the human nature is prevented from
having that natural subsistence which would make it a human person.
Lastly, it has been said that, if the human nature which has been assumed
by the Eternal Word was entirely complete, the union of the Word with it
could not be intimate and substantial. Hence, according to this reasoning,
there must have been something wanting in the human nature assumed, which
something has been supplied by the hypostatic union.
We cannot but repeat, with S. Thomas, that the human nature assumed by the
Word is absolutely perfect, and therefore exempt from any deficiency which
could have been supplied by the hypostatic union. And as for the reason
alleged, we say that it is grounded on a false supposition. The union of
the Word with the human nature is not a conspiration of the divine and the
human into oneness of _substance_, for the thing would be impossible; and
therefore it is not wholly correct to say that the union is _substantial_.
The proper term is _hypostatic_—that is, _personal_; for, in fact, the
human nature conspires with the divine Word into oneness of _person_, the
two natures or substances remaining entirely distinct. Now, the oneness of
person is not obtained by supplying any deficiency in the human nature,
but by _adding_, as S. Thomas teaches, to the perfect human nature that
which is above it—that is, by the Word taking possession of it in his own
person.
Such are the principal reasons advanced by those who consider human
personality, and suppositality in general, as a positive mode. We think we
have answered them sufficiently.
We cannot better conclude this controversy than by inviting the same
philosophers to take cognizance of the following argument. The mode of
suppositum, as well as the mode of substance, is not an accidental but a
_substantial_ mode, as all agree, and every one must admit. Now, no
substantial mode can be positive; and therefore neither the mode of
suppositum nor the mode of substance can be positive. The minor of this
syllogism can be proved thus: Positive modes are nothing but positive
actualities or affections of being; and unless they are mere relative
denominations (which is not the case with substantial modes), they must
result from the positive reception of some act in a real subject. This is
an obvious truth, for nothing is actual but by some act; and all acts
which are not essential to the first constitution of the being are
received in the being already constituted as in a real subject. And since
all acts thus received are accidental, hence all the positive modes
intrinsic to the being must be accidental modes; and no substantial mode
can be positive. Therefore whatever is positive in the suppositum and in
the substance belongs to the _nature_ of the being which has the mode of
suppositum or of substance, whilst the _modes_ themselves are mere
negations.
This truth, however, should not be misunderstood. When we say that “to be
in itself” or “to be by itself” is a mere negation, we do not refer to the
verb “to be”; we only refer to the appendage “in itself” or “by itself.”
_To be_ is positive, but belongs to the nature as such, as it is the
essential complement of all being, whether substance and suppositum or
not. The negation consists, in the one case, in _not being sustained_ by
an underlying supporter, and, in the other, in _not being taken possession
of_ by an overlying superior being. Indeed, when we unite the verb _to be_
with either of the two negations, we unite the positive with the negative.
But the positive comes in as determinable, while the negative comes in as
determinant. Hence the resultant determination or formality is only the
actuality of a negation. Now, the actuality of a negation, though it is
real inasmuch as it is the affection of a positive being, yet it is
_negative_; for all actuality is denominated by its formal principle, and
such a principle, in our case, is a negation.
A writer in a Catholic periodical has ventured to say that if the
formality of substance (and the same would also apply to the suppositum)
is negative, then substance “will consist merely in a negation.” It is
surprising that a philosopher has not seen the absurdity of such a
conclusion. Substance is not to be confounded with its formality. There
are many positive things which involve a negation. In an empty pocket,
emptiness is a negation; ignorance in the ignorant is a negation; and
limit in all things finite is a negation. Yet no one will say that an
empty pocket, an ignorant pupil, or a finite being “consist merely in a
negation”; and therefore, although the formality of substance is a
negation, it does not follow that substance is a mere negation.
It now remains for us to show that neither of the two aforesaid negations
is essential to any created being, and that a created being can therefore,
absolutely speaking, exist, at least supernaturally, without either of
them. Our first proof is drawn from the fact that neither the one nor the
other negation is reckoned among the essential constituents of created
beings. All complete nature, by common admission, consists “of essence and
existence”—_ex essentia et esse_—the existence being the formal complement
of the essence, and the essence itself involving, as its principles, an
act with its corresponding term, as the readers of our last article
already know. Accordingly, there is nothing essential in a complete being
besides its act, its term, and its complement; and therefore neither the
mode of substance nor the mode of suppositum is essential to a complete
created being.
Our second proof is drawn from the notion of existence. “To exist strictly
and simply,” says Suarez, “means only to have a formal entity in the order
of nature; and therefore things existing are equally susceptible of the
mode of being which consists in leaning on a supporter, and of the
opposite mode which excludes all support.”(18) This is a tangible truth;
for although a complete being possesses in its own constitution what is
required for its own existence, yet it has nothing in its constitution
which implies the necessity of existing in itself and by itself. It can
indeed, and will naturally, be in itself without anything underlying as a
supporter, since it sufficiently supports itself on its own term; but it
contains nothing that would make impossible the sub‐introduction of a
supernatural supporter. And, again, a complete being can subsist by itself
without further completion, since it is sufficiently complete by its
formal complement; but it contains nothing which would exclude the
possibility of its acquiring a further completion and a supernatural
subsistence.
A third proof might be drawn from the fact that our own bodies exist
indeed in themselves, but do not subsist by themselves, as their material
nature is taken possession of by a spiritual being—the soul—and subsists
by its subsistence. From this fact, which is alluded to in S. Athanasius’
_Symbol_ as an image of the assumption of the human nature by the Word, we
might show that suppositality can, even naturally, be supplanted by the
union of a lower with a higher nature. But we will not develop this proof,
as it requires too long an explanation and many new considerations, which
cannot be embodied in the present article.
Last, but not least, it is evident that all negations which are not
included in the essence of a thing can be supplanted by the position of
their contrary. Hence the mode of substance and the mode of suppositum,
which are negations, and are not included in the essence of created
things, can be supplanted by the intervention of a supernatural power.
As we must here keep within the bounds of philosophy, we abstain from
discussing other cognate questions which can be safely answered only by a
direct appeal to dogmatic definitions and theological arguments. We may,
however, state that the old scholastic theologians and the fathers of the
church, both Greek and Latin, admitted that the mode of substance, as well
as the mode of suppositum, can be made to disappear from the thing to
which it naturally belongs in the manner above explained. For their common
doctrine on the mysteries of the Incarnation and of the Holy Eucharist is,
that the two mysteries are analogous to one another,(19) and admit of a
parallel mode of reasoning for their explanation. The analogy more or less
explicitly pointed out by them involves the admission of a principle which
may be expressed in the following words: “As the whole human nature can
exist in Christ _without the mode of human person_, which is excluded by
the hypostatic union of the Word with it, so can the whole sensible nature
(_species_) of bread exist in the Holy Eucharist _without its mode of
substance_, which is excluded by the substantive presence of Christ’s body
under it.” This traditional doctrine has been almost ignored in these
latter centuries by those who were anxious to explain everything according
to a special system of natural philosophy, and who little by little formed
a new theory of the sacramental species; but the physical system on which
these theologians took their stand having given way, and their new theory
having lost its plausibility, we are of opinion that instead of seeking
for new explanations, as some do, it is more prudent to fall back on
tradition, and take into consideration the authorized teachings of our old
polemic writers, of those especially who so valiantly fought against
Berengarius and other heretics in behalf of the Eucharistic dogma.
Before we conclude, we wish to make a few remarks on some ambiguous
expressions which may be a source of error in speaking of substance and of
suppositum. We have said that Aristotle includes in his first category the
suppositum as well as the substance, and that for this reason the words,
“by itself,” “to support,” “to subsist,” have been promiscuously applied
to the substance as well as to the suppositum. This has been done not only
in philosophy, but even in theology. Thus we read in good authors that the
divine Person of the Word “supports” or “sustains” Christ’s human nature.
Yet these words, as also “sustentation,” when applied to subsistence, must
have a meaning which they have not when applied to substance; and it is
plain that to employ the same words in both cases may give rise to serious
mistakes. Some authors, besides overlooking the distinction to be made
between “existing in itself”—_esse in se_—and “subsisting by itself”—_per
se subsistere_—confound also with one another their opposites—viz., “to
exist in something else”—_esse in alio_—and “to subsist by something
else”—_per aliud subsistere_. Suarez, for instance, though usually very
accurate in his expressions, says that “the mode of existing by itself and
without dependence on any supporter has for its opposite to exist in
something else;”(20) which is not correct, for the divinity of Christ
exists in his humanity, and nevertheless does not depend on it as a
supporter. It would be more correct to say that the mode of subsisting by
itself has for its opposite to subsist by something else. And it is
evident that to subsist _by_ something else is not the same as to exist
_in_ it.
To get rid of all such ambiguous phrases, we observe that the word
“sustentation,” as compared with any created nature, can have three
different meanings, according as we apply it to the act, the term, or the
complement of the created being.
When sustentation is considered in connection with the act or the formal
principle of a being, it means positive _conservation_; for all contingent
being comes out of nothing by the positive production of an act, and needs
to be kept out of nothing by the positive conservation of the same act, as
we know from special metaphysics.
When sustentation is considered in connection with the intrinsic term of a
being, it means _underlying_; and in this sense we say that substance
sustains its accidents. This meaning of the word “sustentation” is most
conformable to its etymology; and thus, if anything is lying under any
reality in that manner in which substance lies under its accidents, we
shall say very properly that it _sustains_ that reality. In this sense,
sustentation and support may be taken as synonymous.
When sustentation is considered in connection with the formal complement
of a being, it means _overlying_ in such a manner as to superinduce a new
complement and a new subsistence. Such is the manner in which the Person
of the Word sustains Christ’s humanity. This kind of sustentation implies
hypostatic union and super‐completion.
We might, therefore, divide sustentation into _conservative_,
_substantive_, and _hypostatic_. The first is usually called
_conservation_; the second might keep the name of _sustentation_; whilst
the third might perhaps be fitly styled _personalization_, as this word
seems adequately to express the nature of personal sustentation.
As to the phrases, “to be in itself” and “to be by itself,” we have seen
that their distinction is most important. It may be useful to add that,
even in God, to be in himself and to be by himself are to be distinguished
by a distinction of reason indeed, but which is grounded on a real
foundation. God is essentially _a se_, _in se_, and _per se_—that is, of
himself, in himself, and by himself. These three attributes are absolute,
and belong to the divine nature as an absolute reality; but as in this
absolute reality there are intrinsic relations of personalities, we may
reflect that, in this relative order, _to be of himself_ can be considered
as owing especially to God the Father, who does not proceed from any other
person, but is himself the first principle of their procession; _to be in
himself_ can be considered as having a special reference to God the Son,
in whom the whole entity of the Father is found as in the substantial term
of his eternal generation; and, lastly, _to be by himself_ can be
explained by reference to the Holy Ghost, who is the essential complement
of the Blessed Trinity, as that is said to be by itself which is
ultimately complete in its own entity.
Accordingly, God, as existing essentially of himself—_a se_—has no need or
capability of conservation; as existing essentially in himself—_in se_—he
has no need or capability of sustentation; and as existing essentially by
himself—_per se_—he has no need or capability of super‐completion. But
with contingent beings the case is quite different. And first, contingent
beings are not “of themselves,” as they are from God; and for this reason
they have an essential need of conservation, as we have stated, so far as
their essential act is concerned. Secondly, although they naturally exist
“in themselves,” yet this their mode of existing is not the result of an
essential necessity, but only of a natural ordination, which God can
supersede. They exist in themselves when the term of their own essence is
their _undermost_ support; for then the whole essence supports itself in a
natural manner, and is a natural substance. Thirdly, although created
beings naturally “subsist by themselves,” yet this manner of existing is
not the consequence of an essential necessity, but only of a natural
ordination, which can be superseded by the Creator. They subsist by
themselves when the formal complement of their essence is their _ultimate_
complement; for then the whole being is left to itself as a natural
suppositum.
These explanations will be of some assistance, we hope, to the
philosophical student in forming a correct judgment as to the formal
constituents of substance and suppositum, and as to the manner of speaking
about them with proper discrimination. We wish we had handled the subject
in a better style and a less monotonous phraseology; but it was our duty
to aim at preciseness rather than ornament. If there is any part of
philosophy in which precision is more necessary than in another, it is
that which treats of the principles of things; and if we succeed in
presenting such principles in their true light, we shall deem it a
sufficient apology for the dryness of our philosophical style.
To Be Continued.
On Hearing The “O Salutaris Hostia.”(21)
Song of the soul, whose clearly ringing rhythm
Throbs through the sacred pile,
And lengthened echoes swell thy solemn anthem
Past chancel, vault, and aisle,
An occult influence through thy numbers stealing,
A strange, mysterious spell,
Wakes in the longing heart a wondrous feeling,
A joy no tongue can tell;
A dreamy peace, a sense of unseen glory,
Wells through thy thrilling praise,
And calls a fairy vision up before me,
A dream of brighter days.
I hear the seraphs’ sweet‐tongued voices pleading,
The cherubim’s accord,
And see the sun‐robed shadows softly thridding
The gardens of the Lord.
I linger on the sight, and growing weary
Of earthly dross and sin,
Sadly, yet hoping, like the wistful peri,
I long to enter in!
The rolling echoes peal
Whilst glorious above
The face of God smiles on the storied altar,
Well pleased, and rich with love.
And through the living air and slumbrous music,
And through the chancel broad,
The Heart of Jesus glows in mystic splendor,
And lights us unto God!
On The Wing: A Southern Flight.
What induced us to pick our way on foot from the railway carriage to the
Hôtel du Parc et Bordeaux, near eleven o’clock at night, on our arrival at
Lyons, I cannot possibly conceive.
It was the 3d of January that we performed this unnecessary penance; and
the only explanation I can give is that we were all rather dazed by the
long journey from Paris, and had forgotten that of course there was
waiting at the station an omnibus to carry on the passengers. We had been
silent and sleepy for some hours, when the bright lights twinkling up and
down the heights of the city of Lyons, and across the bridges, and,
corruscating at the station, had roused us all up, and made us exclaim at
the fairy sight. I had seen it again and again; but I always look out
eagerly for the first peep at that tossed‐about town after night has
closed in, and I know none more brilliant and picturesque. I thought we
all looked rather rueful as we entered the hotel, and that it suddenly
struck us we had come on foot, and might therefore look too economically
inclined to suit the views of the buxom lady who advanced to meet us. I
saw her cast rather a doubtful eye to the rear; but her face brightened
when she found we had at least been able to afford a porter to carry such
luggage as we might want for one night. We had no valid reason to give in
reply to
|
teeth, an' every one knows there ain't
no such thing."
It was Whitey's particular business to gather the eggs of those hens,
which they saw fit to lay early in the morning. So Whitey came to the
stack early, to be ahead of any weasels or ferrets, who had an uncommon
fondness for eggs. This morning as he moved around the stack he didn't
find any eggs, but he saw something black and pointed sticking out of
the straw. Whitey took hold of the object and pulled, and the thing
lengthened out in his hands.
And right there a sort of shivery feeling attacked Whitey's spine and
moved up until it reached his hair, which straightway began to stand on
end, for the object was a boot and in it was a man's leg. The boot came,
followed by the leg, followed by a man. From what might be called the
twin straw beds, another man emerged. Both sat upright in the straw and
rubbed their eyes. Whitey didn't wait to see if any more were coming, or
even to think of where he was going. He fled.
Instinct took him toward the ranch house, and good fortune brought Bill
Jordan out of the door at the same moment.
"Bill!" yelled Whitey, "there's two men in the straw stack!"
Bill did not appear unduly excited. "They ain't eatin' the straw, are
they?" he inquired.
"No, but they look awfully tough, and they nearly gave me
heart-disease," Whitey panted.
"If tough-lookin' folks could give me heart-disease, I'd of bin dead
long ago," Bill responded. "Let's go an' size 'em up."
Bill strolled to the stack with Whitey. The two men, now thoroughly
awake, were still sitting upright in the straw. In front of them stood
Sitting Bull. His lower jaw was sticking out farther than usual, and he
was watching the men and awaiting events.
[Illustration: IN FRONT OF THEM STOOD SITTING BULL]
"Hey! Call off yer dog, will ye?" requested one of the men.
"He ain't mine," Bill answered calmly, indicating Whitey. "He's his."
"Well, get him to call him off," said the man. "Every time we move he
makes a noise like sudden death."
Whitey summoned Bull, who came to him obediently enough, and the men
rose to their feet, and stretched themselves and brushed off some of the
straw that clung to their not over-neat attire. They were not as
bad-looking as they might have been, neither were they as good-looking.
One was tall and slim and wore a dark beard. The other was almost as
tall, but, being very fat, did not look his height. He was
clean-shaven, or would have been had it not been for about three days'
stubbly growth. Their clothes were well-worn, and they wore no collars,
but their boots were good.
"What you fellers doin' here?" demanded Bill. "Ain't the bunk house good
enough for you?"
"We got in late, an' ev'body was in bed," said the taller of the two.
"We're walkin' through for th' thrashin'."
"Well, yer late for that too," said Bill.
The threshing in the early days of Montana was an affair in which many
people of all sorts took part, as will be seen later. Bill questioned
the men, and their story was brought out. It seemed that they had come
from Billings, in search of work at threshing. The taller, thin one was
named Hank, but was usually called "String Beans," on account of his
scissors-like appearance. He had formerly been a cowpuncher. The other
had been a waiter, until he got too fat, then he had become a cook.
Originally named Albert, after he had waited in a restaurant for a
while he had been dubbed "Ham And," which, you may know, is a short way
of ordering ham and eggs. And this name in time was reduced to "Ham."
Bill Jordan did not seem to take the men seriously. Their names may have
had something to do with his attitude, and the early West was not
over-suspicious, anyway. It had been said that "out here we take every
man to be honest, until he is proven to be a thief, and in the East they
take every man to be a thief, until he is proven to be honest." You can
believe that or not, as you happen to live in the West or in the East.
Besides, Bill could make use of the talents of String Beans and Ham. He
needed "hands" to work on the ranch.
When Whitey found that his supposed tragedy was turning into a comedy,
he felt rather bad about it, especially as Bill was inclined to guy him.
"Lucky you didn't shoot up them two fellers what's named after food,"
Bill said, when the strangers had retired to the bunk house. "Or knock
'em out with some of them upper-cuts you're so handy in passin'
'round." For a boy, Whitey was an expert boxer.
"What was I to think, finding them that way?" Whitey retorted. "And they
don't look very good to me yet."
"Clothin' is only skin deep," said Bill.
Whitey felt called on to justify his alarm. "It's not only their
clothes," he said, "but their looks. You noticed that Bull didn't like
them, and you know dogs have true instinct about judging people."
"Let me tell you somethin' about dogs," began Bill, who usually was
willing to tell Whitey, or anybody else, something about anything. "Dogs
is supposed to be democratic, but they ain't. They don't like shabby
men. I'm purty fond of dogs, but they got one fault--they're snobs. They
don't like shabby men," Bill repeated for emphasis.
As Whitey thought of this he remembered that the dogs he had known had
this failing, if it was a failing. He also tried to think of some reason
for it, so he could prove that Bill was wrong, but he couldn't. That is,
he couldn't think of anything until Bill had gone away and it was too
late. Then it occurred to him that it was only the dogs that belonged to
the well-dressed that disliked the poorly dressed. That a shabby man's
dog loved him just as well as though he wore purple and fine linen,
whatever that was. Whitey looked around for Bill to confound him with
this truth, but Bill had disappeared--a way he had of doing the moment
he got the better of an argument.
If the two men were aching to work, they had not long to suffer; Bill
Jordan soon found occupation for them. Slim, the negro cook, had been
taken with a "misery" in his side, and Ham was installed in his place.
And to do Ham justice he was not such a bad cook. The ranch hands
allowed that he couldn't have been worse than Slim, anyway. String Beans
did not make so much of a hit as a cowpuncher. Bill watched some of his
efforts, and said that though he was a bad puncher he was a good liar
for saying he'd ever seen a cow before. So String Beans was sent to the
mine to work.
This quartz mine, up in the mountains, was the one near which Injun and
Whitey had had so many exciting adventures. Now they owned an interest
in it, as has been told, though Mr. Sherwood and a tribe of Dakota
Indians were the principal shareholders. During the summer the mine had
been undergoing development, and the first shipment of ore was soon to
be made.
With String Beans working at the mine, and Ham improving the men's
digestion as a cook, it began to look as though Whitey's idea that they
were desperate characters was ill-founded. In fact, the thought had
almost passed from his mind, and was quite forgotten on a certain
Saturday. On that day Injun and Whitey were free from the teachings of
John Big Moose, and were out on the plains for antelope. They didn't get
an antelope, didn't even see one. All they got were appetites; though
Whitey's appetite came without calling, as it were, and always excited
the admiration of Bill Jordan. After dinner that evening Whitey went to
the bunk house. Some of the cowpunchers were in from the range, and
Whitey loved to hear the yarns they would spin.
So he lay in a bunk and listened to a number of stories, and wondered
if they were all true--and it is a singular fact that some of them were.
But Whitey's day's hunt had been long, and his dinner had been big, and
his eyes began to droop.
Buck Higgins was in the midst of a tale about being thrown from his
cayuse and breaking his right arm. There was a wild stallion in this
story, which every puncher in seven states or so had tried to capture.
Now, Buck, with his right arm broken, naturally had to throw his rope
with his left, and his manner of doing that took some description. It
was during this that in Whitey's mind he, in a mysterious way, changed
to Buck, or rather Buck changed to Whitey, and the stallion changed to
an antelope, and pretty soon things began to get rather vague generally.
When Whitey awoke, the bunk house was almost dark. How long he had been
lying asleep he did not know. The light came from a candle, and
presently Whitey heard voices. Three men were seated near by, and Whitey
was about to get out of the bunk, when he recognized the voice of
String Beans, and something held him back. It was evident that the men
did not know that he was there.
Whitey felt something warm stir against him, and, startled, put out his
hand and encountered a hairy surface. It was Sitting Bull, who had
crawled into the bunk after Whitey had fallen asleep, and crowded in
between the boy and the wall. At the sound of String Beans' voice Whitey
felt the hair along Bull's neck rise. He remembered the dog's dislike
for the two men, and put his hand over Bull's mouth to keep him from
growling. Whitey was glad he did not snore. He might now have a chance
to learn whether the two were on the level or not.
For the moment Whitey had some qualms about listening, but he soon
dismissed them. If these men were open and aboveboard, why were they
whispering in the dimly lighted bunk house? Whitey had never been able
to overcome the first distrust he had felt for String Beans and Ham. He
also had a feeling that he ought to justify that distrust, that in a way
it was up to him. So he continued to eavesdrop.
String's tones were low, and did not come to Whitey distinctly. This
was unfortunate in one way, but fortunate in another, for had the men
been nearer they probably would have seen the boy. Soon another voice
broke in, and Whitey knew it as that of "Whiff" Gates, a puncher who was
a constant smoker. Then came another voice, that of Ham And.
Whiff Gates did not bear a good reputation, and it was only because of
the scarcity of help that Bill Jordan kept him on. As Whitey reflected
on this, and the "birds of a feather flock together" idea, he kept very
still. His patience was soon rewarded, for as the men grew more earnest
in their talk, their tones became louder, though Whitey could not hear
as distinctly as he would have liked.
However, he gathered that String had returned from the mine on account
of an injury to his foot, caused by a piece of rock falling on it. That
there had been some excitement at the mine, owing to a "bug hole" being
discovered. Whitey learned afterwards this was a sort of pocket caused
by the dripping of water, and containing a small but very rich quantity
of ore. Whitey also heard something about a certain date, on which the
three were to be at a certain place, but here, to his disgust, the
voices were again lowered, as if in caution.
On the whole, though this secret meeting seemed suspicious, the boy did
not learn enough to form a basis for action. Presently the men went
away, and after waiting until he considered it safe, Whitey left the
bunk house, followed by the faithful Bull. Whitey decided not to tell
Bill Jordan what he had heard. Bill probably would only poke fun at him
and hand him one of those arguments he couldn't answer.
But the next day he took Injun into his confidence. Injun had no use for
String and Ham, and furthermore was a person who could keep a secret.
And here was something for the boys to keep to themselves--a
mystery,--something to be solved. They would lie low and await events.
It made them feel quite important.
CHAPTER III
MYSTERY
Awaiting events did not seem a very thrilling occupation. Of course,
there was always John Big Moose's tutoring to fill in the gaps, but that
was less thrilling than just waiting, if possible. The teaching took
place in the big living-room of the ranch house, a room with a great
stone fireplace, the stone for which had been carted down from the
mountains; with walls decorated with Indian trophies--tomahawks, bows
and arrows, stone pipes and hatchets, knives--and with beadwork,
snowshoes, and many other interesting things. All these were enough to
take a fellow's mind off his lessons, and besides there was the floor,
with its bear and moose and panther skins, each with its history.
And outside, viewed through the big windows, was the rolling prairie,
with the touch of early fall on it, sometimes revealed in a light
curtain of haze, at which a fellow could gaze and imagine he saw the
squaws of the savage tribes gathering the maize for the coming winter's
store, while the braves rode off to hunt the buffalo.
Yes, it was rather distracting, but John Big Moose was very patient
about the lessons, though he had been eager for knowledge himself. He
had worked his way through a Western college, spurred on by the hope of
bettering his people, the Dakotas, and he _had_ bettered them. And when
Mr. Sherwood, Whitey's father, had gone East, with the understanding
that John was to tutor Whitey and Injun, John had resolved to do his
best.
But this other Injun, Whitey's pal, was not what you might call eager
for knowledge. Reading and writing were all right, and might be put to
some practical use, but arithmetic seemed rather useless, and when it
came to the "higher branches," geometry and trigonometry, they loomed up
to Injun like a bugbear of the future. In his heart Injun pined for his
truly loved field of study--the great outdoors.
But presently there came a slight break in the dull routine of words and
figures--a half-holiday. The first shipment of ore was to be made from
the mine. John Big Moose represented his tribe's interest in this mine,
and he was to go and inspect operations. The ore was to come down from
the mountain in sacks, loaded on horse and muleback, and to be delivered
to the railroad at the Junction, a small settlement about twenty miles
south of the ranch.
The boys thought that as they were stock-holders in the mine, they ought
to go along and attend to this matter, too, but John couldn't see it
that way. He compromised on a half-holiday for them; study in the
morning, freedom in the afternoon. So that morning they stuck to their
lessons. With John there to oversee them they might neglect their
studies. With him away, and the boys placed on their honor, the thing
wasn't to be thought of.
And here it might be repeated that Injun had a very strong sense of
honor. He had faults, as most of us have, but breaking promises, or what
he considered as promises, was not among them.
So that afternoon, as Injun and Whitey could not be with the shipment of
ore, they did the next best thing. They rode off into the foothills.
And on a grassy hill that commanded a widespread view of the plains,
they looked far off over the prairie. And winding across it, clear off
near the horizon, they saw tiny specks which represented mules and
horses, laden with the sacks of precious ore, and its escort of
cowpunchers.
That evening it was lonely at the ranch, Bill Jordan and the other men
being at the Junction. String Beans nursed his sore foot, and Ham
prepared dinner, which Injun had with Whitey in the ranch house. Time
passed and still the men did not return. Evidently they were celebrating
the shipment of the mine's first output, or waiting to see it put safely
aboard the train at the Junction. So Whitey invited Injun to spend the
night, and he accepted willingly, as it gave him a chance to wear the
pink pajamas that he loved.
Yawning time had come and passed. Whitey was sleeping soundly and
dreamlessly, when he was aroused by a grip on his arm. It was Injun in
his pink pajamas.
"Some one come," he said.
"Mebbe it's Bill and the others," Whitey ventured.
"Not Bill--only one man," Injun replied.
The coming of a man didn't seem important to Whitey, but he knew Injun
must have had something on his mind, or he wouldn't have waked him, and
he waited for his friend to speak more of the words of which he was so
sparing. The next speech was not long.
"Look," said Injun, and he went to the window.
Whitey went and looked. There was a faint light in the bunk house, and
another down by the horse corral. As the boys watched, a man came out of
the bunk house, and even in the dim light Whitey recognized him. He was
String Beans.
"Why," whispered Whitey, "I thought he was lame. He doesn't even limp."
"Him get well," Injun replied.
The light at the corral moved toward and joined that at the bunk house,
and the two revealed a man leading three horses.
"It's Whiff!" gasped Whitey. "I thought he was with the men at the
Junction."
"Him get back," Injun grunted, with meaning.
Absorbed in the scene being enacted before them, the boys watched in
silence.
Bill Jordan had said that Injun slept with his mind open; that most
Injuns did; that if they hadn't done that all these years there wouldn't
be no Injuns--and no doubt Bill was right. But any way you thought about
it, it was remarkable that the slight sound outside--the thudding of a
horse's hoofs on soft ground, or the letting down of the bars of the
corral--should have wakened Injun. It probably was not the sound so much
as the sense of something unusual, something threatening. Furthermore,
Injun had a different way of figuring things from Whitey. Also he had
been awake longer, so his mind had a better start, not being bewildered
by sleep.
"They're up to something," said Whitey.
"Um," grunted Injun.
The two men went into the bunk house and soon came out with another man
who was fat. It undoubtedly was Ham. Each man carried a saddle, which
he put on a horse. Then they mounted and rode away.
A cloud moved away, like a curtain, and a full moon shed its light over
the scene and into the window. The hour must have been late, for the
moon was low. Whitey turned and looked at Injun, who was stolidly
watching the riders disappear.
"Can you beat that?" Whitey demanded. "String Beans walked as well as
any one. I'll bet he wasn't hurt at the mine at all. That he was just
pretending."
"Uh," muttered Injun.
"Mebbe they've stolen something," continued Whitey.
"No, no come into the house, me hear 'em," said Injun. "In bunk house
nothin' to steal."
Suddenly Whitey thought of the negro cook, the only other man on the
place, and demanded, "Where's Slim?"
"Dunno," said Injun, and followed Whitey, who shoved his feet into a
pair of slippers and ran hastily from the room.
The bunk house was dark, the men having put out their lanterns before
they rode away. Whitey groped for matches and, finding one, lighted a
lamp. Slim was nowhere to be seen. Whitey looked at Injun in wonder and
alarm. Injun looked at Whitey with no expression of any kind.
"Mebbe they've killed Slim!" cried Whitey.
"Mebbe," Injun agreed.
Sitting Bull had silently followed the boys, and while they were
investigating with their eyes, he was doing the same with his nose. His
search had led him to a bunk, and with his fore paws on its edge, he was
gazing into it, his head on one side and a very puzzled expression on
his face. Bull rarely barked, except to express great joy, and he never
was afraid. His nose had told him what was in that bunk; the curious
movements of the object were what puzzled him. Attracted by the dog's
interest, Injun and Whitey went to him.
The bedding in the bunk heaved and rolled from side to side. Whitey
reached over rather fearfully and pulled down the upper blankets, and
Slim was brought to view. Not only was Slim bound and gagged, but a coat
was tied around his head, to keep him from hearing. In fact, about the
only thing to show that the man was Slim was his black hands.
Injun and Whitey hastily removed the head covering and the gag, and
Whitey eagerly asked what had happened. Slim was half choked and very
indignant.
"I dunno what happened to nobody, 'ceptin' to me," he gurgled. "Gimme a
drink o' watah. I'se burnin' up."
While Whitey held a cup of water to Slim's lips, Injun struggled with
his bonds, and with great difficulty succeeded in releasing him. Whitey
asked a hundred questions meanwhile, none of which Slim answered. He
seemed entirely absorbed in his own troubles, and when he was free, he
carefully felt himself all over.
"Dis is fine foh mah misery, fine!" he said bitterly.
As far as Whitey had ever been able to learn, a "misery" was a sort of
rheumatism.
"How is your misery?" he asked, despairing of getting him to talk about
anything but himself.
"Tehibul, tehibul," groaned Slim; "an' dey tie me wid a rawhide rope,
too, dat jest eat into mah flesh." And Slim looked venomously down at
the lariat that lay at his feet.
"Who tied you?" Whitey inquired.
"I dunno. Wen I wakes up dis yeah rag is bein' jammed into mah mouf, an'
dis yeah coat bein' wrapped round mah haid, an' dat dere rope bein'
twisted round mah body, till it cuts mah ahms an' legs somethin'
scand'lus. I dunno who dey wuz, but dey suttinly wuz thorough," Slim
admitted.
"Then you didn't hear anything?" Whitey demanded.
"Heah? I couldn't 'a' heard a elephant cough," Slim declared.
"Well, Whiff and String Beans and Ham just rode away," said Whitey.
"Dey did?" said Slim. Then an awful thought came to him, and he jumped
to his feet. "Wheah's mah watch?" he cried. He hastily fumbled under the
bedclothes, and brought to light an enormous, old-fashioned silver
watch. Then he heaved a sigh of relief. "An' dat Ham gone, too! Now,
how'm I goin' t' cook, wid dat misery wuss'n evah?"
It was very plain to Whitey that all Slim could think about the affair
was the way it concerned him personally. Also, there was no doubt in the
boy's mind that the absent men were bent on mischief. Bill and the other
cowboys were surely making a night of it at the Junction, in celebration
of the gold shipment. Whatever was to be done in the matter Whitey and
Injun would have to do. By this time Slim was busily rubbing some horse
liniment on his arms and legs.
"Injun and I will see what's to be done. You might as well go to sleep,"
Whitey said to him.
"Sleep! Ah couldn't sleep in Mistah Vanderbilt's bed."
"Well, stay awake, then," said Whitey, as he left the bunk house,
followed by Injun.
In spite of Injun's belief that the men had not been in the ranch house,
the boys took a look around, but nothing had been disturbed. Then, as
they dressed, they talked things over. Whitey was not sorry that Bill
Jordan was away. While not one to think ill of people, Whitey always had
believed that String and Ham were queer, and the affairs of the night
seemed to point to the truth of this. If Whitey could learn what sort of
mischief the men were up to, it would be a feather in his cap, and it
would give him great satisfaction to say "I told you so" to Bill, who
always was so sure of himself. And if he and Injun could prevent the
others from committing that same mischief, the boys would be something
like heroes.
As Whitey and Injun talked the matter over, Whitey reviewed what took
place the night he overheard the whispered conversation in the bunk
house.
"They talked about the mine," he said to Injun, "and about meeting on a
certain date. What day of the month is it?" he asked.
By a miracle Injun happened to know the date, for John Big Moose had
told him the day in September on which the ore was to be shipped, so
Injun answered briefly, "Him thirty."
"That was the date!" cried Whitey. "They said the thirtieth of
September." Other scraps of the men's whispered talk began to come to
Whitey's mind, and to have meaning. "They were to meet on that date, and
they did. That's what String Beans was loafing around here for,
pretending to be lame. And they rode south. Don't you see?"
"Don't see nothin'," Injun answered.
"Why," Whitey declared, jumping to his feet, "they've gone toward the
railroad; toward the water tank, where all the trains stop. I believe
they're going to hold up the gold shipment. Come on, Injun, let's get
busy."
CHAPTER IV
SOLUTION
The moon was well down toward the western edge of the prairie when the
boys rode away from the bunk house. They rode toward the south, in
pursuit of the bandits, as they now called Whiff, String, and Ham.
Whitey and Injun had settled on this course shortly after Whitey had
decided that the men were intent on train robbery. There were several
reasons for their choice.
For one thing, it was too late to go and warn Bill and the other
punchers at the Junction. And even if it were not, if they did that they
would have to share with the ranch men the glory of the pursuit and
possible capture of the bandits. It may have been rash of the boys, but
after their former adventures they felt capable of taking care of three
bandits by themselves--especially if they came on them unawares, which
they intended to do. Had Bill been there, it isn't likely that he would
have approved of their act, but with him away the boys could find
plenty of reasons for doing what they wanted to do.
Slim, the cook, had taken no interest in the affair. He was wrapped up
in attending to his misery, and the boys left him in a bunk, soaked with
liniment--which by rights was intended for a horse--and trying to sleep
and forget his troubles.
As the horses galloped over the rolling plains into the darkness of the
south, the boys were thrilled by a glow of excitement. Each had his
rifle hanging in a gun-boat from his saddle. The mystery of the night;
the fresh, keen stirring of the September air; the spirit of adventure;
the easy, swinging motion of the horses--all these made the night's
hours worth living for.
For a while, by the moon's light, Injun had easily been able to follow
the tracks of the horses of the three men, and as they continued toward
the south, Whitey felt sure that he had guessed correctly, so the horses
were urged to a swifter pace. Little urging was necessary, however, as
Whitey's "Monty" pony and Injun's pinto were fresh and seemed as eager
for the chase as their masters.
Whitey's plan for thwarting the bandits was simple. Before reaching the
Junction, the boys were to branch off toward the east and intercept the
train. They could stand on the track and swing a lantern, which Injun
carried for the purpose. When the train came to a standstill, they could
get aboard, and warn the train crew. It would be easy to recruit an
armed force from among the passengers, for in those days, in the West,
there were few men who went unarmed. And when the bandits attempted
their hold-up, they would meet with a warm reception.
The train left the Junction at six, and should reach the water tank
about three-quarters of an hour later, though it often was late. As the
boys had started from the ranch house at two, Whitey figured that they
would have time enough, though none to waste.
The hours could not be counted, but perhaps three had passed, and
through the scented, velvety darkness there came a touch of gray in the
east, which changed to pink, then to opal, as the coming sun tinged the
low-lying clouds. The animal and bird life began to stir, preparing to
greet the beauty of the dawn, or rather, to start on their affairs of
the day, for it is likely that the denizens of the prairie had as little
thought for the glory of the sunrise as had Injun and Whitey, whose
minds were firmly fixed on train robbers.
When the light was full, the boys drew up, and looked off toward the
southwest. Whitey had been depending on Injun's never-failing sense of
direction to carry them aright. This ability to point toward any point
of the compass, in the dark, was one of Injun's gifts--though he didn't
know what a compass was. And sure enough, away off there against the
gray of the clouds was a line of high, tiny crosses, telegraph poles,
near which stretched the tracks of the road.
When he saw them, Whitey could not resist a whoop of joy. "If we ride
straight for them, how far do you think we'll be from the water tank?"
he asked.
"Mebbe one mile, mebbe two," replied Injun, who seldom committed himself
to an exact answer.
"That's all right, come on!" cried Whitey, and they galloped straight
for the railroad.
When they reached the tracks, they dismounted and tied their ponies to
neighboring telegraph poles, fearing the effect the noise of the train
would have on the spirited animals. Then the boys went to the roadbed to
await the coming of the train. The line stretched straight toward the
west, until the rails seemed to join in the distance. But toward the
east was a curve as the road approached a gully, at the bottom of which
was a creek. It was from this creek that the water was drawn for the
tank.
The sunrise had seemed to promise a fair day, but the promise failed,
for a mist was forming over the plains. The train was not in sight, and
Whitey kneeled, and placed an ear to the track, knowing that he could
detect the vibration caused by the train before it appeared.
He rose and nodded his head. "I hear it," he said. For once Whitey had
it on Injun. He knew about railroads and Injun didn't.
"Light the lantern," said Whitey. Then he began to laugh.
Injun gazed at the lantern, then at Whitey. He could see no cause for
laughter.
"I was wise when I suggested that lantern," said Whitey. "I never
thought that it would be daylight, and its light wouldn't show."
Injun almost smiled.
"What we ought to have is a red flag," Whitey continued. "That's the
proper thing to signal a train with in daytime."
Injun grunted, and Whitey considered the matter. "I have it! Your
shirt!" he cried. "It's pink, close enough to red. We'll wave that."
Injun grunted again and looked doubtful. "Me get 'im back?" he asked.
Injun didn't care any less for that shirt than he did for his pinto or
his rifle--and he cared more for it than for his interest in the gold
mine.
"Sure, you'll get it back," said Whitey, and without a word Injun took
off the shirt and handed it to Whitey.
The boys gazed anxiously toward the west. Whitey thought of the three
armed men, who now probably had handkerchiefs tied over their faces, and
were lying in wait in the gully. Then of the oncoming train, with its
unsuspecting passengers, and in the express car the bags of ore that
were said to assay forty thousand dollars a ton. It wouldn't take much
of _that_ to make it worth while for the bandits to hold up the
shipment.
Although the mist was getting thicker, it seemed singular that the train
did not appear. The inaction of waiting was beginning to get on Whitey's
nerves--and would have affected Injun's if he'd had any. At that, they
had not been waiting very long, though they did not know it.
"It must be getting near. I'll listen again," said Whitey.
Whitey again placed his ear to the track, then looked up blankly. "It's
stopped," he said, "Mebbe there's been an accident."
Injun knew a good deal about plains and woods, and animals and birds,
but was rather in awe of trains. He gazed at Whitey's face, which wore
the same blank look as his own, and ventured no opinion. Two sharp,
faint sounds came from the east--something between the crack of whips
and the popping of corks. They were followed by three more.
Injun knew about these. "Him shoot," he said.
The startled expression on Whitey's face gradually gave way to one of
understanding and disgust. "They came from the water tank," he said.
"Don't you see? We're late, and what I heard was the train going the
other way. Then it stopped, and they're holding it up." And Whitey sat
down on one of the rails, thoroughly disgusted.
For a while nothing was said. The disappointment was too great for
words. The boys' chance for heroism had melted in the fog, which the
mist had now become. Injun slowly put on his shirt. It was nothing but a
garment now, no heroic rescue signal.
"I'll bet that clock at the ranch was wrong. It always is. I might have
known it," Whitey said dejectedly. The thought of the loss of the gold
was forgotten in his disappointment at failure. "I hope no one was
hurt--I mean none of the trainmen or passengers," he added. "But I
guess not. Those bandits had the drop on them, and they couldn't have
put up much of a fight. How do you suppose we heard those shots? We must
be at least a mile from the tank.
"Him fog," Injun answered. "Hear plain." And it is true that fog has a
way of conveying sound.
An idea brought Whitey to his feet with a leap. "What fools we are to be
sitting here!" he cried. "We'll follow those robbers. The people on the
train won't do that. They've no horses."
Here, indeed, was a brilliant thought. The boys could track the bandits
to their hiding-place, and possibly recover the ore. At least, they
could return and report where the men had gone. There was a chance to
distinguish themselves yet. In a moment they were mounted and dashing
down along the track, toward the water tank.
Presently a shrill whistle was followed by the faint rumbling of the
train as it resumed its way. "See?" yelled Whitey. "The train's just
starting. We won't be very late, and
|
he loved her with a kind, indulgent,
filial affection, and with sympathy for her many frailties; but, when
his heart cried out for his departed father, he quietly absented himself
from her. And that father--that good, honorable, level-headed man--had
ended his life by committing suicide. He had never understood it. It was
a most bitter and stinging mystery to him even now, and he glanced at
the box of dusty, faded letters on the floor beside him.
"Vesper," said Mrs. Nimmo, "do you find anything interesting among those
letters of your father?"
"Not my father's. There is not one of his among them. Indeed, I think he
never could have opened this box. Did you ever know of his doing so?"
"I cannot tell. They have been up in the attic ever since I was married.
He examined some of the boxes, then he asked you to do it. He was always
busy, too busy. He worked himself to death," and a tear fell on her
black dress.
"I wish now that I had done as he requested," said the young man,
gravely. "There are some questions that I should have asked him. Do you
remember ever hearing him say anything about the death of my
great-grandfather?"
She reflected a minute. "It seems to me that I have. He was the first of
your father's family to come to this country. There is a faint
recollection in my mind of having heard that he--well, he died in some
sudden way," and she stopped in confusion.
"It comes back to me now," said Vesper. "Was he not the old man who got
out of bed, when his nurse was in the next room, and put a pistol to his
head?"
"I daresay," said his mother, slowly. "Of course it was temporary
insanity."
"Of course."
"Why do you ask?" she went on, curiously. "Do you find his name among
the old documents?"
Vesper understood her better than to make too great a mystery of a thing
that he wished to conceal. "Yes, there is a letter from him."
"I should like to read it," she said, fussily fumbling at her waist for
her spectacle-case.
Vesper indifferently turned his head towards her. "It is very long."
Her enthusiasm died away, and she sank back in her rocking-chair.
"My great-grandfather shot himself, and my grandfather was lost at sea,"
pursued the young man, dreamily.
"Yes," she said, reluctantly; then she added, "my people all die in
bed."
"His ship caught on fire."
She shuddered. "Yes; no one escaped."
"All burnt up, probably; and if they took to their boats they must have
died of starvation, for they were never heard of."
They were both silent, and the same thought was in their minds. Was this
very cool and calm young man, sitting staring into the fire, to end his
days in the violent manner peculiar to the rugged members of his
father's family, or was he to die according to the sober and methodical
rule of the peaceful members of his mother's house?
Out of the depths of a quick maternal agony she exclaimed, "You are more
like me than your father."
Her son gave her an assenting and affectionate glance, though he knew
that she knew he was not at all like her. He even began to fancy, in a
curious introspective fashion, whether he should have cared at all for
this little white-haired lady if he had happened to have had another
woman for a mother. The thought amused him, then he felt rebuked, and,
leaning over, he took one of the white hands on her lap and kissed it
gently.
"We should really investigate our family histories in this country more
than we do," he said. "I wish that I had questioned my father about his
ancestors. I know almost nothing of them. Mother," he went on,
presently, "have you ever heard of the expulsion of the Acadiens?" and
bending over the sticks of wood neatly laid beside him, he picked up one
and gazed at a little excrescence in the bark which bore some
resemblance to a human face.
"Oh, yes," she replied, with gentle rebuke, "do you not remember that I
used to know Mr. Longfellow?"
Vesper slowly, and almost caressingly, submitted the stick of wood to
the leaping embrace of the flames that rose up to catch it. "What is
your opinion of his poem 'Evangeline?'"
"It was a pretty thing,--very pretty and very sad. I remember crying
over it when it came out."
"You never heard that our family had any connection with the expulsion?"
"No, Vesper, we are not French."
"No, we certainly are not," and he relapsed into silence.
"I think I will run over to Nova Scotia, next week," he said, when she
presently got up to leave the room. "Will you let Henry find out about
steamers and trains?"
"Yes, if you think you must go," she said, wistfully. "I daresay the
steamer would be easier for you."
"The steamer then let it be."
"And if you must go I will have to look over your clothes. It will be
cool there, like Maine, I fancy. You must take warm things," and she
glided from the room.
"I wish you would not bother about them," he said; "they are all right."
But she did not hear him.
CHAPTER II.
A MESSAGE FROM THE DEAD.
"The glossing words of reason and of song,
To tell of hate and virtue to defend,
May never set the bitter deed aright,
Nor satisfy the ages with the wrong."
J. F. HERBIN.
"Now let me read this effusion of my thoughtless grandparent once more,"
said Vesper, and he took the top paper from the box and ran over its
contents in a murmuring voice.
I, John Matthew Nimmo, a Scotchman, born in Glasgow, at present a
dying man, in the town of Halifax, Nova Scotia, leave this last
message for my son Thomas Nimmo, now voyaging on the high seas.
My son Thomas, by the will of God, you, my only child, are abroad
at this time of great disease and distress with me. My eyes will
be closed in death ere you return, and I am forced to commit to
paper the words I would fain have spoken with living voice to you.
You, my son, have known me as a hard and stern man. By the grace
of God my heart is now humbled and like that of a little child. My
son, my son, by the infinite mercies of our Saviour, let me
supplicate you not to leave repentance to a dying bed. On the
first day of the last week, I, being stricken down with paralysis,
lay here on my couch. The room was quiet; I was alone. Suddenly I
heard a great noise, and the weeping and wailing of women and
children, and the groans of men. Then a heavy bell began to toll,
and a light as of a bright fire sprang up against my wall.
I entered into a great swoon, in which I seemed to be a young man
again,--a stout and hearty man, a high liver, a proud swearer. I
had on my uniform; there was a sword in my hand. I trod the deck
of my stout ship, the _Confidence_. I heard the plash of waves
against the sides, and I lifted my haughty eyes to heaven; I was
afraid of none, no not the ruler of the universe.
Down under the planks that my foot pressed were prisoners, to wit,
the Acadiens, that we were carrying to the port of Boston. What
mattered their sufferings to me? I did not think of them. I called
for a bottle of wine, and looked again over the sea, and wished
for a fair wind so that we might the sooner enter our prisoners at
the port of Boston, and make merry with our friends.
My son, as I, in my swoon, contemplated my former self, it is not
in the power of mortal man to convey to you my awful scorn of what
I then was,--my gross desires, my carnal wishes. I was no better
than the beasts of the fields.
After a time, as I trod the deck, a young Acadien was brought
before me. My officers said that he had been endeavouring to stir
up a mutiny among the prisoners, and had urged them to make
themselves masters of the ship and to cast us into the sea.
I called him a Papist dog. I asked him whether he wished to be
thrown to the fishes. I could speak no French, but he knew
somewhat of English, and he answered me proudly. He stretched out
his hand to the smoking village of Grand Pré that we were
leaving. He called to heaven for a judgment to be sent down on the
English for their cruelty.
I struck him to the deck. He could not rise. I thought he would
not; but in a brief space of time he was dead, the last words on
his lips a curse on me and my children, and a wish that in our
dying moments we might suffer some of the torments he was then
enduring. I had his body rolled into the sea, and I forgot him, my
son. In the unrighteous work to which I had put my hand in the
persecution of the French, a death more or less was a circumstance
to be forgotten.
I was then a young man, and in all the years that have intervened
I have been oblivious of him. The hand of the Lord has been laid
upon me; I have been despoiled of my goods; nothing that I have
done has prospered; and yet I give you my solemn word I never,
until now, in these days of dying, have reflected that a curse has
been upon me and will descend to you, my son, and to your sons
after you.
Therefore, I leave this solemn request. Methinks I shall not lie
easy in my narrow bed until that some of my descendants have made
restitution to the seed of the Frenchman. I bethink me that he was
one Le Noir, called the Fiery Frenchman of Grand Pré, from a
birthmark on his face, but of his baptismal name I am ignorant.
That he was a married man I well know, for one cause of his
complaint was that he had been separated from his wife and child,
which thing was not of my doing, but by the orders of Governor
Lawrence, who commanded the men and the women to be embarked
apart. But seek them not in the city of Boston, my son, nor in
that of Philadelphia, where his young wife was carried, but come
back to this old Acadien land, whither the refugees are now
tending. Ah me! it seems that I am yet a young man, that he is
still alive,--the man whom I killed. Alas! I am old and about to
die, but, my son, by the love and compassion of God, let me
entreat you to carry out the wishes of your father. Seek the
family of the Frenchman; make restitution, even to the half of
your goods, or you will have no prosperity in this world nor any
happiness in the world to come. If you are unable to carry out
this, my last wish, let this letter be handed to your children.
Eschew riotous living, and fold in your heart my saying, that the
forcible dispossession of the Acadien people from their land and
properties was an unrighteous and unholy act, brought about
chiefly by the lust of hatred and greed on the part of that
iniquitous man, Governor Lawrence, of this province, and his
counsellors.
May God have mercy on my soul. Your father, soon to be a clod of
clay,
JOHN MATTHEW NIMMO.
HALIFAX, May 9, 1800.
With a slight shudder Vesper dropped the letter back in the box and
wiped the dust from his fingers. "Unhappy old man,--there is not the
slightest evidence that his callous son Thomas paid any heed to his
exhortations. I can imagine the contempt with which he would throw this
letter aside; he would probably remark that his father had lost his
mind. And yet was it a superstition about altering the fortunes of the
family that made him shortly after exchange his father's grant of land
in Nova Scotia for one in this State?" and he picked up another faded
document, this one of parchment and containing a record of the transfer
of certain estates in the vicinity of the town of Boston to Thomas
Nimmo, removing from Halifax, Nova Scotia, to the State of
Massachusetts.
"Then Thomas got burnt for despising the commands of his father; but my
poor sire,--where does his guilt come in? He did not know of the
existence of this letter,--that I could swear, for with his kind heart
and streak of romance he would have looked up this Acadien ghost and
laid it. If I were also romantic, I should say it killed him. As it is,
I shall stick to my present opinion that he killed himself by overwork.
"Now, shall I be cynical and let this thing go, or shall I, like a
knight of the Middle Ages, or an adventurous fool of the present, set
out in quest of the seed of the Fiery Frenchman? _Ciel!_ I have already
decided. It is a floating feather to pursue, an occupation just serious
enough for my convalescent state. _En route_, then, for Acadie," and he
closed his eyes and sank into a reverie, which was, after the lapse of
an hour, interrupted by the entrance of the colored boy with a handful
of papers.
"Good boy, Henry," said his master, approvingly.
"Mis' Nimmo, she tole me to hurry," said the boy, with a flash of his
resplendent ivories, "'cause she never like you to wait for nothing. So
I jus' run down to Washington Street."
Vesper smiled, and took up one of the folders. "H'm, Evangeline route.
The Nova Scotians are smart enough to make capital out of the
poem--Henry, come rub my left ankle, there is some rheumatism in it.
What is this? 'The Dominion Atlantic Railway have now completed their
magnificent system to the Hub of the Universe by placing on the route
between it and Nova Scotia a steamship named after one of the
heirs-presumptive of the British throne.' Henry, where is the Hub of the
Universe?"
Henry looked up from the hearth-rug. "I dunno, sir; ain't it heaven?"
"It ought to be," said the young man; and he went on, "'This steamship
is a dream of beauty, with the lines of an exquisite yacht. Her
appointments are as perfect as taste and science can suggest, in
music-room, dining-room, smoking-room, parlor, staterooms, bathrooms,
and all other apartments. The cabinet work is in solid walnut and oak,
the softened light falling through domes and panels of stained glass,
the upholstery is in figured and other velvets, the tapestries are of
silk. There is a perfect _cuisine_, and a union of comfort and luxury
throughout.'"
The young man laid down the folder. "How would you like to go to sea in
that royal craft, Henry?"
"It sounds fine," said the boy, smacking his lips.
"No mention is made of seasickness, nor of going to the bottom. A pity
it would be to waste all that finery on the fishes--don't rub quite so
hard. Let me see," and he took up the folder again. "What days does she
leave? Go to-morrow to the office, Henry, and engage the most
comfortable stateroom on this bit of magnificence for next Thursday."
CHAPTER III.
FROM BOSTON TO ACADIE.
"For this is in the land of Acadie,
The fairest place of all the earth and sea."
J. F. H.
It is always amusing to be among a crowd of people on the Lewis Wharf,
in Boston, when a steamer is about to leave for the neighboring province
of Nova Scotia. The provincials are so slow, so deliberate, so
determined not to be hurried. The Americans are so brisk, so
expeditious, so bewildering in the multitude of things they will
accomplish in the briefest possible space of time. They surround the
provincials, they attempt to hurry them, to infuse a little more life
into their exercises of volition, to convince them that a busy wharf is
not the place to weigh arguments for or against a proposed course of
action, yet the provincials will not be hurried; they stop to plan,
consider, deliberate, and decide, and in the end they arrive at
satisfactory conclusions without one hundredth part of the worry and
vexation of soul which shortens the lives of their more nervous cousins,
the Americans.
At noon, on the Thursday following his decision to go to Nova Scotia,
Vesper Nimmo stood on the deck of the _Royal Edward_, a smile on his
handsome face,--a shrewd smile, that deepened and broadened whenever he
looked towards the place where stood his mother, with a fluffy white
shawl wrapped around her throat, and the faithful Henry for a bodyguard.
Express wagons, piled high with towers of Babel in the shape of trunks
that shook and quivered and threatened to fall on unsuspecting heads,
rattled down and discharged their contents on the already congested
wharf, where intending passengers, escorting friends, custom officials,
and wharf men were talking, gesticulating, admonishing, and escaping
death in varied forms, such as by crushing, falling, squeezing, deaths
by exhaustion, by kicks from nervous horse legs, or by fright from being
swept into the convenient black pool of the harbor.
However, scorning the danger, the crowd talked and jabbered on, until,
finally, the last bit of freight, the last bit of luggage, was on board.
A signal was given, the ambulance drew back,--the dark and mournful
wagon from which, alas, at nearly every steamer's trip, a long, light
box is taken, in which one Canadian is going home quite still and mute.
A swarm of stewards from the steamer descended upon their quarry, the
passengers, and a separation was made between the sheep and the foolish
goats, in the company's eyes, who would not be persuaded to seek the
fair Canadian pastures. Carefully the stewards herded and guarded their
giddy sheep to the steamer, often turning back to recover one skipping
behind for a last parley with the goats. At last they were all up the
gangway, the gorgeous ship swung her princely nose to the stream, and
Vesper Nimmo felt himself really off for Nova Scotia.
He waved an adieu to his mother, then drew back to avoid an onset of
stolid, red-cheeked Canadian sheep and lambs, who pressed towards the
railing, some with damp handkerchiefs at their eyes, others cheerfully
exhorting the goats to write soon.
His eye fell on a delicate slip of a girl, with consumption written all
over her shaking form; and, swinging on his heel, he went to stroll
about the decks, and watch, with proud and passionate concealed emotion,
the yellow receding dome of the State House. He had been brought up in
the shadow of that ægis. It was almost as sacred to him as the blue sky
above, and not until he could no longer see it did he allow his eyes to
wander over other points of interest of the historic harbor. How many
times his sturdy New England forefathers had dropped their hoes to man
the ships that sailed over these blue waters, to hew down the Agag of
Acadie! What a bloodthirsty set they were in those days! Indians,
English, French,--how they harried, and worried, and bit, and tore at
each other!
He thoughtfully smoothed the little silky mustache that adorned his
upper lip, and murmured, "Thank heaven, I go on a more peaceful errand."
Once out of the harbor, and feeling the white deck beneath his feet
gracefully dipping to meet the swell of the ocean, he found a seat and
drew a guide-book from his pocket. Of ancient Acadie he knew something,
but of this modern Acadie he had, strange to say, felt no curiosity,
although it lay at his very doors, until he had discovered the letter of
his great-grandfather.
The day was warm and sunshiny. It was the third of June, and for some
time he sat quietly reading and bathed in golden light. Then across his
calm, peaceful state of content, stole a feeling scarcely to be
described, and so faint that it was barely perceptible. He was not quite
happy. The balm had gone from the air; the spirit of the writer, who so
eloquently described the lure of the Acadien land, no longer communed
with his. He read on, knowing what was coming, yet resolved not to yield
until he was absolutely forced to do so.
In half an hour he had flung down his book, and was in his stateroom,
face downward, his window wide open, his body gently swaying to and fro
with the motion of the steamer, the salt air deliciously lapping his
ears, the back of his neck, and his hands, but unable to get at his
face, obstinately buried in the pillow.
"Sick, sir?" inquired a brisk voice, with a delicate note of suggestion.
Vesper uncovered one eye, and growled, "No,--shut that door."
The steward disappeared, and did not return for some hours, while
Vesper's whole sensitive system passed into a painless agony, the only
movement he made being to turn himself over on his back, where he lay,
apparently calm and happy, and serenely staring at the white ceiling of
his dainty cell.
"Can I do anything for you, sir?" asked the steward's voice once more.
Vesper, who would not have spoken if he had been offered the _Royal
Edward_ full of gold pieces, did not even roll an eyeball at him, but
kept on gravely staring upward.
"Your collar's choking you, sir," said the man, coming forward; and he
deftly slipped a stud from its place and laid it on the wash-stand.
"Shall I take off your boots?"
Vesper submitted to having his boots withdrawn, and his feet covered,
with as much indifference as if they belonged to some other man, and
continued to spend the rest of the day and the night in the same state
of passivity. Towards morning he had a vague wish to know the time, but
it did not occur to him, any more than it would have occurred to a stone
image, to put up his hand to the watch in his breast pocket.
Daylight came, then sunlight streaming into his room, and cheery sounds
of voices without, but he did not stir. Not until the thrill of contact
with the land went through the steamer did he spring to his feet, like a
man restored to consciousness by galvanic action. He was the first
passenger to reach the wharf, and the steward, who watched him going,
remarked sarcastically that he was glad to see "that 'ere dead man come
to life."
Vesper was himself again when his feet touched the shore. He looked
about him, saw the bright little town of Yarmouth, black rocks, a blue
harbor, and a glorious sky. His contemplation of the landscape over, he
reflected that he was faint from hunger. He turned his back on the
steamer, where his fellow passengers had recently breakfasted at fine
tables spread under a ceiling of milky white and gold, and hurried to a
modest eating-house near by from which a savory smell of broiled steak
and fried potatoes floated out on the morning air.
He entered it, and after a hasty wash and brush-up ate his breakfast
with frantic appetite. He now felt that he had received a new lease of
life, and buttoning his collar up around his neck, for the temperature
was some degrees lower than that of his native city, he hurried back to
the wharf, where the passengers and the customs men were quarrelling as
if they had been enemies for life.
With ingratiating and politic calmness he pointed out his trunk and
bicycle, assured the suspicious official that although he was an
American he was honest and had nothing to sell and nothing dutiable in
the former, and that he had not the slightest objection to paying the
thirty per cent deposit required on the latter; then, a prey to inward
laughter at the enlivening spectacle of open trunks and red faces, he
proceeded to the railway station, looking about him for other signs that
he was in a foreign country.
Nova Scotia was very like Maine so far. Here were the Maine houses, the
Maine trees and rocks, even the Maine wild flowers by the side of the
road. He thoughtfully boarded the train, scrutinized the comfortable
parlor-car, and, after the lapse of half an hour, decided that he was
not in Maine, for, if he had been, the train would certainly have
started.
As he was making this reflection, a dapper individual, in light
trousers, a shiny hat, and with the indescribable air of being a
travelling salesman, entered the car where Vesper sat in solitary
grandeur.
Vesper slightly inclined his head, and the stranger, dropping a neat
leather bag in the seat next him, observed, "We had a good passage."
"Very good," replied Vesper.
"Nobody sick," pursued the dapper individual, taking off his hat,
brushing it, and carefully replacing it on his head.
"I should think not," returned Vesper; then he consulted his watch. "We
are late in starting."
"We're always late," observed the newcomer, tartly. "This is your first
trip down here?"
Vesper, with the reluctance of his countrymen to admit that they have
done or are doing something for the first time, did not contradict his
statement.
"I've been coming to this province for ten years," said his companion.
"I represent Stone and Warrior."
Vesper knew Stone and Warrior's huge dry-goods establishment, and had
due respect for the opinion of one of their travellers.
"And when we start we don't go," said the dry-goods man. "This train
doesn't dare show its nose in Halifax before six o'clock, so she's just
got to put in the time somewhere. Later in the season they'll clap on
the Flying Bluenose, which makes them think they're flying through the
air, because she spurts and gets in two hours earlier. How far are you
going?"
"I don't know; possibly to Grand Pré."
"A pretty country there, but no big farms,--kitchen-gardening compared
with ours."
"That is where the French used to be."
"Yes, but there ain't one there now. The most of the French in the
province are down here."
Vesper let his surprised eyes wander out through the car window.
"Pretty soon we'll begin to run through the woods. There'll be a shanty
or two, a few decent houses and a station here and there, and you'd
think we were miles from nowhere, but at the same time we're running
abreast of a village thirty-five miles long."
"That is a good length."
"The houses are strung along the shores of this Bay," continued the
salesman, leaning over and tapping the map spread on Vesper's knee. "The
Bay is forty miles long."
"Why didn't they build the railway where the village is?"
"That's Nova Scotia," said the salesman, drily. "Because the people were
there, they put the railroad through the woods. They beat the Dutch."
"Can't they make money?"
"Like the mischief, if they want to," and the salesman settled back in
his seat and put his hands in his pockets. "It makes me smile to hear
people talking about these green Nova Scotians. They'll jump ahead of
you in a bargain as quick as a New Yorker when they give their minds to
it. But I'll add 'em up in one word,--they don't care."
Vesper did not reply, and, after a minute's pause his companion went on,
with waxing indignation. "They ought to have been born in the cannibal
isles, every man Jack of 'em, where they could sit outdoors all day and
pick up cocoanuts or eat each other. Upon my life, you can stand in the
middle of Halifax, which is their capital city, and shy a stone at half
a dozen banks and the post-office, and look down and see grass growing
between the bricks at your feet."
"Very unprogressive," murmured Vesper.
The salesman relented. "But I've got some good chums there, and I must
say they've got a lot of soft soap,--more than we have."
"That is, better manners?"
"Exactly; but"--and he once more hardened his heart against the Nova
Scotians,--"they've got more time than we have. There ain't so many of
'em. Look at our Boston women at a bargain-counter,--you've got a lot of
curtains at four dollars a pair. You can't sell 'em. You run 'em up to
six dollars and advertise, 'Great drop on ten-dollar curtains.' The
women rush to get 'em. How much time have they to be polite? About as
much as a pack of wolves."
"What is the population of Halifax?" asked Vesper.
"About forty thousand," said the salesman, lolling his head on the back
of the seat, and running his sentences as glibly from his lips as if he
were reciting a lesson, "and a sly, sleepy old place it is, with lots of
money in it, and people pretending they are poor. Suburbs fine, but the
city dirty from the soft coal they burn. A board fence around every lot
you could spread a handkerchief on,--so afraid neighbors will see into
their back yards. If they'd knock down their fences, pick up a little of
the trash in the streets, and limit the size of their hotel keys, they'd
get on."
"Are there any French people there?"
The salesman was not interested in the French. "No," he said, "not that
I ever heard of. They could make lots of money there," he went on, with
enthusiasm, "if they'd wake up. You know there's an English garrison,
and our girls like the military; but these blamed provincials, though
they've got a big pot of jam, won't do anything to draw our rich flies,
not even as much as to put up a bathing-house. They don't care a
continental.
"There's a hotel beyond Halifax where a big excursion from New York used
to go every year. Last year the manager said, 'If you don't clean up
your old hotel, and put a decent boat on the lake, you'll never see me
again.' The hotel proprietor said, 'I guess this house is clean enough
for us, and we haven't been spilt out of the boat yet, and you and your
excursion can go to Jericho.' So the excursion goes to Jericho now, and
the hotel man gets more time for sleep."
"Have you ever been in this French village?" asked Vesper.
"No," and the salesman stifled a yawn. "I only call at the principal
towns, where the big stores are. Good Lord! I wish those
stick-in-the-muds would come up from the wharf. If I knew how to run an
engine I'd be off without 'em," and he strolled to the car door. "It's
as quiet as death down there. The passengers must have chopped up the
train-hands and thrown 'em in the water. If my wife made up her mind to
move to this province, I'd die in ten days, for I'd have so much time to
think over my sins. Glory hallelujah, here they come!" and he returned
to his seat. "The whole tribe of 'em, edging along as if they were a
funeral procession and we were the corpses on ahead. We're off," he
said, jocularly, to Vesper, and he kicked out his little dapper legs,
stuck his ticket in the front of his shiny hat, and sank into a seat,
where he was soon asleep.
Vesper was rather out of his reckoning. It had not occurred to him, in
spite of Longfellow's assurance about naught but tradition remaining of
the beautiful village of Grand Pré, that no French were really to be
found there. Now, according to the salesman, he should look for the
Acadiens in this part of the province. However, if the French village
was thirty-five miles long there was no hurry about leaving the train,
and he settled back and watched his fellow passengers leisurely climbing
the steps. Among those who entered the parlor-car was a stout,
gentlemanly man, gesticulating earnestly, although his hands were full
of parcels, and turning every instant to look with a quick, bright eye
into the face of his companion, who was a priest.
The priest left him shortly after they entered the car, and the stout
man sat down and unfolded a newspaper on which the name and place of
publication--_L'Évangéline, Journal Hebdomadaire, Weymouth_--met
Vesper's eye with grateful familiarity. The title was, of course, a
pathetic reminder of the poem. Weymouth, and he glanced at his map, was
in the line of villages along the bay.
The gentleman for a time read the paper intently. Then his nervous hands
flung it down, and Vesper, leaning over, politely asked if he would lend
it to him.
It was handed to him with a bow, and the young American was soon deep in
its contents. It had been founded in the interests of the Acadiens of
the Maritime Provinces, he read in fluent modern French, which greatly
surprised him, as he had expected to be confronted by some curious
_patois_ concocted by this remnant of a foreign race isolated so long
among the English. He read every word of the paper,--the cards of
professional men, the advertisements of shopkeepers, the remarks on
agriculture, the editorials on Canadian politics, the local news, and
the story by a Parisian novelist. Finally he returned _L'Évangéline_ to
its owner, whose quick eyes were looking him all over in mingled
curiosity and gratification, which at last culminated in the remark that
it was a fine morning.
Vesper, with slow, quiet emphasis, which always imparted weight and
importance to his words, assented to this, with the qualification that
it was chilly.
"It is never very warm here until the end of June," said the stout
gentleman, with a courteous gesture, "but I find this weather most
agreeable for wheeling. I am shortly to leave the train and take to my
bicycle for the remainder of my journey."
Vesper asked him whether there was a good road along the shores of the
Bay.
"The best in the province, but I regret to say that the roads to it from
the stations are cut up by heavy teaming."
"And the hotels,--are they good?"
"According to the guide-books there are none in Frenchtown," said the
gentleman, with lively sarcasm. "I know of one or two where one can be
comfortable. Here, for instance," and one of his facile hands indicated
a modest advertisement in _L'Évangéline_.
Sleeping Water Inn. This inn, well patronized in the past, is still
the rendezvous for tourists, bicyclists, etc. The house is airy,
and the table is good. A trustworthy teamster is always at the
train to carry trunks and valises to the inn. Rose de Forêt,
Proprietress.
Vesper looked up, to find his neighbor smiling involuntarily. "Pardon
me," he said, with contrition, "I am thinking that you would find the
house satisfactory."
"It is kept by a woman?"
"Yes," said the stranger, with preternatural gravity; "Rose à
Charlitte."
Vesper said nothing, and his face was rarely an index of his thoughts,
yet the stranger, knowing in some indefinable way that he wished for
further
|
of servants' offices
enclosing a courtyard and a spring of famous water.
[Illustration: BRIDGE STREET ROW, CHESTER.]
Eaton Hall, the coldly magnificent pile of which we spoke before, has
its rival in Wynnestay, the house of Sir Watkin Williams Wynn, the
largest landowner in Wales. No doubt the old house, burnt down in 1858,
was less grand, but the loss of its collections of heirlooms, all things
of historical and national interest to a Welshman, was a worse one than
that of the building itself. Pennant, in his _Tour in Wales_ nearly a
century ago, describes it with the same comments on domestic
arrangements as many of our architects now start on as guiding
principles: "The most ancient part is a gateway of wood and plaister,
dated 1616. On a tower within the court is this excellent distich,
allusive to the name of the house, Wynne stay, or 'Rest satisfied with
the good things Providence has so liberally showered on you:'
Cui domus est victusque decens, cui patria dulcis,
Sunt satis hæc vitæ, cætera cura labor.
The new part, built by the first Sir Watkin, is of itself a good house,
yet was only a portion of a more extensive design. It is finished in
that substantial yet neat manner becoming the seat of an honest English
country gentleman, adapted to the reception of his worthy neighbors, who
may experience his hospitality without dread of spoiling his frippery
ornaments, becoming only the assembly-rooms of a town-house or the villa
of a great city." The present house is splendid and enormous, severer in
style than Eaton, but as wilderness-like in its magnificence. The trees
in the park, which is enclosed by an eight-mile wall, are very old and
grand, especially the Ruabon avenue, a mile in length, leading from the
gates of the old church, where are the family monuments. Wynnestay
formerly belonged to the founder of Valle Crucis Abbey, Madoc ap Gryfydd
Maeler, and came to the Wynns by the inter-marriage of one of the Gwedyr
family of that name with the heiress of Eyton Evans. This creation of
almost princely lines by the union of so much land and influence in one
family is characteristic of the Middle Ages in English history, and has
its faint shadow even in these days, when you invariably find in each
family its self-installed herald, sometimes an old maid, often an old
bachelor or widower, given to poring over pictures and pedigrees, and
dreamily recounting to mischievously attentive cousins the glories of
such an alliance, the importance of a fifty-sixth "quartering," or the
story of such and such an old love-affair that spoilt (or otherwise) the
negotiation for another thousand acres of land. The Welsh are even more
given to family pride than the English, but everywhere you find the old
sentiment lingering in some remote corner of the family, sometimes
cropping out in a beautiful illuminated volume, for which the head of
the family generally has to pay, or oftener making the life-study and
delight of some innocent, kind-hearted old bookworm. Luckily, we are
spared the heraldic lawsuits of old times, such as were sustained by the
Grosvenors and the Scropes in the reign of Richard II. respecting the
arms they each claimed to bear, and during which the names of two famous
men, Chaucer and John of Gaunt, were affixed as witnesses to the
manuscript account of it, still preserved in the library at Eaton Hall.
Owen Glendower and Hotspur were also called as witnesses at various
times on this 'three years' trial.
[Illustration: ANCIENT HALF-TIMBERED HOUSES, FOREGATE STREET, CHESTER.]
The view of the Dee from the southern point of Wynnestay Park is
perhaps, as a whole, the most remarkable on the river. It is very
perfect, and combines the unchangeable with the progressive, showing as
it does the swelling hills on both sides of the water, fishermen with
coracles on their backs, autumn tints on the clustering trees, and the
regular arches of the great railway viaduct. When the train is absent
these look not unlike those arches on the Campagna near Rome of which
every artist has a sketch and every traveller a recollection. Opposite
Wynnestay--which is in Denbighshire--is a detached bit of Flintshire
hemmed in between Cheshire and Shropshire, in which is Bettisfield, a
house of Lord Hanmer. Owen Glendower's wife was a Hanmer, and tradition
says she was married in Hanmer church. The present owner evidently
prefers his native river to the greater but not more historic ones of
the Continent, and has recorded his preference in some lines, of which
the following form the opening:
By the Elbe and through the Rheinland I've wandered far and wide,
And by the Save with silver tones, proud Danube's queenly bride;
By Arno's banks and Tiber's shore; but never did I see
A river I could match with thine, old Druid-haunted Dee.
[Illustration: VIEW OF CHESTER, FROM THE COP.]œ
Other houses on or near the river are Chirk Castle, dating just nine
hundred years back, the family-place of the Myddletons (now Biddulphs),
where among the old portraits is an authentic one of Oliver Cromwell;
Brynkinalt, where much of the youth of Wellington was spent with his
relation, Lord Arthur Hill Trevor, the owner; Plas Madoc, belonging to
the famous member of Parliament for Peterborough, whose rise in the
House is always heralded by a well-bred titter; and near Llangollen--for
this enumeration carries us up the stream again--Plas Newydd, the house
of the "Ladies of Llangollen." Farther up is Rhaggatt, the seat of a
very old Welsh family, the Lloyds, and opposite it was the old hall of
Owen Glendower, of which a Welsh bard says that it had "nine halls with
large wardrobes" (probably the retainers' rooms), and near this "a
wooden house supported on posts, with eight apartments for guests." Of
the park, warren, pigeon-house, mill, orchard, vineyard and fishpond,
"every convenience for good living and every support to hospitality," of
which Pennant speaks, there is hardly a trace now, though the moat is a
self-evident relic. Rug (pronounced Reeg) came from the Vaughans to the
Wynns by many stages of attainder, marriage and sale, and is famous as
the place where King Gryffydd ap Cynan was betrayed into the power of
Lupus, earl of Chester, who kept him a prisoner for twelve years in the
city castle; and near Bala Lake is Palé Hall, a new house representing a
very old one; Rhiwlas (pronounced Rovlas), whose owners, the Prices,
suffered in the Stuart cause, a member of the Long Parliament, one of
their family, being expelled on account of his loyalty to the king; and
Glann-y-llyn, a comfortable shooting-box of Sir Watkin Williams Wynn. Of
course there are numberless other houses, the mere list of which one
could not get through without the help of a county history and a court
guide for each of the shires through which the Dee passes. Every library
stored in these old houses or carefully brought there from still older
ones forms an inexhaustible subject of interest, not only to the owners
(who are often the least benefited by it), but to inquiring minds of
various races and conditions. Even a lad let loose from college, his
mind full of athletics and Alpine Club aspirations, can find something
to admire in the relics or representations of ancient national games,
while the scholar discovers details full of interest in looking over the
books, manuscripts and curiosities. The size of the country-houses and
the extent of their gardens and parks seem perhaps disproportionate
compared with the confined space of the country itself: indeed, it is as
much their frequency in the landscape as the general cultivation of the
whole that has made England celebrated for its garden-like look; but the
historic associations of these small rivers and small territories are on
an equally large scale. Thousands of unnamed brooks on this side of the
ocean run through forests or farms as large as an English or Welsh
county, without rousing any save imaginary associations in the mind of
the traveller or the angler: they are as large as, and more varied in
scenery than, our "wizard stream;" but the old recollections, the
castles, the ruins, the modernized homes, the national relics, the
inherited traits of likeness between past and present, are wanting. In
Wales it is easy to leap back a few hundred years. The costume of the
market-women at the seacoast town of Aberystwith--not a sluggish place,
by any means--is almost literally like the old one in pictures of
"Mother Hubbard." I have seen young and pretty women wear it. The
neatly-roofed hay and straw stacks, so different from the ungainly
heaps so called in England, are thatched in the same way for which the
Welsh farmers were famous two hundred years ago, while many of the
poorer dwellings, especially in the slate districts, look just as they
may have done to Owen Glendower himself. The character of the people,
like that of the grave Highlanders, is stern and enduring, though their
temper is fierce and hot: it is easy to understand how passionately
certain forms of Methodism appealed to such temperaments, and developed
among them an enthusiasm easy to stir up into a likeness of that of the
old Cameronians.
[Illustration: MOSTYN HALL.]
LADY BLANCHE MURPHY.
BADEN AND ALLERHEILIGEN.
Before the change which has recently befallen the chief German
watering-places, Baden--or, as it was more commonly called,
Baden-Baden--was the most frequented, the most brilliant and the most
profitable "hell" in Europe. Its baths and medicinal waters were a mere
excuse for the coming thither of a small number of the vast concourse
which annually filled its hotels. In any case, they sank into
comparatively utter insignificance. It was not for water--at least not
for the waters of any other stream than that of Pactolus--that the world
came to Baden. Of course, the sums realized by the keepers of the hell
were enormous; and they found it to be their interest to do all that
contributed to make the place attractive on a liberal scale. Gardens,
parks, miles of woodland walks admirably kept, excellent music in great
abundance, vast salons for dancing, for concerts, for reading-rooms, for
billiard-rooms, etc.--all as magnificent as carving and gilding and
velvet and satin could make them--were provided gratuitously, not for
those only who played at the tables, but for all those who would put
themselves within reach of the temptation to do so. And this liberal
policy was found to answer abundantly. Very many of the water-cure
places in the smaller states of Germany had their hells also, and did as
Baden did, on a more modest scale. Then came the German unification and
the great uprising of a German national consciousness. And German
national feeling said that this scandal should no longer exist. A
certain delay was rendered necessary by the contracts which were running
between the different small governments and the keepers of the
gambling-tables. But it was decreed that when the two or three years
which were required for these to run out should be at an end, they
should not be renewed. It was a serious resolution to take, for some
half dozen or so of these little pleasure-towns believed, not without
good reason, that the measure would be at once fatal to their prosperity
and well-nigh to their existence. And of course there were not wanting
large numbers of people who argued that the step was a quixotic one, as
needless and fallacious in a moral point of view as fatal on the side
of economic considerations. Could it be maintained that the governments
in question had any moral duty in the matter save as regarded the lives
and habits of their own people? And these were not imperilled by the
existence of the gambling-tables. For it was notorious that each of
these ducal and grand-ducal patrons of the blind goddess strictly
forbade their own subjects to enter the door of the play-saloons. And as
to those who resorted to them, and supplied the abundant flow of gold
that enriched the whole of each little state, could it be supposed that
any one of these gamblers would be reformed or saved from the
consequences of his vice by the shutting up of these tables? It was
difficult to answer this question in the affirmative. No liquor law ever
prevented men from getting drunk, nor could it be hoped that any closing
of this, that or the other hell could save gamblers from the indulgence
of their darling passion. Nevertheless, it can hardly be seriously
denied that the measure was the healthy outcome of a genuinely healthy
and highly laudable spirit. "Ruin yourself, if you will, but you shall
not come here for the purpose, and, above all, we will not touch the
profit to be made out of your vice." This was the feeling of the German
government, and, considering the amount of self-denial involved in the
act, Germany deserves no small degree of honor and praise for having
accomplished it.
And now it is time to ask, Has Baden--for we will confine our attention
to this ci-devant queen of hells--has Baden suffered that ruin which it
was so confidently predicted would overtake her? _Baden Revisited_, by
one who knew her well in the old days of her wickedness and wealth,
supplies the means for replying to the question. Unquestionably, in the
mere matter of the influx of gold the town has suffered very severely.
How were some four-and-twenty large hotels, besides a host of smaller
ones, which often barely sufficed to hold the crowds attracted by the
gambling-tables, to exist when this attraction ceased? It might have
been expected that a large number of these would at once have been shut
up. But such has not been the case. I believe that not one has been
closed. Nevertheless, a visitor's first stroll through the town, and
especially in the alleys and gardens around the celebrated
"Conversations-Haus," as it hypocritically called itself, is quite
sufficient to show how great is the difference between Baden as it was
and Baden as it is--between Baden the wealthy, gaudy, gay, privileged
home of vice, and Baden moralized and turned from the error of its ways.
And it cannot be denied that, speaking merely of the impression made
upon the eye, the difference is all in favor of vice. "As ugly as sin"
is a common phrase. But, unfortunately, the truth is that sin sometimes
looks extremely pretty, especially when well dressed and of an evening
by gaslight. And it did, it must be owned, look extremely pretty at
Baden. The French especially came there in those days in great numbers,
and they brought their Parisian toilettes with them. And somehow or
other, let the fact be explained as it may--and, though perhaps easily
explicable enough, I do not feel called upon to enter on the explanation
here--one used in those wicked old days to see a great number of very
pretty women at Baden, which can hardly be said to be the case at Baden
moralized. The whole social atmosphere of the place was wholly and
unmistakably different, and in outward appearance wicked Baden beat
moral Baden hollow. It would not do in the old time to examine the gay
scene which fluttered and glittered before the eyes much below the
absolute exterior surface. The little town in those old days, as
regarded a large proportion of the crowd which made it look so gay,
was--not to put too fine a point upon it--a sink of more unmitigated
blackguardism than could easily be found concentrated within so small a
compass on any other spot of the earth. A large number of the persons
who now congregate in this beautiful valley look, to tell the truth,
somewhat vulgar. Vulgar? As if the flaunting crowds which seemed to
insult the magnificent forests, the crystal streams and the smiling
lawns with their finery were not saturated with a vulgarity of the
most quintessential intensity! Yes, but that only showed itself to the
moral sense of those who could look a little below the surface, whereas
the vulgarity that may be noted sunning itself in the trim gardens and
sprawling on the satin sofas which are the legacy of the departed
wickedness is of the sort that shows itself upon the surface. In a word,
moral Baden looks a little _dowdy_, and _that_ wicked Baden never
looked.
[Illustration: IN FRONT OF THE KURSAAL AT BADEN.]
The general determination at Baden when the terrible decree which put an
end to its career of wealth and wickedness came upon it like a
thunder-bolt was of the kind expressed by the more forcible than elegant
phrase, "Never say die!" The little town was determined to have a
struggle for its existence. It still had its mineral waters, so highly
valued by the Romans. The Romans, it may be remarked _en passant_, seem
to have discovered and profited by every mineral spring in Europe.
Hardly one of the more important springs can be named which cannot be
shown, either by direct historic testimony or by the still existing
remains of baths and the like, to have been known to the universal
conquerors. Well, Baden still had its waters, good for all the ills to
which flesh is heir--_capiti fluit utilis, utilis alveo_. It still had
its magnificent forests--pine and oak and beech in most lovely
juxtaposition and contrast. It had the interesting and charmingly
picturesque ruins of its ancient castle on the forest-covered hill above
the town, perched on one mighty mass of porphyry, and surrounded by
other ranges of the same rock, thrown into such fantastic forms that
they seem to assume the appearance of rival castellated ruins built on
Nature's own colossal plan, and such a world of strange forms of turrets
and spires and isolated towers and huge donjons that the Devil has
"pulpits" and "bridges" and "chambers" there, as is well known to all
tourists to be his wont in similar places. It had its other mediæval
baronial residences situated in the depths of the forest at pleasant
distances for either driving or walking. It had its delicious parks and
gardens, beginning from the very door of the "Conversations-Haus," with
brilliantly-lighted avenues, gay with shops and gas-lamps, and gradually
wandering away into umbrageous solitudes and hillside paths lit by the
moon alone--so gradually that she who had accepted an arm for a stroll
amid the crowd in the bright foreground of the scene found herself
enjoying solitude _à deux_ before she had time to become alarmed or
think what mamma would say. Then it had still the gorgeous halls, the
ball-rooms, the concert-rooms, the promenading-rooms, with their gilding
and velvet and satin furniture, which had been created by a wave of the
wand of the great enchanter who presided at the green table. Why should
not all these good things be turned to the service of virtue instead of
vice? Why should not respectability and morality inherit the legacy of
departed wickedness? Why should not good and virtuous German Fraüleins,
with their pale blue eyes and pale blond hair, do their innocent
flirting amid the bowers where the Parisian demi-monde had outraged the
chaste wood-nymphs by its uncongenial presence? The loathsome patchouli
savor of the denizens of the Boulevard would hardly resist the purifying
breezes of one Black Forest winter. The notice to quit served on Mammon
would be equally efficacious as regarded the whole of his crew. The
whole valley would be swept clean of them, and sweetened and restored to
the lovers of Nature in her most delicious aspect. Baden, emerging
from the cold plunge-bath of its first dismay, determined that
it should be so. The hotel-keepers, the lodging-house-keepers, the
livery-stable-keepers, the purveyors of all kinds, screwed their courage
to the sticking-place and determined to go in for virtue, early hours
and moderate prices. Well, yes! moderate prices! This was the severest
cut of all. But there was no help for it. Virtue does prefer moderate
prices. There could be no more of that reckless scattering of gold, no
more of that sublime indifference to the figure at the foot of the bill,
which characterized their former customers. What mattered a napoleon or
so more or less in their daily expense to him or her whose every
evening around the green table left them some thousands of francs richer
or poorer than the morning had found them? There can be no doubt, I
fear, that Baden would have much preferred a continuance in its old
ways. But the choice was not permitted to it. It is therefore making a
virtue of necessity, and striving to live under the new régime as best
it may. And I am disposed to think that better days may yet be in store
for it. At present, the preponderating majority of the visitors are
Germans. There are naturally no French, who heretofore formed the
majority of the summer population. There are hardly any Americans, and
very few English. Those of the class which used to find Baden delightful
find it, or conceive that they would find it, so no more. And English
and Americans of a different sort seem to have hardly yet become aware
that they would find there a very different state of things from that
which they have been accustomed to associate in idea with the name of
the place. It must be supposed, however, that they will shortly do so.
The natural advantages and beauties of the place are so great, the
accommodation is so good, and even in some respects the inheritance of
the good things the gamblers have left behind them so valuable, that it
is hardly likely that the place will remain neglected. Where else are
such public rooms and gardens to be found? The charge made at present
for the enjoyment of all this is about six or eight cents a day. Such a
payment could never have originally provided all that is placed at the
disposal of the visitor. He used in the old times to enjoy it all
absolutely gratuitously, unless he paid for it by his losses at the
tables. Play provided it all. But it is to be feared that the very
modest payment named above will be found insufficient even to keep up
the establishment which Mammon has bequeathed to Virtue. The ormolu and
the carved cornices, and the fresco-painted walls and the embroidered
satin couches and divans, and the miles upon miles of garden-walks, have
not indeed disappeared, as, according to all the orthodox legends, such
Devil's gifts should do, but they will wear out; and I do not think that
any eight cents a day will suffice to renew them. But in the mean time
you may avail yourself of them. You may lounge on the brocade-covered
divans which used to be but couches of thorns to so many of their
occupants, undisturbed by any more palpitating excitement than that
produced by the perusal of the daily paper. The lofty ceilings echo no
more the hateful warning croak of the croupier, "Faites votre jeu,
messieurs. Le jeu est fait!" which used to be ceaseless in them from
midday till midnight. There are no more studies to be made on the men
and women around you of all the expressions which eager avarice,
torturing suspense and leaden despair can impart to the human
countenance. The utmost you can hope to read on one of those placidly
stolid German burgher faces is the outward and visible sign of the
inward oppression caused by too copious a repast at the one-o'clock
_table d'hôte_. It is the less disagreeable and less unhealthy subject
of contemplation of the two. But the truth remains that virtuous Baden
does look somewhat dowdy.
* * * * *
Just seventy-three years ago a change as great as that which has
transformed Baden happened to an establishment which represented the
old-world social system of Europe as completely and strikingly as Baden
the "watering-place"--that is the modern phrase--did the Europe of the
latter half of the nineteenth century. In another green valley of this
region, as beautiful as, or even more beautiful than, that of Baden,
there existed a gathering-place of the sort produced by the exigencies
of a different stage of social progress--the convent of Allerheiligen,
or, as we should say, All Saints or Allhallows. It is within the limits
of an easy day's excursion from Baden, and no visitor who loves "the
merry green wood" should omit to give a day to Allerheiligen, for he
will scarcely find in his wanderings, let them be as extensive as they
may, a more perfect specimen of the loveliest forest scenery. It is an
old remark, that the ancient ecclesiastics who selected the sites of
the monastic establishments that were multiplied so excessively in every
country in Europe showed very excellent judgment and much practical
skill in the choice of them. And almost every visit made to the spot
where one of these cloister homes existed confirms the truth of the
observation, more especially as regards the communities belonging to the
great Benedictine family. The often-quoted line about seeking "to merit
heaven by making earth a hell," however well it may be applied to the
practices of some of the more ascetic orders, especially the mendicants,
cannot with any reason be considered applicable to the disciples of St.
Benedict. In point of fact, at the time when the great and wealthy
convents of this order were founded it was rather outside the
convent-wall that men were making the world a hell upon earth. And for
those who could school themselves to consider celibacy no unendurable
evil it would be difficult to imagine a more favorable contrast than
that offered by "the world" in the Middle Ages and the retreat of the
cloister. A site well selected with reference to all the requirements of
climate, wood and water, and with an appreciative eye to the beauties of
Nature, in some sequestered but favored spot as much shut in from war
and its troubles as mountains, streams and forests could shut it in; a
building often palatial in magnificence, always comfortable, with all
the best appliances for study which the age could afford; with beautiful
churches for the practice of a faith entirely and joyfully believed in;
with noble halls for temperate but not ascetic meals, connected by
stairs by no means unused with excellent and extensive cellars; with
lovely cloisters for meditative pacing, and well-trimmed gardens for
pleasant occupation and delight,--what can be imagined more calculated
to ensure all the happiness which this earth was in those days capable
of affording?
Such a retreat was the convent of Allerheiligen. It was founded for
Premonstratensian monks at the close of the twelfth century by Uta,
duchess of Schawenburg, who concludes the deed of foundation, which
still exists, with these words: "And if anybody shall do anything in any
respect contrary to these statutes, he will for ever be subject to the
vengeance of God and of all saints." Poor Duchess Uta! Could her spirit
walk in this valley, as lovely now as when she gave it to her monks, and
look upon the ruins of the pile she raised, she would think that the
vengeance of God and all saints had been incurred to a considerable
extent by somebody. The waterfalls--seven of them in succession--made by
the little stream that waters the valley immediately after it has passed
through the isolated bit of flat meadow-land on which the convent was
built, continue to sing their unceasing song as melodiously as when the
duchess Uta visited the spot and marked it out for the "Gottes Haus" she
was minded to plant there. Her husband, the duke Welf, who had married
her when she was a well-dowered widow, had been a very bad husband,
which naturally tended to lead his neglected lady wife's mind in the
direction of founding religious houses. He was duke of Altorf and
Spoleto, the one possession lying on the shores of the Lake of Lucerne,
and the other among the ilex-woods that overlook the valley of the
Tiber--a strange conjunction of titles, which is in itself illustrative
of the shape European history took in that day, and of the
preponderating part which Germany played in Italy and among the rulers
of its soil. Being thus duke of Spoleto, Welf resided much in Italy, but
does not seem to have found it necessary to take his German wife with
him to those milder skies and easier social moralities. Uta stayed at
home amid the dark-green valleys of her native Black Forest, and planned
cloister-building. Before the chart, however, which was to give birth to
Allerheiligen was signed, Duke Welf came home, and having had, it would
seem, his fling to a very considerable extent, had reached by a natural
process that time of life and that frame of mind which inclined him to
join in his long-neglected wife's pietistic schemes. So they planned and
drew up the statutes together, and the convent was founded and built,
a son of Uta by her first husband being, as is recorded, the first
prior.
[Illustration: RUINS OF THE ABBEY OF ALLERHEILIGEN.]
It was not long before the young community became rich. Such was the
ordinary, the almost invariable, course of matters. Property was held on
very unstable conditions even by the great and powerful. The most secure
of all tenures was that by which the Church held what was once her own.
And in a state of things when men were persuaded both that it was very
doubtful whether they would be able to keep possession of their
property, especially whether they would be able to secure such
possessions to those who were to come after them, and that the surest
way to escape that retribution in the next world which they fully
believed to have been incurred by their deeds in this world was to give
what they possessed to some monastic institution, it is not difficult to
understand how and why monasteries grew rich. And it is equally
intelligible that the result should have followed which did, as we know,
follow almost invariably. As the monasteries became rich the monks
became corrupt--first comfortable, then luxurious, then licentious. The
Benedictines escaped this doom more frequently than the other orders.
Even after their great convents had become wealthy and powerful
landlords they were often very good landlords, and the condition of
their lands and of their tenants and vassals contrasted favorably with
that of the lands and dependants of their lay neighbors. The superiority
of the Benedictines in this respect was doubtless due to their studious
and literary habits and proclivities. It is constantly urged that the
cause of learning and of literature owes a great debt of gratitude to
the monks, but it should be said that this debt is due almost
exclusively to the sons of St. Benedict.
But something more than this may be said for the community founded by
Duchess Uta, the beautiful ruins of whose dwelling now complete the
picturesque charm of this most exquisite valley. By a rare exception
history has in truth nothing to say against them. Their record is quite
clear. All remaining testimony declares that from their first
establishment to the day of their dissolution the Allerheiligen monks
lived studious and blameless lives. Possibly, the profound seclusion of
their valley, literally shut in from the outer world by vast masses of
thick roadless forests, may have contributed to this result, though
similar circumstances do not in all cases seem to have ensured a similar
consequence. Good fortune probably did much in the matter. A happy
succession of three or four good and able abbots would give the place a
good name and beget a good tradition in the community; and this in such
cases is half the battle. "Such and such goings-on may do elsewhere, but
they won't suit Allerheiligen"--such a sentiment, once made common,
would do much for the continuance of a good and healthy tradition.
Accordingly, it was long before the sentence of dissolution went forth
against the monastery of Allerheiligen--that sentence which was to
produce a change in the place and all around it as momentous as that
other sentence which some seventy years later went forth against
Baden-Baden. It was not till 1802 that the monastery of Allerheiligen
was dissolved; and its extinction was due then not to any reason or
pretext drawn from the conduct of the inmates, but to the religious
dissensions and political quarrels of princes and governments. But the
doom was all the more irrevocably certain. In all the countries in which
monasteries have been abolished and Church property confiscated tales
eagerly spread, and by no means wholly disbelieved even by the spoilers
themselves, are current of the "judgments" and retribution which have
sooner or later fallen on those who have been enriched by the
secularization of Church property or who have taken part in the acts by
which the Church has been dispossessed. But rarely has what the world
now calls "chance" brought about what the Church would call so
startlingly striking a manifestation of the wrath of Heaven against the
despoilers of "God's house." St. Norbert was the original founder of the
Premonstratensian rule. And it was precisely on St. Norbert's Day next
after the dissolution of the monastery of Allerheiligen that a
tremendous and--the local chroniclers say--unprecedented storm of
thunder, lightning and hail broke over the woodland valley and the
devoted fabric in such sort that the lightning, more than once striking
the buildings, set them on fire and reduced the vast pile to the few
picturesque ruins which now delight the tourist and the landscape
painter. Could the purpose and intent of the supernal Powers have been
more strongly emphasized or more clearly marked? Truly, the scattered
monks may have been excused for recalling with awe, not unmingled with a
sense of triumph, the prophetic denunciation of their foundress Uta,
which has been cited above, against whoso should undo the pious deed she
was doing. For more than six hundred years her work had prospered and
her will had been respected, and now after all those centuries the
warning curse was still potent. Neither thunder nor lightning, nor the
anger of St. Norbert, however, availed to rebuild the monastery or
recall the monks. Their kingdom and the glory thereof has passed to
another, even to Herr Mittenmeyer, _Wirth und Gastgeber_, who has built
a commodious hostelry close by the ruins, which are mainly those of the
church, and on the site of the monastic buildings, and who distributes a
hospitality as universal, if not quite so disinterested, as that
practised by his cowled predecessors. There, for the sum of six
marks--about a dollar and a half--per diem you may find a well-furnished
cell and a fairly well-supplied refectory, and may amuse yourself with
pacing in the walks where St. Norbert's monks paced, looking on the
scenes of beauty on which they gazed, and casting your mind for the
nonce into the mould of the minds of those who so looked and mused. You
may do so, indeed, thanks to Herr Mittenmeyer, with greater comfort,
materially speaking, than the old inmates of the valley could have done.
For the most charming and delicious walks have been made through the
woods on either side of the narrow valley, and skilfully planned so as
to show you all the very remarkable beauties of it. These
|
a great loss. After that Thorgerd wished to go to Iceland to
visit Hoskuld her son, for she still loved him best of all men, and
Hrut was left behind well placed with his relations. Thorgerd arrayed
her journey to Iceland, and went to find Hoskuld in his home in
Salmonriver-Dale. He received his mother with honour. She was
possessed of great wealth, and remained with Hoskuld to the day of her
death. A few winters after Thorgerd came to Iceland she fell sick and
died. Hoskuld took to himself all her money, but Hrut his brother
owned one-half thereof.
CHAP. IX
Hoskuld's Marriage, A.D. 935
[Sidenote: Of Jorunn Bjorn's daughter] At this time Norway was ruled
by Hakon, Athelstan's fosterling. Hoskuld was one of his bodyguard,
and stayed each year, turn and turn about, at Hakon's court, or at his
own home, and was a very renowned man both in Norway and in Iceland.
Bjorn was the name of a man who lived at Bjornfirth, where he had
taken land, the firth being named after him. This firth cuts into the
land north from Steingrim's firth, and a neck of land runs out between
them. Bjorn was a man of high birth, with a great deal of money: Ljufa
was the name of his wife. Their daughter was Jorunn: she was a most
beautiful woman, and very proud and extremely clever, and so was
thought the best match in all the firths of the West. Of this woman
Hoskuld had heard, and he had heard besides that Bjorn was the
wealthiest yeoman throughout all the Strands. Hoskuld rode from home
with ten men, and went to Bjorn's house at Bjornfirth. He was well
received, for to Bjorn his ways were well known. [Sidenote: Hoskuld
marries Jorunn] Then Hoskuld made his proposal, and Bjorn said he was
pleased, for his daughter could not be better married, yet turned the
matter over to her decision. And when the proposal was set before
Jorunn, she answered in this way: "From all the reports I have heard
of you, Hoskuld, I cannot but answer your proposal well, for I think
that the woman would be well cared for who should marry you; yet my
father must have most to say in this matter, and I will agree in this
with his wishes." And the long and short of it was, that Jorunn was
promised to Hoskuld with much money, and the wedding was to be at
Hoskuldstead. Hoskuld now went away with matters thus settled, and
home to his abode, and stays now at home until this wedding feast was
to be held. Bjorn came from the north for the wedding with a brave
company of followers. Hoskuld had also asked many guests, both friends
and relations, and the feast was of the grandest. Now, when the feast
was over each one returned to his home in good friendship and with
seemly gifts. Jorunn Bjorn's daughter sits behind at Hoskuldstead, and
takes over the care of the household with Hoskuld. It was very soon
seen that she was wise and well up in things, and of manifold
knowledge, though rather high-tempered at most times. Hoskuld and she
loved each other well, though in their daily ways they made no show
thereof. Hoskuld became a great chieftain; he was mighty and pushing,
and had no lack of money, and was thought to be nowise less of his
ways than his father, Koll. [Sidenote: Hoskuld's children] Hoskuld and
Jorunn had not been married long before they came to have children. A
son of theirs was named Thorliek. He was the eldest of their children.
Bard was another son of theirs. One of their daughters was called
Hallgerd, afterwards surnamed "Long-Breeks." Another daughter was
called Thurid. All their children were most hopeful. Thorliek was a
very tall man, strong and handsome, though silent and rough; and men
thought that such was the turn of his temper, as that he would be no
man of fair dealings, and Hoskuld often would say, that he would take
very much after the race of the men of the Strands. Bard, Hoskuld's
son, was most manly to look at, and of goodly strength, and from his
appearance it was easy to see that he would take more after his
father's people. Bard was of quiet ways while he was growing up, and a
man lucky in friends, and Hoskuld loved him best of all his children.
The house of Hoskuld now stood in great honour and renown. About this
time Hoskuld gave his sister Groa in marriage to Velief the Old, and
their son was "Holmgang"-Bersi.
CHAP. X
Of Viga Hrapp
Hrapp was the name of a man who lived in Salmon-river-Dale, on the
north bank of the river on the opposite side to Hoskuldstead, at the
place that was called later on Hrappstead, where there is now waste
land. [Sidenote: Of Hrapp and Vigdis] Hrapp was the son of Sumarlid,
and was called Fight-Hrapp. He was Scotch on his father's side, and
his mother's kin came from Sodor, where he was brought up. He was a
very big, strong man, and one not willing to give in even in face of
some odds; and for the reason that was most overbearing, and would
never make good what he had misdone, he had had to fly from
West-over-the-sea, and had bought the land on which he afterwards
lived. His wife was named Vigdis, and was Hallstein's daughter; and
their son was named Sumarlid. Her brother was named Thorstein Surt; he
lived at Thorsness, as has been written before. Sumarlid was brought
up there, and was a most promising young man. Thorstein had been
married, but by this time his wife was dead. He had two daughters, one
named Gudrid, and the other Osk. Thorkell trefill married Gudrid, and
they lived in Svignaskard. He was a great chieftain, and a sage of
wits; he was the son of Raudabjorn. Osk, Thorstein's daughter, was
given in marriage to a man of Broadfirth named Thorarin. He was a
valiant man, and very popular, and lived with Thorstein, his
father-in-law, who was sunk in age and much in need of their care.
Hrapp was disliked by most people, being overbearing to his
neighbours; and at times he would hint to them that theirs would be a
heavy lot as neighbours, if they held any other man for better than
himself. All the goodmen took one counsel, and went to Hoskuld and
told him their trouble. Hoskuld bade them tell him if Hrapp did any
one any harm, "For he shall not plunder me of men or money."
CHAP. XI
About Thord Goddi and Thorbjorn Skrjup
[Sidenote: Thord Goddi and his wife Vigdis] Thord Goddi was the name
of a man who lived in Salmon-river-Dale on the northern side of the
river, and his house was Vigdis called Goddistead. He was a very
wealthy man; he had no children, and had bought the land he lived on.
He was a neighbour of Hrapp's, and was very often badly treated by
him. Hoskuld looked after him, so that he kept his dwelling in peace.
Vigdis was the name of his wife. She was daughter of Ingjald, son of
Olaf Feilan, and brother's daughter of Thord Yeller, and sister's
daughter of Thorolf Rednose of Sheepfell. This Thorolf was a great
hero, and in a very good position, and his kinsmen often went to him
for protection. Vigdis had married more for money than high station.
Thord had a thrall who had come to Iceland with him, named Asgaut. He
was a big man, and shapely of body; and though he was called a thrall,
yet few could be found his equal amongst those called freemen, and he
knew well how to serve his master. Thord had many other thralls,
though this one is the only one mentioned here. Thorbjorn was the name
of a man. He lived in Salmon-river-Dale, next to Thord, up valley away
from his homestead, and was called Skrjup. He was very rich in
chattels, mostly in gold and silver. [Sidenote: Houskuld goes abroad]
He was an huge man and of great strength. No squanderer of money on
common folk was he. Hoskuld, Dalakoll's son, deemed it a drawback to
his state that his house was worse built than he wished it should be;
so he bought a ship from a Shetland man. The ship lay up in the mouth
of the river Blanda. That ship he gets ready, and makes it known that
he is going abroad, leaving Jorunn to take care of house and children.
They now put out to sea, and all went well with them; and they hove
somewhat southwardly into Norway, making Hordaland, where the
market-town called Biorgvin was afterwards built. Hoskuld put up his
ship, and had there great strength of kinsmen, though here they be not
named. Hakon, the king, had then his seat in the Wick. Hoskuld did not
go to the king, as his kinsfolk welcomed him with open arms. That
winter all was quiet (in Norway).
CHAP. XII
Hoskuld Buys a Slave Woman
There were tidings at the beginning of the summer that the king went
with his fleet eastward to a tryst in Brenn-isles, to settle peace for
his land, even as the law laid down should be done every third summer.
This meeting was held between rulers with a view to settling such
matters as kings had to adjudge--matters of international policy
between Norway, Sweden, and Denmark. It was deemed a pleasure trip to
go to this meeting, for thither came men from well-nigh all such lands
as we know of. Hoskuld ran out his ship, being desirous also to go to
the meeting; moreover, he had not been to see the king all the winter
through. There was also a fair to be made for. At the meeting there
were great crowds of people, and much amusement to be got--drinking,
and games, and all sorts of entertainment. Nought, however, of great
interest happened there. Hoskuld met many of his kinsfolk there who
were come from Denmark. [Sidenote: Of Gilli the Russian] Now, one day
as Hoskuld went out to disport himself with some other men, he saw a
stately tent far away from the other booths. Hoskuld went thither, and
into the tent, and there sat a man before him in costly raiment, and a
Russian hat on his head. Hoskuld asked him his name. He said he was
called Gilli: "But many call to mind the man if they hear my
nickname--I am called Gilli the Russian." Hoskuld said he had often
heard talk of him, and that he held him to be the richest of men that
had ever belonged to the guild of merchants. [Sidenote: The bargain
for the slave woman] Still Hoskuld spoke: "You must have things to
sell such as we should wish to buy." Gilli asked what he and his
companions wished to buy. Hoskuld said he should like to buy some
bonds-woman, "if you have one to sell." Gilli answers: "There, you mean
to give me trouble by this, in asking for things you don't expect me
to have in stock; but it is not sure that follows." Hoskuld then saw
that right across the booth there was drawn a curtain; and Gilli then
lifted the curtain, and Hoskuld saw that there were twelve women
seated behind the curtain. So Gilli said that Hoskuld should come on
and have a look, if he would care to buy any of these women. Hoskuld
did so. They sat all together across the booth. Hoskuld looks
carefully at these women. He saw a woman sitting out by the skirt of
the tent, and she was very ill-clad. Hoskuld thought, as far as he
could see, this woman was fair to look upon. Then said Hoskuld, "What
is the price of that woman if I should wish to buy her?" Gilli
replied, "Three silver pieces is what you must weigh me out for her."
"It seems to me," said Hoskuld, "that you charge very highly for this
bonds-woman, for that is the price of three (such)." Then Gilli said,
"You speak truly, that I value her worth more than the others. Choose
any of the other eleven, and pay one mark of silver for her, this one
being left in my possession." Hoskuld said, "I must first see how much
silver there is in the purse I have on my belt," and he asked Gilli to
take the scales while he searched the purse. [Sidenote: Of the dumb
slave woman] Gilli then said, "On my side there shall be no guile in
this matter; for, as to the ways of this woman, there is a great
drawback which I wish, Hoskuld, that you know before we strike this
bargain." Hoskuld asked what it was. Gilli replied, "The woman is
dumb. I have tried in many ways to get her to talk, but have never
got a word out of her, and I feel quite sure that this woman knows not
how to speak." Then, said Hoskuld, "Bring out the scales, and let us
see how much the purse I have got here may weigh." Gilli did so, and
now they weigh the silver, and there were just three marks weighed.
Then said Hoskuld, "Now the matter stands so that we can close our
bargain. You take the money for yourself, and I will take the woman. I
take it that you have behaved honestly in this affair, for, to be
sure, you had no mind to deceive me herein." Hoskuld then went home to
his booth. That same night Hoskuld went into bed with her. The next
morning when men got dressed, spake Hoskuld, "The clothes Gilli the
Rich gave you do not appear to be very grand, though it is true that
to him it is more of a task to dress twelve women than it is to me to
dress only one." After that Hoskuld opened a chest, and took out some
fine women's clothes and gave them to her; and it was the saying of
every one that she looked very well when she was dressed. But when the
rulers had there talked matters over according as the law provided,
this meeting was broken up. Then Hoskuld went to see King Hakon, and
greeted him worthily, according to custom. The king cast a side glance
at him, and said, "We should have taken well your greeting, Hoskuld,
even if you had saluted us sooner; but so shall it be even now."
CHAP. XIII
Hoskuld Returns to Iceland, A.D. 948
[Sidenote: King Hakon bids Hoskuld farewell] After that the king
received Hoskuld most graciously, and bade him come on board his
own ship, and "be with us so long as you care to remain in Norway."
Hoskuld answered: "Thank you for your offer; but now, this summer, I
have much to be busy about, and that is mostly the reason I was so
long before I came to see you, for I wanted to get for myself
house-timber." The king bade him bring his ship in to the Wick, and
Hoskuld tarried with the king for a while. The king got house-timber
for him, and had his ship laden for him. Then the king said to
Hoskuld, "You shall not be delayed here longer than you like, though
we shall find it difficult to find a man to take your place." After
that the king saw Hoskuld off to his ship, and said: "I have found you
an honourable man, and now my mind misgives me that you are sailing
for the last time from Norway, whilst I am lord over that land." The
king drew a gold ring off his arm that weighed a mark, and gave it to
Hoskuld; and he gave him for another gift a sword on which there was
half a mark of gold. Hoskuld thanked the king for his gifts, and for
all the honour he had done him. [Sidenote: Hoskuld's arrival in
Iceland] After that Hoskuld went on board his ship, and put to sea.
They had a fair wind, and hove in to the south of Iceland; and after
that sailed west by Reekness, and so by Snowfellness in to Broadfirth.
Hoskuld landed at Salmon-river-Mouth. He had the cargo taken out of
his ship, which he took into the river and beached, having a shed
built for it. A ruin is to be seen now where he built the shed. There
he set up his booths, and that place is called Booths'-Dale. After
that Hoskuld had the timber taken home, which was very easy, as it was
not far off. Hoskuld rode home after that with a few men, and was
warmly greeted, as was to be looked for. He found that all his
belongings had been kept well since he left. Jorunn asked, "What woman
that was who journeyed with him?" Hoskuld answered, "You will think I
am giving you a mocking answer when I tell you that I do not know her
name." Jorunn said, "One of two things there must be: either the talk
is a lie that has come to my ears, or you must have spoken to her so
much as to have asked her her name." Hoskuld said he could not gainsay
that, and so told her the truth, and bade that the woman should be
kindly treated, and said it was his wish she should stay in service
with them. Jorunn said, "I am not going to wrangle with the mistress
you have brought out of Norway, should she find living near me no
pleasure; least of all should I think of it if she is both deaf and
dumb." Hoskuld slept with his wife every night after he came home,
and had very little to say to the mistress. [Sidenote: Melkorka's
history discovered] Every one clearly saw that there was something
betokening high birth in the way she bore herself, and that she was no
fool. Towards the end of the winter Hoskuld's mistress gave birth to a
male child. Hoskuld was called, and was shown the child, and he
thought, as others did, that he had never seen a goodlier or a more
noble-looking child. Hoskuld was asked what the boy should be called.
He said it should be named Olaf, for Olaf Feilan had died a little
time before, who was his mother's brother. Olaf was far before other
children, and Hoskuld bestowed great love on the boy. The next summer
Jorunn said, "That the woman must do some work or other, or else go
away." Hoskuld said she should wait on him and his wife, and take care
of her boy besides. When the boy was two years old he had got full
speech, and ran about like children of four years old. Early one
morning, as Hoskuld had gone out to look about his manor, the weather
being fine, and the sun, as yet little risen in the sky, shining
brightly, it happened that he heard some voices of people talking; so
he went down to where a little brook ran past the home-field slope,
and he saw two people there whom he recognised as his son Olaf and his
mother, and he discovered she was not speechless, for she was talking
a great deal to the boy. Then Hoskuld went to her and asked her her
name, and said it was useless for her to hide it any longer. She said
so it should be, and they sat down on the brink of the field.
[Sidenote: Of Melkorka's family] Then she said, "If you want to know
my name, I am called Melkorka." Hoskuld bade her tell him more of her
kindred. She answered, "Myr Kjartan is the name of my father, and he
is a king in Ireland; and I was taken a prisoner of war from there
when I was fifteen winters old." Hoskuld said she had kept silence far
too long about so noble a descent. After that Hoskuld went on, and
told Jorunn what he had just found out during his walk. Jorunn said
that she "could not tell if this were true," and said she had no
fondness for any manner of wizards; and so the matter dropped. Jorunn
was no kinder to her than before, but Hoskuld had somewhat more to say
to her. A little while after this, when Jorunn was going to bed,
Melkorka was undressing her, and put her shoes on the floor, when
Jorunn took the stockings and smote her with them about the head.
Melkorka got angry, and struck Jorunn on the nose with her fist, so
that the blood flowed. Hoskuld came in and parted them. After that he
let Melkorka go away, and got a dwelling ready for her up in
Salmon-river-Dale, at the place that was afterwards called
Melkorkastad, which is now waste land on the south of the Salmon
river. Melkorka now set up household there, and Hoskuld had everything
brought there that she needed; and Olaf, their son, went with her. It
was soon seen that Olaf, as he grew up, was far superior to other men,
both on account of his beauty and courtesy.
CHAP. XIV
The Murder of Hall, Ingjald's Brother
[Sidenote: The fishing at Bjorn isles] Ingjald was the name of a man.
He lived in Sheepisles, that lie out in Broadfirth. He was called
Sheepisles' Priest. He was rich, and a mighty man of his hand. Hall
was the name of his brother. He was big, and had the makings of a man
in him; he was, however, a man of small means, and looked upon by most
people as an unprofitable sort of man. The brothers did not usually
agree very well together. Ingjald thought Hall did not shape himself
after the fashion of doughty men, and Hall thought Ingjald was but
little minded to lend furtherance to his affairs. There is a fishing
place in Broadfirth called Bjorn isles. These islands lie many
together, and were profitable in many ways. At that time men went
there a great deal for the fishing, and at all seasons there were a
great many men there. Wise men set great store by people in outlying
fishing-stations living peacefully together, and said that it would be
unlucky for the fishing if there was any quarrelling; and most men
gave good heed to this. It is told how one summer Hall, the brother of
Ingjald, the Sheepisles' Priest, came to Bjorn isles for fishing.
[Sidenote: Thorolf's quarrel] He took ship as one of the crew with a
man called Thorolf. He was a Broadfirth man, and was well-nigh a
penniless vagrant, and yet a brisk sort of a man. Hall was there for
some time, and palmed himself off as being much above other men. It
happened one evening when they were come to land, Hall and Thorolf,
and began to divide the catch, that Hall wished both to choose and to
divide, for he thought himself the greater man of the two. Thorolf
would not give in, and there were some high words, and sharp things
were said on both sides, as each stuck to his own way of thinking. So
Hall seized up a chopper that lay by him, and was about to heave it at
Thorolf's head, but men leapt between them and stopped Hall; but he
was of the maddest, and yet unable to have his way as at this time.
The catch of fish remained undivided. Thorolf betook himself away that
evening, and Hall took possession of the catch that belonged to them
both, for then the odds of might carried the day. Hall now got another
man in Thorolf's place in the boat, and went on fishing as before.
Thorolf was ill-contented with his lot, for he felt he had come to
shame in their dealings together; yet he remained in the islands with
the determination to set straight the humble plight to which he had
been made to bow against his will. [Sidenote: Hall's death] Hall, in
the meantime, did not fear any danger, and thought that no one would
dare to try to get even with him in his own country. So one
fair-weather day it happened that Hall rowed out, and there were three
of them together in the boat. The fish bit well through the day, and
as they rowed home in the evening they were very merry. Thorolf kept
spying about Hall's doings during the day, and is standing in the
landing-place when Hall came to land. Hall rowed in the forehold of
the boat, and leapt overboard, intending to steady the boat; and as he
jumped to land Thorolf happens to be standing near, and forthwith hews
at him, and the blow caught him on his neck against the shoulder, and
off flew his head. Thorolf fled away after that, and Hall's followers
were all in a flurried bustle about him. The story of Hall's murder
was told all over the islands, and every one thought it was indeed
great news; for the man was of high birth, although he had had little
good luck. Thorolf now fled from the islands, for he knew no man there
who would shelter him after such a deed, and he had no kinsmen he
could expect help from; while in the neighbourhood were men from whom
it might be surely looked for that they would beset his life, being
moreover men of much power, such as was Ingjald, the Sheepisles'
Priest, the brother of Hall. [Sidenote: Thorolf's flight] Thorolf got
himself ferried across to the mainland. He went with great secrecy.
Nothing is told of his journey, until one evening he came to
Goddistead. Vigdis, the wife of Thord Goddi, was some sort of relation
to Thorolf, and on that account he turned towards that house. Thorolf
had also heard before how matters stood there, and how Vigdis was
endowed with a good deal more courage than Thord, her husband. And
forthwith the same evening that Thorolf came to Goddistead he went to
Vigdis to tell her his trouble, and to beg her help. Vigdis answered
his pleading in this way: "I do not deny our relationship, and in this
way alone I can look upon the deed you have done, that I deem you in
no way the worser man for it. Yet this I see, that those who shelter
you will thereby have at stake their lives and means, seeing what
great men they are who will be taking up the blood-suit. And Thord,"
she said, "my husband, is not much of a warrior; but the counsels of
us women are mostly guided by little foresight if anything is wanted.
Yet I am loath to keep aloof from you altogether, seeing that, though
I am but a woman, you have set your heart on finding some shelter
here." After that Vigdis led him to an outhouse, and told him to wait
for her there, and put a lock on the door. Then she went to Thord, and
said, "A man has come here as a guest, named Thorolf. He is some sort
of relation of mine, and I think he will need to dwell here some long
time if you will allow it." Thord said he could not away with men
coming to put up at his house, but bade him rest there over the next
day if he had no trouble on hand, but otherwise he should be off at
his swiftest. [Sidenote: Vigdis takes in Thorolf] Vigdis answered, "I
have offered him already to stay on, and I cannot take back my word,
though he be not in even friendship with all men." After that she
told Thord of the slaying of Hall, and that Thorolf who was come there
was the man who had killed him. Thord was very cross-grained at this,
and said he well knew how that Ingjald would take a great deal of
money from him for the sheltering that had been given him already,
seeing that doors here have been locked after this man. Vigdis
answered, "Ingjald shall take none of your money for giving one
night's shelter to Thorolf, and he shall remain here all this winter
through." Thord said, "In this manner you can checkmate me most
thoroughly, but it is against my wish that a man of such evil luck
should stay here." Still Thorolf stayed there all the winter. Ingjald,
who had to take up the blood-suit for his brother, heard this, and so
arrayed him for a journey into the Dales at the end of the winter, and
ran out a ferry of his whereon they went twelve together. They sailed
from the west with a sharp north-west wind, and landed in
Salmon-river-Mouth in the evening. They put up their ferry-boat, and
came to Goddistead in the evening, arriving there not unawares, and
were cheerfully welcomed. Ingjald took Thord aside for a talk with
him, and told him his errand, and said he had heard of Thorolf, the
slayer of his brother, being there. [Sidenote: Ingjald's bargain with
Thord] Thord said there was no truth in that. Ingjald bade him not to
deny it. "Let us rather come to a bargain together: you give up the
man, and put me to no toil in the matter of getting at him. I have
three marks of silver that you shall have, and I will overlook the
offences you have brought on your hands for the shelter given to
Thorolf." Thord thought the money fair, and had now a promise of
acquittal of the offences for which he had hitherto most dreaded and
for which he would have to abide sore loss of money. So he said, "I
shall no doubt hear people speak ill of me for this, none the less
this will have to be our bargain." They slept until it wore towards
the latter end of the night, when it lacked an hour of day.
CHAP. XV
Thorolf's Escape with Asgaut the Thrall
Ingjald and his men got up and dressed. Vigdis asked Thord what his
talk with Ingjald had been about the evening before. Thord said they
had talked about many things, amongst others how the place was to be
ransacked, and how they should be clear of the case if Thorolf was not
found there. "So I let Asgaut, my thrall, take the man away." Vigdis
said she had no fondness for lies, and said she should be very loath
to have Ingjald sniffing about her house, but bade him, however, do as
he liked. After that Ingjald ransacked the place, and did not hit upon
the man there. [Sidenote: The flight of Thorolf and Asgaut] At that
moment Asgaut came back, and Vigdis asked him where he had parted with
Thorolf. Asgaut replied, "I took him to our sheephouses as Thord told
me to." Vigdis replied, "Can anything be more exactly in Ingjald's way
as he returns to his ship? nor shall any risk be run, lest they should
have made this plan up between them last night. I wish you to go at
once, and take him away as soon as possible. You shall take him to
Sheepfell to Thorolf; and if you do as I tell you, you shall get
something for it. I will give you your freedom and money, that you may
go where you will." Asgaut agreed to this, and went to the sheephouse
to find Thorolf, and bade him get ready to go at once. At this time
Ingjald rode out of Goddistead, for he was now anxious to get his
money's worth. As he was come down from the farmstead (into the plain)
he saw two men coming to meet him; they were Thorolf and Asgaut. This
was early in the morning, and there was yet but little daylight.
Asgaut and Thorolf now found themselves in a hole, for Ingjald was on
one side of them and the Salmon River on the other. The river was
terribly swollen, and there were great masses of ice on either bank,
while in the middle it had burst open, and it was an ill-looking river
to try to ford. Thorolf said to Asgaut, "It seems to me we have two
choices before us. One is to remain here and fight as well as valour
and manhood will serve us, and yet the thing most likely is that
Ingjald and his men will take our lives without delay; and the other
is to tackle the river, and yet that, I think, is still a somewhat
dangerous one." Asgaut said that Thorolf should have his way, and he
would not desert him, "whatever plan you are minded to follow in this
matter." [Sidenote: The crossing of the river] Thorolf said, "We will
make for the river, then," and so they did, and arrayed themselves as
light as possible. After this they got over the main ice, and plunged
into the water. And because the men were brave, and Fate had ordained
them longer lives, they got across the river and upon the ice on the
other side. Directly after they had got across, Ingjald with his
followers came to the spot opposite to them on the other side of the
river. Ingjald spoke out, and said to his companions, "What plan shall
we follow now? Shall we tackle the river or not?" They said he should
choose, and they would rely on his foresight, though they thought the
river looked impassable. Ingjald said that so it was, and "we will
turn away from the river;" and when Thorolf and Asgaut saw that
Ingjald had made up his mind not to cross the river, they first wring
their clothes and then make ready to go on. They went on all that day,
and came in the evening to Sheepfell. They were well received there,
for it was an open house for all guests; and forthwith that same
evening Asgaut went to see Thorolf Rednose, and told him all the
matters concerning their errand, "how Vigdis, his kinswoman, had sent
him this man to keep in safety." Asgaut also told him all that had
happened between Ingjald and Thord Goddi; therewithal he took forth
the tokens Vigdis had sent. Thorolf replied thus, "I cannot doubt
these tokens. I shall indeed take this man in at her request. I
think, too, that Vigdis has dealt most bravely with this matter and it
is a great pity that such a woman should have so feeble a husband. And
you, Asgaut, shall dwell here as long as you like." Asgaut said he
would tarry there for no length of time
|
who will have to pass that way to-night.
Now for the southern road." The forked stick was there also, denoting
safety; but the next cavity contained a number of pebbles arranged two
in a row, while in the centre was stuck a bit of red leaf. The boys
immediately comprehended the signal. "Four, eight, ten horsemen," said
Hubert, with a troubled look, "brother, is there not danger there?"
"Certainly, Arundel's men can not be far off," said Geoffrey,
thoughtfully, "probably though beyond Norris's Ford, else Peter Lainton
had heard something. I will put the signal for him to be on the watch,
perhaps they are only bound for Bristol, where they say there has been
some trouble between the troops and the people." While he was speaking,
he had been looking around for the twig of a tree. Having found it, he
peeled the bark off it in rings, and partly breaking off the top, stuck
it in the ground in the hollow opening to the southern road, and
scratched two marks in the ground behind it. "Two hours after sunset,"
said Hubert, "is not that rather soon? There will be full moon
to-night." "Still, father says it were better for him to start early
than late, there is no telling when the soldiers may be here. How is it
with the London road?" This hole contained two peeled sticks tied with
cords in several places, and bent over toward the south-east. Around
them were grouped several black beans. Too well the boys knew the
meaning of the signal. The road to which it referred led to London. On
that road had been seen, that morning, two Lollards, one a preacher, for
one of the sticks was pointed a little at the top, and the black beans
represented the dreaded emissaries of the church. The boys looked at
each other; one name was trembling on the lips of both, but it was too
fearful a thought to utter. There had been no preacher to their
knowledge in the forest save him whose holy words had filled them with
such awe and rapture the previous night. For John Beverly to be taken
before Arundel's court was certain death, and death in its most fearful
shape, the lingering agony of the chain and the flame.
Geoffrey's face grew pale, and he bent closer over the little signal as
though he hoped to discover some additional circumstance that might
contradict his suppositions. It was not absolutely certain that the
prisoner and the preacher were the same. Beverly had intended to take
the northern road; but it was very likely that he had heard of the band
of soldiers there, and had turned aside. With this poor comfort they
were forced to be content, and silently turned their steps toward the
Tower.
Sir John heard their tidings, and construed them even more favorably
than his son. The preacher, he said, when he believed his duty called
him in a certain direction, was not one to turn back through fear. He
had firmly signified his intention of meeting an assembly of Lollards in
Flintshire the following Sabbath. At any rate, it were better not to
alarm Lord Cobham with these uncertainties. Hubert's spirits rose at
this new view of the case; but Geoffrey read in his father's face a
contradiction of his words. Still he said nothing, but followed him to
the room in the hall.
Lord Cobham laid aside the Bible from which he had been reading, and
replied to their respectful salutations that he had slept well, and was
quite refreshed. He then turned to Geoffrey, and looked earnestly at
his tall, well-proportioned form and sinewy limbs. "Wouldst thou be a
soldier, my son?" he said.
"Yea, my lord," replied the boy, "so I be able to fight for freedom and
God's word."
The old soldier's face glowed at hearing the brave words; but he said
nothing, only turned to the younger.
"And what wouldst thou do, my son?"
"O my lord!" said Hubert, his voice quivering with the strong emotion
working in his breast, "could I but preach the word, as doth the good
man who has just left us, then were I highly favored."
"The Lord grant thee thy desire, my child!" said Cobham. "Yea, and I
think he will; for there is none that striveth to do his work unto whom
some part shall not be given. It may not be according to his desire, in
the way which he has marked out for himself; but to work in the Lord's
vineyard will not be denied him. But come, let us see how thou wilt
teach the people. Wouldst thou tell him who has done evil to go and
confess him to the priest that he may, by him, be absolved, and then go
and sin over again?"
"Nay, surely," answered the boy, his eye kindling, "for the priest hath
no power by his word to forgive sins, but God only; neither will _he_ do
it unless the sinner earnestly repent him of his sins, steadfastly
purposing to lead a new life in the future, by God's help. Unto the
Lord only must the people shrive themselves."
"Yet the priests will tell thee that in the Scriptures standeth this
verse: 'Confess your sins one to another.' What sayest thou then?"
"Let the priest bend the knee before me and the people, and confess his
wickedness; then at the end--if there be any end--I will in my turn
shrive myself to him, and to all people, for so saith the Scriptures."
Cobham smiled at the boy's logic.
"True, my son, thou sayest rightly; but suppose then that they put thee
to the test, how instructest thou the people then?"
"I shall tell the people," said the boy stoutly, "that there is no more
of the real flesh and blood of our Saviour in the wafer and wine of the
holy mysteries after the words of consecration than before."
"Yet, my son, beware lest thou then fall into error. Christ doth say
when he presenteth the paten and the chalice to his disciples, 'This is
my body, this is my blood;' therefore he _is_ present under the form of
bread and wine in the sacrament, though the substance of the bread and
wine be still therein contained. Take heed not to fall into the great
error either of declaring the elements to be absolutely changed into the
flesh and blood of Christ, or, on the other hand, of denying his perfect
spiritual presence in the mysteries he has ordained. Thou hast been
well taught; hold fast the form of sound words contained in this Holy
Book, then shall our Lord hold thee fast in his heavenly kingdom. But
now, my son, thou knowest well that the priest is not convinced by this,
but is rather incensed thereby, because he loveth darkness rather than
light; and to stop thy mouth he will excommunicate thee as a heretic
forever from the church of God. What will thou do then?"
To understand the full force of excommunication, we must remember that
the excommunicated person was put under a sentence of absolute outlawry.
His relations and friends were forbidden to give him any comfort or
assistance under penalty of the same curse. None might give or sell him
shelter, food, or clothing; and at his death his unburied body was cast
into unhallowed ground, or left for the beasts and birds of prey to feed
upon.
The boy did not shrink from the dreadful picture thus brought before his
mind, but said quietly:
"He who hath made the heavens saith: 'I shut and no man openeth, and I
open and no man shutteth.' Their power then is only in words which
cannot hurt the soul. Having favor with God, who alone is powerful,
wherefore care we for the wrath of men?"
"Truly saith the lad, Sir John," cried Cobham, cheerily, "if we have the
lion on our side, care we for the barking of the foxes? But listen now:
they will not stop here, but will then deliver thee to the secular
power, and thou mayest languish long years in a dungeon. What sayest
thou to that?"
"Paul and Silas sang for joy in their prison-house, and angels have
visited oftentimes the prisons of the saints and loosened their bonds."
"Yet again," said the Lollard, rising and fixing his dark, piercing eye
full on the boy's face. "Yet once more: the dungeon, be it never so
dark, is too fair a dwelling for the heretic. They will gird thee in an
iron chain and hang thee on the accursed gallows, and kindle under thee
the smarting flame which will slowly creep up thy quivering limbs as
though loath to end thy sufferings. Think, boy, of the smart, of the
anguish--think and answer before God and man--wilt thou die for the
Lord's sake?"
For a moment Hubert grew very pale--his whole frame seemed to shrink
with horror from the thought. Every quivering nerve cried out to him to
draw back; but the faith in that young heart was strong, and triumphed.
The blood rushed back into his face, and tears, not of sorrow, dimmed
the fire of his eyes:
"_I will, so help me Christ!_"
*CHAPTER IV.*
_*Farewell To Home.*_
"Look you, John De Forest," said the Lord of Cobham solemnly, "wilt thou
give this thy son unto the Lord, that he may serve the Lord from his
youth? God hath surely put his mark upon him in that he hath taken away
from him both the love and the fear of the world. The Lord receiveth
not the grudged gift, the Lord loveth the cheerful giver; answer then
from the heart before God and man--wilt thou give this thy son unto the
Lord or no?"
John De Forest bowed his head upon his hands for a moment, then raised
it, and said firmly:
"Yea, truly, as the Lord hath given them to me, so give I them back into
his hands."
Silence reigned in the room for some moments; Sir John had sunk his head
upon his hands again; then the old Lollard arose, and laying his hands
on the boys' heads, blessed them in scripture phrase:
"The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord look upon you with his mercy.
I pray not that he may give unto you the peace of this world; in these
latter days Christ is making true his word that he came to send a sword
into the world, and peace is the portion of the coward. The Lord give
unto you a Christian warfare, a martyr's death, a victor's crown!"
John De Cobham next proceeded to inform the boys concerning the
arrangements which he and their father had made for them. The latter
was anxious for them to be away from the Tower for various reasons. He
was fully aware that an attack upon it was meditated by Arundel, and he
wished his sons, who could be no assistance to him, to be as far removed
from the danger as possible. Then, besides, he wished that they should
enjoy the instructions of some learned man, an advantage it was
impossible for them to obtain in their retired home. Lord Cobham agreed
with him, and mentioned a certain Roger Markham, formerly curate of
Romney in Kent. The nobleman was also desirous of sending messages
concerning his escape and other matters to his friends in London, for
which place he wished the boys immediately to depart.
Geoffrey's free, high spirit longed for more of the world than was to be
seen from the narrow boundaries of the Tower domain. He had been once
to London, and it seemed to him a land of delights; so that the very
thought of going there to view all its wonders, and mingle with those of
his own age, caused his face to flush with pleasure and his heart to
beat fast with hope. Hubert's heart also leaped for joy; but his
thoughts were not his brother's thoughts. His prayer was answered; he
might now go forth and labor for the Lord, and learn how to preach the
glad gospel tidings--gospel in the fullest sense of the word, good news
of freedom from Satan's chain, and the galling yoke of popish
traditions. He might read the whole of those tracts from the pen of
Wickliffe, of which he had only as yet seen fragments. But more than
all, he might see a _whole Bible_! The one which his father had
procured with difficulty, and kept with danger, was not entire--some
chapters from the New Testament were wanting, and nearly all the
historical books of the Old. These this Lollard child longed to feast
upon with an earnestness which would shame many a Christian of the
present day, whose legible, perfect Bible is ever _at_ his hand, but
seldom _in_ it.
These joyful thoughts were followed by painful ones. Their father, who
had been the only companion and protector of their solitary boyhood,
father and mother in one, was united to them by no common tie. They had
shared, as children seldom do, not only in his cares, and doubts, and
sorrows, but also in his joys, and hopes, and consolation. Him they
must leave, and also the dear old Tower, every corner of which was
associated with pleasant home remembrances, and it must be a long time
before they saw either their home or their father again, if, in these
uncertain times, they ever should. But the Lord had need of them; they
had put their hands to the plough--should they draw back?
Lord Cobham next handed them some folded pieces of parchment. "This
one," he said, "ye shall show at such places as ye stop; they will then
receive you in my name, or rather"--and the Lollard bowed low--"in the
name and for the sake of Him whom I serve. Ye shall tell them of my
safety, no more; also that they be of good cheer and hold fast the Lord
Jesus Christ, looking to the reward. And when ye arrive at the city, ye
shall go straight to the house of Philip Naseby, a trader, who dwells
near Whitefriars, just by the bridge. Ye shall give him this
watchword--not openly, but in the midst of other words--'The Lord is my
help all the day long;' and he will answer: 'How long is the day?' When
ye are entirely alone with him, bid him tell Sir Roger Ashton that the
bird has flown to the mountain. Will ye remember all this?"
The texts were familiar to both the boys, and besides, they were too
much accustomed to the various methods of communicating by signals not
to perceive their signification and importance; and having indicated
their assent, Cobham continued:
"These letters the trader will give as they are directed; but this last
ye shall give yourselves to good Roger Markham, and he will instruct you
in all useful and clerkly things, for he is well learned in the schools
of Oxford. In due time, my son, thou shalt preach; but see that thou
preach only 'Christ and him crucified,' so shall his Spirit rest upon
thee and thy labors, and shall instruct thee, as no man can, in the holy
mysteries. The Lord bless you both and give you of his work to do,
whether it be to sit and wait his good pleasure, or to teach his
doctrines unto men, or to die for the truth's sake. He keepeth the
reward, and verily it can never fail."
It did not take either of the boys long to prepare for their journey.
The letters and a few pages of Scripture were sewed into the inner
lining of their tunics, a wallet containing some provision was hung at
their sides, and, staff in hand, like the patriarchs of old, they stood.
Their father was too poor to give them horses, and the long, weary
journey must be made on foot.
It would not have been wise to depart openly, so when the sun had set
more than an hour, they, with Lord Cobham, passed along one of the
subterranean passages which opened far out into the open country. There
they parted with the noble Lollard. He, with their father, who was to
accompany him a few miles on his way, turned toward the Welsh mountains;
they, with stout hearts, but tear-filled eyes, set their faces toward
the east.
Half an hour later they stood on the summit of a hill overlooking the
tower. The full moon was casting its sheets of silver over the brown
autumn landscape. The storm of the preceding night had entirely passed
away, and only left a breezy freshness in the evening air. Far to the
west loomed up the mountains of Wales, their peaks already glistening
with snow. Far beneath them in the valley lay their home. The gray
towers cast their shadows across the moat, and looked even more massive
than they were in reality. Only a single light appeared in the buttery
window, like a twinkling star. Never had the scene appeared so lovely
to the young Lollards as it did when they were about leaving it, perhaps
forever. But again the boys' thoughts were different. The elder looked
back to the long, unbroken line of ancestry which for so many hundred
years had looked upon those walls and said, "They are mine." Far to the
right hand and left lay the broad acres of woodland and pasturage which
had owned his grandsire lord. Now all was changed. Close and narrow
were the lines which bounded the patrimony one day to be his. But why?
Were his arms less sinewy, his frame less well-knit than all the
Geoffreys, and Johns, and Richards that had gone before? Why should
Henry the usurper, who had no more just claim to the throne of England
than himself, have a right to take away his father's lands because he
would not forsake the cause of his rightful monarch? And now he, and the
brother he loved so well, must become dependents on the bounty of others
because they wished to read the word of God in their own tongue, and
worship him in their own way. Must this always last? Should the
oppressor always walk about the earth?
God thinks it right to speak no more to men in dreams and visions, or to
point out to them the dim shadows of coming events. Faith in his wisdom
is to be our only guide. But do I err when I say that sometimes the
Comforter, who is expressly said to take of the things of God and show
them unto us, whispers to the fainting soul words of cheering, and
lifts, though it be but a very little way, the veil that hides the
future? Thus it was with the Lollard boys. A voice in their hearts
said to their inward eyes, "Ephatha!" be ye opened! and straightway they
saw dimly, but surely, a glorious sight. The looked-for time of
refreshing they saw arrived; England, their beautiful England, was free;
and the pure Word of God in all its sweetness and power, reigned in
every heart and home. The night of popish ignorance had fled away
forever, the martyr's blood had ceased dropping its precious seed into
the earth, and instead thereof had sprung up an abundant harvest through
the length and breadth of the world. Thus it was that the elder
brother's heart responded joyfully to the younger's lips in the sublime
words of the prophet:
"Arise, shine; for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen
upon thee. For behold, the darkness shall cover the earth, and thick
darkness the people; but the Lord shall arise upon thee, and his glory
shall be seen upon thee. Violence shall no more be heard in thy land,
wasting nor destruction within thy borders; but thou shalt call thy
walls Salvation, and thy gates Praise. Therefore the redeemed of the
Lord shall return and come with singing to Zion, and everlasting joy
shall be upon their head: they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow
and sighing shall flee away."
And then he added the words of a greater than Isaiah: "Verily I say unto
you, there is no one that hath left houses, or brethren, or sisters, or
father, or mother, or wife, or children, for my sake and the Gospel's,
but he shall receive an hundred-fold now in this present time, houses,
and brethren, and sisters, and mothers, and children, and lands, with
persecutions; and in the world to come, _life everlasting_."
One quick glance they cast toward their earthly possessions, and a long
eager one toward their heavenly home--then they passed on their way.
*CHAPTER V.*
_*In London.*_
The snow was falling fast and thick in London, covering with its pure
mantle the quaint houses which formed that part of the metropolis called
White Friars, and making the Thames, which flowed close under their
walls, look all the blacker by contrast. Upon one of the bridges
spanning this river, stood the two young Lollards. They looked very
weary and travel-worn, and the younger had sunk down exhausted on one of
the stone seats. They had been more than a month on their journey,
having been detained more than once by storms and sickness, so that the
month of December was fairly commenced. Hubert had suffered most from
the fatigue, cold, and exposure, but even Geoffrey looked pale and
weary, though he strove to cheer his brother with the thought of how
near they were to their journey's end, and of the wonders that lay
before them.
"Look, Hubert! this is the bridge we were told of, and yonder high wall
must be White Friars; it cannot be many steps to good Philip Naseby's."
Then as the other did not seem to attend, he added, lower: "We must not
be seen loitering here as though we were strangers--Mark Catliffe may
have dispatched word of our coming, and it were best to be among friends
ere our enemies know we have come."
The boy raised himself with an effort, and they proceeded. Fortunately,
it was but a stone's throw; and having passed under the high wall of the
monastery, they turned into a narrow lane, and stopped at the open front
of a shop. The master stood upon the step; they both knew him from the
description they had heard of him; but it was best to be on the safe
side; so they approached as though wishing to purchase.
"Have you a warm cloak, master trader, that may serve to keep the snow
and rain from my shoulders this cold Christmas?"
The man looked rather suspiciously at the boys' tattered garments, but a
glance at their faces changed his tone to one of respect and pity. "The
Lord save you, young masters, it is truly but sorry weather to travel
in. Will ye not step in and rest a bit?"
"I thank you, Philip Naseby," said Geoffrey, stepping within the shop;
"the Lord is truly my help all the day long."
The trader's face lighted up as he gave the necessary answer to the
password, and grasping a hand of each, he led them to a little
back-apartment, and placed stools for them. He received them as eagerly
as though they were his nearest relations, though as yet he knew neither
their name nor their errand. Lord Cobham's message explained all, and
then they were overwhelmed with questions. Good news always makes the
bearers welcome, and the fact that they brought intelligence of Lord
Cobham's escape, as well as their father's name, was a full passport to
the honest trader's heart.
He called his wife, and having told her who were their guests, she
dispatched their daughter to bring some refreshment, while she and her
husband removed their torn and soaked outer garments.
"Poor boy!" said the good woman, as she noticed Hubert's bleeding and
blistered feet, "thou hast walked far to day?"
"A good twenty miles since midnight," sighed the weary child, the very
mention of the distance bringing back, with redoubled force, the memory
of suffering.
"But why did you not stop at the house of good Mark Catliffe, the miller
of Lianton? He has given a bed and a welcome to many a weary traveler,
and especially to those who love the Master."
Hubert's face grew very sad, but Geoffrey's eyes flashed with
indignation, and he answered before his brother could speak. "He is a
Judas; he hath sold his faith for silver; the Lord requite him!"
"How! sayest thou that Mark Catliffe is a renegade?" said the trader,
astonished.
"Ay, that he hath returned to the bosom of the holy church"--and the
boy's mouth curled with contempt--"and has received as a reward for
informing where the vile traitor, John Beverly, might be found, the
right to levy a large toll on the flour he grinds, and a good chest of
white money beside. He saith that it is his firm hope, that those
arch-traitors, Lord Cobham and John De Forest, will speedily be taken
and committed to the flames, their ashes being scattered to the winds,
and their souls sent to their father, the Devil; always praying the
saints that he may stand by and see."
The trader lifted up his hands and eyes in horror; but before he could
speak, his wife had asked eagerly:
"And how escaped ye, my young masters? Did he not try to deliver you up
also?"
"God delivered us from his hands, good dame," said the boy, reverently.
"As we drew near to his house, we heard him in conversation with the
priest, so while we waited behind the hedge for him to be through before
we presented ourselves, we heard his words. We fear he has sent a
messenger after us, for he observed us as we ran away; but we kept to
the by-paths and so escaped, but found no place to rest. But now, good
master Naseby, we will to our beds, if it please you, for we are sore
wearied."
The next day, Geoffrey told his host of the message he had from Lord
Cobham to Sir Roger Ashton.
"Then it was he who favored his escape," said the merchant. "I thought
as much. I am glad that holy man has escaped, but I would it were some
other than Sir Roger that must give his life for his friends."
"What do you mean?" exclaimed Geoffrey, "not that Sir Roger is a
prisoner?"
"Ay, ay," said the tradesman, mournfully, "in the self-same dungeon
whence he aided his friend to escape; and they say he is to be tried
this week, for treason and heresy, with John Beverly the preacher, and
many others; for Arundel is thirsting for blood all the more now his
nobler prey has escaped him. There is nothing left for them all but the
stake and the flame, and that right speedily."
The boy bowed his head on his hands in deep grief He saw again that
noble old man speaking, as though they were his own, the words of the
apostle: "If God be for us, who can be against us?" Now he was to prove
their truth; but the boy felt no fear of his failing; he was rather
trying to answer a question of his own heart, thinking whether he was
also ready, for never had death appeared so near. But quickly there
came to his mind the words of his Master, "I have prayed for you that
your faith fail not," and rousing himself, he spoke cheerfully to his
friend:
"Do you think I could see them?"
"I doubt it," replied the trader; "and yet you might if you made friends
with the keepers, under pretence of taking them something."
"I will go now," said the boy, rising, "lest it be too late to-morrow.
Give me that cloak of russet--I will change dresses with your
apprentice, and take it to Sir Roger as though he had ordered it."
In a few moments Geoffrey, with the bundle on his shoulder, had started
for the Tower. Philip Naseby accompanied him as far as he dared, then
pointed out the rest of the way, and left the young Lollard to go on his
perilous errand alone. The first gate was easily passed, as a party was
just entering, and having gone through the first, the porters at the
inner one did not attempt to detain him.
So far, so well; and, having had the position of the passages and
buildings pointed out to him, his retentive memory enabled him to find
his way without difficulty. He soon reached the guard-room filled with
idle soldiers, who were only too glad to find amusement in questioning,
and perhaps teasing the poor 'prentice. However, he tipped his cap a
little on one side, and began as bravely as possible.
"My masters, can you tell me in which part of this castle my Lord Sir
Roger Ashton, and John Beverly the preacher, are confined?"
"Halloo! who have we here?" exclaimed one of the soldiers, setting down
his cup of beer, and wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. "What
want you with the heretics, the traitors, the sniveling rogues? Hast
thou there a nice package of rope-ladder, and other comfortable things,
for their great relief and satisfaction, that they may fly out as did
that arch-traitor Cobham? Had I been Arundel, he should have had no
chance to try his wings; what need is there of a trial for a heretic who
worships the Devil? Let the Devil help his friends, say I, and I would
hasten their progress to their master by a good bonfire in the
market-place. I tell you," he said, bringing his great fist down on the
table with a force that made the pewter tankards and plates ring again,
"a heretic should have no more trial than my dog that had run mad."
During this speech Geoffrey had been unfastening his bundle, and now
held up the cloak before them. "Look ye, my masters, here is no
treason," he said humbly, "only a russet cloak which was ordered a week
ago, and now my master sends it. I pray you look at it; it is of good
cloth, and it were pity they should not see it."
"Ha! of good cloth, indeed! Confess your master stole it; it is as full
of holes as the sails of an Indian ship that hath stood many a blow in
the lower sea. Well, and how much doth your honest master receive for
such a pretty thing?"
This was a rather hard question for Geoffrey, for, having taken up the
trade only for the occasion, he had not the least idea what the usual
price of such an article was; so he had to answer as best he might.
"Two nobles, my gentle masters, which same is but little, seeing it is
fair cloth. Though not good enough, mayhap, for your worships, it will
keep out the rain and the cold."
"Then there is no need of it for those heretics yonder, for we are about
to fit on them so fine a garment of gay crimson, that having once tried
it on, they shall never more feel the cold and rain as we poor fellows
have to, but shall dance as gayly as harlequins at a fair. It will be a
sight to do the heart good of a true son of the church. Holy Virgin! I
would take an extra year in purgatory rather than miss that sight."
The boy's heart grew sick, and his cheek pale at the thought of the
fearful fate to which the soldier's jesting words referred; when another
man, with a pleasanter face, filled a cup and pushed it toward him,
saying:
"There, drink that, my lad, and it will bring back the color to your
face. When you have fought a few battles in France under king Harry,
and waded ankle-deep in the blood of the fine French gentry, you will
have a stouter heart. Come now, quit your trade and be one of us."
Geoffrey drank, and did feel stronger; but just as he was about to
answer, a stir within turned the attention of the whole company another
way. The door opened wide, and the Lieutenant of the Tower entered,
followed by the sheriff and other officers leading two men heavily
fettered.
Geoffrey looked up and recognized in one of the noble, kingly-looking
old men, the preacher he had come to seek, and he had no doubt but that
his companion was Sir Roger. In a moment the soldiers, at a word from
the Lieutenant, formed in a line on each side of the sheriffs, and
prepared to escort the prisoners to the place of trial. The boy had
nothing to do but to follow as fast as possible, and he saw the whole
train pass quickly through the various courts to the river-gate, and
there embarking in some barges ready manned with stout rowers, they
passed out of sight around an angle of the building.
*CHAPTER VI.*
_*The Trial.*_
Arundel sat in his seat of judgment in the great hall of one of the
monasteries belonging to the Dominican Friars. Beside him, in full
canonicals, sat the bishops of London, Winchester, and others, ready to
assist him, by their learning and authority, to cleanse the church from
the stains of heresy and schism. Below the table, where clerks sat
ready with pens and parchment to take down the evidence, there were men
of every degree and class. Friars in black, and friars in gray, friars
whose portly persons reminded the spectator more of midnight wassail
than of midnight prayer, and friars whose pale, hungry-looking faces,
gaunt bodies, and knotted scourges hanging at their sides, were in
strict conformity with the stern rule of Saint Benedict.
Pilgrims with "scallop-shell and sandal shoon," were gathered in little
knots, discussing the various merits of the different shrines and holy
places they had visited. One tall, stalwart-looking fellow related
that, after walking bare-headed, with dried peas in his shoes, to the
tomb of the holy St. Thomas à Becket, he had been suddenly cured of an
ulcer in the leg which had troubled him for five years. Here a little
man with a shrill voice interrupted him, and declared that nothing could
equal the efficacy of the holy water from the altar of our Lady of
Lorreto, and that her shrine was covered with offerings made to her by
those whose prayers for safety from danger and recovery from sickness
had been answered, even though they were far away. The sonorous voice
of a vender of reliquaries was now heard, declaring that a morsel of the
finger-nail of St. Bridget, which he had there in a leaden box, would
keep a sailor from even wetting his feet during the hardest storm that
ever blew on the Channel. He had also a crucifix, blessed by the Pope,
containing a hair of St. Joseph which would give to whoever wore it next
his heart long days of uninterrupted happiness and prosperity, and all
this for a single noble! A little at one side stood a pardoner with his
little pieces of parchment inscribed with pardons for every imaginable
sin, and covering various periods, from a week to a lifetime. The
prices were graded according to the enormity of the offence, and the
length of time; one poor fellow who had knocked down a priest having to
pay a mark, while another, who had only taken a chicken from his
neighbor's yard, went off happy and secure from all transgressions for
the next month, on the payment of a few groats. As he turned to a new
set of applicants, a sturdy begging friar went around beseeching, or
rather demanding, charity, in the name of all the saints in the
calendar.
But now pilgrim, pardoner, and beggar turned alike toward the
judgment-seat, for the crier had called upon John Beverly, Sir Roger
Ashton, and many others, to come into
|
,
when I solemnly declare that no earthly consideration shall ever
again make me promise you my hand, while the terror of Mrs Delvile's
displeasure has possession of my heart. And now adieu."
"You give me, then, up?"
"Be patient, I beseech you; and attempt not to follow me; 'tis a step I
cannot permit."
"Not follow you? And who has power to prevent me?"
"_I_ have, Sir, if to incur my endless resentment is of any consequence
to you."
She then, with an air of determined steadiness, moved on; Mrs Charlton,
assisted by the servants, being already upon the stairs.
"O tyranny!" cried he, "what submission is it you exact!--May I not even
enquire into the dreadful mystery of this morning?"
"Yes, certainly."
"And may I not acquaint you with it, should it be discovered?"
"I shall not be sorry to hear it. Adieu."
She was now half way down the stairs; when, losing all forbearance, he
hastily flew after her, and endeavouring to stop her, called out, "If
you do not hate and detest me,--if I am not loathsome and abhorrent to
you, O quit me not thus insensibly!--Cecilia! my beloved Cecilia!--speak
to me, at least, one word of less severity! Look at me once more, and
tell me we part not for-ever!"
Cecilia then turned round, and while a starting tear shewed her
sympathetic distress, said, "Why will you thus oppress me with
entreaties I ought not to gratify?--Have I not accompanied you to the
altar,--and can you doubt what I have thought of you?"
"_Have_ thought?--Oh Cecilia!--is it then all over?"
"Pray suffer me to go quietly, and fear not I shall go too happily!
Suppress your own feelings, rather than seek to awaken mine. Alas! there
is little occasion!--Oh Mr Delvile! were our connection opposed by no
duty, and repugnant to no friends, were it attended by no impropriety,
and carried on with no necessity of disguise,--you would not thus charge
me with indifference, you would not suspect me of insensibility,--Oh no!
the choice of my heart would then be its glory, and all I now blush to
feel, I should openly and with pride acknowledge!"
She then hurried to the chaise, Delvile pursuing her with thanks and
blessings, and gratefully assuring her, as he handed her into it, that
he would obey all her injunctions, and not even attempt to see her,
till he could bring her some intelligence concerning the morning's
transaction.
The chaise then drove off.
CHAPTER iii.
A CONSTERNATION.
The journey was melancholy and tedious: Mrs Charlton, extremely fatigued
by the unusual hurry and exercise both of mind and body which she had
lately gone through, was obliged to travel very slowly, and to lie upon
the road. Cecilia, however, was in no haste to proceed: she was going to
no one she wished to see, she was wholly without expectation of meeting
with any thing that could give her pleasure. The unfortunate expedition
in which she had been engaged, left her now nothing but regret, and only
promised her in future sorrow and mortification.
Mrs Charlton, after her return home, still continued ill, and Cecilia,
who constantly attended her, had the additional affliction of imputing
her indisposition to herself. Every thing she thought conspired to
punish the error she had committed; her proceedings were discovered,
though her motives were unknown; the Delvile family could not fail to
hear of her enterprize, and while they attributed it to her temerity,
they would exult in its failure: but chiefly hung upon her mind the
unaccountable prohibition of her marriage. Whence that could proceed
she was wholly without ability to divine, yet her surmizes were not more
fruitless than various. At one moment she imagined it some frolic of
Morrice, at another some perfidy of Monckton, and at another an idle
and unmeaning trick of some stranger to them all. But none of these
suppositions carried with them any air of probability; Morrice, even if
he had watched their motions and pursued them to the church, which his
inquisitive impertinence made by no means impossible, could yet hardly
have either time or opportunity to engage any woman in so extraordinary
an undertaking; Mr Monckton, however averse to the connection, she
considered as a man of too much honour to break it off in a manner so
alarming and disgraceful; and mischief so wanton in any stranger, seemed
to require a share of unfeeling effrontery, which could fall to the lot
of so few as to make this suggestion unnatural and incredible.
Sometimes she imagined that Delvile might formerly have been affianced
to some woman, who having accidentally discovered his intentions,
took this desperate method of rendering them abortive: but this was a
short-lived thought, and speedily gave way to her esteem for his general
character, and her confidence in the firmness of his probity.
All, therefore, was dark and mysterious; conjecture was baffled, and
meditation was useless. Her opinions were unfixed, and her heart was
miserable; she could only be steady in believing Delvile as unhappy as
herself, and only find consolation in believing him, also, as blameless.
Three days passed thus, without incident or intelligence; her time
wholly occupied in attending Mrs Charlton; her thoughts all engrossed
upon her own situation: but upon the fourth day she was informed that a
lady was in the parlour, who desired to speak with her.
She presently went down stairs,--and, upon entering the room, perceived
Mrs Delvile!
Seized with astonishment and fear, she stopt short, and, looking aghast,
held by the door, robbed of all power to receive so unexpected and
unwelcome a visitor, by an internal sensation of guilt, mingled with a
dread of discovery and reproach.
Mrs Delvile, addressing her with the coldest politeness, said, "I fear
I have surprised you; I am sorry I had not time to acquaint you of my
intention to wait upon you."
Cecilia then, moving from the door, faintly answered, "I cannot, madam,
but be honoured by your notice, whenever you are pleased to confer it."
They then sat down; Mrs Delvile preserving an air the most formal and
distant, and Cecilia half sinking with apprehensive dismay.
After a short and ill-boding silence, "I mean not," said Mrs Delvile,
"to embarrass or distress you; I will not, therefore, keep you in
suspense of the purport of my visit. I come not to make enquiries,
I come not to put your sincerity to any trial, nor to torture your
delicacy; I dispense with all explanation, for I have not one doubt to
solve: I _know_ what has passed, I _know_ that my son loves you."
Not all her secret alarm, nor all the perturbation of her fears, had
taught Cecilia to expect so direct an attack, nor enabled her to bear
the shock of it with any composure: she could not speak, she could
not look at Mrs Delvile; she arose, and walked to the window, without
knowing what she was doing.
Here, however, her distress was not likely to diminish; for the first
sight she saw was Fidel, who barked, and jumped up at the window to lick
her hands.
"Good God! Fidel here!" exclaimed Mrs Delvile, amazed.
Cecilia, totally overpowered, covered her glowing face with both her
hands, and sunk into a chair.
Mrs Delvile for a few minutes was silent; and then, following her, said,
"Imagine not I am making any discovery, nor suspect me of any design
to develop your sentiments. That Mortimer could love in vain I never,
believed; that Miss Beverley, possessing so much merit, could be blind
to it in another, I never thought possible. I mean not, therefore, to
solicit any account or explanation, but merely to beg your patience
while I talk to you myself, and your permission to speak to you with
openness and truth."
Cecilia, though relieved by this calmness from all apprehension of
reproach, found in her manner a coldness that convinced her of the loss
of her affection, and in the introduction to her business a solemnity
that assured her what she should decree would be unalterable. She
uncovered her face to shew her respectful attention, but she could not
raise it up, and could not utter a word.
Mrs Delvile then seated herself next her, and gravely continued her
discourse.
"Miss Beverley, however little acquainted with the state of our family
affairs, can scarcely have been uninformed that a fortune such as hers
seems almost all that family can desire; nor can she have failed to
observe, that her merit and accomplishments have no where been more felt
and admired: the choice therefore of Mortimer she could not doubt would
have our sanction, and when she honoured his proposals with her favour,
she might naturally conclude she gave happiness and pleasure to all his
friends."
Cecilia, superior to accepting a palliation of which she felt herself
undeserving, now lifted up her head, and forcing herself to speak,
said "No, madam, I will not deceive you, for I have never been deceived
myself: I presumed not to expect your approbation,--though in missing it
I have for ever lost my own!"
"Has Mortimer, then," cried she with eagerness, "been strictly
honourable? has he neither beguiled nor betrayed you?"
"No, madam," said she, blushing, "I have nothing to reproach him with."
"Then he is indeed my son!" cried Mrs Delvile, with emotion; "had he
been treacherous to you, while disobedient to us, I had indisputably
renounced him."
Cecilia, who now seemed the only culprit, felt herself in a state of
humiliation not to be borne; she collected, therefore, all her courage,
and said, "I have cleared Mr Delvile; permit me, madam, now, to say
something for myself."
"Certainly; you cannot oblige me more than by speaking without
disguise."
"It is not in the hope of regaining your good opinion,--that, I see, is
lost!--but merely--"
"No, not lost," said Mrs Delvile, "but if once it was yet higher, the
fault was my own, in indulging an expectation of perfection to which
human nature is perhaps unequal."
Ah, then, thought Cecilia, all is over! the contempt I so much feared is
incurred, and though it may be softened, it can never be removed!
"Speak, then, and with sincerity," she continued, "all you wish me to
hear, and then grant me your attention in return to the purpose of my
present journey."
"I have little, madam," answered the depressed Cecilia, "to say; you
tell me you already know all that has past; I will not, therefore,
pretend to take any merit from revealing it: I will only add, that my
consent to this transaction has made me miserable almost from the moment
I gave it; that I meant and wished to retract as soon as reflection
pointed out to me my error, and that circumstances the most perverse,
not blindness to propriety, nor stubbornness in wrong, led me to make,
at last, that fatal attempt, of which the recollection, to my last hour,
must fill me with regret and shame."
"I wonder not," said Mrs Delvile, "that in a situation where delicacy
was so much less requisite than courage, Miss Beverley should feel
herself distressed and unhappy. A mind such as hers could never err
with impunity; and it is solely from a certainty of her innate sense of
right, that I venture to wait upon her now, and that I have any hope
to influence _her_ upon whose influence alone our whole family must in
future depend. Shall I now proceed, or is there any thing you wish to
say first?"
"No, madam, nothing."
"Hear me, then, I beg of you, with no predetermination to disregard me,
but with an equitable resolution to attend to reason, and a candour that
leaves an opening to conviction. Not easy, indeed, is such a task, to
a mind pre-occupied with an intention to be guided by the dictates of
inclination,---"
"You wrong me, indeed, madam!" interrupted Cecilia, greatly hurt, "my
mind harbours no such intention, it has no desire but to be guided by
duty, it is wretched with a consciousness of having failed in it! I
pine, I sicken to recover my own good opinion; I should then no longer
feel unworthy of yours; and whether or not I might be able to regain it,
I should at least lose this cruel depression that now sinks me in your
presence!"
"To regain it," said Mrs Delvile, "were to exercise but half your power,
which at this moment enables you, if such is your wish, to make me think
of you more highly than one human being ever thought of another. Do you
condescend to hold this worth your while?"
Cecilia started at the question; her heart beat quick with struggling
passions; she saw the sacrifice which was to be required, and her pride,
her affronted pride, arose high to anticipate the rejection; but the
design was combated by her affections, which opposed the indignant
rashness, and told her that one hasty speech might separate her from
Delvile for ever. When this painful conflict was over, of which Mrs
Delvile patiently waited the issue, she answered, with much hesitation,
"To regain your good opinion, madam, greatly, truly as I value it,--is
what I now scarcely dare hope."
"Say not so," cried she, "since, if you hope, you cannot miss it. I
purpose to point out to you the means to recover it, and to tell you
how greatly I shall think myself your debtor if you refuse not to employ
them."
She stopt; but Cecilia hung back; fearful of her own strength, she dared
venture at no professions; yet, how either to support, or dispute her
compliance, she dreaded to think.
"I come to you, then," Mrs Delvile solemnly resumed, "in the name of Mr
Delvile, and in the name of our whole family; a family as ancient as
it is honourable, as honourable as it is ancient. Consider me as its
representative, and hear in me its common voice, common opinion, and
common address.
"My son, the supporter of our house, the sole guardian of its name, and
the heir of our united fortunes, has selected you, we know, for the lady
of his choice, and so fondly has, fixed upon you his affections, that
he is ready to relinquish us all in preference to subduing them. To
yourself alone, then, can we apply, and I come to you--"
"O hold, madam, hold!" interrupted Cecilia, whose courage now revived
from resentment, "I know, what you would say; you come to tell me of
your disdain; you come to reproach my presumption, and to kill me with
your contempt! There is little occasion for such a step; I am depressed,
I am self-condemned already; spare me, therefore, this insupportable
humiliation, wound me not with your scorn, oppress me not with your
superiority! I aim at no competition, I attempt no vindication, I
acknowledge my own littleness as readily as you can despise it, and
nothing but indignity could urge me to defend it!"
"Believe me," said Mrs Delvile, "I meant not to hurt or offend you, and
I am sorry if I have appeared to you either arrogant or assuming. The
peculiar and perilous situation of my family has perhaps betrayed me
into offensive expressions, and made me guilty myself of an ostentation
which in others has often disgusted me. Ill, indeed, can we any of us
bear the test of experiment, when tried upon those subjects which call
forth our particular propensities. We may strive to be disinterested,
we may struggle to be impartial, but self will still predominate, still
shew us the imperfection of our natures, and the narrowness of our
souls. Yet acquit me, I beg, of any intentional insolence, and imagine
not that in speaking highly of my own family, I, mean to depreciate
yours: on the contrary, I know it to be respectable, I know, too, that
were it the lowest in the kingdom, the first might envy it that it gave
birth to such a daughter."
Cecilia, somewhat soothed by this speech, begged her pardon for having
interrupted her, and she proceeded.
"To your family, then, I assure you, whatever may be the pride of our
own, _you_ being its offspring, we would not object. With your merit we
are all well acquainted, your character has our highest esteem, and
your fortune exceeds even our most sanguine desires. Strange at once
and afflicting! that not all these requisites for the satisfaction of
prudence, nor all these allurements for the gratification of happiness,
can suffice to fulfil or to silence the claims of either! There are yet
other demands to which we must attend, demands which ancestry and blood
call upon us aloud to ratify! Such claimants are not to be neglected
with impunity; they assert their rights with the authority of
prescription, they forbid us alike either to bend to inclination, or
stoop to interest, and from generation to generation their injuries
will call out for redress, should their noble and long unsullied name be
voluntarily consigned to oblivion!"
Cecilia, extremely struck by these words, scarce wondered, since so
strong and so established were her opinions, that the obstacle to her
marriage, though but one, should be considered as insuperable.
"Not, therefore, to _your_ name are we averse," she continued, "but
simply to our own more partial. To sink that, indeed, in _any_
other, were base and unworthy:--what, then, must be the shock of my
disappointment, should Mortimer Delvile, the darling of my hopes, the
last survivor of his house, in whose birth I rejoiced as the promise of
its support, in whose accomplishments I gloried, as the revival of its
lustre,--should _he_, should, _my_ son be the first to abandon it! to
give up the name he seemed born to make live, and to cause in effect its
utter annihilation!--Oh how should I know my son when an alien to his
family! how bear to think I had cherished in my bosom the betrayer of
its dearest interests, the destroyer of its very existence!"
Cecilia, scarce more afflicted than offended, now hastily answered, "Not
for me, madam, shall he commit this crime, not on _my_ account shall he
be reprobated by his family! Think of him, therefore, no more, with any
reference to me, for I would not be the cause of unworthiness or guilt
in him to be mistress of the universe!"
"Nobly said!" cried Mrs Delvile, her eyes sparkling with joy, and her
cheeks glowing with pleasure, "now again do I know Miss Beverley! now
again see the refined, the excellent young woman, whose virtues taught
me to expect the renunciation even of her own happiness, when found to
be incompatible with her duty!"
Cecilia now trembled and turned pale; she scarce knew herself what she
had said, but, she found by Mrs Delvile's construction of her words,
they had been regarded as her final relinquishing of her son. She
ardently wished to quit the room before she was called upon to confirm
the sentence, but, she had not courage to make the effort, nor to rise,
speak, or move.
"I grieve, indeed," continued Mrs Delvile, whose coldness and austerity
were changed into mildness and compassion, "at the necessity I have been
under to draw from you a concurrence so painful: but no other resource
was in my power. My influence with Mortimer, whatever it may be, I have
not any right to try, without obtaining your previous consent, since I
regard him myself as bound to you in honour, and only to be released by
your own virtuous desire. I will leave you, however, for my presence,
I see, is oppressive to you. Farewell; and when you _can_ forgive me, I
think you _will_."
"I have nothing, madam," said Cecilia, coldly, "to forgive; you have
only asserted your own dignity, and I have nobody to blame but myself,
for having given you occasion."
"Alas," cried Mrs Delvile, "if worth and nobleness of soul on your part,
if esteem and tenderest affection on mine, were all which that dignity
which offends you requires, how should I crave the blessing of such a
daughter! how rejoice in joining my son to excellence so like his own,
and ensuring his happiness while I stimulated his virtue!"
"Do not talk to me of affection, madam," said Cecilia, turning away from
her; "whatever you had for me is past,--even your esteem is gone,--you
may pity me, indeed, but your pity is mixed with contempt, and I am not
so abject as to find comfort from exciting it."
"O little," cried Mrs Delvile, looking at her with the utmost
tenderness, "little do you see the state of my heart, for never have you
appeared to me so worthy as at this moment! In tearing you from my son,
I partake all the wretchedness I give, but your own sense of duty must
something plead for the strictness with which I act up to mine."
She then moved towards the door.
"Is your carriage, madam," said Cecilia, struggling to disguise her
inward anguish under an appearance of sullenness, "in waiting?"
Mrs Delvile then came back, and holding out her hand, while her eyes
glistened with tears, said, "To part from you thus frigidly, while
my heart so warmly admires you, is almost more than I can endure. Oh
gentlest Cecilia! condemn not a mother who is impelled to this severity,
who performing what she holds to be her duty, thinks the office her
bitterest misfortune, who forsees in the rage of her husband, and the
resistance of her son, all the misery of domestic contention, and who
can only secure the honour of her family by destroying its peace!--You
will not, then, give me your hand?--"
Cecilia, who had affected not to see that she waited for it, now
coldly put it out, distantly [courtseying], and seeking to preserve
her steadiness by avoiding to speak. Mrs Delvile took it, and as she
repeated her adieu, affectionately pressed it to her lips; Cecilia,
starting, and breathing short, from encreasing yet smothered agitation,
called out "Why, why this condescension?--pray,--I entreat you,
madam!--"
"Heaven bless you, my love!" said Mrs Delvile, dropping a tear upon the
hand she still held, "heaven bless you, and restore the tranquillity you
so nobly deserve!"
"Ah madam!" cried Cecilia, vainly striving to repress any longer the
tears which now forced their way down her cheeks, "why will you break
my heart with this kindness! why will you still compel me to love!--when
now I almost wish to hate you!"--
"No, hate me not," said Mrs Delvile, kissing from her cheeks the tears
that watered them, "hate me not, sweetest Cecilia, though in wounding
your gentle bosom, I am almost detestable to myself. Even the cruel
scene which awaits me with my son will not more deeply afflict me. But
adieu,--I must now prepare for him!"
She then left the room: but Cecilia, whose pride had no power to resist
this tenderness, ran hastily after her, saying "Shall I not see you
again, madam?"
"You shall yourself decide," answered she; "if my coming will not give
you more pain than pleasure, I will wait upon you whenever you please."
Cecilia sighed and paused; she knew not what to desire, yet rather
wished any thing to be done, than quietly to sit down to uninterrupted
reflection.
"Shall I postpone quitting this place," continued Mrs Delvile, "till
to-morrow morning, and will you admit me this afternoon, should I call
upon you again?"
"I should be sorry," said she, still hesitating, "to detain you,"--
"You will rejoice me," cried Mrs Delvile, "by bearing me in your sight."
And she then went into her carriage.
Cecilia, unfitted to attend her old friend, and unequal to the task of
explaining to her the cruel scene in which she had just been engaged,
then hastened to her own apartment. Her hitherto stifled emotions broke
forth in tears and repinings: her fate was finally determined, and its
determination was not more unhappy than humiliating; she was openly
rejected by the family whose alliance she was known to wish; she
was compelled to refuse the man of her choice, though satisfied his
affections were her own. A misery so peculiar she found hard to support,
and almost bursting with conflicting passions, her heart alternately
swelled from offended pride, and sunk from disappointed tenderness.
CHAPTER iv.
A PERTURBATION.
Cecelia was still in this tempestuous state, when a message was brought
her that a gentleman was below stairs, who begged to have the honour of
seeing her. She concluded he was Delvile, and the thought of meeting him
merely to communicate what must so bitterly afflict him, redoubled her
distress, and she went down in an agony of perturbation and sorrow.
He met her at the door, where, before he could speak, "Mr Delvile,"
she cried, in a hurrying manner, "why will you come? Why will you thus
insist upon seeing me, in defiance of every obstacle, and in contempt of
my prohibition?"
"Good heavens," cried he, amazed, "whence this reproach? Did you not
permit me to wait upon you with the result of my enquiries? Had I
not your consent--but why do you look thus disturbed?--Your eyes are
red,--you have been weeping.--Oh my Cecilia! have I any share in your
sorrow?--Those tears, which never flow weakly, tell me, have they--has
_one_ of them been shed upon my account?"
"And what," cried she, "has been the result of your enquiries?--Speak
quick, for I wish to know,--and in another instant I must be gone."
"How strange," cried the astonished Delvile, "is this language! how
strange are these looks! What new has come to pass? Has any fresh
calamity happened? Is there yet some evil which I do not expect?"
"Why will you not answer first?" cried she; "when _I_ have spoken, you
will perhaps be less willing."
"You terrify, you shock, you amaze me! What dreadful blow awaits me? For
what horror are you preparing me?--That which I have just experienced,
and which tore you from me even at the foot of the altar, still remains
inexplicable, still continues to be involved in darkness and mystery;
for the wretch who separated us I have never been able to discover."
"Have you procured, then, no intelligence?"
"No, none; though since we parted I have never rested a moment."
"Make, then, no further enquiry, for now all explanation would be
useless. That we _were_ parted, we know, though _why_ we cannot tell:
but that again we shall ever meet---"
She, stopt; her streaming eyes cast upwards, and a deep sigh bursting
from her heart.
"Oh what," cried Delvile, endeavouring to take her hand, which she
hastily withdrew from him, "what does this mean? loveliest, dearest
Cecilia, my betrothed, my affianced wife! why flow those tears which
agony only can wring from you? Why refuse me that hand which so lately
was the pledge of your faith? Am I not the same Delvile to whom so few
days since you gave it? Why will you not open to him your heart? Why
thus distrust his honour, and repulse his tenderness? Oh why, giving him
such exquisite misery, refuse him the smallest consolation?"
"What consolation," cried the weeping Cecilia, "can I give? Alas! it is
not, perhaps, _you_ who most want it!--"
Here the door was opened by one of the Miss Charltons, who came into
the room with a message from her grandmother, requesting to see Cecilia.
Cecilia, ashamed of being thus surprised with Delvile, and in tears,
waited not either to make any excuse to him, or any answer to Miss
Charlton, but instantly hurried out of the room;--not, however, to
her old friend, whom now less than ever she could meet, but to her own
apartment, where a very short indulgence of grief was succeeded by the
severest examination of her own conduct.
A retrospection of this sort rarely brings much subject of exultation,
when made with the rigid sincerity of secret impartiality: so much
stronger is our reason than our virtue, so much higher our sense of duty
than our performance!
All she had done she now repented, all she had said she disapproved; her
conduct, seldom equal to her notions of right, was now infinitely below
them, and the reproaches of her judgment made her forget for a while the
afflictions which had misled it.
The sorrow to which she had openly given way in the presence of Delvile,
though their total separation but the moment before had been finally
decreed, she considered as a weak effusion of tenderness, injurious to
delicacy, and censurable by propriety. "His power over my heart," cried
she, "it were now, indeed, too late to conceal, but his power over my
understanding it is time to cancel. I am not to be his,--my own voice
has ratified the renunciation, and since I made it to his mother, it
must never, without her consent, be invalidated. Honour, therefore, to
her, and regard for myself, equally command me to fly him, till I cease
to be thus affected by his sight."
When Delvile, therefore, sent up an entreaty that he might be again
admitted into her presence, she returned for answer that she was not
well, and could not see any body.
He then left the house, and, in a few minutes, she received the
following note from him.
_To Miss Beverley_. You drive me from you, Cecilia, tortured with
suspense, and distracted with apprehension, you drive me from you,
certain of my misery, yet leaving me to bear it as I may! I would call
you unfeeling, but that I saw you were unhappy; I would reproach you
with tyranny, but that your eyes when you quitted me were swollen with
weeping! I go, therefore, I obey the harsh mandate, since my absence is
your desire, and I will shut myself up at Biddulph's till I receive
your commands. Yet disdain not to reflect that every instant will seem
endless, while Cecilia must appear to me unjust, or wound my very soul
by the recollection of her in sorrow. MORTIMER DELVILE.
The mixture of fondness and resentment with which this letter was
dictated, marked so strongly the sufferings and disordered state of the
writer, that all the softness of Cecilia returned when she perused it,
and left her not a wish but to lessen his inquietude, by assurances
of unalterable regard: yet she determined not to trust herself in his
sight, certain they could only meet to grieve over each other, and
conscious that a participation of sorrow would but prove a reciprocation
of tenderness. Calling, therefore, upon her duty to resist her
inclination, she resolved to commit the whole affair to the will of Mrs
Delvile, to whom, though under no promise, she now considered herself
responsible. Desirous, however, to shorten the period of Delvile's
uncertainty, she would not wait till the time she had appointed to see
his mother, but wrote the following note to hasten their meeting.
_To the Hon. Mrs Delvile_. MADAM,--Your son is now at Bury; shall I
acquaint him of your arrival? or will you announce it yourself? Inform
me of your desire, and I will endeavour to fulfil it. As my own Agent
I regard myself no longer; if, as yours, I can give pleasure, or be of
service, I shall gladly receive your commands. I have the honour to be,
Madam, your most obedient servant, CECILIA BEVERLEY.
When she had sent off this letter, her heart was more at ease, because
reconciled with her conscience: she had sacrificed the son, she had
resigned herself to the mother; it now only remained to heal her wounded
pride, by suffering the sacrifice with dignity, and to recover her
tranquility in virtue, by making the resignation without repining.
Her reflections, too, growing clearer as the mist of passion was
dispersed, she recollected with confusion her cold and sullen behaviour
to Mrs Delvile. That lady had but done what she had believed was her
duty, and that duty was no more than she had been taught to expect from
her. In the beginning of her visit, and while doubtful of its success,
she had indeed, been austere, but the moment victory appeared in view,
she became tender, affectionate and gentle. Her justice, therefore,
condemned the resentment to which she had given way, and she fortified
her mind for the interview which was to follow, by an earnest desire to
make all reparation both to Mrs Delvile and herself for that which was
past.
In this resolution she was not a little strengthened, by seriously
considering with herself the great abatement to all her possible
happiness, which must have been made by the humiliating circumstance
of forcing herself into a family which held all connection with her as
disgraceful. She desired not to be the wife even of Delvile upon such
terms, for the more she esteemed and admired him, the more anxious she
became for his honour, and the less could she endure being regarded
herself as the occasion of its diminution.
Now, therefore, her plan of conduct settled, with calmer spirits, though
a heavy heart, she attended upon Mrs Charlton; but fearing to lose the
steadiness she had just acquired before it should be called upon, if she
trusted herself to relate the decision which had been made, she besought
her for the present to dispense with the account, and then forced
herself into conversation upon less interesting subjects.
This prudence had its proper effect, and with tolerable tranquility she
heard Mrs Delvile again announced, and waited upon her in the parlour
with an air of composure.
Not so did Mrs Delvile receive her; she was all eagerness and emotion;
she flew to her the moment she appeared, and throwing her arms around
her, warmly exclaimed "Oh charming girl! Saver of our family! preserver
of our honour! How poor are words to express my admiration! how
inadequate are thanks in return for such obligations as I owe you!"
"You owe me none, madam," said Cecilia, suppressing a sigh; "on my side
will be all the obligation, if you can pardon the petulance of my
behaviour this morning."
"Call not by so harsh a name," answered Mrs Delvile, "the keenness of a
sensibility by which you have yourself alone been the sufferer. You
have had a trial the most severe, and however able to sustain, it was
impossible you should not feel it. That you should give up any man whose
friends solicit not your alliance, your mind is too delicate to make
wonderful; but your generosity in submitting, unasked, the arrangement
of that resignation to those for whose interest it is made, and your
high sense of honour in holding yourself accountable to me, though under
no tie, and bound by no promise, mark a greatness of mind which calls
|
specimens of the stone, which he sent
for assay, and shortly afterwards wrote to the selector asking him what
he would take for his property. He was only too glad to get rid of it,
worthless as the land seemed.
So the upshot of it was that Mr. Morgan bought the holding for about
£600. Had this man been an intelligent mineralogist he would not have
parted with it for £60,000, as the sequel will prove. The stone, which
he thought only fit for building walls, was very rich quartz. The hill,
or mountain, was in fact a golden one.
The transfer was duly made, and Mr. Hall, the manager of the Queensland
National Bank, Rockhampton, advanced the money required to carry on the
mining works, in consideration of a share or interest, and at the
present time both he and Mr. Morgan, together with several others
interested, are millionaires. The mine is practically inexhaustible and
the output returns are enormous. The further down they go, the richer
the ore proves. The mine is now worked by a large and powerful company,
the value of each £1 share being about £10. Whether Mr. Morgan and his
partners made the poor selector a handsome present I cannot say, but I
believe they did, if not they ought to have done so. Of course such a
rich prize provoked litigation, but Morgan's claim was too strong to be
overthrown. The total value of the mine may be stated at £10,000,000.
It is without doubt the most extraordinary mine in all Australasia.
The country for miles round Cooktown is stanniferous. From the Annan
River, four miles beyond Cooktown, as far as Herberton, the strata
are continuous, with breaks here and there. The principal tin claims
are at Mount Romeo and the Tableland, some 40 miles distant, and also
in the Bloomfield. About three years ago I visited several of the
claims at Mount Romeo, many of which were doing very well, turning
out several tons a week. The tin assayed from 70 to 75 per cent. of
pure ore, and at that time was worth about 18_s._ a unit. The
standard is 70 per cent., and for every unit above 70 per cent. the
value is threehalfpence per unit more, that is to say, the price of the
standard being 18_s._ per unit, if it assays 71 per cent. it is worth
18_s._ 1-1/2_d._ per unit, and so on. Some time after, owing to a
syndicate in Paris having monopolized the supply and obtained control
of the market, tin rose to an abnormal value. Whilst this fictitious
value held, the tin miners made a little fortune, but suddenly the
syndicate burst, tin dropped 50 per cent., and many were ruined. By
degrees, however, it regained its normal value or thereabouts, and at
the present time, with slight fluctuations, it stands at about £90 per
ton of pure ore. The supply, too, of late (within the Cook district at
least) has fallen considerably, though to make up for this several new
lodes have been discovered and, if systematically worked, will no doubt
turn out satisfactory to the promoters. Herberton is the principal
tin-mining centre in Queensland, as it has many permanent lodes,
whereas in the Cook district the claims are for the most part alluvial.
A rich tin claim is quite as valuable as a rich gold claim. The "stream
tin" is found in the beds or banks of streams or creeks, at a depth
varying from a few inches to several feet. Box drains are placed in the
creek, and the dirt is placed in them. A good sluice of water is
constantly brought to bear on it, and a fork or spade is continually at
work stamping it, to get rid of the loose stones and dirt. The heavy
matter of course remains at the bottom of the sluice box, and is
afterwards cleaned and put through two sieves and dried in the sun. It
is then put in sacks, after which it is packed in flour bags ready for
the packer and his mules to take away to the port of Cooktown, whence
it is shipped by steamer to Sydney for sale. Of course a great quantity
is sold on the field to the merchants and storekeepers of the town,
who, in some instances, send their own teams of pack-horses to cart it
away. They also supply the miners with provisions and all requisites,
such as tools, and by their stores, erected on the field, often make a
rattling good thing out of the tin-miner. The latter is proverbially a
hard worker, and when he has made "a big cheque" he goes into town with
his mates for a spell, and spends it "like a man," which means that he
never sees daylight until all his hard-won earnings are in the till of
the publican. He then returns to his claim a poorer, but seldom a
wiser, man, as he will, in all probability, repeat the debauch a few
months afterwards. It is no use talking to him about the virtue of
thrift, and the follies of a spendthrift, as it is his idea of "life,"
and he would enjoy no other. He prefers to live modestly, and work hard
for six months, and then to come into town and live at the rate of
£1,000 a year for a fortnight. "_Chacun à son goût._" It pleases
him and hurts no one else, so why carp at him? Take him as a whole, he
is a genial, good-hearted man, hail fellow, well met, rough in
exterior, but true at heart. Though he knows how to swear and to drink,
he is free from mean vices, and we must remember that he has never
known refinement of manners or thought. I like his rough ways and his
honest character, and I take him just as he is, with all his faults,
which in many instances are but the cloak of hidden virtues.
* * * * *
Sugar growing has always been an important industry in Queensland, and
was most profitable, but if the Government carry out their present
intention of prohibiting the importation of Kanaka labour, the above
industry will be crushed, and the immense capital sunk in mills and
machinery will be irretrievably lost. In North Queensland the climate
is very hot, and it is impossible for white men to work in the fields,
cutting the cane, also the high rate of wages that would have to be
paid them would take away most of the planter's profits. It must be
borne in mind that the capital necessary to erect a sugar mill and
plant, and to work a plantation properly, is very great, and naturally
the planters expect to receive a fair return for their enormous outlay.
Taking these facts into consideration, I consider the policy of the
Government in prohibiting black labour to be suicidal and foolish. In
the Cook District there are only two sugar plantations, the Weary Bay
Company's and Messrs. Hislops' of Wyalla, both in the Bloomfield
District. The Weary Bay has turned out some very high-class sugar, but
has been unfortunate in its management. Twelve months ago it was
closed, owing to some financial difficulty, but I heard that it was
intended to work it again. The scenery on the Bloomfield River is
superb. It is thoroughly tropical. Dense scrubs reach close to the
bank's edge, and the bush is filled with the most beautiful orchids,
which, when in full flower, is a sight never to be forgotten. The
ferns, too, are many, and of varied species, and the clearings are
covered with the succulent cane, and circling the plain stand
precipitous mountains, notably Stuckey's Gap; whilst from a gentle rise
can be seen, over the tops of the dense scrub, the broad and undulating
bosom of the Pacific Ocean. These scrubs are rather dangerous in wet
weather, as then the numerous creeks become flooded and are unfordable,
and sometimes the traveller is unwillingly made a prisoner, or has to
run the risk of crossing a swollen stream. Another danger is that of
getting lost in the bush, which is a very simple matter, but a very
difficult one to get out of. Many a good bushman even has been lost in
the trackless forest, where his bones have suggested a terrible story
of death by hunger or thirst. The bush has, indeed, furnished many a
sad tale of woe. In some instances men have gone mad from despair,
having given up all hope of extricating themselves from the trap.
Some years ago a great friend of mine, Bob S----n, went through some
terrible experiences. He was a thoroughly experienced bushman and a
well-educated man, and to listen to his thrilling yarns of peril and
adventure by sea and by land was a never-ending source of pleasure. Of
all the good fellows I have ever met, he was, without doubt, one of the
most entertaining and pleasant of companions. The particular story to
be related is this. He started with a small party of men, equipped with
tents and all the necessary supplies of provisions, which were carried
on pack-horses, on an expedition for the purpose of finding new country
that would be suitable for carrying stock, _i.e._ cattle. They
travelled about 400 miles west from Cooktown, pitched their camp and
were fortunate in finding some good-looking country. Bob S----n went
some distance away from the camp, and on returning in the evening, to
his great astonishment found his friends had struck their tents and
left. He now realized that he was deserted 400 miles from civilization,
alone in the pathless bush, the home of wild and treacherous blacks,
with nothing to protect him but a revolver, and without a morsel of
food.
Fortunately he was an experienced bushman, and a plucky fellow to boot,
or he would never have survived the awful ordeal. There was nothing
else for it but to face the inevitable, so he started on his weary
journey, often suffering the fearful pangs of hunger. Now and then he
managed to get a few berries to eat, and water to drink, and so day
after day, weak from privation, without a covering at night, save the
trees overhead, he wearily jogged along. One morning at sunrise as he
was descending a rise, to his dismay, about 50 yards beneath him, he
saw a large camp of blacks. One of them had just risen, and was
stretching himself immediately facing him. The black fellow was equally
taken aback, but before he could recover from his surprise, Bob S----n,
with two or three piercing shouts, rushed into the camp, firing his
revolver. The blacks, evidently thinking that there was a large force
behind, took to ignominious flight across the river. This plucky
conduct saved him.
Some more days' suffering, and, on the eleventh day out, he sank to the
ground faint and exhausted, unable to move. He was, although he knew it
not, within a short distance of a cattle station, where, luckily, one
of the stockmen, who was out riding, stumbled across him, brought him
to the homestead, where he received every care and attention, and
eventually quite recovered his health and strength.
Had he not been a strong and hardy man he would assuredly have
perished.
* * * * *
On one occasion I, together with five others, left the port of
Cooktown in a small cutter at midnight, for the purpose of fishing at
D Reef. The night was fine, a fresh breeze had sprung up, and the
boat sped merrily on her way. Three of the party, however, succumbed
to seasickness, which interfered greatly with the sport, and after
remaining at anchor for some time without enticing any fish to leave
their native element, we hoisted sail and ran for the harbour, about
eight miles distant, to the great relief of the sick mariners. We
then went for a cruise up the Endeavour River, landing on the right
hand bank. The boat here grounded, and, as it would be impossible to
get her off until the evening tide, I and two others of the party
determined to leave the boat and work our way through the mangroves
to St. Patrick's Creek, where we could hail a boat to ferry us across
and take us on to Cooktown. But "_L'homme propose et le Dieu
dispose_" was exemplified in this instance. We started without food
or water, taking a single-barrelled gun in the event of meeting with
any hostile or hungry natives. The fateful start was made at 1 p.m.,
and after tearing through the dense and sickly mangroves for some
miles, with a burning sun overhead, and the miasma rising from the
ground beneath, it was found impossible to break the barrier of
mangroves which stood in front of us like a wall. After bruising our
heads against the cruel trees, we retraced our steps, and after going
some distance one of us ascended a tree to take bearings, when crash,
crash, down came the tree with its living burden, who received a severe
shaking, but was not much the worse for his mishap. After some more of
this delightful travelling, with our hands and feet cut and bruised,
and darkness beginning to creep round the horizon, we turned our backs
on the fetid spot, and were fortunate in coming out upon a plain or
flat, covered with grass and timber. Following this up we reached the
river bank. Our thirst was burning. There was "water, water everywhere,
but not a drop to drink." It was quite salt. There was nothing else for
it, but to lie down on the grass and resign ourselves to our fate. The
night was clear and cool, the heavens above studded with countless
stars, and a light breeze played in the trees. Occasionally might be
heard the splash of an alligator as he glided from his slimy bed into
the cold and gruesome river.
The river at this point is full of these saurian monsters, seeking whom
they may devour. We did not light a fire, fearing lest the blacks, who
favour this camp, might pay us an evening call, as on these occasions
they are apt to be rather brusque in their manners. However, we boasted
one gun. There is always a day as well as a night, so at last dawn
appeared, looking with astonishment at the three recumbent figures on
the grass, as if wondering what on earth had brought us to this lonely
place. After breakfast, consisting of salt water and grass, we followed
the river up for a couple of miles thinking we should obtain fresh
water, but were doomed to disappointment. It was quite brackish.
Returning to our camp, with our thirst now raging, we held a
consultation, the result of which was that we decided to construct a
raft, capable of holding the three of us, on which we could drift down
the river, and effect a landing on the opposite bank, where a settler
named A---- lived. We had no appliances, so had to make the best shift
we could. We humped some big logs, which we found on the flat, to the
water's edge, placing them crosswise and lashing them together with our
shirts and handkerchiefs torn into strips, and when finished the raft
would only support one. D---- then bravely volunteered to navigate
this craft down the river to A----'s, although, as I said before, the
river here swarmed with alligators. We launched her a little after
noon, wishing our comrade _bon voyage_. Some hours afterwards we
heard a shot fired in the scrub some distance off, which we returned,
and after numerous interchanges of shots, a sergeant of police, with a
couple of black trackers, appeared on the scene, armed with a bottle of
brandy in one hand, and a bottle of water in the other. We hastily
emptied the contents of the latter, and did not neglect the former. We
then accompanied the police through the mangroves, to the creek where
they had moored their boat, and started for home. Our plucky mate had
already reached his destination in safety, having had to walk barefoot
six miles into town, had got a boat, and gone up the river to rescue
us. We went up the river to overtake him if possible, and eventually we
all met together at A----'s, where our jaded frames were regaled with a
substantial supper, after which we steered for home, reaching town a
little after 10 p.m., to the delight of our friends, lovers and
acquaintances. I will conclude by saying that it will be some time
before I again attempt to navigate my way through mangrove swamps,
unless well provided with the necessaries of life.
CHAPTER I.
THE VOYAGE.
In the year 1887, two months after the adventure spoken of in the
previous pages, hearing that Captain Matheson was in port, and that he
intended sailing for New Guinea in a few days, I went on board his
schooner; and knowing him to be an able seaman and a jolly good fellow,
I decided to go with him in his vessel, the _Spitfire_. The _Spitfire_
is a strongly built "fore and aft" schooner of 35 tons net register.
Besides this he had two small vessels, a cutter and a lugger, the
former in charge of a South Sea Islander, and the latter in charge of a
Queensland black. These comprised the entire fleet. The crew of the
schooner was made up of the captain, the mate (a white man), a South
Sea Islander, who acted as quartermaster, a cook (also a white man),
about 20 Queensland blacks, including three women, and myself, the
solitary passenger.
I put my traps--which were not many, as, like the Romans, I prefer to
travel free of "impedimenta"--on board, as I expected to make a start
on the following day. There was some delay, owing to the Customs
authorities, so we had to remain another day in port. I occupied my
spare time in bidding good-bye to many of my friends and comrades, and
they took leave of me as if they would never see me in the flesh again,
as so many had lately lost the number of their mess in New Guinea. At
last, to my great relief, the partings were over, for saying good-bye
in Northern Queensland is a very serious affair, as everyone is bent on
drinking your health, so with a slight headache, in company with the
skipper, I stepped into the dinghy which was in waiting for us at No. 1
wharf. We were rapidly rowed by two of the crew to the schooner, which
was moored to the buoy off the Pilot Jetty, anxiously waiting to slip
her cable.
Everything was made ready for a start, the "fore and aft" sails
hoisted, when Mr. W----, a friend of mine, and the chief officer of
Customs, boarded us, had a parting glass, wished us a safe voyage, and
then left for the shore. Soon after their departure, a breeze having
sprung up, the order was given to hoist the head sails, we cast off our
moorings, took a last look at the town where I had spent many a happy
day, and commenced our voyage to the land of cannibals and savages.
The clouds were dark and lowering, Mount Cook looked angry, and
everything presaged a blow. The wind was dead ahead, but the expected
blow did not come off. We were not long rounding Cape Bedford, twelve
miles to the N.E., but, as the day was well advanced, we knew that with
the present wind we should be unable to get through the great Barrier
before dark. We therefore determined to anchor at a sandbank, for to
attempt to make the passage through the "Lark" opening in the dark
would be the height of madness, as the passage is very narrow, and from
the sandbank to the Barrier is one mass of coral reefs. We managed to
reach our anchorage by sundown, and enjoyed what sailors call a
"Farmer's" night. We had no work to do, as our two small craft were
safe at anchor close to us. We spent the evening at a quiet game of
cards (there being just four of us, the skipper, mate, cook and I) and
in spinning yarns. Then, after a nightcap of rum, we turned into our
bunks until daylight should appear. The captain, a Scotchman, was one
of the most generous-hearted, upright men that I have ever come across,
and every inch a sailor. The mate, too, was a first-rate fellow, and
had been to New Guinea on a fishing cruise some years before; the cook,
who hailed from the land of the shamrock, was full of fun, and an
excellent comic singer, but a little too fond of the rum bottle; whilst
I had the distinction of being the only passenger. Captain Matheson had
already made a trip to New Guinea.
On this occasion he left his mate with some of the crew--blacks of
Queensland--on an island, to superintend the curing of fish
(Bêche-de-mer) and went to an island further away. On his return he
found that his mate had been cruelly murdered that very day, only a few
hours previous to his arrival. He immediately went ashore, surrounded
the men, and with some difficulty captured four of the ringleaders and
brought them in his schooner to Cooktown, where they were afterwards
tried and, I regret to say, discharged, notwithstanding that one of
them openly declared that he had killed the murdered man.
We were upon deck at daylight, weighed anchor, and steered our course
for the Barrier. After a good deal of tacking, the wind being still
ahead, we entered the "Lark" passage, and after beating about for
several hours, just managed to clear it before dark, otherwise we
should have been obliged to "'bout" ship and anchor inside for the
night.
The Great Queensland Barrier Reef is a wonderful sight. It extends for
several hundred miles, with narrow openings here and there, and at low
tide the upper part of it is quite bare.
From the deck of a vessel, with the sun shining on it the white coral
sparkles like crystal, and you cannot but marvel at the wonderful
industry and workmanship of the countless millions of insects that have
built up this gigantic sea-wall. Numerous vessels come here for the
purpose of obtaining the valuable Bêche-de-mer, whose habitat is on
this Barrier. We were now properly out at sea, as we had entered the
Pacific Ocean, with its long sweeping roll. The sea was not very rough,
but being the first night out I felt a little qualmish. It soon passed
away, however, and I settled down to a life on the ocean wave.
We made good way, steering a direct course for the S.E. end of the
Osprey Reef, which lies in mid-ocean, about 80 miles from the Barrier.
It is 15 miles long, and woe betide the vessel that is stranded there,
as she would speedily break up. It is a most dangerous reef, and not
very well surveyed. In the year 1886, the steamer _Papua_, belonging to
the German New Guinea Company, and laden with a heavy cargo, ran foul
of it on the N.E. end, and soon became a total wreck, but all the crew
managed to escape in the whale boats, nothing being saved except a few
compasses.
The next day, owing to the wind being unfavourable, our run was a very
poor one. We took the sun at 8 a.m., and at 12 noon, when I spent some
of my time in trying to work out our position. I covered several sheets
of foolscap with figures, but even then I did not come out right. What
with cards, spinning yarns, and taking a turn at steering, the time
passed rapidly away, and ere I was aware of it, supper was announced.
The weather being very mild, for we were getting into warmer latitudes,
we had all our meals on deck. Having finished supper, comprising the
inevitable dry hash, we filled our pipes, and under the soothing
influence of a tropical night, free from all care and trouble, lent
ourselves to the enjoyment of the hour. There is nothing to my mind
more intoxicating than being on a well-found vessel, with a spanking
breeze, surrounded by the boundless ocean, and enjoying the
companionship of jovial fellows. I turned into my bunk after the
customary nightcap of rum, and soon fell asleep. "To sleep, perchance
to dream." Dream I did, and the dream with its attendant circumstances
was one of the most curious coincidences that has ever happened to me.
I dreamt that I was on the top of a high cliff. I had an album with me,
which I threw over the cliff to the ground beneath. I tried to find a
good way to descend, and at one part I noticed a rudely-constructed
ladder attached to the top of the cliff, and reaching nearly to the
ground. I stepped on to the ladder, intending to descend, but, not
liking the look of it, stepped back, walked a short distance along the
cliff, when my dream came to an abrupt end. I still slept on, not
awaking until 7 a.m., in time for my cup of coffee. The dream was
vivid, and in the morning the impression of it was as clear as on the
night before.
Now for the coincidence.
I afterwards learned that at 2 a.m., still asleep, I had risen from my
bunk, gone up on deck, strode over a seaman's chest, and walked along
the deck until I reached the ratlins, then stepped on to them and was
about to jump into the sea. Something or other stopped me, I then
walked along the deck the same way I had come, stepped down to the
cabin and lay down on my bunk. The captain, who slept on deck, noticed
me coming up, but never thought for a moment that I was asleep, or he
would have followed me. I have never practised somnambulism before or
since. It is very strange, but not the less true, that anyone walking
in his sleep seldom comes to harm. How is this I wonder? We had a good
laugh over my adventure, which I put down to the rum and a disordered
stomach.
The following night, about 10 p.m., the moon shining bright, we
calculated that we ought to be somewhere near the Osprey Reef, when
suddenly the mate, who was forward, sung out, "Breakers ahead!" It is
anything but a welcome cry. The captain, fearing that we might be out
of our course and dangerously near the dreaded Osprey, flew to the
tiller, quickly put the helm hard down, and put the ship about. It
turned out to be an hallucination. The moon shining on the sea gave it
the appearance of broken water. The scare was soon over, and we went on
our way rejoicing. We did not sight the Osprey Reef, but must have
passed about 10 miles to windward of it. We had several days' calms,
the sun burning like fire. It was almost impossible to find a shady
spot. Down below it was very close, and upon deck very hot. We had a
succession of head winds, which greatly retarded our progress. So the
days went by until, on the morning of the ninth day out, we sighted the
shores of New Guinea. We were 40 miles from Orangerie Bay, with its
mountains of Alpine height towering away in the distance. What a relief
to sight land after tossing for days on the ocean! By evening we were
within a stone's throw of the mainland. The coast here is most
interesting, very bold and broken, range after range of mountains
covered with scrub, and here and there picturesque grassy islands,
making a pleasant contrast to the dark foliage of the mainland bush. We
had a long beat before us, as we were a good deal to leeward of our
destination. We kept well within sight of land the whole way from this
point, of which I was very glad, as it gave me an opportunity of
observing the coastal formation. Every now and then we hove the
schooner to, in order to enable our convoy, the lugger, to come up with
us, when we filled up their water-casks and replenished their stock of
provisions. The cutter had disappeared, and we did not see her again
until we came to our anchorage in China Straits. We were not very
anxious about her, as the South Sea Islander in charge was an
experienced hand in a boat, and was sure to turn up some time or other.
The next day we passed close to the Brumer Islands (native name
"Banaroa"). We did not stop, although Capt. Matheson wanted to get a
number of the natives to go with him on a fishing cruise to the East
End. The cutter, however, touched there and was successful in obtaining
about 15 natives. The Banaroa people are good workers and of a friendly
disposition.
This group of islands lies about 10 miles from the mainland, and they
are very beautiful. There are most fertile plantations of yams,
bananas, and coco-nuts, with here and there a bright patch of green. I
should think that these islands would be very healthy, as they are free
from swamps and not too much covered with scrub.
I was very much pleased with their appearance, and should not object to
a prolonged residence on them.
As darkness set in the Brumers had been left many miles astern. When
within a few miles of Heath Island (Loger), which is a boundary of
China Straits, to our disgust the wind entirely died away, and we were
left to loll and roll about all night. We seemed destined never to
reach port. This was the eleventh day of a voyage (in a straight
course) of 430 miles.
The day previous we passed close to the schooner _Harrier_, in
full sail with a fair wind, bound for Queensland. We saluted and
exchanged compliments. Having passed a restless night, we once more
steered for China Straits. When off the north-western point of Heath
Island (Loger) we were boarded by two or three canoes, filled with
natives, their faces painted in various colours, and all having large
mops of hair on their heads. They wore no clothing save a banana leaf
round the loins. This was my first introduction to the Papuan race, and
I must confess that they had a most diabolical appearance. Several of
them came on board, where they kept up an incessant chatter.
The passage between Heath Island and the mainland, known as the Western
Passage, is rather narrow. Coral reefs extend a good distance out, so
that it is necessary to hug the shore of Heath Island. The tide too is
very swift here, rushing at the rate of five to six miles an hour,
making it impossible to stem it without the aid of a strong breeze.
Everything has an end, so at last we rounded the point of Heath Island
and entered the charming and romantic harbour of China Straits.
We dropped our mud-hook just about sundown in ten fathoms of water on
the lee side of the Island of Samarai, having been 12 long days on the
voyage.
CHAPTER II.
THE GOVERNMENT.
Before setting foot on Samarai I may as well give you some idea of the
extent of New Guinea, and of how a portion of it became a British
possession.
Looking upon Australia as a vast continent, New Guinea, or as it is
sometimes called "Papua," is the largest island in the world, having a
total length of 1,500 miles by 450 at its widest part. It has an area
of 310,000 square miles or more than twice the size of the United
Kingdom. The coast runs as nearly as possible W.N.W., and E.S.E.
Although New Guinea is in close proximity to Queensland, being only 400
miles distant from the port of Cooktown, until recently little was
known about it, and even at the present time our information is very
scanty.
It might well be called, the "Dark Continent," as no white man has, as
yet, crossed it. The coast for a considerable distance is fairly, but
not completely, well-known.
In 1873, Captain Moresby, in H.M.S. _Basilisk_, sailed round the
islands and along part of the coast, naming numerous islands after the
ship and her officers. He discovered the splendid harbours of China
Straits on the South East, and Port Moresby ("Hanuabada") on the South
Coast, which latter is at the present time the headquarters of the
London Missionary Society and of the Government. He also made a flying
survey, which was of necessity far from correct, but which proved of
great service to later surveyors.
In the year 1883 Sir Thomas McIlwraith, then Premier of Queensland, on
behalf of his Government, annexed the whole of New Guinea, thus hoping
to exclude the Germans. He had previously urged the Home Government to
do this, but they remained inactive. Upon learning what had been done,
the Home authorities emphatically refused to sanction it, but in the
following year, 1884, on their own behalf established a Protectorate
over that portion extending from latitude 5 to 10-1/2° S. and longitude
141 to 151° E., comprising 89,000 square miles, the Germans having
occupied the territory to the North, containing 71,000 square miles,
whilst the Dutch territory, which lies to the N.W., and has been held
by them for upwards of 25 years, contains 150,000 square miles; an area
equal to the British and German portions combined. The Proclamation
took place on the 6th of November 1884, at Port Moresby, where the
British flag was hoisted and the British men-of-war, five in number,
saluted.
The formal declaration was then read in the following terms:--
"To all to whom these presents shall come greeting:--Whereas, it has
become essential for the lives and properties of the native inhabitants
of New Guinea, and for the purpose of preventing the occupation of
portions of that country by persons whose proceedings, unsanctioned by
any lawful authority, might tend to injustice, strife and bloodshed,
and who, under the pretence of legitimate trade and intercourse might
endanger the liberties, and possess themselves of the lands, of such
native inhabitants, that a British protectorate should be established
over a certain portion of such country, and the islands adjacent
thereto; and whereas Her Majesty, having taken into her gracious
consideration the urgent necessity of her protection to such
inhabitants, has directed me to proclaim such protection in a formal
manner, at this place, now I, James Elphinstone Erskine, Captain in the
Royal Navy, and Commodore of the Australian Station, one of Her
Majesty's naval âides-de-camp, do hereby, in the name of Her Most
Gracious Majesty, declare and proclaim the establishment of such
protectorate over such portions of the coast and the adjacent islands
as are more particularly described in the schedule hereunto annexed,
and I hereby proclaim and declare that no acquisition of land,
whensoever or howsoever acquired, within the limits of the protectorate
hereby established, will be recognized by Her Majesty; and I do hereby,
on behalf of Her Majesty, command and enjoin all persons whom it may
concern to take notice of this proclamation:
"SCHEDULE.
"All that portion of the southern shores of New Guinea, commencing
from the boundary of that portion of the country claimed by the
Government of the Netherlands on the 141st meridian of east
longitude to East Cape, with all the islands adjacent thereto south
of East Cape to Kosmann Island inclusive, together with the islands
in the Goschen Straits.
"Given on board Her Majesty's ship _Nelson_ at the harbour of
Port Moresby on the 6th day of November, 1884."
Sir Peter Scratchley, a distinguished military officer, was appointed
special commissioner. He chartered the steamer _Governor Blackall_, and
with a large staff visited his new district, travelling along the coast
for a considerable distance, touching here and there and interviewing
several of the native chiefs. His term of office was, however, fated to
be a short one, as in three months after his appointment, when off
Mitre Rock, which is the extreme northern boundary, he
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thousand years, which to a man seem so long,
are to Him dwindled to nothing, in comparison with the eternity
of His Being. As Peter has said, the converse must also be true,
and "one day be with the Lord as a thousand years." He can crowd a
fulness of action into narrow limits. Moments can do the work of
centuries. The longest and shortest measures of time are absolutely
equivalent, for both are entirely inapplicable, to His timeless
Being. But what has this great thought to do here, and how is the
"For" justified? It may be that the psalmist is supporting the
representation of ver. 2, God's eternity, rather than that of ver.
3, man's transiency; but, seeing that this verse is followed by one
which strikes the same note as ver. 3, it is more probable that here,
too, the dominant thought is the brevity of human life. It never
seems so short, as when measured against God's timeless existence.
So, the underlying thought of ver. 3, namely, the brevity of man's
time, which is there illustrated by the picture of the endless flux
of generations, is here confirmed by the thought that all measures of
time dwindle to equal insignificance with Him.
The psalmist next takes his stand on the border-moment between to-day
and yesterday. How short looks the day that is gliding away into the
past! "A watch in the night" is still shorter to our consciousness,
for it passes over us unnoted.
The passing of mortal life has hitherto been contemplated in immediate
connection with God's permanence, and the psalmist's tone has been
a wonderful blending of melancholy and trust. But in ver. 5 the
sadder side of his contemplations becomes predominant. Frail man,
frail because sinful, is his theme. The figures which set forth man's
mortality are grand in their unelaborated brevity. They are like some
of Michael Angelo's solemn statues. "Thou floodest them away"--a bold
metaphor, suggesting the rush of a mighty stream, bearing on its tawny
bosom crops, household goods, and corpses, and hurrying with its spoils
to the sea. "They become a sleep." Some would take this to mean falling
into the sleep of death; others would regard life as compared to a
sleep--"for before we are rightly conscious of being alive, we cease
to live" (Luther, quoted by Cheyne); while others find the point of
comparison in the disappearance, without leaving a trace behind, of
the noisy generations, sunk at once into silence, and "occupying no
more space on the scroll of Time than a night's sleep" (so Kay). It is
tempting to attach "in the morning" to "a sleep," but the recurrence
of the expression in ver. 7 points to the retention of the present
division of clauses, according to which the springing grass greets
the eye at dawn, as if created by a night's rain. The word rendered
"springs afresh" is taken in two opposite meanings, being by some
rendered _passes away_, and by others as above. Both meanings come from
the same radical notion of change, but the latter is evidently the
more natural and picturesque here, as preserving, untroubled by any
intrusion of an opposite thought, the cheerful picture of the pastures
rejoicing in the morning sunshine, and so making more impressive the
sudden, sad change wrought by evening, when all the fresh green blades
and bright flowers lie turned already into brown hay by the mower's
scythe and the fierce sunbeams.
"So passeth, in the passing of an hour,
Of mortal life, the leaf, the bud, the flower."
The central portion of the psalm (vv. 7-12) narrows the circle of
the poet's vision to Israel, and brings out the connection between
death and sin. The transition from truths of universal application is
marked by the use of _we_ and _us_, while the past tenses indicate
that the psalm is recounting history. That transitoriness assumes
a still more tragic aspect, when regarded as the result of the
collision of God's "wrath" with frail man. How can such stubble but
be wasted into ashes by such fire? And yet this is the same psalmist
who has just discerned that the unchanging Lord is the dwelling-place
of all generations. The change from the previous thought of the
eternal God as the dwelling-place of frail men is very marked in this
section, in which the destructive anger of God is in view. But the
singer felt no contradiction between the two thoughts, and there is
none. We do not understand the full blessedness of believing that God
is our asylum, till we understand that He is our asylum from all
that is destructive in Himself; nor do we know the significance of
the universal experience of decay and death, till we learn that it is
not the result of our finite being, but of sin.
That one note sounds on in solemn persistence through these verses,
therein echoing the characteristic Mosaic lesson, and corresponding
with the history of the people in the desert. In ver. 7 the cause
of their wasting away is declared to be God's wrath, which has
scattered them as in panic (Psalm xlviii. 5). The occasion of that
lightning flash of anger is confessed in ver. 8 to be the sins
which, however hidden, stand revealed before God. The expression for
"the light of Thy face" is slightly different from the usual one,
a word being employed which means a luminary, and is used in Gen.
i. for the heavenly bodies. The ordinary phrase is always used as
expressing favour and blessing; but there is an illumination, as from
an all-revealing light, which flashes into all dark corners of human
experience, and "there is nothing hid from the heat thereof." Sin
smitten by that light must die. Therefore, in ver. 9, the consequence
of its falling on Israel's transgressions is set forth. Their days
vanish as mists before the sun, or as darkness glides out of the
sky in the morning. Their noisy years are but as a murmur, scarce
breaking the deep silence, and forgotten as soon as faintly heard.
The psalmist sums up his sad contemplations in ver. 10, in which
life is regarded as not only rigidly circumscribed within a poor
seventy or, at most, eighty years, but as being, by reason of its
transitoriness, unsatisfying and burdensome. The "pride" which is
but trouble and vanity is that which John calls "the pride of life,"
the objects which, apart from God, men desire to win, and glory in
possessing. The self-gratulation would be less ridiculous or tragic,
if the things which evoke it lasted longer, or we lasted longer to
possess them. But seeing that they swiftly pass and we fly too,
surely it is but "trouble" to fight for what is "vanity" when won,
and what melts away so surely and soon.
Plainly, then, things being so, man's wisdom is to seek to know two
things--the power of God's anger, and the measure of his own days.
But alas for human levity and bondage to sense, how few look beyond
the external, or lay to heart the solemn truth that God's wrath is
inevitably operative against sin, and how few have any such just
conception of it as to lead to reverential awe, proportioned to the
Divine character which should evoke it! Ignorance and inoperative
knowledge divide mankind between them, and but a small remnant have
let the truth plough deep into their inmost being and plant there
holy fear of God. Therefore, the psalmist prays for himself and his
people, as knowing the temptations to inconsiderate disregard and to
inadequate feeling of God's opposition to sin, that His power would
take untaught hearts in hand and teach them this--to count their
days. Then we shall bring home, as from a ripened harvest field,
the best fruit which life can yield, "a heart of wisdom," which,
having learned the power of God's anger, and the number of our days,
turns itself to the eternal dwelling-place, and no more is sad, when
it sees life ebbing away, or the generations moving in unbroken
succession into the darkness.
The third part (vv. 13-17) gathers all the previous meditations into a
prayer, which is peculiarly appropriate to Israel in the wilderness,
but has deep meaning for all God's servants. We note the invocation of
God by the covenant name "Jehovah," as contrasted with the "Lord" of
ver. 1. The psalmist draws nearer to God, and feels the closer bond of
which that name is the pledge. His prayer is the more urgent, by reason
of the brevity of life. So short is his time that he cannot afford to
let God delay in coming to him and to his fellows. "How long?" comes
pathetically from lips which have been declaring that their time of
speech is so short. This is not impatience, but wistful yearning,
which, even while it yearns, leaves God to settle His own time, and,
while it submits, still longs. Night has wrapped Israel, but the
psalmist's faith "awakes the morning," and he prays that its beams may
soon dawn and Israel be satisfied with the longed-for loving-kindness
(compare Psalm xxx. 5); for life at its longest is but brief, and he
would fain have what remains of it be lit with sunshine from God's
face. The only thing that will secure life-long gladness is a heart
satisfied with the experience of God's love. That will make morning in
mirk midnight; that will take all the sorrow out of the transiency of
life. The days which are filled with God are long enough to satisfy us;
and they who have Him for their own will be "full of days," whatever
the number of these may be.
The psalmist believes that God's justice has in store for His
servants joys and blessings proportioned to the duration of their
trials. He is not thinking of any future beyond the grave; but his
prayer is a prophecy, which is often fulfilled even in this life and
always hereafter. Sorrows rightly borne here are factors determining
the glory that shall follow. There is a proportion between the
years of affliction and the millenniums of glory. But the final
prayer, based upon all these thoughts of God's eternity and man's
transitoriness, is not for blessedness, but for vision and Divine
favour on work done for Him. The deepest longing of the devout heart
should be for the manifestation to itself and others of God's work.
The psalmist is not only asking that God would put forth His acts
in interposition for himself and his fellow-servants, but also that
the full glory of these far-reaching deeds may be disclosed to their
understandings as well as experienced in their lives. And since he
knows that "through the ages an increasing purpose runs," he prays
that coming generations may see even more glorious displays of Divine
power than his contemporaries have done. How the sadness of the
thought of fleeting generations succeeded by new ones vanishes when
we think of them all as, in turn, spectators and possessors of God's
"work"! But in that great work we are not to be mere spectators.
Fleeting as our days are, they are ennobled by our being permitted
to be God's tools; and if "the work of our hands" is the reflex or
carrying on of His working, we can confidently ask that, though we
the workers have to pass, it may be "established." "In our embers"
may be "something that doth live," and that life will not all die
which has done the will of God, but it and its doer will "endure for
ever." Only there must be the descent upon us of "the graciousness"
of God, before there can flow from us "deeds which breed not shame,"
but outlast the perishable earth and follow their doers into the
eternal dwelling-place. The psalmist's closing prayer reaches further
than he knew. Lives on which the favour of God has come down like a
dove, and in which His will has been done, are not flooded away, nor
do they die into silence like a whisper, but carry in themselves the
seeds of immortality, and are akin to the eternity of God.
PSALM XCI.
1 He that sits in the secret place of the Most High,
In the shadow of the Almighty shall he lodge.
2 I will say to Jehovah, "My refuge and my fortress,
My God, in whom I will trust."
3 For He, He shall deliver thee from the snare of the fowler
From the pestilence that destroys.
4 With His pinions shall He cover thee,
And under His wings shalt thou take refuge,
A shield and target is His Troth.
5 Thou shalt not be afraid of the terror of the night,
Of the arrow [that] flies by day,
6 Of the pestilence [that] stalks in darkness,
Of the sickness [that] devastates at noonday.
7 A thousand may fall at thy side,
And a myriad at thy right hand,
To thee it shall not reach.
8 Only with thine eyes shalt thou look on,
And see the recompense of the wicked.
9_a_ "For Thou, Jehovah, art my refuge."
9_b_ The Most High thou hast made thy dwelling-place.
10 No evil shall befall thee,
And no scourge shall come near thy tent.
11 For His angels will He command concerning thee,
To keep thee in all thy ways.
12 Upon [their] hands shall they bear thee,
Lest thou strike thy foot against a stone.
13 Upon lion and adder shalt thou tread,
Thou shalt trample upon young lion and dragon.
14 "Because to Me he clings, therefore will I deliver him
I will lift him high because he knows My name.
15 He shall call on Me, and I will answer him;
With him will I, even I, be in trouble,
I will rescue him and bring him to honour.
16 [With] length of days will I satisfy him,
And give him to gaze on My salvation."
The solemn sadness of Psalm xc. is set in strong relief by the
sunny brightness of this song of happy, perfect trust in the Divine
protection. The juxtaposition is, however, probably due to the verbal
coincidence of the same expression being used in both psalms in
reference to God. In Psalm xc. 1, and in xci. 9, the somewhat unusual
designation "dwelling-place" is applied to Him, and the thought
conveyed in it runs through the whole of this psalm.
An outstanding characteristic of it is its sudden changes of persons;
"He," "I," and "thou" alternate in a bewildering fashion, which has
led to many attempts at explanation. One point is clear--that, in
vv. 14-16, God speaks, and that He speaks of, not to, the person who
loves and clings to Him. At ver. 14, then, we must suppose a change
of speaker, which is unmarked by any introductory formula. Looking
back over the remainder of the psalm, we find that the bulk of it is
addressed directly _to_ a person who must be the same as is spoken _of_
in the Divine promises. The "him" of the latter is the "thee" of the
mass of the psalm. But this mass is broken at two points by clauses
alike in meaning, and containing expressions of trust (vv. 2, 9_a_).
Obviously the unity of the psalm requires that the "I" of these two
verses should be the "thou" of the great portion of the psalm, and the
"he" of the last part. Each profession of trust will then be followed
by assurances of safety thence resulting, ver. 2 having for pendant vv.
3-8, and ver. 9_a_ being followed by vv. 9_b_-13. The two utterances
of personal faith are substantially identical, and the assurances which
succeed them are also in effect the same. It is by some supposed that
this alternation of persons is due simply to the poet expressing partly
"his own feelings as from himself, and partly as if they were uttered
by another" (Perowne after Ewald). But that is not an explanation of
the structure; it is only a statement of the structure which requires
to be explained. No doubt the poet is expressing his own feelings or
convictions all through the psalm: but why does he express them in this
singular fashion?
The explanation which is given by Delitzsch, Stier, Cheyne and many
others takes the psalm to be antiphonal, and distributes the parts
among the voices of a choir, with some variations in the allocation.
But ver. 1 still remains a difficulty. As it stands it sounds flat
and tautological, and hence attempts have been made to amend it,
which will presently be referred to. But it will fall into the
general antiphonal scheme, if it is regarded as a prelude, sung by
the same voice which twice answers the single singer with choral
assurances that reward his trust. We, then, have this distribution
of parts: ver. 1, the broad statement of the blessedness of dwelling
with God; ver. 2, a solo, the voice of a heart encouraged thereby to
exercise personal trust; vv. 3-8, answers, setting forth the security
of such a refuge; ver. 9_a_, solo, reiterating with sweet monotony
the word of trust; vv. 9_b_-13, the first voice or chorus repeating
with some variation the assurances of vv. 3-8; and vv. 14-16, God's
acceptance of the trust and confirmation of the assurances.
There is, no doubt, difficulty in ver. 1; for, if it is taken as an
independent sentence, it sounds tautological, since there is no
well-marked difference between "sitting" and "lodging," nor much
between "secret place" and "shadow." But possibly the idea of safety
is more strongly conveyed by "shadow" than by "secret place," and
the meaning of the apparently identical assertion may be, that he
who quietly enters into communion with God thereby passes into His
protection; or, as Kay puts it, "Loving faith on man's part shall be
met by faithful love on God's part." The LXX. changes the person of
"will say" in ver. 2, and connects it with ver. 1 as its subject ("He
that sits... that lodges... shall say"). Ewald, followed by Baethgen
and others, regards ver. 1 as referring to the "I" of ver. 2, and
translates "Sitting... I say." Hupfeld, whom Cheyne follows, cuts the
knot by assuming that "Blessed is" has dropped out at the beginning of
ver. 1, and so gets a smooth run of construction and thought ("Happy is
he who sits... who lodges... who says"). It is suspiciously smooth,
obliterates the characteristic change of persons, of which the psalm
has other instances, and has no support except the thought that the
psalmist would have saved us a great deal of trouble, if he had only
been wise enough to have written so. The existing text is capable of a
meaning in accordance with his general drift. A wide declaration like
that of ver. 1 fittingly preludes the body of the song, and naturally
evokes the pathetic profession of faith which follows.
According to the accents, ver. 2 is to be read "I will say, 'To
Jehovah [belongs] my refuge,'" etc. But it is better to divide as
above. Jehovah _is_ the refuge. The psalmist speaks _to_ Him, with the
exclamation of yearning trust. He can only call Him by precious names,
to use which, in however broken a fashion, is an appeal that goes
straight to His heart, as it comes straight from the suppliant's. The
singer lovingly accumulates the Divine names in these two first verses.
He calls God "Most High," "Almighty," when he utters the general truth
of the safety of souls that enter His secret place; but, when he speaks
his own trust, he addresses Jehovah, and adds to the wide designation
"God" the little word "my," which claims personal possession of His
fulness of Deity. The solo voice does not say much, but it says enough.
There has been much underground work before that clear jet of personal
"appropriating faith" could spring into light.
We might have looked for a Selah here, if this psalm had stood in
the earlier books, but we can feel the brief pause before the choral
answer comes in vv. 3-8. It sets forth in lofty poetry the blessings
that such a trust secures. Its central idea is that of safety. That
safety is guaranteed in regard to two classes of dangers--those from
enemies, and those from diseases. Both are conceived of as divided
into secret and open perils. Ver. 3 proclaims the trustful soul's
immunity, and ver. 4 beautifully describes the Divine protection
which secures it. Vv. 5, 6, expand the general notion of safety, into
defence against secret and open foes and secret and open pestilences;
while vv. 7, 8, sum up the whole, in a vivid contrast between the
multitude of victims and the man sheltered in God, and looking out
from his refuge on the wide-rolling flood of destruction. As in
Psalm xviii. 5, Death is represented as a "fowler" into whose snares
men heedlessly flutter, unless held back by God's delivering hand.
The mention of pestilence in ver. 3 somewhat anticipates the proper
order, as the same idea recurs in its appropriate place in ver. 6.
Hence the rendering "word," which requires no consonantal change, is
adopted from the LXX. by several moderns. But that is feeble, and
the slight irregularity of a double mention of one form of peril,
which is naturally suggested by the previous reference to Death,
is not of much moment. The beautiful description of God sheltering
the trustful man beneath His pinions recalls Deut. xxxii. 11 and
Psalms xvii. 8, lxiii. 7. The mother eagle, spreading her dread wing
over her eaglets, is a wonderful symbol of the union of power and
gentleness. It would be a bold hand which would drag the fledglings
from that warm hiding-place and dare the terrors of that beak and
claws. But this pregnant verse (4) not only tells of the strong
defence which God is, but also, in a word, sets in clear light man's
way of reaching that asylum. "Thou shalt take refuge." It is the word
which is often vaguely rendered "trust," but which, if we retain its
original signification, becomes illuminative as to what that trust
is. The flight of the soul, conscious of nakedness and peril, to
the safe shelter of God's breast is a description of faith which,
in practical value, surpasses much learned dissertation. And this
verse adds yet another point to its comprehensive statements, when,
changing the figure, it calls God's _Troth_, or faithful adherence
to His promises and obligations, our "shield and target." We have
not to fly to a dumb God for shelter, or to risk anything upon a
Peradventure. He has spoken, and His word is inviolable. Therefore,
trust is possible. And between ourselves and all evil we may lift the
shield of His Troth. His faithfulness is our sure defence, and Faith
is our shield only in a secondary sense, its office being but to
grasp our true defence, and to keep us well behind that.
The assaults of enemies and the devastations of pestilence are
taken in vv. 5, 6, as types of all perils. These evils speak of a
less artificial stage of society than that in which our experience
moves, but they serve us as symbols of more complex dangers besetting
outward and inward life. "The terror of the night" seems best
understood as parallel with the "arrow that flies by day," in so far
as both refer to actual attacks by enemies. Nocturnal surprises were
favourite methods of assault in early warfare. Such an explanation
is worthier than the supposition that the psalmist means demons that
haunt the night. In ver. 6 Pestilence is personified as stalking,
shrouded in darkness, the more terrible because it strikes unseen.
Ver. 6_b_ has been understood, as by the Targum and LXX., to refer
to demons who exercise their power in noonday. But this explanation
rests upon a misreading of the word rendered "devastates." The other
translated "sickness" is only found, besides this place, in Deut.
xxxii. 24 ("destruction") and Isa. xxviii. 2 ("a destroying storm,"
lit. a storm of destruction), and in somewhat different form in Hosea
xiii. 14. It comes from a root meaning _to cut_, and seems here to
be a synonym for pestilence. Baethgen sees in "the arrow by day" the
fierce sunbeams, and in "the _heat_ (as he renders) which rages at
noonday" the poisonous simoom. The trustful man, sheltered in God,
looks on while thousands fall round him, as Israel looked from their
homes on the Passover night, and sees that there is a God that judges
and recompenses evil-doers by evil suffered.
Heartened by these great assurances, the single voice once more
declares its trust. Ver. 9_a_ is best separated from _b_, though
Hupfeld here again assumes that "thou hast said" has fallen out
between "For" and "Thou."
This second utterance of trust is almost identical with the first.
Faith has no need to vary its expression. "Thou, Jehovah, art my
refuge" is enough for it. God's mighty name and its personal possession
of all which that name means, as its own hiding-place, are its
treasures, which it does not weary of recounting. Love loves to repeat
itself. The deepest emotions, like song-birds, have but two or three
notes, which they sing over and over again all the long day through. He
that can use this singer's words of trust has a vocabulary rich enough.
The responsive assurances (vv. 9_b_-13) are, in like manner,
substantially identical with the preceding ones, but differences
may be discerned by which these are heightened in comparison with
the former. The promise of immunity is more general. Instead of
two typical forms of danger, the widest possible exemption from
all forms of it is declared in ver. 10. _No_ evil shall come
near, _no_ scourge approach, the "tent" of the man whose real and
permanent "dwelling-place" is Jehovah. There are much beauty and
significance in that contrast of the two homes in which a godly
man lives, housing, as far as his outward life is concerned, in a
transitory abode, which to-morrow may be rolled up and moved to
another camping-place in the desert, but abiding, in so far as his
true being is concerned, in God, the permanent dwelling-place through
all generations. The transitory outward life has reflected on it
some light of peaceful security from that true home. It is further
noteworthy that the second group of assurances is concerned with
active life, while the first only represented a passive condition of
safety beneath God's wing. In vv. 11, 12, His angels take the place
of protectors, and the sphere in which they protect is "in all thy
_ways_"--_i.e._, in the activities of ordinary life. The dangers
_there_ are of stumbling, whether that be construed as referring to
outward difficulties or to temptations to sin.
The perils, further specified in ver. 13, correspond to those of
the previous part in being open and secret: the lion with its roar
and leap, the adder with its stealthy glide among the herbage
and its unlooked-for bite. So, the two sets of assurances, taken
together, cover the whole ground of life, both in its moments of
hidden communion in the secret place of the Most High, and in its
times of diligent discharge of duty on life's common way. Perils
of communion and perils of work are equally real, and equally may
we be sheltered from them. God Himself spreads His wing over the
trustful man, and sends His messengers to keep him, in all the paths
appointed for him by God. The angels have no charge to take stones
out of the way. Hinderances are good for us. Smooth paths weary and
make presumptuous. Rough ones bring out our best and drive us to
look to God. But His messengers have for their task to lift us on
their palms over difficulties, not so that we shall not feel them
to be difficult, but so that we shall not strike our foot against
them. Many a man remembers the elevation and buoyancy of spirit which
strangely came to him when most pressed by work or trouble. God's
angels were bearing him up. Active life is full of open and secret
foes as well as of difficulties. He that keeps near to God will pass
unharmed through them all, and, with a foot made strong and firm by
God's own power infused into it, will be able to crush the life out
of the most formidable and the most sly assailants. "The God of peace
shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly."
Finally, God Himself speaks, and confirms and deepens the previous
assurances. That He is represented as speaking _of_, not _to_, His
servant increases the majesty of the utterance, by seeming to call
the universe to hear, and converts promises to an individual into
promises to every one who will fulfil the requisite conditions. These
are threefold.
God desires that men should cling to Him, know His name, and call
on Him. The word rendered "cling" includes more than "setting love
upon" one. It means to bind or knit oneself to anything, and so
embraces the cleaving of a fixed heart, of a "recollected" mind,
and of an obedient will. Such clinging demands effort; for every
hand relaxes its grasp, unless ever and again tightened. He who thus
clings will come to "know" God's "name," with the knowledge which is
born of experience, and is loving familiarity, not mere intellectual
apprehension. Such clinging and knowledge will find utterance in
continual converse with God, not only when needing deliverance, but
in perpetual aspiration after Him.
The promises to such an one go very deep and stretch very far. "I
will deliver him." So the previous assurance that no evil shall
come nigh him is explained and brought into correspondence with the
facts of life. Evil may be experienced. Sorrows will come. But they
will not touch the central core of the true life, and from them God
will deliver, not only by causing them to cease, but by fitting us
to bear. Clinging to Him, a man will be "drawn out of many waters,"
like Peter on the stormy lake. "I will set him on high" is more than
a parallel promise to that of deliverance. It includes that; for a
man lifted to a height is safe from the flood that sweeps through
the valley, or from the enemies that ravage the plain. But that
elevation, which comes from knowing God's name, brings more than
safety, even a life lived in a higher region than that of things
seen. "I will answer him." How can He fail to hear when they who
trust Him cry? Promises, especially for the troubled, follow, which
do not conflict with the earlier assurances, rightly understood. "I
will be with him in trouble." God's presence is the answer to His
servant's call. God comes nearer to devout and tried souls, as a
mother presses herself caressingly closer to a weeping child. So, no
man need add solitude to sadness, but may have God sitting with him,
like Job's friends, waiting to comfort him with true comfort. And His
presence delivers from, and glorifies after, trouble borne as becomes
God's friend. The bit of dull steel might complain, if it could feel,
of the pain of being polished, but the result is to make it a mirror
fit to flash back the sunlight.
"With length of days will I satisfy him" is, no doubt, a promise
belonging more especially to Old Testament times; but if we put
emphasis on "satisfy," rather than on the extended duration, it may
fairly suggest that, to the trustful soul, life is long enough,
whatever its duration, and that the guest, who has sat at God's table
here, is not unwilling to rise from it, when his time comes, being
"satisfied with favour, and full of the goodness of the Lord." The
vision of God's salvation, which is set last, seems from its position
in the series to point, however dimly, to a vision which comes after
earth's troubles and length of days. The psalmist's language implies
not a mere casual beholding, but a fixed gaze. Delitzsch renders
"revel in My salvation" (English translation). Cheyne has "feast his
eyes with." Such seeing is possession. The crown of God's promises
to the man who makes God his dwelling-place is a full, rapturous
experience of a full salvation, which follows on the troubles and
deliverances of earth, and brings a more dazzling honour and a more
perfect satisfaction.
PSALM XCII.
1 Good is it to give thanks to Jehovah,
And to harp to Thy name, Most High;
2 To declare in the morning Thy loving-kindness,
And thy faithfulness in the night seasons,
3 Upon a ten-stringed [instrument], even upon the psaltery,
With skilful music on the lyre.
4 For Thou hast gladdened me, Jehovah, with Thy working,
In the works of Thy hands will I shout aloud my joy.
5 How great are Thy works, Jehovah,
Exceeding deep are Thy purposes!
6 A brutish man knows not,
And a fool understands not this.
7 When the wicked sprang like herbage,
And all the workers of iniquity blossomed,
[It was only] for their being destroyed for ever.
8 But Thou art [enthroned] on high for evermore, Jehovah!
9 For behold Thy enemies, Jehovah,
For behold Thy enemies--shall perish,
All the workers of iniquity shall be scattered.
10 But Thou hast exalted my horn like a wild ox,
I am anointed with fresh oil (?).
11 My eye also gazed on my adversaries,
Of them that rose against me as evil-doers my ear heard.
12 The righteous shall spring like the palm,
Like a cedar in Lebanon shall he grow.
13 Planted in the house of Jehovah,
They shall spring in the courts of our God.
14 Still shall they bear fruit in old age,
Full of sap and verdant shall they be.
15 To declare that Jehovah is upright,
My Rock, and there is no unrighteousness in Him.
Authorities differ in their arrangement of this psalm. Clearly,
the first three verses are a prelude; and if these are left out of
account, the remainder of the psalm consists of twelve verses, which
fall into two groups of six each, the former of which mainly deals
with the brief prosperity and final overthrow of the wicked, while
the latter paints the converse truth of the security and blessedness
of the righteous. Both illustrate the depth of God's works and
purposes, which is the psalmist's theme. A further division of each
of these six verses into groups of three is adopted by Delitzsch, and
may be accepted. There will then be five strophes of three verses
each, of which the first is introductory; the second and third, a
pair setting forth the aspect of Providence towards the wicked; and
the fourth
|
) long before the Christian era. Among
themselves they speak a dialect bequeathed by the Romans. Officially
their language is French, just as the Flemish tongue, of “Low Country”
origin, is the recognized language of the Belgians of the north.
[Illustration: Copyright, Underwood & Underwood
FLAX WORKERS ON THE RIVER LYS
In the country surrounding Courtrai, Ypres, Ghent, flax is extensively
grown to supply the demand for linen. Here we see it in the process of
“retting” in the river, to rot off the woody bark and stems]
The Walloons are like the French in many ways. They have quick wits and
a ready command of forceful phrases, they are clever workmen, and they
have an immense enthusiasm for one of their kind that displays a gift
for art or music. We came one evening to a small manufacturing town
near Liège (lee-ayzh), metropolis of the Walloon country, and found
the main street dressed with flags and lanterns. The town hall was
illuminated, a procession was forming, and there were crowds waiting at
the railway station. “Yes,” said the hotel proprietor, “it is a fete
day--for the people of Dolhain. We celebrate the return of one of our
boys, the son of a cobbler, who has received at the Conservatory of
Liège the first prize for violin.”
[Illustration: THE CASTLE OF WALZIN
One of the most romantic chateaus of the Ardennes, erected on a cliff
above the River Lesse, in the 13th century]
_The Rise of Belgian Industry_
Belgium’s story, as complex in pattern as the tapestry of Flemish
looms, is interwoven with the bright threads of genius, and, no less,
with the gold of commerce and the crimson threads of war. Proud
mistress of the arts as Belgium can claim to be, she has held her
own for centuries past as a vigorous industrial nation. Tribes that
came across the Rhine after Caesar’s conquest of the Gauls, 57-52
before Christ, were permitted by the Romans to settle upon the lands
that extended from the basin of the Meuse River to the sea. For ten
centuries they diligently tilled the soil, and as diligently fought
encroachment. About the year one thousand, the Counts of Flanders,
whose holdings constituted one of nine Belgian principalities,
fortified the towns of Bruges, Ghent, Courtrai and Ypres (broozh,
gent[A], koor-tray, eep-r), and protected them with stout walls. The
granting of civic charters spurred these Flemish communes to greater
activity, and cloth markets were established in each walled town. It
seems clear that before any race of northern Europe the Flemish turned
from the plow to the counting-house, from the farm to the crafts-shop.
Bruges was the most influential financial city north of the Alps,
until its leadership was wrested by Antwerp and then by Ghent in the
fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Brussels, the seat of ruling princes
and an important trading-station on the route from Bruges to Cologne,
boasted a population of fifty thousand persons as long ago as the year
1500. Liège and Mons (monz), even then, were noted for their metal
industries.
[A] _g_ and _e_ as in get.
[Illustration: THE STEEL WORKS OF OUGRÉE
On the bank of the River Meuse, between Liège and Seraing]
But the very advantages that contributed to the material advancement of
Belgium were responsible for the invasions that times without number
reddened her soil and enslaved her people. The territory occupied by
the Netherlanders (“the people of the low lands,”--the Belgians and
the Dutch) lay in the track of all the envious and ambitious nations
of Europe. One war succeeded another until, in the year 1830, the
Belgians freed themselves of their final and most irritating yoke by
successfully employing arms against Holland. At last the Belgians’
country was their own. And now a new Belgium came into being. “Only one
common trait,” says a student of Belgian history, “connected the men of
the two epochs--the capacity for work.” The exploitation of the coal
mines of Seraing (se-ran) and Hainaut (hay-no), the discovery of iron
mines, the establishment of great foundries and manufactories, followed
the consummation of national independence. A system of railways was
organized that had no superior in Europe. The internal waterways of
the country--the rivers, canalized rivers and canals--aided in the
transportation of manufactures, land products and imports to the extent
of millions of tons a year.
[Illustration: HEYST
A fishing village and summer resort on the North Sea coast, near
Ostend. At low tide the beach is a moorage for trawlers of the fishing
fleet]
[Illustration: THE CITY OF LIÈGE
From a print made in the year 1659]
In the revived prosperity of Belgium, her kings played a vital role.
Under Leopold the First, a favorite uncle of Queen Victoria of
England, a constitutional monarchy was established that was a model
of democracy. The taxes were light; only a small standing army was
maintained. The neutrality of the nation had been guaranteed by the
Treaty of London after the close of the war with Holland. “Freedom
reigns among us, without flaw and without infringement,” declared a
patriot-orator, forty years ago. Leopold the Second, who came to the
throne in 1865, advanced the agricultural, manufacturing and maritime
interests of the realm, and, a short while before his death, brought
the Congo Free State, over which he had held sovereignty for twenty
years, under the Belgian flag. With the acquisition of a colony eighty
times as large as the kingdom itself, Belgium became the dazzled
possessor of a treasure land of mines, arable acres and profitable
forests. Rail and water transportation were promoted by Belgian and
foreign companies, eager to enjoy the rich opportunities of the African
colony, and hundreds of trading-houses sprang up to handle the Congo’s
yield of palm oils, copal, rubber, cocoa, copper, gold, diamonds and
ivory.
Upon the death of his uncle in 1909, King Albert fell heir to the
most densely populated domain in the world. Over seven million people
inhabited a country comprising about eleven thousand square miles. If
all the people of the New England States were crowded within the bounds
of the State of Vermont, conditions of life would be comparable with
those of the little kingdom of Belgium. Its rulers, King Albert and
his consort, Queen Elizabeth, youngest daughter of the benevolent Duke
Charles of Bavaria, have always kept very close to the hearts of their
subjects, and have never permitted the exacting ceremonials of the
court to usurp time set aside for the consideration of the country’s
intimate needs. The daily picture of their “little Queen” driving
to and fro among the charitable institutions of Brussels is a sight
familiar to the people. The Belgians are frank to say that, should the
monarchy ever become a republic, Albert and Elizabeth would be elected
the President and First Lady of the land. Each inhabitant contributes
one franc a year toward the support of the King, the Queen, Prince
Leopold, Prince Charles, and Princess Marie José.
[Illustration: CHATEAU OF THE COUNTS OF FLANDERS (’S GRAVENSTEEN), GHENT
Begun in the 9th century, occupied by the Counts of Flanders in
medieval times, it is now restored and open to the public]
_Belgian Thrift_
With the active support of the State, provident societies and savings
banks exist to foster habits of thrift. A co-operative society, “The
People,” in Ghent, has a membership of many thousands of families. It
operates a bakery, a bank, a theater, and numerous stores and mills.
“The Peasants’ Union” owns assets valued at ten million dollars.
Trained advisers are employed by the Union to travel among the farmers
and suggest improved methods of raising crops and livestock. In point
of individual savings, Belgium held a place high on the list of nations
before the War.
Belgium was a veritable hive of contented, thrifty workers before the
German hordes crossed her borders. And today, after more than four
years of exhaustive warfare and abysmal suffering, the nation is again
rising to renew her forces, just as, so often in the past, she has been
constrained to rise and gird her industrial armor on after long periods
of oppression and abuse. In 1914 there were but five other countries
whose foreign trade was greater; in her output of steel, glass, railway
rolling stock, beet sugar and textiles, she could hold her own with
bigger rivals. Half her people were engaged in manufacturing and allied
pursuits, and half in the cultivation of the soil. Antwerp, “safest
harbor on the Continent,” ranked next to New York among the ports of
the world.
[Illustration: MONUMENTS ON THE BATTLEFIELD OF WATERLOO]
When King Albert returned to his capital after a tragic exile, this is
what he found: the Government railways, interurban lines and canals
almost entirely out of commission; the harbor of Antwerp closed;
three hundred thousand subjects homeless; scores of factories totally
destroyed or too badly damaged to operate; and sixteen hundred coke
furnaces, so vital to the manufacture of steel, completely demolished.
The national debt had more than quadrupled, and eight hundred thousand
laborers, through enforced idleness, were receiving their support from
the Government.
[Illustration: A LACE WORKER
In a community of nuns, Bruges. The long-armed stove and the fireplace
are characteristic of most Flemish cottages.]
_The Redemption of Belgium_
The unconquerable Belgians, in whom burns the indomitable flame of the
Belgae of old, are already winning against these seemingly insuperable
odds. Homes have been built by the aid of the King Albert Fund, which
has expended up to the present time about ten million dollars for this
purpose. The Government has lent an immense sum to householders and
manufacturers for the rebuilding of their own dwellings and factories.
Thousands of carloads of machinery have been recovered from Germany
through a well-organized “recuperation service,” authorized by the
Peace Treaty, and many mills, dismantled or destroyed by the enemy, are
running on part or full time. A large proportion of idle workmen have
found occupation at wages higher than they received before the War.
Nearly all of the one hundred steamship services leaving Antwerp for
world ports have resumed sailings. The thousand miles of railway lines
destroyed by the invaders are now relaid, and traffic is approaching
normal. All this, some of it with the financial aid of America, has
been achieved within a few months after the cessation of the most
destructive warfare in history. Belgium’s withered acres and ravaged
towns are rising like the phoenix, reborn through fire.
[Illustration: From a photograph by A. V. Onslow
A FAMILY OF WALLOON PEASANTS
At tea in the harvest field]
_The Face of Belgium_
The face of Belgium shows us many moods. Fisher villages and attractive
seaside resorts give color to the long ribbon of sand that reaches for
forty miles from the French to the Dutch border. To the east is the
low-lying country from which Flanders--“the low land”--has its name.
Beyond this expanse resembling the dike-protected regions of Holland is
a naturally sterile sandy plain that Flemish farmers have by centuries
of toil brought to a high state of productivity. Still further toward
the sunrise are the grateful hills and waving meadows of Brabant. To
the south lies the great coal and iron-bearing tract--the beautiless
but prodigally endowed region of the _Borinage_, or Place of Boring. In
the wild forest land of the Ardennes, bounded by the River Meuse and
a part of France, Luxemburg, and Rhenish Prussia, are mountains of no
great elevation but singularly romantic beauty, and lofty tree-covered
plateaus, and rivers whose banks are adorned by charming cities and
resorts. Historic Dinant (dee-nan) and Namur, often described as among
the loveliest towns in Europe, lay in the Germans’ path on the march to
the French border. The forts of Namur fell on August 21, 1914, after
thirty-six hours’ bombardment. On the following day the allied armies
suffered a momentous defeat at Charleroi (char-le-rwah), and retreated
by way of Mons into St. Quentin, France.
High among the forested ways of the Ardennes is Spa, the delightfully
pretty and--in normal times--very gay watering-place, which during
the War was frequented by visitors most unwelcome in Belgium. One of
these visitors, whose military headquarters were at Spa, has since been
almost equally unwelcome as a resident of Holland.
_Obstinate Liège_
The Meuse, flowing through verdant Wallonia, embraces, with its
tributary, the Ourthe (oort), the spacious and advantageously situated
city of Liège, whose inhabitants, since its foundation, have been known
for the sturdiness of their resistance under attack, and for their
“partiality for labor” when at liberty to pursue the walks of peace.
When Germany forced the armored door defending the kingdom of the
Belgians, and gained entrance to the roads to France and the North Sea,
another chapter--this time a chapter that required four long years for
the writing--was added to the story of war-scarred Liège.
[Illustration: A WALLOON FARMER AND HIS DAUGHTER]
One of the traditions of the city is the excellence of its weapon
manufacture. A great proportion of the two hundred thousand inhabitants
gain their livelihood by making arms and cannon. Nearby are the
colossal ironworks of Seraing, with upwards of 10,000 employees, who
turn out guns, bridges, boilers, armor-plate, ships.
“We were pounding at the anvils when they pounded at our gate;
‘Open,’ cried the German squadrons; ‘let us pass or meet your fate.
We are millions; dare deny us and Liège is but a name.’
But we chose to die in honor than to buy our lives in shame.
So we banked our eager fires, and we laid aside the sledge,
Recking only that our sires had endowed us with the pledge
To maintain an ally’s honor, to uphold the Belgian code,
And we answered with our cannon, THAT LIÈGE WOULD HOLD THE ROAD.”
_Brussels, the Capital_
[Illustration: A MILK WAGON
On a road in Flanders]
Half-way across Belgium, midway between Liège and Ostend, the capital
of the kingdom invites us to enter its gates. Brussels had its
beginning in a settlement of the sixth century which occupied an island
in the marshy River Senne. The river, ever a troublesome stream, is
now confined within viaducts, and the city has climbed the heights
above its hidden banks. The dwellings of warrior tribes and the castles
of the mighty Dukes of Brabant are supplanted by the substantial
buildings of a center of present-day life. For the well-kept beauty
of its streets and open spaces, for its air of solid content and
well-contained vivacity, for its handsome store-houses of ancient and
modern art, its massive but harmonious architecture, its tempting shops
and markets, and the alluring grace of its medieval roofs and towers,
Brussels exacts universal admiration. Fortunately, her fine streets
and buildings escaped the vandalism that blighted or razed many other
Belgian communities. There is not space here to narrate the tragedy of
Brussels under enemy domination. Encouraged by a staunch-hearted King,
the city is fast resuming its former activities. Many of the great
families of the nation, resident in Brussels, have been impoverished.
Treasure places have been sacked. There are indelible lines of grief on
the faces one sees in the street. But the veil of mourning that so long
enveloped the city is withdrawn to let in the sun of hope and renewed
good fortune. Beleaguered Brussels will soon be herself again.
[Illustration: THE BELFRY OF BRUGES
“In the market-place of Bruges
Stands the belfry old and brown;
Thrice consumed and thrice rebuilded,
Still it watches o’er the town.”
--_Longfellow_]
Of all places one goes to see, none has a greater appeal to the
imagination than that rare old square in Brussels called the _Grand’
Place_. It has been the scene of barbarous deeds of the Middle Ages;
martyrs and heroes have met their death here; and knights and damsels,
dukes and ladies have passed days in “skilful jousting” beneath its
painted façades. Ranged about its four sides are the halls dedicated to
Middle-Century guilds--the Hall of the Sea Captains, the Archers’ Hall;
at the corner of Butter Street, the Hall of the Bakers; the Hall of the
Painters; the Hall of the Grease Merchants; the graceful House of the
King, and the Weigh House. More elegant than these, with their gilded
lace-like gables, slender pinnacles and suggestively romantic doorways,
is the Gothic _Hôtel de Ville_, or City Hall, with a tower 370 feet
high, and a history that goes back to the year 1400. A gracious
picture, indeed, is this redolent square when Flemish peasant women
drive in at dawn and under the flame-tinted spires unload their baskets
of flowers and garden vegetables and their shining copper cans. When
the market hour has passed, they go by the Street of the Mountain to
worship in the twin-towered Cathedral of Ste. Gudule and St. Michael,
which stands up impressively above the lower town.
[Illustration: “THE GREEN QUAY,” BRUGES
The belfry rises at the right]
In the quarter dominated by the cathedral is the Royal Palace, the
official residence of the Court; and the majestic white Palace of
Justice, “the largest architectural work of the nineteenth century,”
which cost ten million dollars to build and contains nearly 300 court
rooms and apartments. The Conservatory of Music, in a neighboring
street, has had many pupils and teachers whose names are familiar to
all lovers of music--the violin masters, Vieuxtemps, Wieniawski, César
Thomson, Ysaye (a native of Liège), and Alphonse Mailly, the organist.
Outside the limits of the city, beyond the canal that connects Brussels
with the sea, is the extensive Park of Laeken and the established
residence of the King and Queen. Another excursion out of Brussels
takes us to the battlefield of Waterloo, where the forces of the
English and the Prussians defeated the French, June 18, 1815, and made
an end of the all-conquering career of the great Napoleon.
_Malines, Antwerp, Ghent_
On the road to Antwerp we digress a little to visit the very old
Flemish town of Louvain (loo-van), whose name was early written into
the history of the War through the ruthless destruction of the library
of the University--two centuries ago the most distinguished seat of
learning in Europe. The Town Hall, moreover, has always been given
first place among all the ornately beautiful halls of the nation.
Malines (mah-leen), called Mechlin in Flemish, betrays wounds inflicted
during three weeks’ bombardment. It has wide fame for its lace and
its cathedral pictures, and for its amazing clock tower. When it was
begun in the year 1452, the architect of the tower intended to make it
“the highest in Christendom”; but he never reached what we may call
the height of his ambition. The square, unfinished structure rises
magnificently 318 feet above the street, but does not approach by
200 feet the lofty tower of the Cathedral of Ulm, in the kingdom of
Württemberg.
[Illustration: THE CATHEDRAL OF ST. ROMBOLD, MALINES (MECHLIN)
Height of the tower, 318 feet]
[Illustration: THE WATERFRONT, ANTWERP
The Cathedral of Notre Dame in the center background]
The site of Antwerp, fifty miles inland from the North Sea, on a wide
curve of the Scheldt (skelt), has been coveted and assailed, built and
rebuilt upon since the dawn of European civilization. No city has a
more affluent history, nor one that contains gloomier chronicles of
siege and warfare. Its wharves and its narrow streets, bulked by the
over-watching citadel and the flamboyant tower of one of the finest
churches in Belgium, are teeming with wharfmongers and brokers, dealers
in diamonds and ivory, lace-makers, flower vendors, factory-workers.
One sees many artists, too, for the Academy of Antwerp is attended
by hundreds of students, attracted to the “city on the wharf” by the
unequaled opportunities presented for the study of Flemish masters,
ancient and modern, whose works are exhibited in the Cathedral of
Notre Dame and in the vast galleries of the Royal Museum of Fine Arts.
[Illustration: INTERIOR OF THE LIBRARY, UNIVERSITY OF LOUVAIN
Its store of irreplaceable manuscripts and books (230,000 in number)
were wantonly burned by the Germans. The University, also destroyed,
was revered for its association with the names of Erasmus, Justus
Lipsius, and other renowned scholars]
In the sixteenth-century rooms of the master printers, Christopher
Plantin and his son-in-law, John Moretus, we examine the yellowed
manuscripts of aspiring authors of that day; presses and proof-sheets;
wood-cut designs by Rubens, and the original shop where generations of
printers turned out excellent books by grant of the Crown, including
the precious and far renowned Polyglot Bible.
Of Ghent, “the City of Flowers,” Maurice Maeterlinck its poet-son has
written, “It is the soul of Flanders, at once venerable and young. In
its streets the past and present elbow each other.” The citizenry of
Ghent, from remote times, have been reputed for their independence
and impetuous resource to arms. Many of the branching canals which
connected it with Bruges, Courtrai, Tournai, Antwerp and Brussels have
now silted up, but a comparatively modern ship canal leading to the
Scheldt and the sea gives the bustling old city communication with the
ports of the world. Freed of the Germans, Ghent is once more treading
the looms of industry. Once more tourists will come to look upon one of
the chief glories of Flanders, a turreted stronghold of ninth-century
foundation, with towers and buttresses, winding stairs, dungeons,
donjon and banqueting hall associated with the exploits of crusading
knights and the patrician counts of Flanders. The most precious example
of primitive Flemish painting, “The Adoration of the Lamb,” by the
brothers Van Eyck, had for centuries hung in the noble Cathedral of St.
Bavon, before it was sent by the Germans to adorn the Berlin Museum.
Under the terms of the Treaty of Versailles, this masterpiece, with
all others stolen by the enemy, becomes once more the property of
the Belgians. Most attractive are the communities of white-coiffed,
blue-garbed nuns who live in spotless little houses, and devote their
lives to the making of fine lace and embroidery. And greatly revered by
native Ghenters is the soaring belfry tower from which Freedom’s alarms
have so often rung out across the Flemish Plain.
[Illustration: Copyright, Keystone View Co. Inc.
THE SHORE AT OSTEND]
_In West Flanders_
With the names of many places in the province of West Flanders, the
despatches of war have acquainted us. Battered Audenarde; proud Ypres,
held first by the Germans and then so long and so stubbornly by
Haig’s men; Dixmude; the Yser Canal that flowed crimson to the sea;
Nieuport, Westende, Middelkerke, leveled like wheat before the mower;
Ostend, whose leisurely crowds were scattered before the gray tidal
wave that swept across these lowlands, leaving a swath 70,000 acres
broad of ruined farms and villages. It is proposed not to attempt
the resurrection of the city of Ypres, but to leave as they are the
shell-torn walls, the cluttered streets, and the wreck of the superb
Cloth Hall, with its massive reach of wall and roof and belfry, as
a place of pilgrimage in years to come. In the thirteenth century
Ypres flourished as a cloth-weaving center, with a population of
over 200,000. At the beginning of the World War it had about 18,000
inhabitants, most of whom were engaged in the making and marketing of
Valenciennes lace.
No one that roams today the quaintly narrowed streets of Bruges, or
stands upon its many bridges gazing upon the green of quiet waters,
where swans drift and storied towers cast their shadows, would guess
that traders from far Novgorod and the cities of Persia, from Spain and
all the countries of Europe once animated its highways. Every ruler,
every industry, every craft and art that contributed to the dowering of
Bruges left upon it some well-graved mark, which Time has not erased.
In the old quarters--and there are few new ones--there is scarcely
a street that does not offer some reward to the sight-seeker--some
fretted casement or sculptured entrance-way, some gracefully designed
structure that has a special story of its own, and gives shelter to
works of art beyond price. Rising benevolently above the great square
is the quadrangular belfry tower, as lofty as it is historic, that
Longfellow has made familiar to us all.
[Illustration: Copyright Underwood & Underwood
KING ALBERT AND QUEEN ELIZABETH OF BELGIUM]
_SUPPLEMENTARY READING_
THE SPELL OF BELGIUM _By Isabel Anderson_
THE SPELL OF FLANDERS _By Edward N. Vose_
BELGIUM OF THE BELGIANS _By D. C. Boulger_
THE BELGIANS AT HOME _By Clive Holland_
VANISHED TOWERS AND CHIMES OF FLANDERS _Written and illustrated by
George Wharton Edwards_
THE HEART OF EUROPE _By Ralph Cram_
BELGIUM _Text by Hugh Stokes; illustrations by Frank Brangwyn_
BELGIUM _By Brand Whitlock_
BELGIUM, LAND OF ART _By W. E. Griffis_
CONTEMPORARY BELGIAN LITERATURE _By Jethro Bithell_
⁂ Information concerning the above books may be had on application to
the Editor of The Mentor.
_THE OPEN LETTER_
[Illustration: Courtesy, Collier’s Weekly
RUINS OF THE CLOTH HALL, CATHEDRAL, AND TOWN HALL, YPRES
Compare this picture with Gravure No. 1. Both were photographed from
about the same spot. As may be seen, the devastation wrought by the
War is almost complete. The main façade of the great Cloth Hall had a
frontage of 433 feet; the square bell tower was 230 feet high]
From the earliest times the Belgae have been known as a hardy,
courageous and determined people. Julius Caesar had as much trouble in
his day in subduing them as the Kaiser had with their descendants in
the first year of the World War. Caesar came into conflict with the
Belgae when he was campaigning for the conquest of Gaul in 57 B. C.,
and it was only after long fighting that he crushed them. Even then
they refused to remain in subjection. In a few years several of the
Belgae tribes revolted, and had to be dealt with anew. When the Roman
Empire was reorganized under Augustus, the Belgae were included in the
province of Gallia Belgica, which extended from the west bank of the
Rhine to the North Sea and south to Lake Constance.
* * * * *
Julius Caesar wrote, in his history of the Conquest of Gaul, “_Horum
omnium fortissimi sunt Belgae_,” which, freely translated, means that
“the Belgae were, all around, the bravest” of the races that the Roman
Conqueror met in the Gallic wars. Caesar was a man of cool, clear
judgment, not averse to giving a doughty foe due credit, and several
trying experiences in fierce encounters with the Belgae had afforded
him a just measure of their fearless, intrepid qualities. His appraisal
of their valor has had full confirmation in our day--with all the
peoples of the earth, but the Huns, sympathetic witnesses.
* * * * *
The attitude of the nations toward “Belgium the Brave” has probably
found no more glowing expression than in the eloquent tribute of Mr.
Hugh Stokes, in his recent book on the Belgians. “To an indomitable
race,” he exclaims, “civilized mankind offers a silent homage. A new
meaning has been given to the inspiration of patriotism. And, in
showing us how death can be despised Belgium rises to a new life and an
immortal glory among the nations.”
[Illustration: W. D. Moffat
EDITOR]
Belgium Through the Ages
We have traveled from Flanders and its great cities into Brabant,
gazing for a moment at Liège and the towns on the Meuse, briefly
touching the Ardennes, Hainaut and the country around Tournai. The
records of these ancient provinces are rich in tradition and incident.
From the tapestries off the looms of Audenarde and Brussels peer all
the fabulous heroes of antiquity.… So in printed word, with dropped
stitches and many a gap in the story, may be discovered through the
misty veil of time the roofs of Bruges; Jan van Artevelde inflaming
the crowds beneath the Belfry of Ghent; all the Counts of Flanders
and Dukes of Burgundy; Godfrey of Bouillon riding at the head of the
Crusaders; Spanish captains and Austrian archdukes, Don John, Alva and
Farnese; the frail steeple of Antwerp rising above a “kermesse” in the
Place de Meir; the “Ommegang” passing in front of the King’s House
of Brussels; Justus Lipsius philosophizing before the Hôtel de Ville
of Louvain; Wolsey enthroned beneath the five towers of Tournai, and
Becket slaking his thirst at the village well of Loo.… These are the
shadows on the frayed and worn hangings. Cities and men. Cities from
which the magnificence has in many cases departed, men whose glory is
in every case but a handful of ashes.
To the good citizen, as well as to the statesman, the story of Belgium
presents innumerable problems, and teaches the sternest of lessons.
Many of the difficulties remain to be solved. Centuries will not
exhaust the retribution which must be exacted for the martyrdom of this
heroic kingdom. A country may be devastated, but its history cannot be
wiped from the chronicles.
Hugh Stokes, in “Belgium.”
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|
a little heap of cotton all of her own. At least, it was not
really her own, because she stole it; but then you cannot get policemen
to take up a Thrush for stealing, and as men catch Thrushes and put them
in a cage all for nothing, it is only fair the birds should have their
turn.
When the heap of cotton was big enough, our Thrush flew to the house of
the Cotton-carder, and sat down in front of him.
"Good day, Man," said the Thrush.
"Good day, Birdie," said the Cotton-carder. The Thrush was not a bit
afraid, because she knew he was a kind man, who never caught little
birds to put them in a cage. He liked better to hear them singing free
in the woods.
"Man," said the Thrush, "I have a heap of beautiful cotton, and I'll
tell you what. You shall have half of it, if you will card the rest and
make it up into balls for me."
"That I will," said the man; "where is it?"
"If you will come with me," said the Thrush, "I'll show you."
So the Thrush flew in front, and the man followed after, and they came
to the place where the hoard of cotton was hidden away. The man took the
cotton home, and carded it, and made it into balls. Half of the cotton
he took for his trouble, and the rest he gave back to the Thrush. He was
so honest that he did not cheat even a bird, although he could easily
have done so. For birds cannot count: and if you find a nest full of
eggs, and take one or two, the mother-bird will never miss them; but if
you take all, the bird is unhappy.
Not far away from the Carder lived a Spinner. This man used to put a
ball of cotton on a stick, and then he pulled out a bit of the cotton
without breaking it, and tied it to another little stick with a weight
on it. Then he twisted the weight, and set it a-spinning; and as it
span, he held the cotton ball in one hand, and pulled out the cotton
with the other, working it between finger and thumb to keep it fine.
Thus the spindle went on spinning, and the cotton went on twisting,
until it was twisted into thread. That is why the man was called a
Spinner. It looks very easy to do, when you can do it; but it is really
very hard to do well.
To this Spinner the Thrush came, and after bidding him good day, said
she--
"Mr. Spinner, I have some balls of cotton all ready to spin into thread.
Will you spin one half of them into thread for me, if I give you the
other half?"
"That I will," said Mr. Spinner; and away they went to find the cotton
balls, Thrush first and Spinner following.
In a very few days the Spinner had spun all the cotton into the finest
thread. Then he took a pair of scales, and weighed it into two equal
parts (he was an honest man, too): half he kept for himself, and the
other half he gave to the Thrush.
The next thing this clever Thrush did was to fly to the house of a
Weaver. The Weaver used to buy thread, and fasten a number of threads to
a wooden frame, called a loom, which was made of two upright posts,
with another bar fastened across the top. The threads were hung to the
cross-bar, and a little stone was tied to the bottom of each, to keep it
steady. Then the Weaver wound some more thread around a long stick
called a shuttle; and the shuttle he pushed in front of one thread and
behind the next, until it had gone right across the whole of the
threads, in and out. Then he pushed it back in the same way, and after a
bit, the upright threads and the cross-threads were woven together and
made a piece of cloth.
The Thrush flew down to the Weaver, and they made the same bargain as
before. The Weaver wove all the thread into pieces of cloth, and half he
kept for himself, but the other half he returned to the Thrush.
So now the Thrush had some beautiful cloth, and I dare say you wonder
what she wanted it for. As you have not been inquisitive, I will tell
you: she wanted clothes to dress herself. The Thrush had noticed that
men and women walking about wore clothes, and being an ambitious Thrush,
and eager to rise in the world, she felt it would not be proper to go
about without any clothes on. So she now went to a Tailor, and said to
him--
"Good Mr. Tailor, I have some pieces of very fine cloth, and I should be
much obliged if you would make a part of it into clothes for me. You
shall have one half of the cloth for your trouble."
The Tailor was very glad of this job, as times were slack. So he took
the cloth, and at once set to work. Half of it he made into a beautiful
dress for the Thrush, with a skirt and jacket, and sleeves in the latest
fashion; and as there was a little cloth left over, and he was an
honest Tailor, he made her also a pretty little hat to put on her head.
Then the Thrush was indeed delighted, and felt there was little more to
desire in the world. She put on her skirt, and her jacket with
fashionable sleeves, and the little hat, and looked at her image in a
river, and was mightily pleased with herself. Now she became so vain
that nothing would do, but she must show herself to the King.
So she flew and flew, and away she flew, until she came to the King's
palace. Into the King's palace she flew, and into the great hall where
the King sat and the Queen and all the courtiers. There was a peg high
up on the wall, and the Thrush perched on this peg, and began to sing.
"Oh, look there!" cried the Queen, who was the first to see this
wonderful sight--"see, a Thrush in a jacket and skirt and a pretty hat!"
Everybody looked at the Thrush singing on her peg, and clapped their
hands.
"Come here, Birdie," said the King, "and show the Queen your pretty
clothes."
The Thrush felt highly flattered, and flew down upon the table, and took
off her jacket to show the Queen. Then she flew back to her peg, and
watched to see what would happen.
The Queen turned over the jacket in her hand, and laughed. Then she
folded it up, and put it in her pocket.
"Give me my jacket!" twittered the Thrush. "I shall catch cold, and
besides, it is not proper for a lady to be seen without a jacket."
Then they all laughed, and the King said, "Come here, Mistress Thrush,
and you shall have your jacket."
Down flew the Thrush upon the table again; but the King caught her, and
held her fast.
"Let me go!" squeaked the Thrush, struggling to get free.
But the King would not let her go. I am afraid that although he was a
King, he was not so honest as the Carder or the Spinner, and cared less
for his word than the Weaver and the Tailor.
"Greedy King," said the Thrush, "to covet my little jacket!"
"I covet more than your jacket," said the King; "I covet you, and I am
going to chop you up into little bits."
Then he began to chop her up into bits. As she was being chopped up, the
Thrush said, "The King snips and cuts like a Tailor, but he is not so
honest!"
When the King had finished chopping her up, he began to wash the pieces.
And each piece, as he washed it, called out, "The King scours and scrubs
like a washerwoman, but he is not so honest!"
Then the King put the pieces of the Thrush into a frying-pan with oil,
and began to fry them. But the pieces went on calling out, "The King is
like a cook, frying and sputtering, but he is not so honest!"
When she was fried, the King ate her up. From within the body of the
King still the Thrush kept calling out, "I am inside the King! It is
just like the inside of any other man, only not so honest!"
The King became like a walking musical-box, and he did not like it at
all, but it was his own fault. Wherever he went, everybody heard the
Thrush crying out from inside the King, "Just like any other man, only
not so honest!" Everybody that heard this began to despise the King.
At last the King could stand it no longer. He sent for his doctor, and
said, "Doctor, you must cut this talking bird out of me."
"Your majesty will die, if I do," said the Doctor.
"I shall die if you don't," answered the King, "for I cannot endure
being made a fool of."
So there was nothing for it: the Doctor took his
knives, and made a hole in the King, and pulled out the
Thrush. Strange to say, the pieces of the Thrush had all
joined together again, and away she flew; but her beautiful
clothes were all gone. However, it was a lesson she
never forgot; and after that, she slept soft in her nest
of cotton, and never again tried to ape her betters. As
for the King, he died; and a good riddance too.
His son became king in his stead; and all
life long he remembered his father's
miserable death, and kept all his
promises to men, and beasts,
and birds.
The Rabbit and the Monkey
ONCE upon a time, there lived in the mountains a Rabbit and a Monkey,
who were great friends. One day, as they sat by the roadside hobnobbing
together, who should come by but a man with a bamboo pole over his
shoulder, and at each end of the pole was a bundle hung to a string; and
there were plantains in one bundle, and sugar in the other.
Said the Monkey to the Rabbit, "Friend of my heart, do as I shall tell
you. Go and sit upon the road in front of that man, and as soon as he
sees you, run--he is sure to drop his load and follow. Then I will pick
up his load, and hide it safely; and when you come back, we will share
it together."
No sooner said than done: the Rabbit ran, and the man dropped his burden
and ran after him; while the Monkey, who had been hiding in the tall
grass by the wayside, pounced upon the sugar and the plantains, and
climbed up into a tree, and began to gobble them up at his leisure.
By-and-by the man came back, hot and empty-handed, and finding that his
goods were gone as well as the Rabbit, cursed loudly, and went home to
be scolded by his wife.
[Illustration]
Soon the Rabbit came back too, and began hunting about for his friend
the Monkey. High and low he searched, and not a trace could he find;
till he happened to cast his eyes aloft, and lo and behold, there was
Mr. Monkey up in a tree, munching away with every sign of enjoyment.
"Hullo, friend," said he, "come down out of that."
"I'm very comfortable here, thank you," said the Monkey.
"But where's my share?" asked the Rabbit indignantly.
"All gone, all gone," mumbled the Monkey, and pelted him with the
plantain-peel and balls of paper made out of the packets where the sugar
had been. "Why did you stay so long? I got hungry, and could not wait
any longer."
The Rabbit thought his friend was joking, and would not believe it; but
it was only too true--the greedy creature had not left a scrap.
"Do you really mean it?" said the poor Rabbit.
"If you don't believe me, come and see," said the Monkey, and seizing
the Rabbit by his long ears, he hauled him up into the tree; and after
mocking him, and making great game, he left him there, and went away.
Now the Rabbit was afraid to jump down from such a height, for fear of
breaking his neck, so up in the tree he remained for a long time. Many
animals passed under the tree, but none took pity on the rabbit, until
at last came an old and foolish Rhinoceros, who rubbed his withered hide
against the trunk.
"Kind Rhinoceros," said the Rabbit, "let me jump down upon your back."
The Rhinoceros, being a simple creature, agreed. Down came the Rabbit,
with such a thud, that the Rhinoceros fell on his stupid old nose, and
broke his fat old neck, and died.
[Illustration]
The Rabbit ran away, and away he ran, until he came to the King's
palace; and he hid under the King's golden throne. By-and-by in came the
King, and in came the court; all the grandees stood around in their
golden robes, glittering with rubies and diamonds, and their swords were
girt about their waists. Suddenly they all heard a terrific sneeze!
Everybody said, "God bless you," while the King thundered out: "Who has
the bad manners to sneeze in the King's presence?" Everybody looked at
his neighbour, and wondered who did it. "Off with his head," shouted the
King.
Another sneeze came. This time, however, everybody was on the watch, and
they noticed that the sound came from under the King's golden throne. So
they dived in, and lugged out the Rabbit, looking more dead than alive.
"All right," said the King, "off with his head." The executioner ran to
get his sword.
But our friend the Rabbit, for all he was frightened, had his wits about
him; and sitting up on his hind-legs, and putting his two fore-paws
together, he said respectfully, "O great King, strike, but hear. If thou
wilt send a score of men with me, I will give thee a dead Rhinoceros."
The King laughed, the courtiers laughed loud and long. However, just to
see what would come of it, the King gave him a score of men.
The Rabbit led them to the place where the Rhinoceros fell on his stupid
old nose, and there he lay dead. With great difficulty the men dragged
the Rhinoceros home. They were very pleased to get a Rhinoceros, because
his horn is good for curing many diseases, and the court physician
ground his horn into powder, and made out of it a most wonderful
medicine. And the King was so pleased, that he gave the Rabbit a fine
new coat, and a horse to ride on.
So the Rabbit put on his fine coat, and got on the back of his horse,
and rode off.
On the way, who should meet him but his friend the Monkey.
"Hullo!" says the Monkey, "where did you get all that finery?"
"The King gave it to me," says the Rabbit.
Says the Monkey, "And why should the King give all this to a fool like
you?"
The Rabbit replied, "I, whom you call a fool, got it by sneezing under
the King's golden throne; such a lucky sneeze, that the soothsayers
prophesied to the King long life and many sons!" Then he rode away.
The Monkey fell a-thinking how nice it would be if he could get a fine
coat and horse as the Rabbit had done. "I can sneeze," thought he; "what
if I try my luck?"
So he scampered away, and away he scampered, till he came to the King's
palace, and hid himself under the King's golden throne. When the King
came in, and all his courtiers, in gorgeous array as before, our Monkey
underneath the throne sneezed in the most auspicious manner he could
contrive.
"Who is that?" thundered the King, glaring about him. "Who has the bad
manners to sneeze in the King's presence?"
They searched about until they found the Monkey hidden under the throne,
and hauled him out.
"What hast thou, wily tree-climber," asked the King, "that I should not
bid the executioner cut off thy head?"
The monkey had no answer ready. At last he
said, "O King, I have some plantain-peel
and pellets of paper." But
the King was angry at this,
and the greedy Monkey
was led away, and
his head was
cut off.
[Illustration]
The Sparrow's Revenge
ONCE there was a pair of Sparrows that were very fond of each other, and
lived in a nest together as happy as the day was long. The hen laid eggs
and sat upon them, and the cock went about picking up food for them
both, and when he had got food enough, he sat on a twig close by the
nest, and twittered for joy.
But it happened one day that a boy saw Cock Sparrow pecking at some
seeds, and he picked up a stone and threw it at him, and killed him. So
no food came home that morning, and Hen Sparrow grew anxious, and at
last set out to find him.
In a little while she found his dead body lying in a ditch. She ruffled
up her feathers and began to cry. "Who can have killed him?" she said;
"my poor kind husband, who never did harm to any one." Then a Raven flew
down from a tree, where he had been sitting, and told her how a cruel
boy had thrown a stone at him and killed him for sport. He saw it, said
the Raven, as he was sitting on the tree.
Now Hen Sparrow determined to have her revenge. She was so much
troubled that she left her eggs to hatch themselves, or to addle if they
would; and gathering some straw, she plaited it into a beautiful straw
carriage, with two old cotton-reels for wheels, and sticks for the
shafts. Then she went to the hole of a Rat who was a friend of hers, and
called down the hole, "Mr. Rat! Mr. Rat!"
"Yes, Mrs. Sparrow," said the Rat, coming out of the hole and making a
polite bow.
"Some one has thrown a stone at my husband and killed him. Will you help
me to get my revenge?"
"Why," said the Rat, "how can I help you?"
"By pulling me along in my carriage," said Mrs. Sparrow.
"Oh yes," said the Rat; "that I will." So he went down into his hole
again, and washed his face, and combed his whiskers, and came up all
spick and span.
Mrs. Sparrow tied the shafts of the straw carriage to the Rat, and Mrs.
Sparrow got in, and off they went.
On the road they met a Scorpion. Said the Scorpion--
"Whither away, Mrs. Sparrow and Mr. Rat?"
Said the Hen Sparrow, "My friend Mr. Rat is pulling me along in my
carriage of straw to punish a cruel boy who threw a stone at my husband
and killed him."
"Quite right too," said the Scorpion. "May I come and help you? I have a
beautiful sting in my tail."
"Oh, please do! come and get in," said the Sparrow.
In got the Scorpion, and away they went. By-and-by they saw a Snake.
"Good day, and God bless you," says the Snake. "Where are you going, may
a mere reptile ask?"
"Mr. Scorpion and I are going to punish a cruel boy who threw a stone
and killed my husband."
"Shall I come and help you?" asked the Snake. "I have fine teeth in my
head to bite with."
"The more the merrier," replied Mrs. Sparrow. So in he got. They had not
gone far before who should meet them but a Wolf.
"Hullo," says the Wolf gruffly; "where are you off to, I should like to
know?"
"Mr. Rat is kind enough to draw me in my carriage, and we are all going
to punish a cruel boy who threw a stone and killed my poor husband."
"May I come too?" growled the Wolf. "I can bite." He opened his big jaws
and snarled.
"Oh, how kind you are!" said Mrs. Sparrow. "Do come! jump in, jump in!"
The poor Rat looked aghast at such a load to pull; but he was a
gentlemanly Rat, and so, having offered to pull the carriage, he said
nothing.
So the big Wolf got in, and nearly sat on the Scorpion's tail; if he
had, he wouldn't have sat long, I think. However, the Scorpion got out
of the way, and on they went all four, the poor Rat pulling with all his
might, but rather slow at that.
In due time they arrived at the cruel boy's house. His mother was
cooking the dinner, and his father was fast asleep in a chair. There was
a river close by the house, and the Wolf went down to the river, and
hid himself there; the Snake crawled among the peats, and the Scorpion
began to climb up into the chair where the man was sleeping.
Then Mrs. Hen Sparrow flew in at the door and twittered--
[Illustration]
"Little boy! Little boy! There's a fish biting at your night-line!"
Up jumped the boy, and out he ran, to look at the night-line. But as he
was stooping down and looking at the line to see if any fish were
hooked, the Wolf pounced upon him, and bit him in the throat, and he
died.
Then the cruel boy's mother went out to get some peats, and as she put
her hand in amongst them, the Snake bit her, and she gave a shriek and
fell down and died. The shriek awoke her husband sleeping in his chair,
and he began to get up, but by this time the Scorpion had climbed up the
leg of the chair, so he stung the man, and the man died too.
Thus there was an end of the cruel boy who killed
a harmless Sparrow for sport; and though his father
and mother had done nothing, yet they ought not to
have had a son so cruel, or, at least, they might have
brought him up better. Anyhow, die they did, all three;
and Mrs. Hen Sparrow was so delighted that she
forgot all about her dead husband, and forgot
her eggs which were getting addled,
and went about chirruping until
she found another husband,
and made another nest,
and (I am sorry to
say) lived happily
ever after.
The Judgment of the Jackal
A MERCHANT was returning home from a long journey, riding upon a mule.
As he drew near home, night overtook him; and he was forced to look out
for shelter. Seeing a mill by the roadside, he knocked at the door.
"Come in!" said the Miller.
"May I stay here for the night?" asked the Merchant.
"By all means," said the Miller, "if you pay me well."
The Merchant thought this rather mean; because in those days a stranger
was made welcome everywhere without paying anything. However, he made
the best of it, and came in. The Miller led off his mule to the stable.
"Please take care of my mule," said the Merchant; "I have still a long
way to go."
"Oh," said the Miller, "your mule will be all right." Then he rubbed him
down and fed him.
In the morning the Merchant asked for his mule.
[Illustration: "The Merchant was much dismayed."]
"I am very sorry," said the Miller; "he must have got loose last night,
and I can't find him anywhere."
The Merchant was much dismayed. He went out to look for himself, and
there, to be sure, was his mule, tied by the halter to the mill.
"Why, look here, Miller," says he, "here is the mule!"
"Oh no," says the Miller, "that mule is mine."
"Yours?" said the Merchant, getting angry. "Last night your stable was
empty. And don't you think I know my own mule?"
"That is mine," said the Miller again; "my mill had a young mule in the
night, and that is he."
The Merchant was now very angry indeed; but he could not help himself,
as he did not want to fight; he was a very peaceful Merchant. So he
said--
"Well, I have no doubt it's all right; but just to satisfy me, let us
ask the Rev. Dr. Jackal to decide between us; and whatever he says I
will abide by."
"Very good," answered the Miller; and away they went to the den of his
reverence the Jackal. Dr. Jackal was sitting with his hind legs crossed,
and smoking a hubble-bubble.
[Illustration]
"Good morning, worthy gentlemen," said the Jackal; "how can I serve
you?"
Said the Merchant, "Last night, my Lord Judge, I lodged with this Miller
here, and he took charge of my mule; but now he says it has run away,
though I saw it with my own eyes tied by the halter to his mill. He
says that the mule I saw is his, and that his mill is the mother of it,
and that it was born last night while I was asleep."
"Go back to the mill," said the Jackal, "and wait for me. I will just
wash my face, and then I'll settle your business."
They went away, and waited a long time, but no Jackal. Late in the
afternoon, they got tired of waiting for the Jackal, and determined to
go and look for him. There he was still, sitting in his den and smoking
a hubble-bubble.
"Why didn't you come?" asked the Miller. "We have been waiting for you
all day."
"Oh, my dear sir, I was too busy," said the Jackal. "When I went to wash
my face, I found that all the water had caught fire; I have only just
put it out."
"You must be mad, your reverence," said the Miller. "Who ever heard of
water catching fire?"
"And who ever heard," replied the Jackal, "of a mill having a young
mule?"
The Miller saw that he was found out, and was so
much ashamed that he gave back the mule to
its owner, and the Merchant
went home.
How the Mouse got into his Hole
A MERCHANT was going along the road one day with a sack of peas on the
back of an Ox. The Ox was stung by a Fly, and gave a kick, and down fell
the sack. A Mouse was passing by, and the Merchant said, "Mousie, if you
will help me up with this sack I will give you a pea." The Mouse helped
him up with the sack and got a pea for his trouble. He stole another,
and a third he found on the road.
When he got home with his three peas he planted them in front of his
hole. As he was planting them he said to them, "If you are not all three
sprouting by to-morrow I'll cut you in pieces and give you to the black
Ox." The peas were terribly frightened, and the next morning they had
already begun to sprout, and each of them had two shoots. Then he said,
"If I don't find you in blossom to-morrow I'll cut you in pieces and
give you to the black Ox." When he went to look next day they were all
in blossom. So he said, "If I don't find ripe peas on you to-morrow I'll
cut you in pieces and give you to the black Ox." Next day they had pods
full of ripe peas on them.
So every day he used to eat lots of peas, and in this manner he got very
fat. One day a pretty young lady Mouse came to see him.
"Good morning, Sleekie," said she; "how are you?"
"Good morning, Squeakie," said he; "I'm quite well, thank you."
"Why, Sleekie," said she, "how fat you are."
"Am I?" said he. "I suppose that's because I have plenty to eat."
"What do you eat, Sleekie?" asked the pretty young lady Mouse.
"Peas, Squeakie," said the other.
"Where do you get them, Sleekie?"
"They grow all of themselves in my garden, Squeakie."
"Will you give me some, please?" asked the lady Mouse.
"Oh yes, if you will stay in my garden, you may have as many as you
like."
So Squeakie stayed in Sleekie's garden, and they both ate so many peas
that they got fatter and fatter every day.
One day Squeakie said to Sleekie, "Let's try which can get into the hole
quickest." Squeakie was slim, and she had not been at the peas so long
as Sleekie, so she got into the hole easily enough; but Sleekie was so
fat that he could not get in at all.
He was very much frightened, and went off in hot haste to the
Carpenter, and said to him, "Carpenter, please pare off a little flesh
from my ribs, so that I can get into my hole."
"Do you think I have nothing better to do than paring down your ribs?"
said the Carpenter angrily, and went on with his work.
The Mouse went to the King, and said, "O King, I can't get into my hole,
and the Carpenter will not pare down my ribs; will you make him do it?"
"Get out," said the King; "do you think I have nothing better to do than
look after your ribs?"
So the Mouse went to the Queen. Said he, "Queen, I can't get into my
hole, and the King won't tell the Carpenter to pare down my ribs. Please
divorce him."
"Bother you and your ribs," said the Queen; "I am not going to divorce
my husband because you have made yourself fat by eating too much."
The Mouse went to the Snake. "Snake, bite the Queen, and tell her to
divorce the King, because he will not tell the Carpenter to pare my ribs
down and let me get into my hole."
"Get away," said the Snake; "or I'll swallow you up, ribs and all; the
fatter you are, the better I shall be pleased."
He went to the Stick, and said, "Stick, beat the Snake, because she
won't bite the Queen, who won't divorce the King and make him tell the
Carpenter to pare down my ribs, and let me get into my hole."
"Off with you," said the Stick; "I'm sleepy, because I have just beaten
a thief; I can't be worried about your ribs."
He went to the Furnace, and said, "Furnace, burn the Stick, and make it
beat the Snake, that he may bite the Queen and make her divorce the
King, who won't tell the Carpenter to pare down my ribs, and let me get
into my hole."
"Get along with you," said the Furnace; "I am cooking the King's dinner,
and I have no time now to see about your ribs."
He went to the Ocean, and said, "Ocean, put out the Fire, and make it
burn the Stick, so that it may beat the Snake, and the Snake may bite
the Queen, and she may divorce the King, who won't tell the Carpenter to
pare down my ribs, and let me get into my hole."
"Don't bother me," said the Ocean; "it's high tide, and all the fishes
are jumping about, and giving me no rest."
He went to the Elephant, and said, "O Elephant, drink up the Ocean, that
it may put out the Fire, and the Fire may burn the Stick, and the Stick
may beat the Snake, and the Snake may bite the Queen, and the Queen may
divorce the King, and make him tell the Carpenter to pare down my ribs,
and let me get into my hole."
"Go away, little Mouse," said the Elephant; "I have just drunk up a
whole lake, and I really can't drink any more."
He went to the Creeper, and said, "Dear Creeper, do please choke the
Elephant, that he may drink up the Ocean, and the Ocean may put out the
Fire, and the Fire may burn the Stick, and the Stick may beat the Snake,
and the Snake may bite the Queen, and the Queen may divorce the King,
and the King may tell the Carpenter to pare down my ribs, and let me get
into my hole."
"Not I," says the Creeper; "I am stuck fast here to this tree, and I
couldn't get away to please a fat little Mouse."
Then he went to the Scythe, and said, "Scythe, please cut loose the
Creeper, that it may choke the Elephant, and the Elephant may drink up
the Ocean, and the Ocean may put out the Fire, and the Fire may burn the
Stick, and the Stick may beat the Snake, and the Snake may bite the
Queen, and the Queen may divorce the King, and the King may tell the
Carpenter to pare down my ribs, and let me get into my hole."
"With pleasure," said the Scythe, who is always sharp.
So the Scythe cut the Creeper loose, and the Creeper
began to choke the Elephant, and the Elephant ran off
and began to drink up the Ocean, and the Ocean began
to put out the Fire, and the Fire began to burn the
Stick, and the Stick began to beat the Snake, and
the Snake began to bite the Queen, and the
Queen told the King she was going to
divorce him, and the King was
frightened, and ordered the
Carpenter to pare Sleekie's
ribs, and at last Sleekie
got into his hole.
King Solomon and the Owl
ONCE King Solomon was hunting all alone in the forest. Night fell, and
King Solomon lay down under a tree to sleep. Over his head, on the
branch of a tree, sat a huge Owl; and the Owl hooted so loud and so
long, Too-whit too-woo! Too-whit too-woo! that Solomon could not sleep.
Solomon looked up at the Owl, and said--
"Tell me, O Owl, why do you hoot all night long upon the trees?"
Said the Owl--
"I hoot to waken those that sleep,
As soon as day's first beams do peep;
That they may rise, and say their prayers,
And not be caught in this world's cares."
Then he went on again, Too-whit! too-woo! shaking his solemn old head to
and fro. He was a melancholy Owl; I think he must have been crossed in
love.
Solomon thought this Owl very clever to roll out beautiful poetry like
that, off-hand as it were. He asked the Owl again--
"Tell me, O wise Owl, why do you shake your very solemn old head?"
Said the Owl--
"I shake my head, to let all know
This world is but a fleeting show.
Men's days are flying with quick wings;
So take no joy in earthly things.
"Yet men will fix their hearts below
Upon the pleasures that must go.
Their joy is gone when they are dead;
And that is why I shake my head."
This touched King Solomon in a tender place, for he was himself rather
fond of earthly delights. He sighed, and asked again--
"O most ancient and wise Owl! tell me why you never eat grain?"
Answered the Owl--
"The bearded grain I do not eat,
Because, when Adam ate some wheat,
He was turned out of Paradise:
So Adam's sin has made me wise.
"If I should eat a single grain,
The joys of heaven I should not gain.
And so, to keep my erring feet,
The bearded grain I never eat."
Thought Solomon to himself, "I don't remember reading that story in
Genesis, but perhaps he is right. I must look it up when I get home."
Then he spoke to the Owl once more, and said--
"And now, good Owl, tell me why you drink no water at night?"
Said the Owl--
"Since water all the world did drown
In Noah's day, I will drink none.
Were I to drink a single drop,
My life would then most likely stop."
|
over which I have wept, and laughed, and got
mad, (here some one said, "All at the same time?") yes--all at the same
time. Bad in its theology, bad in its morality, bad in its temporary evil
influence here in the North, in England, and on the continent of Europe;
bad, because her isolated cruelties will be taken (whether so meant by her
or not) as the general condition of Southern life,--while her Shelbys, and
St. Clairs, and Evas, will be looked upon as angel-visitors, lingering for
a moment in that earthly hell. The _impression made by the book is a
falsehood_.
Sir, why do your Northern church-members and philanthropists buy Southern
products at all? You know you are purchasing cotton, rice, sugar,
sprinkled with blood, literally, you say, from the lash of the driver! Why
do you buy? What's the difference between my filching this blood-stained
cotton from the outraged negro, and your standing by, taking it from me?
What's the difference? You, yourselves, say, in your abstractions, there
is no difference; and yet you daily stain your hands in this horrid
traffic. You hate the traitor, but you love the treason. Your ladies,
too,--oh, how they shun the slave-owner _at a distance_, in _the
abstract_! But alas, when they see him in the _concrete_,--when they see
the slave-owner _himself_, standing before them,--not the brutal driver,
but the splendid gentleman, with his unmistakable grace of carriage and
ease of manners,--why, lo, behold the lady says, "Oh, fie on your
slavery!--what a _wretch_ you are! But, indeed, sir, I love your
sugar,--and truly, truly, sir, _wretch_ as you are, I love you too." Your
gentlemen talk just the same way when they behold our matchless women. And
well for us all it is, that your good taste, and hearts, can thus
appreciate our genius, and accomplishments, and fascinations, and
loveliness, and sugar, and cotton. Why, sir, I heard this morning, from
one pastor only, of two or three of his members thus intermarried in the
South. May I thus give the mildest rebuke to your inconsistency of
conduct? (Much good-natured excitement.)
Sir, may we know who are the descendants of the New England kidnappers?
What is their wealth? Why, here you are, all around me. You, gentlemen,
made the best of that bargain. And you have kept every dollar of your
money from the charity of emancipating the slave. You have left us,
unaided, to give millions. Will you now come to our help? Will you give
dollar for dollar to equalize our loss? [Here many voices cried out, "Yes,
yes, we will."]
Yes, yes? Then pour out your millions. Good. I may thank you personally.
My own emancipated slaves would to-day be worth greatly more than
$20,000. Will you give me back $10,000? Good. I need it now.
I recommend to you, sirs, to find out your advocates of _murder_,--your
owners of stock in under-ground railroads,--your Sabbath-breakers for
money. I particularly urge you to find Legree, who whipped Uncle Tom to
death. He is a Northern _gentleman_, although having a somewhat Southern
name. Now, sir, you know the Assembly was embarrassed all yesterday by
the inquiry how the Northern churches may find their absent members, and
what to do with them. Here then, sir, is a chance for you. Send a
committee up Red River. You may find Legree to be a Garrison, Phillips,
Smith, or runaway husband from some Abby Kelly. [Here Rev. Mr. Smith
protested against Legree being proved to be a Smith. Great laughter.
[Footnote: This gentleman was soon after made a D.D., and I think in part
for that witticism.]] I move that you bring him back to lecture on the
_cuteness_ there is in leaving a Northern church, going South, changing
his name, buying slaves, and calculating, without _guessing_, what the
profit is of killing a negro with inhuman labor above the gain of
treating him with kindness.
I have little to say of spirit-rappers, women's-rights conventionists,
Bloomers, cruel husbands, or hen-pecked. But, if we may believe your own
serious as well as caricature writers, you have things up here of which we
down South know very little indeed. Sir, we have no young Bloomers, with
hat to one side, cigar in mouth, and cane tapping the boot, striding up to
a mincing young gentleman with long curls, attenuated waist, and soft
velvet face,--the boy-lady to say, "May I see you home, sir?" and the
lady-boy to reply, "I thank ye--no; pa will send the carriage." Sir, we of
the South don't understand your women's-rights conventions. Women have
their wrongs. "The Song of the Shirt,"--Charlotte Elizabeth,--many, many
laws,--tell her wrongs. But your convention ladies despise the Bible. Yes,
sir; and we of the South are afraid _of them_, and _for you_. When women
despise the Bible, what next? _Paris,--then the City of the Great Salt
Lake,--then Sodom, before_ and _after the Dead Sea_. Oh, sir, if slavery
tends in any way to give the _honour of chivalry_ to Southern young
gentlemen towards ladies, and the exquisite delicacy and heavenly
integrity and love to Southern maid and matron, it has then a glorious
blessing with its curse.
Sir, your inquisitorial committee, and the North so far as represented by
them, (a small fraction, I know,) have, I take it, caught a Tartar this
time. Boys say with us, and everywhere, I _reckon_, "You worry my dog, and
I'll worry your cat." Sir, it is just simply a _fixed fact: the South will
not submit to these questions_. No, not for an instant. We will not permit
you to approach us at all. If we are morbidly sensitive, you have made us
so. But you are directly and grossly violating the Constitution of the
Presbyterian Church. The book forbids you to put such questions; the book
forbids _you to begin discipline_; the book forbids your sending this
committee to help common fame bear testimony against us; the book guards
the honour of our humblest member, minister, church, presbytery, against
all this impertinently-inquisitorial action. Have you a _prosecutor_, with
his definite charge and witnesses? Have you _Common Fame_, with her
specified charges and witnesses? Have you a request from the South that
you send a committee to inquire into slanders? No. Then hands off. As
gentlemen you may ask us these questions,--we will answer you. But,
ecclesiastically, you cannot speak in this matter. You have no power to
move as you propose.
I beg leave to say, just here, that Tennessee [Footnote: At that time I
resided in Tennessee.] will be more calm under this movement than any
other slave-region. Tennessee has been ever high above the storm, North
and South,--especially we of the mountains. Tennessee!--"there she
is,--look at her,"--binding this Union together like a great, long,
broad, deep stone,--more splendid than all in the temple of Baalbec or
Solomon. Tennessee!--there she is, in her calm valour. I will not lower
her by calling her unconquerable, for she has never been assailed; but I
call her ever-victorious. King's Mountain,--her pioneer
battles:--Talladega, Emucfau, Horse-shoe, New Orleans, San Jacinto,
Monterey, the Valley of Mexico. Jackson represented her well in his
chivalry from South Carolina,--his fiery courage from Virginia and
Kentucky,--all tempered by Scotch-Irish Presbyterian prudence from
Tennessee. We, in his spirit, have looked on this storm for years
untroubled. Yes, Jackson's old bones rattled in their grave when that
infamous disunion convention met in Nashville, and its members turned
pale and fled aghast. Yes, Tennessee, in her mighty million, feels
secure; and, in her perfect preparation to discuss this question,
politically, ecclesiastically, morally, metaphysically, or physically,
with the extreme North or South, she is willing and able _to persuade
others to be calm_. In this connection, I wish to say, for the South to
the North, and to the world, that we have no fears from our
slave-population. There might be a momentary insurrection and bloodshed;
but destruction to the black man would be inevitable. The Greeks and
Romans controlled immense masses of white slaves,--many of them as
intelligent as their lords. Schoolmasters, fabulists, and poets were
slaves. Athens, with her thirty thousand freemen, governed half a
million of bondmen. Single Roman patricians owned thirty thousand. If,
then, the phalanx and the legion mastered such slaves for ages, when
battle was physical force of man to man, how certain it is that
infantry, cavalry, and artillery could hold in bondage millions of
Africans for a thousand years!
But, dear brethren, our Southern philanthropists do not seek to have this
unending bondage; Oh, no, no. And I earnestly entreat you to "stand still
and see the salvation of the Lord." Assume a masterly inactivity, and you
will behold all you desire and pray for,--you will see _America liberated
from the curse of slavery_.
The great question of the world is, WHAT IS TO BE THE FUTURE OF THE
AMERICAN SLAVE?--WHAT IS TO BE THE FUTURE OF THE AMERICAN MASTER? The
following _extract from the "Charleston Mercury"_ gives my view of the
subject with great and condensed particularity:--
"Married, Thursday, 26th inst., the Hon. Cushing Kewang, Secretary of
State of the United States, to Laura, daughter of Paul Coligny,
Vice-President of the United States, and one of our noblest Huguenot
families. We learn that this distinguished gentleman, with his bride, will
visit his father, the Emperor of China, at his summer palace, in Tartary,
north of Pekin, and return to the Vice-President's Tea Pavilion, on Cooper
River, ere the meeting of Congress." The editor of the "Mercury" goes on
to say: "This marriage in high life is only one of many which have
signalized that immense emigration from Christianized China during the
last seventy-five years, whereby Charleston has a population of 1,250,000,
and the State of South Carolina over 5,000,000,--an emigration which has
wonderfully harmonized with the great exodus of the negro race to
Africa." [Some gentleman here requested to know of Dr. Ross the date of
the "Charleston Mercury" recording this marriage. The doctor replied, "The
date is 27th May, 1953, exactly one hundred years from this day." Great
laughter.]
Sir, this is a dream; but it is not all a dream. No, I verily believe you
have there the Gordian knot of slavery untied; you have there the solution
of the problem; you have there the curtain up, and the last scene in the
last act of the great drama of Ham.
I am satisfied with the tendencies of things. I stand on the mountain-peak
above the clouds. I see, far beyond the storm, the calm sea and blue sky;
I see the Canaan of the African. I like to stand there on the Nebo of his
exodus, and look across, not the Jordan, but the Atlantic. I see the
African crossing as certainly as if I gazed upon the ocean divided by a
great wind, and piled up in walls of green glittering glass on either
hand, the dry ground, the marching host, and the pillar of cloud and of
fire. I look over upon the Niger, black with death to the white man,
instinct with life to the children of Ham. _There_ is the black man's
home. Oh, how strange that you of the North see not how you degrade him
when you keep him here! You will not let him vote; you will not let him
rise to honors or social equality; you will not let him hold a pew in your
churches. Send him away, then; tell him, begone. Be urgent, like the
Egyptians: send him out of this land. _There_, in his fatherland, he will
exhibit his own type of Christianity. He is, of all races, the most gentle
and kind. The _man_, the most submissive; the _woman_, the most
affectionate. What other slaves would love their masters better than
themselves?--rock them and fan them in their cradles? caress them--how
tenderly!--boys and girls? honor them, grown up, as superior beings? and,
in thousands of illustrious instances, be willing to give life, and, in
fact, die, to serve or save them? Verily, verily, this emancipated race
may reveal the most amiable form of spiritual life, and the _jewel_ may
glitter on the Ethiop's brow in meaning more sublime than all in the
poet's imagery. Brethren, let them go; and, when they are gone,--ay,
before they go away,--rear a monument; let it grow in greatness, if not on
your highest mountain, in your hearts,--in lasting memory of the
South,--in memory of your wrong to the South,--in memory of the
self-denial of the South, and her philanthropy in training the slave to
be free, enlightened, and Christian.
Can all this be? Can this double emigration civilize Africa and more than
re-people the South? Yes; and I regard the difficulties presented here, in
Congress, or the country, as little worth. God intends both emigrations.
And, without miracle, he will accomplish both. Difficulties! There are no
difficulties. Half a million emigrate to our shores, from Ireland, and all
Europe, every year. And you gravely talk of difficulties in the negro's
way to Africa! Verily, God will unfold their destiny as fast, and as
fully, as he sees best for the highest good of the slave, the highest good
of the master, and the glory of Christ in Africa.
And, sir, there are forty thousand Chinese in California. And in Cuba,
this day, American gentlemen are cultivating sugar, with Chinese hired
labor, more profitably than the Spaniards and their slaves. Oh! there is
China--half the population of the globe--just fronting us across that
peaceful sea,--her poor, living on rats and a pittance of red rice,--her
rich, hoarding millions in senseless idolatry, or indulging in the
luxuries of birds'-nests and roasted ice. Massed together, they must
migrate. Where can they go? They must come to our shores. They must come,
even did God forbid them. But he will hasten their coming. They can live
in the extremest South. It is their latitude,--their side of the ocean.
They can cultivate cotton, rice, sugar, tea, and the silkworm. Their
skill, their manipulation, is unrivalled. Their commonest gong you can
neither make nor explain. They are a law-abiding people, without castes,
accustomed to rise by merit to highest distinctions, and capable of the
noblest training, when their idolatry, which is waxing old as a garment,
shall be folded up as a vesture and changed for _that_ whose years shall
not fail. The English ambassador assures us that the Chinese negotiator of
the late treaty was a splendid gentleman, and a diplomatist to move in any
court of Europe. Shem, then, can mingle with Japheth in America.
The Chinese must come. God will bring them. He will fulfil Benton's noble
thought. The railroad must complete the voyage of Columbus. The statue of
the Genoese, on some peak of the Rocky Mountains, high above the flying
cars, must point to the West, saying, "There is the East! There is India
and Cathay."
Let us, then, North and South, bring our minds to comprehend _two ideas_,
and submit to their irresistible power. Let the Northern philanthropist
learn from the Bible that the relation of master and slave is not sin
_per se_. Let him learn that God nowhere says it is sin. Let him learn
that sin is the transgression of the law; and where there is no law,
there is no sin; and that _the golden rule_ may exist in the relations of
slavery. Let him learn that slavery is simply an evil _in certain
circumstances_. Let him learn that _equality_ is only the highest form of
social life; that _subjection_ to authority, even _slavery_, may, in
_given conditions_, be _for a time_ better than freedom to the slave, of
any complexion. Let him learn that _slavery_, like _all evils_, has its
_corresponding_ and _greater good_; that the Southern slave, though
degraded _compared with his master_, is _elevated_ and _ennobled compared
with his brethren in Africa_. Let the Northern man learn these things,
and be wise to cultivate the spirit that will harmonize with his brethren
of the South, who are lovers of liberty as truly as himself. And let the
Southern Christian--nay, the Southern man of every grade--comprehend that
_God never intended the relation of master and slave to be perpetual_.
Let him give up the theory of Voltaire, that the negro is of a different
species. Let him yield the semi-infidelity of Agassiz, that God created
different races of the same species--in swarms, like bees--for Asia,
Europe, America, Africa, and the islands of the sea. Let him believe that
slavery, although not a sin, is a degraded condition,--the evil, the
curse on the South,--yet having blessings in its time to the South and to
the Union. Let him know that slavery is to pass away, in the fulness of
Providence. Let the South believe this, and prepare to obey the hand that
moves their destiny.
Ham will be ever lower than Shem; Shem will be ever lower than Japheth.
All will rise in the Christian grandeur to be revealed. Ham will be lower
than Shem, because he was sent to Central Africa. Man south of the
Equator--in Asia, Australia, Oceanica, America, especially Africa--is
inferior to his Northern brother. The _blessing_ was upon Shem in his
magnificent Asia. The _greater blessing_ was upon Japheth in his
man-developing Europe. _Both blessings_ will be combined, in America,
_north of the Zone_, in commingled light and life. I see it all in the
first symbolical altar of Noah on that mound at the base of Ararat. The
father of all living men bows before the incense of sacrifice, streaming
up and mingling with the rays of the rising sun. His noble family, and all
flesh saved, are grouped round about him. There is Ham, at the foot of
the green hillock, standing, in his antediluvian, rakish recklessness,
near the long-necked giraffe, type of his _Africa_,--his magnificent wife,
seated on the grass, her little feet nestling in the tame lion's mane, her
long black hair flowing over crimson drapery and covered with gems from
mines before the flood. Higher up is Shem, leaning his arm over that
mouse-colored horse,--his _Arab_ steed. His wife, in pure white linen,
feeds the elephant, and plays with his lithe proboscis,--the mother of
Terah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, David, and Christ. And yet she looks
up, and bows in mild humility, to _her_ of Japheth, seated amid plumed
birds, in robes like the sky. Her noble lord, meanwhile, high above all,
stands, with folded arms, following that eagle which wheels up towards
Ararat, displaying his breast glittering with stars and stripes of scarlet
and silver,--radiant heraldry, traced by the hand of God. Now he purifies
his eye in the sun, and now he spreads his broad wings in symbolic flight
to the _West_, until lost to the prophetic eye of Japheth, under the bow
of splendors set that day in the cloud. God's covenant with man,--oh, may
the bow of covenant between us be here to-day, that the waters of _this
flood_ shall never again threaten our beloved land!
Speech Delivered in the General Assembly
New York, 1856.
The circumstances, under which this speech was delivered, are sufficiently
shown in the statement below.
It was not a hasty production. After being spoken, it was prepared for the
"Journal of Commerce," with the greatest care I could give to it: most of
it was written again and again. Unlike Pascal, who said, as to his longest
and inferior sixteenth letter, that he had not had time to make it
shorter, I had time; and I did condense in that one speech the matured
reflections of my whole life. I am calmly satisfied I am right. I am sure
God has said, and does say, "Well done."
The speech brings to view a wide range of thought, all belonging to the
subject of slavery, of immense importance. As introductory,--there is the
question of the abolition agitation the last thirty years; then, what is
right and wrong, and the foundation of moral obligation; then, the
definition of sin; next, the origin of human government, and the
relations, in which God has placed men under his rule of subjection;
finally, the word of God is brought to sustain all the positions taken.
The challenge to argue the question of slavery from the Bible was thrown
down on the floor of the Assembly, as stated. Presently I took up the
gauntlet, and made this argument. The challenger never claimed his glove,
then nor since; nor has anybody, so far as I know, attempted to refute
this speech. Nothing has come to my ears (save as to two points, to be
noticed hereafter) but reckless, bold denial of God's truth, infidel
affirmation without attempt at proof, and denunciations of myself.
_Dr. Wisner_ having said that he would argue the question on the Bible at
a following time, Dr. Ross rose, when he took his seat, and, taking his
position on the platform near the Moderator's chair, said,--
"I accept the challenge given by Dr. Wisner, to argue the question of
slavery from the Scriptures."
_Dr. Wisner_.--Does the brother propose to go into it here?
_Dr. Ross_.--Yes, sir.
_Dr. Wisner_.--Well, I did not propose to go into it here.
_Dr. Ross_.--You gave the challenge, and I accept it.
_Dr. Wisner_.--I said I would argue it at a proper time; but it is no
matter. Go ahead.
_Dr. Beman_ hoped the discussion would be ruled out. He did not think it a
legitimate subject to go into,--Moses and the prophets, Christ and his
apostles, and all intermediate authorities, on the subject of what the
General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in America had done.
_Judge Jessup_ considered the question had been opened by this report of
the majority: after which _Dr. Beman_ withdrew his objection, and _Dr.
Ross_ proceeded.
I am not a slave-holder. Nay, I have shown some self-denial in that
matter. I emancipated slaves whose money-value would now be $40,000. In
the providence of God, my riches have entirely passed from me. I do not
mean that, like the widow, I gave all the living I had. My estate was then
greater than that slave-property. I merely wish to show I have no selfish
motive in giving, as I shall, the true Southern defence of slavery.
(Applause.) I speak from Huntsville, Alabama, my present home. That gem of
the South, that beautiful city where the mountain softens into the
vale,--where the water gushes, a great fountain, from the rock,--where
around that living stream there are streets of roses, and houses of
intelligence and gracefulness and gentlest hospitality,--and, withal,
where so high honor is ever given to the ministers of God.
Speaking then from that region where "_Cotton is king_," I affirm,
contrary as my opinion is to that most common in the South, that the
slavery agitation has accomplished and will do great good. I said so, to
ministerial and political friends, twenty-five years ago. I have always
favored the agitation,--just as I have always countenanced discussion
upon all subjects. I felt that the slavery question needed examination.
I believed it was not understood in its relations to the Bible and human
liberty. Sir, the light is spreading North and South. 'Tis said, I know,
this agitation has increased the severity of slavery. True, but for a
moment only, in the days of the years of the life of this noble problem.
Farmers tell us that deep ploughing in poor ground will, for a year or
two, give you a worse crop than before you went so deep; but that that
deep ploughing will turn up the under-soil, and sun and air and rain will
give you harvests increasingly rich. So, this moral soil, North and
South, was unproductive. It needed deep ploughing. For a time the harvest
was worse. Now it is becoming more and more abundant. The political
controversy, however fierce and threatening, is only for power. But the
moral agitation is for the harmony of the Northern and Southern mind, in
the right interpretations of Scripture on this great subject, and, of
course, for the ultimate union of the hearts of all sensible people, to
fulfil God's intention,--to bless the white man and the black man in
America. I am sure of this. I take a wide view of the progress of the
destiny of this vast empire. I see God in America. I see him in the North
and in the South. I see him more honored in the South to-day than he was
twenty-five years ago; and that that higher regard is due, mainly, to the
agitation of the slavery question. Do you ask how? Why, sir, this is the
how. Twenty-five years ago the religious mind of the South was leavened
by wrong Northern training, on the great point of the right and wrong of
slavery. Meanwhile, powerful intellects in the South, following the mere
light of a healthy good sense, guided by the common grace of God, reached
the very truth of this great matter,--namely, that the relation of the
master and slave is not sin; and that, notwithstanding its admitted
evils, it is a connection between the highest and the lowest races of
man, revealing influences which may be, and will be, most benevolent for
the ultimate good of the master and the slave,--conservative on the
Union, by preserving the South from all forms of Northern fanaticism, and
thereby being a great balance-wheel in the working of the tremendous
machinery of our experiment of self-government. This seen result of
slavery was found to be in absolute harmony with the word of God. These
men, then, of highest grade of thought, who had turned in scorn from
Northern notions, now see, in the Bible, that these notions are false
and silly. They now read the Bible, never examined before, with growing
respect. God is honored, and his glory will be more and more in their
salvation. These are some of the moral consummations of this agitation in
the South. The development has been twofold in the North. On the one
hand, some anti-slavery men have left the light of the Bible, and
wandered into the darkness until they have reached the blackness of the
darkness of infidelity. Other some are following hard after, and are
throwing the Bible into the furnace,--are melting it into iron, and
forging it, and welding it, and twisting it, and grooving it into the
shape and significance and goodness and gospel of Sharpe's rifles. Sir,
are you not afraid that some of your once best men will soon have no
better Bible than that?
But, on the other hand, many of your brightest minds are looking intensely
at the subject, in the same light in which it is studied by the highest
Southern reason. Ay, sir, mother-England, old fogy as she is, begins to
open her eyes. What, then, is our gain? Sir, Uncle Tom's Cabin, in many of
its conceptions, could not have been written twenty-five years ago. That
book of genius,--over which I and hundreds in the world have freely
wept,--true in all its facts, false in all its impressions,--yea, as false
in the prejudice it creates to Southern social life as if Webster, the
murderer of Parkman, may be believed to be a personification of the
_elite_ of honor in Cambridge, Boston, and New England. Nevertheless,
Uncle Tom's Cabin could not have been written twenty-five years ago. Dr.
Nehemiah Adams's "_South-Side View_" could not have been written
twenty-five years ago. Nor Dr. Nathan Lord's "_Letter of Inquiry_." Nor
Miss Murray's book. Nor "_Cotton is King_". Nor Bledsoe's "_Liberty and
Slavery"_. These books, written in the midst of this agitation, are all of
high, some the highest, reach of talent and noblest piety; all give, with
increasing confidence, the present Southern Bible reading on Slavery. May
the agitation, then, go on! I know the New School Presbyterian church has
sustained some temporary injury. But God is honored in his word. The
reaction, when the first abolition-movement commenced, has been succeeded
by the sober second thought of the South. The sun, stayed, is again
travelling in the greatness of his strength, and will shine brighter and
brighter to the perfect day.
My only fear, Mr. Moderator, is that, as you Northern people are so prone
to go to extremes in your zeal and run every thing into the ground, you
may, perhaps, become _too pro-slavery;_ and that we may have to take
measures against your coveting, over much, our daughters, if not our
wives, our men-servants, our maid-servants, our houses, and our lands.
(Laughter.)
Sir, I come now to the Bible argument. I begin at the beginning of
eternity! (Laughter.) WHAT is RIGHT AND WRONG? _That's the question of
questions_.
Two theories have obtained in the world. The one is, that right and wrong
are eternal facts; that they exist _per se_ in the nature of things; that
they are ultimate truths above God; that he must study, and does study, to
know them, as really as man. And that he comprehends them more clearly
than man, only because he is a better student than man. Now, sir, _this
theory is atheism_. For if right and wrong are like mathematical
truths--fixed facts--then I may find them out, as I find out mathematical
truths, without instruction from God. I do not ask God to tell me that one
and one make two. I do not ask him to reveal to me the demonstrations of
Euclid. I thank him for the mind to perceive. But I perceive mathematical
relations without his telling me, because they exist independent of his
will. If, then, moral truths, if right and wrong, if rectitude and sin,
are, in like manner, fixed, eternal facts,--if they are out from and above
God, like mathematical entities,--then I may find them for myself. I may
condescend, perhaps, to regard the Bible as a hornbook, in which God, an
older student than I, tells _me_ how to _begin_ to learn what he had to
study; or I may decline to be taught, through the Bible, how to learn
right and wrong. I may think the Bible was good enough, may be, for the
Israelite in Egypt and in Canaan; good enough for the Christian in
Jerusalem and Antioch and Rome, but not good enough, even as a hornbook,
for me,--the man of the nineteenth century,--the man of Boston, New York,
and Brooklyn! Oh, no. I may think I need it not at all. What next? Why,
sir, if I may think I need not God to teach me moral truth, I may think I
need him not to teach me any thing. What next? The irresistible conclusion
is, I may think I can live without God; that Jehovah is a myth,--a name; I
may bid him stand aside, or die. Oh, sir, _I will be_ the fool to say
there is no God. This is the result of the notion that right and wrong
exist in the nature of things.
The other theory is, that right and wrong are results brought into being,
mere contingencies, means to good, made to exist solely by the will of
God, expressed through his word; or, when his will is not thus known, he
shows it in the human reason by which he rules the natural heart. This is
so; because God, in making all things, saw that in the relations he would
constitute between himself and intelligent creatures, and among
themselves, NATURAL GOOD AND EVIL would come to pass. In his benevolent
wisdom, he then _willed_ LAW, to control this _natural good and evil_. And
he thereby made _conformity_ to that law to be _right_, and
_non-conformity_ to be _wrong_. Why? Simply because he saw it to be good,
and made it to be right; not because _he saw it to be right_, but because
he _made it to be right_.
Hence, the ten specific commandments of the one moral law of love are just
ten rules which God made to regulate the natural good and evil which he
knew would be in the ten relations, which he himself constituted between
himself and man, and between man and his neighbor. The Bible settles the
question:--_sin is the transgression of the law, and where there is no law
there is no sin_.
I must-advance one step further. _What is sin_, as a mental state? Is
it some quality--some concentrated essence--some elementary moral
particle in the nature of things--something black, or red, like
crimson, in the constitution of the soul, or the soul and body as
amalgamated? No. Is it self-love? No. Is it selfishness? No. What is
it? Just exactly, _self-will._ Just that. I, the creature, WILL _not
submit_ to _thy_ WILL, God, the Creator. It is the I AM, _created_, who
dares to defy and dishonor the I AM, not created,--the Lord God, the
Almighty, Holy, Eternal.
_That_ IS SIN, _per se_. And that is all of it,--so help me God! Your
child there--John--says to his father, "I WILL _not to submit_ to your
will." "Why not, John?" And he answers and says, "Because I WILL _not_."
There, sir, John has revealed _all of sin_, on earth or in hell. Satan has
never said--can never say--more. "I, Satan, WILL NOT, because I WILL _not
to submit_ to thee, God; MY WILL, not thine, shall be."
This beautiful theory is the ray of light which leads us from night, and
twilight, and fog, and mist, and mystification, on this subject, to clear
day. I will illustrate it by the law which has controlled and now
regulates the most delicate of all the relations of life,--viz.: that of
the intercourse between the sexes. I take this, because it presents the
strongest apparent objections to my argument
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discussion. Here, again, we must admit the large
measure of justice in the claim. We can see at once that the same
reservations must be made as in the case of the critical methods. The
assumptions play a determining part. If we are on our guard against any
tricks that assumptions may play, we can eagerly expect the historical
methods to aid us greatly.
We have come to see that any revelation to be really a revelation must
speak in the language of a particular time. But speaking in the
language of a particular time implies at the outset very decided
limitations. The prophets who arise to proclaim any kind of truth must
clothe their ideas in the thought terms of a particular day and can
accomplish their aims only as they succeed in leading the spiritual
life of their day onward and upward. Such a prophet will accommodate
himself to the mental and moral and religious limitations of the time
in which he speaks. Only thus can he get a start. It is inevitable,
then, that along with the higher truth of his message there will appear
the marks of the limitations of the mold in which the message is cast.
The prophet must take what materials he finds at hand, and with these
materials direct the people to something higher and better.
Furthermore, in the successive stages through which the idea grows we
must expect to find it affected by all the important factors which in
any degree determine its unfolding. The first stage in understanding
the Scriptures is to learn what a writer intended to say, what he meant
for the people of his day. To do this we must rely upon the methods
which we use in any historical investigation. The Christian student of
the Scriptures believes that the Bible contains eternal truths for all
time, truths which are above time in their spiritual values. Even so,
however, the truth must first be written for a particular time and that
time the period in which the prophet lived. When the Christian speaks
of the Scriptures as containing a revelation for all time, he refers to
their essential spiritual value. The best way to make that essential
spiritual value effective for the after times is to sink it deep into
the consciousness of a particular time. This gives it leverage, or
focus for the outworking of its forces. No matter how limited the
conceptions in which the spiritual richness first took form, those
conceptions can be understood by the students who look back through the
ages, while the spiritual value itself shines out with perennial
freshness. Paradoxical as it may sound, the truths which are of most
value for all time are those which first get themselves most thoroughly
into the thought and feeling of some one particular time. Let us look
at the opening chapters of Genesis for illustration. The historical
student points out to us that the science of the first chapters of
Genesis is not peculiar to the Hebrew people, that substantially
similar views of the stages through which creation moved are to be
found in the literatures of surrounding peoples. A well-known type of
student would therefore seek at one stroke to bring the first chapters
of Genesis down to the level of the scriptures of the neighbors of the
Hebrews. He would then discount all these narratives alike by reference
to modern astronomy, geology, and biology. But the difference between
the Hebrew account and the other accounts lies in this, that in the
Hebrew statement the science of a particular time is made the vehicle
of eternally superb moral and spiritual conceptions concerning man and
concerning man's relation to the Power that brought him into being. The
worth of these conceptions even in that early statement few of us would
be inclined to question. Assuming that any man or set of men became in
the old days alive to the value of such religious ideas, how could they
speak them forth except in the language of their own day? They had to
speak in their own tongue, and speaking in that tongue they had to use
the thought terms expressed by that tongue. They accepted the science
of their day as true, and they utilized that science for the sake of
bodying forth the moral and spiritual insights to which they had
attained. The inadequacy of early Hebrew science and its likeness to
Babylonian and Chaldean science do not invalidate the worth of the
spiritual conceptions of Genesis. This ought to be apparent even to the
proverbial wayfaring man. The loftiest spiritual utterances are often
clad in the poorest scientific draperies. Who would dare deny the worth
of the great moral insights of Dante? And who, on the other hand, would
insist upon the lasting value of the science in which his deep
penetrations are uttered? And so with Milton. Dr. W. F. Warren has
shown the nature of the material universe as pictured in Milton's
"Paradise Lost." In passing from heaven to hell one would descend from
an upper to a lower region of a sphere, passing through openings at the
centers of other concentric spheres on the way down. Nothing more
foreign to modern science can be imagined; yet we do not cast aside
"Paradise Lost" because of the crudity of its view of the physical
system.
Assuming that the biblical prophets were to have any effect whatever,
in what language could they speak except that of their own time? Their
position was very similar to that of the modern preacher who uses
present-day ideas of the physical universe as instruments to proclaim
moral and spiritual values. Nobody can claim that modern scientific
theories are ultimate, and nobody can deny, on the other hand, that
vast good is done in the utilization of these conceptions for high
religious purposes.
A minister once sought in a sermon on the marvels of man's constitution
to enforce his conceptions by speaking of the instantaneousness with
which a message flashed to the brain through the nervous system is
heeded and acted upon. He said that the touch of red-hot iron upon a
finger-tip makes a disturbance which is instantly reported to the brain
for action. A scientific hearer was infinitely disgusted. He said that
all such disturbances are acted upon in the spinal cord. He could see
no value, therefore, even in the main point of the minister's sermon
because of the minister's mistaken conception of nervous processes. I
suppose very few of us know whether this scientific objection was well
taken or not. Very few of us, however, would reject the entire sermon
because of an erroneous illustration; and yet sometimes all the
essentials of the Scriptures are discounted because of flaws no more
consequential than that suggested in this illustration. The Scriptures
aim to declare a certain idea of God, a certain idea of man, and a
certain idea of the relations between God and man. Those ideas are
clothed in the garments of successive ages. The change in the fashions
and adequacy of the garments does not make worthless the living truth
which the garments clothe. Jesus himself lived deeply in his own time
and spoke his own language and worked through the thought terms which
were part of the life of his time. Some biblical readers have been
greatly disturbed in recent years by the discovery of the part which
so-called apocalyptic thought-forms play in the teaching of Jesus. The
fact is that these conceptions were the commonest element in all later
Jewish thinking. Jesus could not have lived when he did without making
apocalyptic terms the vehicle for his doctrines. We have come to see
that the manner of the coming of the kingdom of Jesus is not so
important as the character of that kingdom.
Not only must a prophet speak in the language of a definite time, but
he must speak to men as he finds them. This being so, we must expect
that revelations will in a sense be accommodated to the apprehension of
the day of their utterance. The minds of men are in constant movement.
If the prophet were to have before him minds altogether at a
standstill, he might well despair of accomplishing great results by his
message. He would be forced to think of the intelligence of this day as
a sort of vessel which he could fill with so much and no more. But
whether the prophets have through the ages had any theoretic
understanding of human intelligence as an organism or not, they have
acted upon the assumption that they were dealing with such organisms.
So they have conceived of their truth as a seed cast into the ground,
passing through successive stages. Jesus himself spoke of the kingdom
of God as moving out of the stage of the blade into that of the ear and
finally into that of the full corn in the ear. This illustration is our
warrant for insisting that in the enforcing of truth all manner of
factors come into play and that the truth passes through successive
epochs, some of which may seem to later believers very unpromising and
unworthy. The test of the worth of an idea is not so much any opinion
as to the unseemliness of the stages through which it has passed as it
is the value of the idea when once it has come to ripeness. The test of
the grain is its final value for food. The scriptural truths are to be
judged by no other test than that of their worth for life.
In the light of the teaching of Jesus himself there is no reason why we
should shrink from stating that the revelation of biblical truth is
influenced by even the moral limitations of men. Jesus said that an
important revelation to man was halted at an imperfect stage because of
the hardness of men's hearts. The Mosaic law of divorce was looked upon
by Jesus as inadequate. The law represented the best that could be done
with hardened hearts. The author of the Practice of Christianity, a
book published anonymously some years ago, has shown conclusively how
the hardness of men's hearts limits any sort of moral and spiritual
revelation. It will be remembered that William James in discussing the
openness of minds to truth divided men into the "tough-minded" and the
"tender-minded." James was not thinking of moral distinctions: he was
merely emphasizing the fact that tough-minded men require a different
order of intellectual approach than do the tender-minded. If we put
into tough-mindedness the element of moral hardness and
unresponsiveness which the prophet must meet, we can see how such an
element would condition and limit the prophet.
Again, Jesus said to his disciples that he had many things to say to
them, but that they could not bear them at the time at which he spoke.
Some revelations must wait for moral strength on the part of the people
to whom they are to come. Suppose, for example, in this year of our
Lord 1917, some scientist should discover a method of touching off
explosives from a great distance by wireless telegraphy without the
need of a specially prepared receiver at the end where the explosion is
desired. Suppose it were possible for him simply to press a button and
blow up all the ships of the British Navy, or all the stores of
munitions in Germany. What would be the first duty of such an inventor?
Very likely it would be his immediate duty to keep the secret closely
locked in his own mind. If such a discovery were made known to European
combatants in their present temper, it is a question what would be left
on earth at the end of the next twenty-four hours. With European minds
in their present moral and spiritual plight it would not be safe to
trust them with any such revelation. And this illustration has
significance for more than the physical order of revelation. There are
principles for individual and social conduct that may well be put into
effect one hundred years from now. Men are not now morally fit to
receive some revelations. All of which means that any revealing
movement is a progressive movement in that it depends upon not merely
the utterances of the revealing mind, but upon the response of the
receiving mind. In the play back and forth between giver and receiver
all sorts of factors come into power. The study of the interplay of
these factors is entirely worthy as an object of Christian research. We
may well be thankful for any advance thus far made in such study and we
may look for greater advances in the future. For example, the historic
students thus far have put in most of their effort laying stress upon
similarities between the biblical conceptions and the conceptions of
the peoples outside the current of biblical revelation. The work has
been of great value. Nevertheless it would seem to be about time for
larger emphasis on the differences between the biblical revelations and
the conceptions outside.
Still when all is said the mastery of historical methods of study is
but preliminary to the real understanding of the Scriptures. If we come
close to the revealing movement itself, we find that before we get far
into the stream there must be sympathetic responsiveness to biblical
teaching. The difficulties in understanding the Scriptures are, as of
old, not so much of the intellect as they are of conscience and
will--the difficulties, in a word, that arise from the hardness of
men's hearts.
CHAPTER II
THE BOOK OF LIFE
The approaches to an understanding of the Scriptures which we suggested
in the first chapter are those which have to do merely with
intellectual investigation. Any student with normal intelligence can
appreciate the methods and results of the critical scrutiny of the
biblical documents, but will require something more for an adequate
mastery of the scriptural revelations. There is need of sympathetic
realization that the Book itself did not in any large degree come out
of the exercise of the merely intellectual faculties. In the scriptural
revelation we are dealing with a current of life which flowed for
centuries through the minds of masses of people. To be sure of insight
into the meanings of this revelation there must be an approach to the
Bible as a Book of Life in the sense that its teachings came out of
life and that they were perennially used to play back into life. Its
hold on life to-day can be explained only by the fact that it was thus
born out of life, and has its chief significance for the experiences of
actual life.
Even the most superficial perusal of the Scriptures shows that they
came of practical contact with men and things. There is comparatively
little in the entire content of our Sacred Book to suggest the
speculations of abstract philosophy. The writers deal with the
concrete. They tell of men and of peoples who had to face facts and who
achieved comprehensions and convictions through grappling with facts.
There is about the Scriptures what some one has called a sort of
"out-of-doors-ness." There is very little hint of withdrawal from the
push and pressure of daily living. If the prophets ever withdrew to
solitude, they did not retire to closets, but rather to deserts or to
mountains. We must not allow our modern familiarity with bookmaking as
an affair of library research and tranquil meditation in seclusion to
mislead us into thinking that the Christian Bible was wrought out in
similar fashion. The Book is full of the tingle and even the roar of
the life out of which it was born. Jesus gathered up in a single
sentence the process by which the scriptural revelation can be
apprehended by man when he said, "He that doeth the will shall know of
the truth." The entire scriptural unfolding is one vast commentary on
this utterance of Jesus.
It is impossible for us in this series of studies to attempt any
detailed survey of the revealing movement of which our Scriptures are
the outcome. It is important, however, that we should see clearly that
the revelation came to those who opened themselves to the light in an
obedient spirit. While it is not in accord with our modern knowledge of
psychology to assort and divide human activities too sharply, it is
nevertheless permissible to insist that the biblical revelation was in
a sense primarily to the will. As Frederick W. Robertson used to say,
obedience is the organ of spiritual knowledge. The first men to whom
illuminations came evidently received these gifts out of some purity of
intention and moral excellence. These early leaders gathered others
around them and set them on the path of determined striving toward a
definite goal. As the idea of the seer or the prophet found general
acceptance it gradually hardened into law, law meant for scrupulous
observance. If a singer felt stirred to write a psalm, he voiced his
experiences or his aspirations in the midst of a throbbing world. If a
statesman drew a wide survey of God's dealings with the nations of the
earth, he did so at some mighty crisis in Israel's relations to Egypt
or Assyria or Babylon. When we reach New Testament times we find that
even the Gospels seem to have been books struck out of immediate
practical urgencies rather than composed tranquilly with a scholar's
interest merely in doing a fine piece of professional work. The early
Christians were anxious to hold the believers to the strait and narrow
way. To do this they repeated often the words of the Lord Jesus. When,
however, the older members of the first circles began to fall away, the
words were written down, not because some scholar felt moved thus to
improve his leisure, but because it was absolutely necessary to
preserve the words. Moreover, conflicts were arising between the
growing church and the forces of the world round about. Some scriptures
were written to supply instruments with which to carry on the warfare.
Always the fundamental aim was to keep the people acting according to
the teachings which lay at the heart of the Christian system. The
object of the biblical revelation was from the beginning just what it
is to-day in the hands of Christian believers--the object of using the
Scriptures as an instrument for practicing the Christian spirit into
all the phases of life.
We would by no means deny that there are imposing philosophies or,
rather, hints toward such philosophies, in the Scriptures, but we
insist that these did not come out of a purely philosophizing temper.
They came as men tried to put into some form or order the
understandings at which they had arrived as they wrestled with the
tough facts of a world which they were trying to subject to the rule of
their religion. As we have said in the previous chapter, the Scriptures
bear scars of all such conflicts. The revelation was knocked into its
shape in the rough-and-tumble of an attempt to convert the world. And
this is not to claim for the Bible any difference in method of creation
from that which obtains in the shaping of any vitally effective piece
of literature. The world-shaking conceptions have always been won in
profound experience. This chapter is not written with the principles of
the modern school of pragmatism as a guide, and yet pragmatism can be
so stated as to phrase an essentially Christian doctrine that spiritual
ideas result from spiritual practices and are of worth as they prove
themselves aids in further experience. Take some of the expressions of
Paul. The fundamental fact in Paul's experience was his vision on the
Damascus road and his determination to be obedient to that vision. To
make his own view of the Christian religion attractive to those whom he
was trying to win, it became necessary for him to speak in terms of the
Judaism of his time. In fact, he could not have spoken in any other
terms, though some of his reasonings seem to us to be remote from
actual life. But when he left argument and came back to experience he
was most effective. His terribly compelling utterances are those which
were born of driving necessity. The theology started with the vision
and unfolded in obedience to the vision, "What wilt thou have me to
do?" Everywhere upon Paul's epistles there are the marks of practical
compulsion. A letter was dispatched to convince stubborn Jews in
Galatia or to persuade questioning Gentiles in Rome. Some of the
profoundest phrasings of Pauline belief were uttered first as appeals
for generous collections to starving saints.
The example of Paul as a receiver and giver of spiritual light is very
significant. Even if we should make the largest allowances to the
biblical critics who would cut down the number of epistles known to be
genuinely Pauline, we would have enough left to make on our minds the
impression of enormous personal activity. One passage does, indeed,
tell us of a period of months of withdrawal for reflection in Arabia.
For the most part, however, Paul's life was spent in ceaselessly going
to and fro throughout the Roman empire; even in the days of
imprisonment he seems to have been burdened with the administration of
churches. It was out of such multifarious activities that the theology
of Paul was born, and therein lies its value. No interpretation is
likely to bring the separate deliverances into anything like formal,
logical consistency. Very likely Paul was of a markedly logical frame
of mind, but he did not attempt to rid his message of contradictions in
detail. The unity and consistency are found in the fundamental life
purpose to get men to accept Jesus Christ as the Chosen of God. If Paul
had ever heard that much of his theology might be out-dated with the
passage of the years, he would probably have responded that he was
perfectly willing that the instrument should be cast aside if it had
served its spiritual purpose of bringing men to obedience to the law of
God.
It is not intended to make this a book of sermons or exhortations. We
must say, however, that in a series of studies on how to understand the
Scriptures stress must be laid upon the maxim that the Scriptures can
be understood only by those who seek to recognize and obey the spirit
of life breathing from the Scriptures. Nothing could be more hopeless
than to attempt to get to the heart of Christian truth without
attempting to build that truth into life. The formal reasonings of the
theologian are no doubt of value, but they throw little light upon the
essentials of Christianity except as they deal with data which have
been supplied by Christian experience. It would, indeed, be well for
any study of the Bible to begin with a recognition of the part played
by distinctly scholarly research. We cannot go far, however, until we
recognize that sympathy with Christian truth is necessary before we can
come upon vital knowledge. And this, after all, is but the way we learn
to understand any piece of life-literature. A vast amount of material
is at hand in the form of commentaries upon the work of Shakespeare. We
know much about the circumstances under which the plays of Shakespeare
were written; we know somewhat of the sources from which Shakespeare
drew his historical materials; we are familiar with the chronology of
the plays; but all this is knowledge about Shakespeare. To know
Shakespeare there must be something of a deliberate attempt to
surrender sympathetically to the Shakespearean point of view. We get
"inside of" any classic work of literature only by this spirit of
surrender. The aim of Shakespeare is simply to picture life as he sees
it, but even to appreciate the picture men must enter into sympathy
with the painter. The Scriptures aim not merely to paint life, but to
quicken and reproduce life. How much more, then, is needed a surrender
of the will before there can be adequate appreciation of the
Scriptures? If the Scriptures are the results primarily of
will-activities, how can they finally be mastered except by minds
quickened by doing the will revealed in the Scriptures? The book of
Christianity must be interpreted by the disciples of Christianity.
Judged merely by bookish standards, there is no satisfactory
explanation of the power of the Bible. But lift the whole problem out
of the realm of books as such! The glimpses into any high truth that
are worth while--how do they come? They come out of experience. Even
when they are repeated from one mind to another they become the
property of that second mind only as they reproduce themselves in
experience. Otherwise the whole transaction is of words, words, words.
The Scriptures have to do with deeds, not words.
All this is offensive to the dogmatic reasoner. For him the intellect
as such is the organ of religious truth. He insists on speaking of the
Scriptures in formally theological terms. That the Scripture writers
employed theological terms there can be no doubt, but they did not
speak as systematic theologians. And always they brought their theology
to the test of actual life. The writer of these lines once knew a
student who had read enough of psychology to enable him to reason
himself into a belief that he was the only person in existence; that is
to say, he declared that he himself was the only one of whose existence
he was infallibly certain. Does not all knowledge of an external world
come as a report through a sensation aroused by stimulus? If the
appropriate stimulus could be kept up an external world might fall away
and I would still think it was there. The bell might ring at the door
and might be nobody there. And so on and on, through steps familiar
enough to the student of philosophy. When a friend made a quick appeal
to life with the question: "If you are the only one alive, why do you
bring your troubles to me?" the amateur philosopher came to earth with
a sense of jar. But the jar is no greater than that when we pass from
the plane of dogmatic theology to that of reading the Scriptures for
their own sake. The old scholastics said that in God there are three
substances, one essence, and two processions. How does this sound as
compared with the statement of Jesus that he and his Father are one,
and that he would send the Comforter? This is not to decry theology;
but is nevertheless to discriminate between theology and scripture.
Some one will object, however, that the scriptural truths take their
start in large part from the visions of mystics--of men who brood long
and patiently until they behold realities not otherwise discernible.
Some students will urge upon us that such mystic revelations are
granted peculiarly to the mystic temperament as such, and they often
come regardless of the quality of life that the seers themselves may be
living.
There have, indeed, been in all ages of the world temperaments of
supernormal or abnormal responsiveness to influences which seem to make
little or no impression upon the ordinary mind. In all periods natures
of this type have been looked upon as organs of religious revelation.
So valuable have abnormal experiences seemed that all manner of
expedients have been utilized to beget unusual mental states. A certain
tribe of Indians, for example, in the southwest of our country are
accustomed at set times to send their religious leaders into the desert
to find and partake of a peculiar plant which has an opiate or narcotic
effect. In the belief of the Indians this plant opens the door to
visions. The visions, as reported by those who have recovered from the
influence of the narcotic, are not of any considerable value. Similar
attempts have been made by hypnotic experimenters among other peoples,
the hypnosis sometimes being self-induced. From some Old Testament
passages especially we may well believe that this sort of extraordinary
mental condition was sought for in the so-called schools of the
prophets in the olden days of Israel. The astonishing peculiarity about
the Scriptures, however, is not that there is so much reliance on this
trance experience as that there is so little. The Hebrew Scriptures
were the expression of a people living in the midst of heathen
surroundings; and heathenism always has laid stress upon the virtue of
these abnormal experiences. Granting all allowances for mental states
induced by eating an opiate, or by whirling like the dervish, or by
fasting like the Hindu, the fact remains that in the main, the visions
of the writers of our Scriptures came out of attempts to realize in
conduct the moral will of God. When we think of the surroundings even
of the early church; when we reflect upon the force of suggestion for
uncritical minds; when we consider the sway of superstition at all
periods during the Hebrew revealing movement, the wonder is that the
Scriptures lay such stress as they do upon the type of vision which
arises from faithfulness in doing the revealed will.
If we may characterize scriptural mysticism, it seems very much akin to
mental abilities which we meet frequently in our ordinary intercourse.
Take, for example, the prescience of a skilled business man. Nothing is
more inadequate than the rules for success laid down by many a man who
has himself succeeded in business. Mastery of his rules will not help
another to win business success. The reason is that there comes out of
prolonged business practice a keen sense of what is likely to happen in
the industrial or financial world. The sharpened wits foresee without
being able to assign reasons or grounds for the prophecies. So it is
with intellects trained to any superior skill. The Duke of Wellington
once remarked that he had spent all his life wondering what was on the
other side of the hills in front of him, yet the Duke himself came to
marvelous skill in guessing what was on the other side. There is also a
variety of scientific mysticism, if such an expression may be
permitted. The man long trained to the reading of scientific processes
develops a quick insight which runs far ahead of reason or proof. The
transcendent scientific discoveries have been glimpsed or, rather,
sensed before they so reported themselves that they could be seized by
formal proof. Now it is a far cry from business men, generals, and
scientists to the mysticism of the Scriptures, but when we see the
emphasis which the Scriptures place upon constancy in keeping the law
and in acting according to divine commandments, we cannot help feeling
that biblical mysticism was and is an awareness developed as the life
becomes practiced to the doing of religious duty. Think too of the
emphasis placed in the Scriptures upon the consecration of the whole
life to the truth as cleansing the heart from evil. All this makes for
a power to seize truth beyond that possible to formal and systematic
reason. Mysticism of this sort is the very height of spiritual power.
The Master's word: "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see
God," does not refer to merely negative virtue. It means also the power
of soul accumulated in the positive doing of good. It means entrance
into the life of quick spiritual awareness through the adjustment of
the whole nature to the single moral purpose.
In all promise of revelation the Scriptures insist upon the importance
of keeping upon the basis of solid obedience. The finer the instrument
is to be, the more massive must be the foundation. Professor Hocking,
of Harvard University, has used a remarkable illustration to enforce
this very conception. The scientific instrument, he says, which must be
kept freest from distracting influences so that it may make the finest
registries must rest upon a foundation broad and deep. So the soul that
is to catch the finest stirrings of the divine must rest upon the
solidest stones of hard work for the moral purposes of the scriptural
Kingdom.
Still some one will insist that the Bible is a book built around great
crises in human experience; that it is a record of these crises; that
the people in whose history the crises occurred were a peculiar people,
apparently arbitrarily chosen as a medium for religious
world-instruction; that the crises cast sudden bursts of intense light
upon the meaning of human life, but that they themselves are far apart
from ordinary experience. Here, again, we must insist that the
scriptural stress is always upon obedience to what is conceived of as
revealed truth. We have already said that Jesus regarded revelation as
organic. In everything organic we find instances of quick crisis
following long and slow periods of growth. The crisis or the climax of
the sudden flowering-out would never be possible were it not for the
antecedent growth. The Hebrew nation, developed through workaday
righteousness, manifested wonderful power in sudden crises. The inner
forces of moral purpose which at times seemed hidden or dead because of
the riot of wickedness suddenly blossomed forth in mighty bursts of
prophecy; but the all-essential was the long-continued practice of
righteousness which made possible the sudden crisis; and this is in
keeping with the teachings of most commonplace human experience. The
daily struggle prepares for the sharp, quick strain or for the swift
unfolding of a new moral purpose. There is nothing more arbitrary in
the crises in the scriptural movement than in the ordinary ongoings of
our lives. The student who has long been wrestling with a problem finds
the solution instantaneously bursting upon him in the midst of untoward
circumstances. The most insignificant trifle may finally turn the lock
which opens to the glorious revelation after prolonged brooding. The
daily practice may make men ready for the shock which leaps upon them
altogether unexpected.
We summarize by saying that the essentials of biblical truth came in
progressive revelations to men who were putting forth their energies to
live up to the largest ideals they could reach; and that they sought
these larger ideals for use in their lives. It must be understood in
all that we have said about acting the revelation out into life that we
do not mean merely the more matter-of-fact activities. It should be
noticed that whenever men speak of will-activities they are apt to give
the impression that they mean some putting forth of bodily energy. The
will to do scriptural righteousness did not manifest itself merely in
outside actions. It manifested itself just as thoroughly in bearings
and attitudes of the inner spirit; and the appeal was always to the
will to hold itself fast in the direction of the highest life, whatever
the form of the activity.
After this emphasis upon obedience as the organ of spiritual knowledge
some one may ask what provision we are making for infallibility and for
inspiration. We can only say that we are dealing with a Book which has
come out of concrete life, and that in concrete life not much
consideration is given to abstract infallibility. In daily experience
the righteous soul becomes increasingly sure of itself. To return for
the moment to Paul, we may think of the certainty with which he grasped
the thought of the reward which would be his. The time of his
departure, or, of his unmooring, was at hand. He was perfectly
confident that he was to go on longer voyages of spiritual discovery
and exploration. Can we say that this splendid outburst came from
devotion to an abstract formula? Did it not, rather, spring from the
sources of life within him-sources opened and developed by the
experiences through which he passed? The biblical heroes wrought and
suffered through living confidence in the forces which were bearing
them on and up. They would have answered questions about abstract
infallibility with emphatic avowals as to the firmness of their own
belief. In other words, they could have relied upon their life itself
as its own best witness to itself. They felt alive and ready to go
whithersoever life might lead.
And so with inspiration. It is the merest commonplace to repeat that
the inspiration of the Scriptures must show itself in their power to
inspire those who partake of their life. Does a fresh moral and
spiritual air blow through them? Is there in them anything that men can
breathe? Anything upon which men can build themselves into moral
strength? This is the final test of inspiration. Physical breathing is
in itself a mystery, but we know when the air invigorates us. Abstract
doctrine of inspiration apart from life and experience is a very
stifling affair compared with inspiration conceived of as a breath of
life. The scriptural doctrine is that the man who does the will finds
himself able to breathe more deeply of the truth of God; and that the
very breath itself will satisfy him, and by satisfying him convince him
that it is the breath of life.
There is an old story of a student who decided to learn the meaning of
a strange religion which was taught and practiced by priests in a
far-away corner of India. The student thought to disguise himself, to
go close to the doors of the temple and to listen there for what he
might overhear of the principles taught by the priests. One day he was
detected and captured by the priests and made their slave. He was set
to work performing to the utmost the duties for which the temple
called. His response was at first rebellious. In the long years that
followed the spell of the strange religion was cast upon him. He began
to learn not as an outsider, not as one merely studying writings and
rituals, but as one enthralled by the system itself. In this old story,
inadequate as it is, we have a suggestion of the way in which the
biblical revelation lays its spell upon man. The outside study is,
indeed, worth much, but the true understanding comes inside the temple
to him who carries forward the work of the temple.
CHAPTER III
THE BOOK OF HUMANITY
We have seen that the understanding of the Scriptures presupposes at
least a sympathy with the rule of life contained in the Scriptures, and
implies for its largest results a practical surrender to that rule of
life. He that doeth the will revealed in the Scriptures cometh to a
knowledge of the truth revealed in the Scriptures. We must next note
that an understanding of the Bible cannot advance far until it realizes
the emphasis on the human values set before us in the scriptural books.
We are to approach the distinctively religious teachings of the Bible
somewhat later. It is now in order to call attention to the truth that
the biblical movement is throughout the ages in the direction of
increasing regard for the distinctively human. The human ideal is not
so much absolutely stated as imposed in laws, in prophecies, in the
policies of statesmen, in the types of ideal erected on high before the
chosen people as worthy of supreme regard. And the place of the human
ideal in the Bible helps determine
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atified, his lips met hers and lingered.
To Helen it seemed as though she was in a dream of untold ecstasy.
Always a shrinking, modest girl, especially in the company of the
opposite sex, in any calmer moment she would have been shocked beyond
expression at this momentary abandonment she permitted herself. As she
lay in this man's arms and felt his warm kisses on her lips, there came
over her a strange sensation she had never known before. She grew
dizzy and for a moment thought she would faint. All at once he
released her. Almost apologetically, he murmured:
"Forgive me--I lost control over myself--I want you Helen--I want you
for my wife. Will you marry me?"
She drew away and turned away her head, so he might not see her burning
cheeks.
He persisted.
"Will you marry me?"
She hesitated a moment before replying. Then, very simply, she
answered:
"Yes, Kenneth."
That was three years ago.
CHAPTER II
In a certain set Helen Traynor was not popular. Some people thought
her old fashioned, strait-laced, prudish. They resented her having no
taste for their frivolous, decadent amusements. They called her proud
and condescending whereas, as a matter of fact, she merely asked to be
let alone. Of course, it was only people whose opinions were worthless
that criticized her. All who were admitted to her intimacy knew that
there was no friend more loyal, no woman more womanly and charming.
In one respect she might be called old fashioned. Her views on life
had certainly little in common with those held by most present-day
women. She had no taste for bridge, she refused to adopt freak
fashions in dress, she discouraged the looseness of tone in speech and
manner so much affected by other women of her acquaintance--in a word
she was in society but not of it. Naturally, she had more
acquaintances than friends, yet she was not unpopular among her
intimates. While secretly they laughed at what they termed her
puritanical notions, they were shrewd enough to realize that they could
hardly afford to snub a woman whose husband occupied so prominent a
position in the world of affairs. Besides, was it not to their
interest to cultivate her? Who gave more delightful dinners, who could
on occasion be a more charming hostess? An accomplished musician, a
clever talker, she easily dominated in whatever salon she happened to
be, and the men were always found crowding eagerly around her.
Like most women of her temperament, sure of themselves and in whose
mind never enters even a thought of disloyalty to her marriage vows,
she made no concealment of her preference for the masculine sex. With
those men who were attracted by her unusual mentality,--she was
gracious, and affable, discussing with politicians, jurists,
financiers, economic and sociological questions with a brilliancy and
insight that fairly astonished them. With literary men and musicians,
she chatted intelligently of the latest novels and pictures and operas
with the facility and expertness of a connoisseur. Other men, drawn by
her exceptional beauty, fascinated by the spell of her soulful eyes,
her tall graceful figure, and delicate classic face, framed in Grecian
head dress, made violent love to her, their heated imaginations and
jaded senses conceiving a conquest compared with which the criminal
passion of Paolo for Francesca should pale. These would-be Lotharios
might as well have tried to set an iceberg on fire. Quietly, but
firmly and in unmistakable terms, she let them understand that they
were wasting their time and their ardor thus quenched, one by one they
dropped away and left her in peace. Only Signor Keralio had persisted.
She had snubbed him, insulted him, time after time, yet wherever she
turned she found him at her elbow. Society soon resigned itself to
considering her as one apart--a beautiful, chaste Juno whose ideals all
must respect. Indeed, the only thing with which she could be
reproached was that she was in love with her husband--the unpardonable
sin in society's eyes--but seeing who it was and despairing of ever
changing her point of view, society forgave her.
It never occurred to Helen that she was different in any way from other
women. She did not see how it was possible for a woman to be untrue to
the man whose name she bore and still retain her self-respect. The day
she ceased to love her husband she would leave him forever. To her way
of thinking, it was shocking to go on living with a man merely because
it suited one's convenience and comfort. She knew married women who
did not care for their husbands, some actually detested the men they
had married, and had always held in horror the intimate relation which
marriage sanctioned. She felt sorry for such women, but secretly she
despised them. They alone were to blame. Had they not married knowing
well that there was no real affection in their hearts for the men to
whom they gave themselves? The cynicism and effrontery of young girls
regarding marriage particularly revolted her. Eager for wealth and
social position, they offered themselves with brazen effrontery in the
matrimonial market, immodestly displaying their charms to the
lecherous, covetous eyes of blasé, degenerate men. Any question of
attachment, love, affection was never for a moment considered. The
idea that a man could be even considered unless he were able to provide
a fine establishment was laughed to scorn. The girls were all men
hunters but they hunted only rich men. They called the feeling they
experienced for the man they caught in their toils "love." They meant
something quite different. To a girl of Helen's ideas, such manoeuvers
were shocking. To her the marriage tie was something sacred, a
relation not to be entered into lightly. Kenneth was rich, it was
true, but she would have loved him none the less had he been one of his
own fifteen dollar a week clerks. When they were married and the
romance was over, he stopped playing the lover to devote himself to the
more serious business of making money, but with her, time, instead of
dimming the flame, only caused it to burn the brighter. This man whom
she had married was her only thought. In him centered every interest
of her life.
A muffled outburst of profanity from Kenneth aroused her from her
reveries.
"That's always the way when one's in a hurry," he exclaimed petulantly.
"Ring for François. Why the devil isn't he here?"
Quickly, Helen sprang up from the trunk and touched an electric button.
"What's the matter, dear?" she asked.
She approached her husband who, at the far end of the room, was red in
the face from the unusual exertion of trying to coax the buckle of a
strap into a hole obviously out of reach. He pulled and strained till
the muscles stood out on his neck and brawny arms like whipcord, and
still the obstinate buckle declined to be coerced. The more it
resisted, the more determined he was to make it obey. Go in it must,
if sheer strength would do it. The vice-president of the
Americo-African Mining Company was no weakling. A six-foot athlete and
captain of the Varsity football team in his college days, his muscles
had been toughened in a thousand lively scrimmages and in later life
plenty of golf, rowing and other out-of-door sports had kept him in
condition. When he pulled hard something had to give way. It did in
this instance. There was a tearing, rending sound and the strap broke
off short. With a gesture of despair he turned to his wife as men are
wont to do when in trouble.
"Wouldn't that jar you?" he cried, as he threw the broken strap away.
"What the deuce am I going to do now?"
"Why don't you let François attend to such things?" answered his wife
calmly. "He understands packing so much better than you. You're so
strong, you break everything."
She looked fondly at her husband's tall, athletic figure. He turned to
her with a smile.
"I guess you're right," he said. "But where the devil is François?"
"I don't know. I sent him downstairs to tell the cook to have some
nice sandwiches ready when you come home after the director's meeting
tonight, but that's an hour ago----"
His ill humor gone, Kenneth looked up and smiled at her. Putting his
arm about her, fondly he said:
"Dear little wife. You're always thinking of the comfort of others.
You're the most unselfish, the most adorable, the most----"
"Stop, Kenneth, don't be foolish or I shall believe you----"
His face red from his recent exertions, he sat down on the arm of a
chair to rest a little. Full of the coming journey, he had already
forgotten his wife's anxiety. The great business schemes he had in
mind dwarfed for the time being every other consideration. He could
think and talk of nothing but diamonds. Huge crystals, worth untold
millions as big as a fist, flashed at him from every corner of the
room. Fabulous fortunes had been made in the diamond mines of South
Africa. Why should he not be as successful as others? The romance of
the Cullinan might be repeated, even surpassed. Well he recalled how
he had been thrilled by the sensational story of the discovery of that
colossal gem, more than three times the size of the Excelsior, the
wonder of the modern world. In imagination, he saw it now. An
old-fashioned Boer farm, transformed into a modern mining camp. A
moonlight night. A man strolling idly along the rugged, desolate
veldt, chances to look down. His eye suddenly catches a gleam in the
rough face of the jagged slope. He stoops and picks up what looks like
a piece of ice. Quickly he returns to his office and hands it to his
chief. The men look at each other in silence. To all parts of the
world goes the message that a diamond has been found four times bigger
than the largest gem in the world. A stone weighing over 3,000 carats
and worth four million dollars. He could already imagine himself far
from civilization among the barren mountains of South Africa,
prospecting in wide stretches of stone and gravel, picking up the
brilliant dazzling stones by the handful.
"Have you any idea," he said, "what the mines have produced?"
She shook her head indifferently.
"No, and I don't want to know. I don't want you to go--that's all."
"Their output in the last ten years is estimated at no less than
$400,000,000. Just think of it. Four hundred millions! Well, dear, I
and a few others want some of it, and we're going to get it."
"But aren't we rich enough already?" she demanded petulantly. "Why
this fever to get richer and richer? We are happy with what we have.
Why run the risks to gain what after all will only be a surplus? We
can't possibly spend it."
Her husband's eyes flashed. The lines about his mouth tightened as he
retorted:
"One never has enough! You women don't understand. As long as you
have all the amusement you crave, all the frocks you want, all the
jewelry you covet, you think that is all there is to life."
She looked up at him reproachfully and seemed about to protest when he
added hurriedly:
"Oh, I don't mean you. I know you are not that kind of woman. You are
more serious, more sensible. I mean the average society woman whose
only concern in life is dress and show. We men have different aims,
higher ambitions. I'm well to do, as the term goes. I have an income
of over $100,000 a year, a splendidly appointed town house, a show
place in the country. Above all I have the most adorable wife in all
the world. Most men would be satisfied. I am not. I want still more.
I have the money craze, an uncontrollable lust to pile up millions. My
ambition is to wield the power that only the possession of vast wealth
confers. The resources of this vast country are practically in the
hands of half a dozen men. Merely by holding up a finger, these men
could, to suit their own selfish ends, start a universal panic which
might bring about a financial cataclysm, involving the whole world in
disaster. I do not say they would use this power for evil, but they
are in position to do so if it served their purpose. I want to have
such power, only if I had it I would not use it for evil. I would use
it for good. Conditions in the industrial world are very critical. We
are rapidly approaching a crisis. In all countries the forces of labor
and the forces of capital are lined up in silent, grim battalions. The
poor are getting poorer; the rich are getting richer. The cost of
living is going up beyond all reason. Why? Because the men who
control the wealth of the world will it so. The system which is
responsible for this must one day, sooner or later, give way to another
and more humane system, still to be devised, which will enable the man
who produces the wealth of the world at least to enjoy some of the
fruits of his toil. Now it goes into the hands of the privileged few
who use the power their money gives them to keep their less fortunate
fellow men in servile subjection. I want to be rich, very rich, but I
will use my wealth for good. With it I will help my fellow man rise
from the mire. I will help him throw off the shackles with which
conscienceless capitalism has fettered him. I want to be such a power
for good. I want----"
The maid reëntered the room.
"François is not in his room, m'm."
Kenneth gave vent to an exclamation of impatience. Turning to his
wife, he asked:
"Where is he? Did you send him anywhere?"
Helen shook her head. Quickly she said:
"He's never around except when he's not wanted."
It was so seldom that his wife displayed irritation at any one that
Kenneth looked up in surprise.
"He's shopping, too, I suppose. You know there's little time left and
he has things to get ready the same as I have."
Helen made a gesture of disapproval. Quickly she said:
"I wish you were going with someone else, with anyone but that man. I
never liked him."
Her husband laughed. Carelessly he replied:
"I know you never did and it's the only instance since we're married
where I've found dear little wife to be absolutely unfair. Seriously,
sweetheart, your baseless prejudice against François is unworthy of
you. I can't go without a servant of some kind. He's an honest fellow
and a faithful servant."
Helen shrugged her shoulders.
"I'm not so sure about that," she retorted quickly. "What do you know
about him or his honesty? He's a perfect stranger that blew in three
months ago from nowhere. He had written recommendations which may be
forged. You never took the trouble to look them up."
"Yes, I did. I asked Keralio about him."
Helen looked up in surprise.
"Signor Keralio? I didn't know François was ever with him."
"He was with him nearly a year. Keralio warmly recommends him and says
he is a very faithful fellow. He only left him because he objected to
being compelled to practise sword-play with his master. One day
Keralio's foil slipped. François got a puncture and it made him
nervous."
"No wonder I don't like him. Like master, like valet--as the French
say."
Her husband smiled.
"You are down on Keralio, aren't you?"
"I detest him. How could any self-respecting woman like such a man?
His every glance is an insult. With his polished manners and sardonic
smile he reminds one of Mephistopheles."
"I don't fancy the fellow much myself, but I have to be polite to him.
As I told you, he's in with the people who own that silver mine. I've
found him useful."
"Don't trust him," replied Helen warningly. "If he makes himself
useful to you, depend upon it, he has some ulterior motive in view.
Now I know François was once with him I shall dislike him more than
ever."
"Come--come dear," protested Kenneth, "that is carrying things too far.
François is quite a decent chap if you understand him--I find him
faithful, discreet."
"Discreet!" echoed Helen mockingly. "I beg to differ."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean that you are blinded in the man. Discreet indeed! Only the
other day I caught him at your desk reading a letter which you had left
there."
"A letter?" exclaimed Kenneth, looking up in surprise. "What letter?"
"The letter from your agent at Cape Town, telling of the astonishing
diamond find, and suggesting that an officer of the Company be sent out
to bring home the big stone--the letter you read at the director's
meeting and which decided them to send you out there."
Kenneth bit his lip. Quickly he said:
"I'm sorry he saw that. It was careless of me to leave it around. Are
you sure he was reading it?"
"He had a pencil and paper in hand and appeared to be copying from the
letter. When he saw me, he crushed the paper up in his hand and turned
away."
Kenneth gave an expressive whistle.
"The deuce you say! The fellow's smarter than I took him to be. All
the more reason why I should take him along with me. Then I'm sure he
can't tell tales out of school. I----. Hush, here he is!"
The door opened cautiously and there entered a man about thirty years
of age, of medium height and slightly, even delicately, built. That he
was a Frenchman was apparent even at a glance. The dark closely
cropped hair, worn in the so-called pompadour or military style, the
pale, saturnine features, the manner and general bearing all loudly
proclaimed his Gallic nationality. His smooth shaven face showed a
firm mouth with bloodless lips so thin as to be hardly perceptible.
His eyes, when they could be seen at all, were greenish in color, and
small and restless as those of a ferret. He advanced into the room
with the obsequious deferential manner which in all well-trained
servants becomes second nature, moving across the thickly carpeted
floor with the rapidity and noiselessness of a snake.
"Where have you been, François?" demanded Kenneth sharply.
The valet stopped short, as if struck by a blow, but he did not stand
still. His nervous thin hands and lean body were in constant motion,
although he did not stir from the one spot. In every involuntary
movement and gesture there was something that suggested the feline.
When spoken to or given an order he replied respectfully and obeyed
with alacrity, but when addressed he listened always with eyes averted.
This had always exasperated Helen. She could not recall him ever
looking her straight in the face. For that reason alone, if, for no
other, she disliked and distrusted him, thinking not unnaturally that a
man, who is afraid to let his eyes meet another's, must be plotting in
his mind some treachery which he fears his direct gaze may betray. His
furtive glances went quickly from master to mistress. Something in
their attitude, the suddenness with which they interrupted their
conversation told him that they had been talking about him.
"Did you hear me?" demanded Kenneth again. "Where have you been? You
knew there was this packing to be done."
The man's eyes flashed resentfully, but he replied civilly:
"Oui, monsieur, but monsieur forgets. Monsieur told me I must go to ze
tailor."
Kenneth's frown disappeared. Yes, it was true. He had sent him to the
tailor. Quick to make amends for an injustice, he said more amiably:
"That's right. I had forgotten. What did they say?"
"Ze suits will be delivered in half hour."
"Very well. When they come, you will know which trunk to put them in."
"Oui, monsieur."
"And then, when my trunks are ready you had better hustle with your own
packing. There's no time to be lost. The steamer sails at 11 o'clock
to-morrow morning."
"Oui, monsieur."
Quietly, stealthily, the valet retraced his cat-like steps and opening
the door retired as noiselessly as he had come.
CHAPTER III
When the valet had disappeared, Kenneth turned to his wife with a
chuckle.
"Who was right? You made me scold him for nothing."
Helen shook her head.
"I detest the man. There is something crawly and repulsive about him.
I can read evil in his face. Don't trust him, Kenneth. Remember, if
anything goes wrong, don't blame me. I warned you. My instinct seldom
fails."
Her husband laughed and, advancing, put his arm tenderly around his
wife.
"I guess I'm able to take care of myself, dear. Don't let's discuss
François any longer. Tell me about yourself. How are you going to
amuse yourself while I'm away?"
Her head drooped on his breast and once more her eyes filled with
tears. With affected carelessness which cost her a great effort, she
replied:
"Oh, the time won't hang so heavy on my hands. It never does when one
has resources within oneself. I'll read and ride and sew. I suppose
I'll have plenty to do."
"Mr. Parker said he would drop in and look after you."
"Yes--tell him to come and see me very often. He's rather tiresome
with his prosy talk, but he's a dear old soul."
With a mischievous twinkle in his eye her husband went on:
"It's not unlikely that Keralio will call, also."
"I hope not," she said quickly. "I'll soon show him he's not wanted."
Kenneth laughed. It amused him to see how set she was against the
Italian. He did not know the man any too well. He had met him in a
business way and the fellow had been of service, but he had not the
slightest idea of making a friend of him. He rather suspected he was
an adventurer although, a stranger in New York, no one knew anything
against him. Protestingly he said:
"It's hardly fair to attack a man because he admires you."
"He shows his admiration in a most offensive way. If you could see the
way he looks at me sometimes you'd be the first to resent it."
Kenneth laughed.
"Oh, you mustn't mind that. It's a way all foreigners have. They ogle
women more from force of habit than any desire to effect a conquest.
Besides, you won't be alone."
"No, I shall have Ray. She is excellent company--far jollier than
I----"
Kenneth protested.
"No, she isn't by a long shot. Ray is all right as sisters-in-law go,
but I'd never change you for her. I'm d----d if I would!"
Quickly Helen put her white hand over his mouth. With mock severity
she exclaimed:
"Kenneth! How can you be so profane? I hate to hear such language
from you. Ray is the sweetest thing on earth. It's a shame she never
got married. Oh, don't be uneasy on that score. We'll have a good
time. We'll go to the theater. We'll have teas and little dinner
parties. I'll invite some interesting men to meet her. I'd love to
see her married to some nice man. There's Mr. Steell, for instance.
He's rich, young, has a brilliant future----"
Kenneth made a grimace. Quickly he retorted:
"It's you he admires, not Ray. He will accept your invitation--less
with the idea of letting Ray hook him in the matrimonial net, than for
the opportunity it affords for a renewed flirtation with you. Oh,
quite innocent, of course, but still a flirtation. Have I forgotten
what close friends you used to be before I appeared on the scene?"
"And carried me off, a new Lochinvar come out of the West!" she
laughed. "Oh, Kenneth, how can you be so foolish? It is absolutely
indecent of you. I like Mr. Steell, and I think he likes me, but our
friendship is purely platonic. I never give him a thought, I assure
you."
"I know you don't, but I'm not so sure about him. He's a man and men
are only human----"
"He's a gentleman," corrected Helen. "He never forgets that."
Kenneth gave a grunt of incredulity. Sulkily he said:
"All right--all right. Have a good time. Marry him to Ray. Perhaps
it's safer that way. When he's my brother-in-law, he'll stop making
sheep's eyes at my wife."
Helen laughed outright.
"You silly goose. I never suspected you of having a jealous streak in
your nature. How could I prefer anyone to my handsome Kenneth?"
As she stood before him, playfully patting his cheek, her glance
alighted on the solitary lock of gray hair in the center of his
forehead. Toying with it, she went on:
"Isn't it strange that your hair should be white just in that place. I
rather like it. It gives an added note of distinction to your face. I
wonder what caused it."
Kenneth laughed.
"That's my trade mark. If ever I'm brought home on a stretcher you'll
know me by that white lock."
Helen raised her hand in protest.
"Don't talk that way. Never jest about accidents. Sometimes they
happen."
"Well--I said nothing. I only said that if you were ever in doubt
about my identity, you would know me by my white lock."
She smiled, as she patted his cheek lovingly, and said:
"That would not be necessary, Ken dear. No matter how changed you
looked, what disguise you wore, I should still know you."
"And if it wasn't me," he laughed, "but only someone who looked like
me?"
"I could never be mistaken. The ring in the voice, the expression in
the eyes--no woman who really loves could ever be deceived."
She had drawn nearer to him, her mouth upturned and tempting, her face
with that gentle, wistful expression he was never able to resist.
Throwing his arms impulsively about her, he clasped her passionately to
his breast.
"Sweetheart," he whispered, "you don't know how dear you are to me!"
"Nor can you," she replied, as he smothered her with kisses, "ever
realize what you are to me!"
Suddenly they were interrupted by a sound at the door behind them.
Some one coughed discreetly. Quickly separating, Helen turned round.
In some confusion she exclaimed:
"Hello, Ray. I thought you were out. When did you come in?"
"I was out. I have been shopping. I met Mr. Steell in the park and we
had a lovely walk." Slyly she added: "I am afraid I returned too soon.
I see you're both busy."
"Never too busy for you, Ray," smiled Helen trying to hide her
confusion, while Kenneth grinned broadly.
The young girl laughed as she flung down on the sofa her muff and fur
neck-piece. Roguishly she said:
"Lovemaking so early in the day. Aren't you ashamed of yourselves?"
Kenneth liked to tease his sister-in-law, but the young girl was quite
his equal when it came to a battle of wits and it was not often that
she gave him the opportunity.
"What time do you do your love making?" he demanded.
Her cheeks reddened a little as she retorted:
"I'm never so foolish. I leave that to you married people. My purpose
in life is far more serious."
"Oh, come now," protested her brother-in-law, "I've noticed you and
Steell spooning often enough."
Stylishly and tastefully dressed, her face beaming with animation, her
eyes sparkling with intelligence, Kenneth's sister-in-law was a pretty,
wholesome looking girl. She had beautiful blond hair like her sister,
and fine, white teeth that told of good health and perfect digestion.
Helen's junior only by three years, she was still unmarried and for the
present at least seemed more inclined to remain single and partake of
life's pleasures than incur the risks and responsibilities of
matrimony. Not that she had been without offers. A girl as attractive
and clever could hardly have failed to please the sterner sex. All
sorts and conditions of men had prostrated themselves at her tiny,
well-shod feet, but, capricious and headstrong, she would have none of
them. She was what might be called a singular girl. She liked men,
not because of their sex, but because their point of view was
different, their grasp of things stronger than her own. One day she
must marry. She knew that. It was, she insisted laughingly, an
ignoble state of slavery, a humiliating, degrading condition of
subjection to the male which every woman must endure, necessary
perhaps, but an ordeal to be put off, something unpleasant to be
postponed as long as possible, like the taking of a dose of unsavory
physic or having a tooth pulled at the dentist's. Meantime, heart
whole and fancy free, she enjoyed life to the limit and kept her
admirers guessing.
"Oh, I saw such lovely things in the stores," exclaimed the young girl.
"I wish I had the money to buy them all."
"You will have when I get back from South Africa," he laughed.
"Don't forget," she laughed. "I'll hold you to that promise. Helen is
witness."
"I swear it!" he said with mock solemnity. "You shall have carte
blanche in any Fifth Avenue shop to the amount of--$1.75."
"Will you be ready in time?" she laughed, looking around with dismay at
the litter of open trunks.
"I won't, if you stay here chattering like a magpie."
"What time does the steamer sail?"
"Eleven o'clock," said Helen.
"We're all coming to see you off. Mr. Steell told me that he's coming,
too."
"Not exactly to see me, I'm afraid," smiled Kenneth.
"Who else?" she retorted. "If you mean me, you're mistaken. He
doesn't need to make the uncomfortable trip to Hoboken to see me."
Her brother-in-law smiled, amused at her petulance.
"My dear," he said, "you don't know what hardships a man will endure
for the girl he's sweet on." With mock seriousness he went on: "Say
sis, Helen and I have been having an argument. Who does Steell come
here for--for you or for me?"
Ray burst into merry laughter.
"How silly you are, Ken. For me, of course. At least, I flatter
myself that----" With a wink at her sister she added facetiously: "Of
course, one never knows when dealing with these handsome men. And
Helen is quite adorable. If I were a man, I should be crazy about her."
Helen held up a protesting finger.
"Don't talk like that, dear, or he'll believe you."
Kenneth laughed.
"Yes, I'm as jealous as Othello and quite as dangerous. Don't I look
it?"
As he spoke, the front door-bell rang downstairs. Ray hastily took up
her things.
"Here's company!"
"I hope not!" exclaimed Helen. "I'm in no mood to see anybody."
"I'll see them," whispered Ray, "and say you're out. It won't be the
first fib I've told."
She ran lightly out of the room and upstairs, while Helen and her
husband went on with the work of packing. They were just stooping
together over a trunk when there came a rap on the door, and François
appeared.
"A lady to see monsieur."
Kenneth looked puzzled.
"A lady? What lady?"
Helen laughed merrily. Triumphantly, she exclaimed:
"It's my turn now to be jealous."
"Not exactly a lady, monsieur. An elderly person."
"What's her name?"
"Mrs. Mary O'Connor."
Kenneth smiled broadly.
"Mary O'Connor, my old nurse. Well, well, show her right in." Turning
to his wife he added quickly: "Dear old soul--no doubt she's heard I'm
off to Africa and wishes to say good-bye."
An instant later an old woman bent with age and with a kindly face
framed with silvery white hair came in, hands outstretched. Without
any air of condescension on his part, Kenneth went forward to greet
her. Through all the long stretch of years, from his boy days to his
manhood he had never forgotten how kind Mary had been to him when a
child, taking the place of the mother he had lost in infancy. A
Christmas was never allowed to pass without a fat turkey for the old
nurse and many a little present of money had accompanied the bird. The
old woman's lips quivered as she said tremulously:
"It's a long way you're going, Mr. Kenneth."
"Oh, I'll soon be back, Mary," he rejoined jovially.
She shook her head.
"It's a long way and I'm getting old."
The promoter laughed boisterously. Leading her gently to a chair he
exclaimed:
"Old! Nonsense; You're just as young to me now as when I first
remember you."
The old lady smiled. Nodding her head feebly, she replied:
"When you used to play hide-and-seek with me. When I wanted to put you
to bed you were nowhere to be found."
Helen laughed while Kenneth protested:
"Oh, come now, Mary, I wasn't so bad as that."
"No. You weren't bad--just lively and natural as all healthy children.
You were always a better boy than your brother."
Helen looked up quickly.
"Your brother, Kenneth? I never heard you speak of a brother."
He looked at the old lady in amazement.
"My brother? What brother?"
The old lady smiled.
"That's so--you never knew. You were too young to remember. Yes, you
had a brother--a twin brother. People hardly knew you apart. There
was only one way in which your mother and I could tell."
"What was that?" demanded the promoter eagerly.
"He had a scar. He caught his hand in some machinery when a baby and
it left a scar in the index finger of the left hand."
Transfixed, Kenneth listened open-mouthed. At last breaking the spell,
he exclaimed:
"I never heard of him. You never spoke of him before."
"How should you remember?" went on the old woman. "It's many years
ago. Your father and mother are dead. You have no relatives living.
No one knows. But I know."
"Did he die?" asked Kenneth, deeply interested.
The old lady nodded affirmatively.
"I shall never forgive myself. It was my fault. You were playing
together in the garden. I didn't dream either of you could come to
harm. I went into the house for a moment to get something. When I
came back your brother was gone--no trace of him anywhere. We never
s
|
miserable," she
went on in a trembling voice. "My throat seemed closed; my limbs were
heavy as lead; the eyes of all seemed to pierce me through and through.
Oh, Lisbeth, I shall never be able to act!"
She laid her head upon the pillow beside the child, who pressed her
flushed little face against her sister's cheek. "Oh, you will learn,"
Lisbeth whispered. "Papa says you are very clever, and you are so kind,
and I love you so very much."
The words came more and more slowly; Johanna remained motionless, that
she might not prevent the child from sleeping. After a while she heard
the rustle of silk: her step-mother had entered the adjoining
dressing-room. Directly afterwards her father also entered. "I should
like to speak with you a moment, Helena," he said.
"I am listening," she made reply, without looking round, and continuing
to take off her ornaments and her sash.
He began to pace the room to and fro. Johanna's heart beat fast; she
knew how Helena irritated him by this assumption of indifference.
"You have placed me in a strange position," he began, after a pause, in
a low, stern tone. "I certainly ought to be grateful to you for my
birthday fête; but I must at the same time reiterate, and that most
decidedly, that we cannot give such extravagant entertainments. We are
so much in debt----"
"Dear Roderich," she interrupted him, "one benefit and it will all be
paid."
"But, Helena, I cannot reckon upon the future," he rejoined. "You know I
could not make any engagements last summer,--I am not yet well. It seems
to me very undesirable to burden ourselves with unnecessary care."
"And it seems to me undesirable, sordid, degrading, to be always
counting the cost," exclaimed Helena. "Without freedom of action the
artist cannot exist."
"It is that very freedom which I wish to secure," Roderich said gravely.
"At your urgent entreaty, and by Commerzienrath Schmidt's advice, I
speculated with our entire fortune, as you know, and lost it. Therefore
we must begin afresh, and economize. Therefore, dear Helena, no more of
these costly entertainments."
She shrugged her shoulders impatiently. "Dear Roderich," she said,
"to-night's festival is my affair; it is my birthday present to you----"
"Child, you cannot count the cost," he interrupted her; "your salary
scarcely suffices to provide your wardrobe."
"'Tis little enough!" said Helena. "You might long ago have used your
influence to procure me a better position. Instead of which, you always
take sides with the Kronberg against me."
"No, I do not," he replied. "I wrote to the manager only yesterday that
I would renew my present engagement with him only upon condition that
the Kronberg were not allowed to usurp any of your parts."
Helena threw her arms around him. "Oh, you darling, did you really?" she
cried in glee. "You do not know how you delight me. They wanted to
persuade me that you cared for the Kronberg."
"Helena!" he said reproachfully. "Since I have known you there has been
but one woman for me in the world."
His words hurt Johanna; she tried to release herself, that she might
leave the room, but Lisbeth in her sleep held her fast.
Helena had taken her husband's arm and paced the room to and fro with
him. She had doffed her lace overdress, and looked wonderfully lovely in
the close-fitting blue silk with bare neck and arms. "Why do you always
find fault with me, you bad fellow?" she said, looking up at him with an
exultant smile. "I live only for you--to fulfil your wishes. I have
economized; I have even dismissed my own maid, contenting myself with
Johanna's services."
"She really seems fit for little else," he replied. "How miserably she
acquitted herself in her small part! You ought not to have allowed her
to take it."
"What could I do?" Helena asked. "She insisted upon making the attempt,
and I as her step-mother----"
"Poor Johanna!" Roderich interrupted her; "as devoid of talent as her
mother, and as ugly as myself!"
"Oh, Roderich, you! The most glorious Egmont,--the most enchanting
Leicester!"
"But a very ugly man!" he said, with the brilliant smile that was all
his own, and that really made his plain face handsome. "What you admire
comes from within; there seems to be some kind of a flame there that
flickers interestingly. But this is denied to poor Johanna. And
then--you must see that the Graces have denied her their gifts; the
greatest misfortune for a woman. You have managed that they should
bestow them all upon your little daughter."
He kissed her hand. Johanna could endure it no longer; by a hasty effort
she released herself from her sleeping sister's arm, and stepped
noiselessly out of the room into the corridor, at the end of which was
her own chamber.
She groped her way to the arm-chair beside the window, sank into it, and
gazed into the darkness without. How gay and hopeful she had been while
dressing in this room a few short hours before, and how forlorn and
discouraged she had now returned to it! 'As devoid of talent as her
mother, and as ugly as myself,' had been the words spoken by a voice
whose utterances she believed implicitly; and then again, 'the Graces
have denied her their gifts; the greatest misfortune for a woman.'
Bitterness, such as she had never before known, possessed her. What had
she done to be thus disinherited from the beginning, deprived of all
claim to love and happiness?
Suddenly a joyous thrill drove the blood to her heart. It was not so,
she was not disinherited. Little more than twenty-four hours had passed
since the most truthful of men had said to her in effect, 'You were my
ideal; ugly and awkward as you are, I saw in you the embodiment of all
loveliness.' If he saw it in her no longer, it was because of a
mistake,--a misunderstanding. She would prove to him that she had lost
nothing of value, that she was still worthy the love of former days.
Why should she do this? She did not love Ludwig. No, no, she did not
love him. Only in contrast with her father's cruel verdict did she find
pleasure in his words of yesterday, and the impetuous throbbing of her
heart was but the result of the various emotions that had besieged it
during the past few hours.
If she only had not undergone that one experience! To stand there and
not be mistress of her motions; to will to speak, and not be able to
give to her words the meaning she desired; to be stared at by all those
unsympathetic eyes, to be conscious of exciting contemptuous pity.
'Devoid of talent as her mother, and ugly as myself,' rang in her ears
again.
She would rid herself of this torment. And she arose, lit a candle, and
then first perceived a letter lying upon her table.
"From Ludwig," she thought; and she was right; his large clear
handwriting stared at her from the envelope, and covered three sides of
a sheet of paper which enclosed several others. Johanna seated herself
at the table and read:
"DEAR JOHANNA,--The enclosed letter, which my mother found
among the papers left her by your mother, was sent to me by the
former in her last illness. She wrote to me telling me to do
with it what seemed best to me; she had never been able to
bring herself to disturb your happiness in your reunion with
your father after so many years.
"I might assert that the same consideration has hitherto
prevented me from imparting to you the wishes of your dying
mother, but I will be as frank with you as I am with myself. I
withheld the letter because I hoped even without its aid to be
able to withdraw you from surroundings unworthy of you. I
thought that a word from me would suffice to restore you to the
home that was your own so long. I hesitated--made cowardly and
selfish as we always are by the desires of our hearts--to erect
any barrier between you, a grandchild of the Dönninghausens,
and your old friends.
"But now I have convinced myself that the old friends are of no
avail to counteract new and unworthy influences; therefore let
a voice from the grave speak to you.
"If you should heed it, and have any need either of my pen or
of my personal aid, pray command me. I shall be at my father's,
where I have certain scientific work to do, throughout the
coming winter.
"Twice to-day I have been to your door, but each time I turned
away. What could it avail me to see you again where you are?
Farewell, and let me hear from you soon.
"L. W."
To Johanna the tone of this letter seemed icy cold. Experience is
needed to detect intensity of emotion beneath exterior and perhaps
hardly-won composure. With a trembling hand she opened her mother's
letter. What could she, gentle and loving as she had always been,
require of her daughter so hard that her foster-mother had been
unwilling to impart it to her? Johanna gazed at the delicate
handwriting, its uncertain characters betraying the mortal weariness
that had possessed the writer. The touching figure of her dying mother
rose vividly in her memory, and with increasing emotion she read what
follows,--in all of which she distinctly felt the quickened feverish
throb of the poor invalid's heart.
"LINDENBAD, August 19, 1864.
"MY DEAR LOUISE,--A few hours ago you left me, and in a few
hours you will come again, faithful friend that you are, to ask
how I have passed the night. Ah, Louise! it begins so
distressingly, with such throbbing pulses and wandering
thoughts, that I would flee from myself to you as to some
shrine of the Madonna.
"If I was at first inclined to regard as a piece of good luck
the chance which brought me an old school-mate in the wife of
the physician of this place, I soon learned to bless the
Providence which conducted me hither. Dear, kind friend! How
you have cheered and encouraged me through these weary days of
sickness and suffering! They would have been cheerless without
you.
"Cheerless in every respect, dear Louise; for I hardly need to
tell you that my soul suffers more than my failing body,
because it does not share the weary longing of the latter for
death. My poor soul clings to life, thirsting for the love and
happiness of former days,--vanished now forever.
"Would Roderich feel some pity if he knew how vital within me
is still the memory of every word of his,--the very tone in
which each word was uttered? Ah, Louise! those words, those
tones, possessed the power to create thrones and altars, and
transformed the fortunate creature for whom they were spoken
into a queen, a goddess: _he_ constituted her such.
"I was his from the first moment that I saw him. I was with my
parents in Berlin, where he was playing. I saw him first in
'Torquato Tasso,' and then at a ball at the French
ambassador's. He asked to be presented to me. I stood before
him trembling, and when he held out his hand to me I was his
slave for life. There was no longer any question of will or
choice, nothing but a blessed necessity. I could not but resign
everything for him,--home, parents, brothers, family, rank, and
wealth. He was still only a beginner in his art. My enthusiasm,
my devotion, flattered him; my intelligence fired his genius;
my beauty intoxicated his senses. Yes, there were years when I
made him happy, in which I filled his heart and his
imagination.
'Though 'tis torture, yet that time
Can never be forgot.'
"In the first year of our marriage Johanna was born. I
announced her birth to my parents, and hoped, from my mother at
least, for a kind word. Instead of this I saw the notice of her
death in the papers. Two years later God sent me a son, but he
lived only a few hours, and my life was in danger for months,
while I was confined for years to my room. That was the
beginning of my unhappiness. Roderich was still so young,--he
had married when only twenty-three. He needed change and
excitement to counterbalance his close application to the
duties of his profession. Often, when in the flush of some
fresh triumph he would come to my room to make me a partaker in
his delight, both doctor and nurse would caution him not to
fatigue me. He was obliged to walk on tiptoe, to sit in
semi-darkness, to speak in a whisper. All this he could not
endure. He went, and I was left alone,--more and more alone, of
course, as time passed on.
"August 22.
"I could not write more. This pain in my heart has debarred me
from all exertion for the last few days, during which you, dear
Louise, have been, as always, my stay and comfort. Let these
lines thank you for your kindness when my lips can do so no
longer.
"I know how near the end is now, and the consciousness fills me
with a despair beyond words. To vanish--to be forgotten--to
leave to others what was once my own----
"But I did not mean to speak of myself. My last thought and
care are for my poor Johanna, who will so soon be orphaned. If
it is possible, Louise, let my child stay with you. I will
write to Roderich and entreat him to send the child to some
school here in your neighbourhood. Then give her that home in
your heart which she loses in mine. Her father hardly knows
her, and will hardly miss her, as she on her part will scarcely
miss him. On the other hand, she is warmly attached to you and
to your children, and in your house she will find the pure
domestic atmosphere which can never be hers in her father's.
Hard though it be to say it, it must be said: the thought of
leaving my child in the hands of the woman who has robbed me of
Roderich's love poisons my last hours, and will leave me no
rest in the grave. Johanna must not love that woman, must not
owe her anything. I am sure you understand this feeling, even
although you do not approve of it.
"Later.
"More bad days and nights,--how many I do not know; and through
them all this terrible anxiety about Johanna's future. If you
cannot grant my request and keep her yourself, then, I entreat
you, see that she takes refuge with my people. They will
receive her kindly. Three years ago, when Roderich's passion
for this actress became notorious, my father wrote to me asking
me to come to him with my child. His only condition was my
legal separation from Roderich and the dropping of the name
which he so hated. I could not bring myself to consent to this;
but twice since then, when my two brothers died, I wrote to my
father, now quite desolate, and each time he answered me and
made me the same proposal. He will certainly receive my orphan
child kindly.
"Understand me aright, dear Louise. I would rather know Johanna
at home with you than anywhere else. In your home-circle her
youth would be gayer and simpler. Only if you cannot adopt her,
send her to my father, to the Freiherr Johann von
Dönninghausen, Dönninghausen on the Harz, or write to him and
commend my child to her grandfather's heart.
"The morning dawns. Perhaps when the phantoms of the night flee
I can sleep--
'To die--to sleep!
To sleep! perchance to dream, ay, there's the rub,
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come.'
"Did you ever hear Roderich utter those words? They ring in my
ears now as if I had just heard him say them. I _must_ hear him
say them once more. No, no,--I cannot die."
Here the letter ended. Death had come suddenly and painlessly. Johanna
remembered the peaceful smile upon her mother's beautiful face as she
lay in her coffin. She kissed the last lines written by her dear hand,
and her heart overflowed with tenderness.
The impression made upon her by the letter, however, was far other than
Ludwig seemed to expect it would produce. Not for a moment did it alter
Johanna's love for her father. On the contrary, its passionate pain
seemed to justify her feeling for him. Weary unto death, and tortured
with jealousy, her mother had turned to him in love and longing, and her
last words were the utterance of a desire to see him once more.
"This is love," Johanna said to herself,--"the only true love,--that of
which it stands written, 'beareth all things, believeth all things,
hopeth all things, endureth all things. Love never faileth.' Whoever can
merely say as Ludwig does, 'I loved you so long as you thought and felt
thus and so,' has never really loved."
Even her mother's desire that she should go to her grandfather did not
disturb Johanna. The letter said expressly, 'Her father hardly knows
her, and will hardly miss her.' Now that he knew her and loved her, her
mother would not, Johanna was convinced, wish her to leave him. Only if
her father should come to consider her a burden, or if her lack of
talent should estrange him from her, or if her step-mother's dislike of
her should lead to misunderstandings, could it be her duty to leave her
father's roof.
But it was useless to pursue such reflections as these. If her
step-mother did not like her, her father's love and her little sister's
devotion more than indemnified her. To attach to herself the lovely
little creature who before her sister's arrival had spent all her time
with the servants, to make good the deficiencies in the little girl's
training, these were tasks after Johanna's own heart, and in them she
could find abundant content; if she applied herself to these and
restrained her thoughts and desires from wandering in other realms, she
could surely be once more for Ludwig what she had been formerly.
She sat with clasped hands gazing into the flame of the candle. The
little watering-place in the Thüringian forest, so long her home, rose
vividly in her memory. There stood the vine-wreathed cottage of the
resident physician, where Ludwig would dwell as his father's successor;
the garden, with its dwarf fruit-trees, vegetable patch, and
flower-beds; the hawthorn arbour by the hedge, with the vista of the
chestnut avenue, along which the guests at the baths used to saunter;
the little stream with its grassy banks; and, enclosing all, the wooded
heights, a fitting frame for the lovely peaceful picture.
"But it would be no life for me," Johanna said to herself. "Why not? Why
cannot I be content with what has satisfied thousands? Why am I
possessed by this desire for--I know not what--for giving shape and
expression to something? Is it not vanity, or ambition, or
self-conceit?"
She was more than ever conscious of the loneliness in which she had
lived since the death of her foster-mother, who had been her refuge in
all doubt and distress, while her husband, Uncle Werner, as Johanna
called him, had ministered only to the physical ailments of his family.
She had found but little sympathy from Mathilde, Ludwig's sister, whose
nature was cold and narrow; even Ludwig, sensitive as he was, had not
understood her. But her father,--he must have known such times of doubt
and uncertainty,--he might help her.
"I will pluck up courage and tell him everything to-morrow," she said to
herself. Then, calmed and quieted by this resolve, she betook herself to
bed and to sleep.
CHAPTER III.
A CRISIS.
Johanna could not carry her resolve into execution. The following
morning she was busy until late in replacing by order the disarray
produced by the birthday fête, and when her father, who had gone out
meanwhile, returned, he hurried past her with so gloomy an expression
that she did not venture to follow him to his room.
At dinner she learned the cause of his troubled mood. He had quarrelled
with the manager because the latter would persist in giving various of
Helena's youthful parts to her rival, Fräulein Kronberg.
"Of course I cannot withdraw my stipulations," Roderich added, "and
therefore cannot renew my contract, favourable as its conditions were
for me."
"You can get another anywhere else quite as favourable, and even more
so," said Helena.
"But not the accessories which I have here," Roderich declared. "Not the
intelligent public, nor the charming _mise-en-scène_ which makes each
separate performance a work of art."
"That is no affair of yours," said Helena. "Each for himself, and God
for us all. And as for the public, I can't see that it is especially
intelligent. Wherever else you go you receive more applause than you get
here, and so do I."
"Applause!" he repeated, with an impatient shrug. "Dear Helena, there is
a kind of applause that makes me blush with mortification; but from
your point of view you can hardly understand this."
How gladly would Johanna have assured him that she understood him
perfectly! But while she was struggling with her natural shyness, Helena
exclaimed, "If you think so meanly of me, pray do not proclaim it before
other people; it is more than I can bear."
Roderich changed colour. "To accuse me of unkindness just when I am
sacrificing all my plans for your sake is rather hard!" he said. And,
rising from table, he left the room suddenly, slamming the door noisily
behind him.
Lisbeth, terrified, began to cry, the others were amazed. Never before
had he allowed himself to be so carried away by temper.
"He must be ill," said Johanna.
"Nonsense! he is out of temper," said Helena, "and he shall not hear a
kind word from me until he begs my pardon."
Johanna was right. In half an hour Friedrich announced that the Herr had
one of his attacks of headache, and could see no one.
On such days there seemed to be a spell upon the entire household. Every
voice was lowered, every footfall was as light as possible, and
Friedrich muffled the bell upon the landing.
This time, Johanna learned from Friedrich, the pain was not so intense
as usual, but it did not pass away at the end of twenty-four hours.
When, in spite of it, Roderich went to rehearsal the next day, he
returned more ill than ever. The third day fever set in, and the
physician ordered him to bed.
Helena had not forgiven the scene at table.
"It surely is not very bad, doctor," she said, as she accompanied the
physician from the room. "I am just ordering a magnificent costume for
Desdemona. Othello comes out next week; you must have him well by that
time."
"We will hope for the best," the old man said, as he took his leave.
Johanna, who overheard his words, was startled. She knew from Dr. Werner
what these words signified in a physician's mouth. Whilst Helena
carelessly returned to her costume, Johanna waited with a throbbing
heart at her father's door until the servant made his appearance.
"Pray ask papa, Friedrich, whether I may not come in," she said.
The sick man heard her. "Come!" he called. His voice, usually so full
and sonorous, sounded muffled, and his face was still more changed: it
was colourless, and looked pinched and wan upon the pillow.
Johanna went to his bedside, with difficulty suppressing all signs of
emotion. "Papa," she entreated, "let me stay with you. You have
Friedrich, it is true, but I know better than he how to nurse an
invalid."
For a while he gazed at her as if he scarcely understood her words.
"Yes, stay with me," he said; "I think I am really very ill, and you are
more careful, quieter, stronger----"
He did not finish the sentence, but she understood what he meant.
"Ah, thank you!" she said, kissing his burning hand.
He drew his daughter closer to him. "My dear, good child!" he said,
pressing his feverish lips to her forehead. She did not dream that it
was a farewell caress.
The disease progressed rapidly, and was pronounced by the physician the
next day to be a nervous fever. He was quite content with Johanna's
calm, careful treatment of his patient, but he begged Helena, who could
not control her agitation, to spare her own delicate health for the sake
of her child, and to be as little as possible in the sick-room. She
sighed and submitted.
But, indeed, neither she nor any one else could have disturbed the sick
man after a few days had passed; he lay in a state of entire
unconsciousness.
The whole city was interested in the artist's condition; the inquiries
after his health were countless; the door was besieged by friends and
acquaintances. He had always been a kind, ungrudging comrade to his
fellow-actors, and now when he could no longer excite their envy, they
remembered his own freedom from it, and did all in their power to
testify their esteem and friendship for him.
For Helena it was a kind of consolation to receive their visits; her
nature was of those for which distraction is possible. After she had
with many tears given an account of the sick man's state, she would
listen with interest to theatrical gossip, and forget for a while her
own sorrow. It overcame her, indeed, with redoubled violence when she
was once more alone. Often, when she had been laughing with a visitor at
some jest, Johanna would find her in a state of most pitiable distress.
"He is going to die, I know he is; such happiness as ours was too great
for this world of misery," she would declare, sobbing as if her heart
would break; or she would cry out as if bereft of her senses, "O God,
you cannot take him from me! He must be spared for me and for his art."
She was most helpless and hopeless in the sick-room, where she would
throw herself on her knees by Roderich's bedside, cover his hand with
kisses, and exhaust every passionate term of endearment, nearly fainting
when there was no response from her unconscious husband. But if one of
the physicians or a friend wished to speak to her, she would arise, and,
with a look of anguish as she left the room, involuntarily adjust
artistically the soft folds of her white cachemire peignoir.
Johanna was too young and unsophisticated to appreciate her step-mother.
She did her injustice when she accused her of heartlessness, and she
added to her own burden by a daily increasing dislike for Helena.
But she could not help it. The sleep of exhaustion, which now and then
overcame her, was all the rest and forgetfulness that she had. If she
forced herself to talk with little Lisbeth, she had to struggle
continually with rising tears, and when she heard others speaking of the
events of the day, she could hardly comprehend how the affairs of the
world could pursue their usual course outside of the sick-room. That was
her realm, and her father's death seemed to her the end of all things.
Week after week passed. The physician gave Johanna no hope. She had
herself watched from day to day, and from hour to hour, the inexorable
approach of the Destroyer, and when the last moment came, she had lived
it over in thought a hundred times.
It was the gray dawn of a morning in November. She was sitting alone at
her father's bedside. Helena was asleep upon a lounge in the next room,
when Roderich once more opened his eyes, in which there was a last ray
of consciousness; his lips moved, and when Johanna leaned over him, she
heard him whisper, 'Helena.' His features were convulsed for an instant,
and when Helena rushed into the room in answer to her low cry, it was
too late. Her husband had breathed his last. His heart had ceased to
beat.
Johanna closed his eyes and took her usual place beside him. She seemed
paralyzed; she could not weep, she could not even think. Helena's noisy
grief distressed her, but it seemed to reach her ear from some great
distance, and soon died away altogether. Only two images remained in her
memory from this terrible time,--the ideal beauty of her beloved dead as
he lay in the coffin crowned with laurel, and the dreary aspect of the
funeral cortége as it moved endlessly along the streets in the pouring
rain, while the wind tore away from the hearse and whirled in air some
of the flowers and wreaths with which it was bedecked.
It was Lisbeth who at last aroused Johanna from her lethargy. To spare
the imaginative child the sad impression of her father's dying moments,
she had been intrusted to the care of an actress friend, returning to
her home only when the funeral was over. Helena rushed to her, clasped
her in her arms, loaded her with caresses, declaring that she was all
that was left her in life, all that she had to live for, and then turned
away to receive a couple of her friends who had called to see her. They
were all soon absorbed in an animated discussion of mourning gowns and
Helena's broken heart, the impossibility of recovering from Roderich's
loss, his widow's plans for the future, the intrigues of the Kronberg,
and the inconceivable partiality of the manager for one so utterly
without talent. The child felt herself forgotten, and left the room to
look for her sister.
Johanna was not in her usual place at the work-table in Helena's
dressing-room, nor was she in her own sleeping apartment. But when
Lisbeth timidly entered her father's study, she found Johanna, looking
pale and white in her black gown, still sitting by the window whence she
had seen the funeral procession disappear. She sat in an arm-chair, her
head leaning back, her arms hanging idly down, gazing into space with
such an expression of dull anguish that the little girl was frightened.
"Johanna, dear Johanna, please do not be ill, do not die!" she cried,
throwing her arms around her sister's neck; and these first tender
words, the nestling close to her of the little one, dissolved the spell
that had bound the poor girl, and she burst into tears.
Afterwards, when longing for sympathy, she went to her step-mother,
Helena said in her coldest tone,--
"Has it really occurred to you to remember my existence? I think it was
high time. Everything comes upon me,--it will kill me."
Not a word was said of all that Johanna had done during the long weeks
of illness, and the gulf between Helena and herself widened.
The next morning Johanna was handed the card of Lieutenant Otto von
Dönninghausen. She would gladly have refused to see him, but written in
pencil upon the card was 'Commissioned by our grandfather,' and she
could not deny herself to one so accredited.
In the drawing-room she found a tall, fair man, about thirty years old,
whose military carriage betrayed the soldier in spite of his civilian's
dress.
"Cousin Johanna?" he said, advancing towards her, while his bright,
resolute blue eyes scanned her keenly. Then he held out his hand.
"Forgive me for intruding at such a time," he continued. "Let me plead
the right of kinship, and believe in the sincerity of my sympathy."
Johanna's eyes filled with tears. She mutely returned the pressure of
his hand, and motioned him to a seat.
"Our grandfather has requested me to put this letter into your own
hands," he began again when both were seated. "The commission was a
welcome one to me; I take a sad satisfaction in assuring you personally
of my sympathy. I have had the pleasure of seeing your father repeatedly
upon the stage, and I never can forget him."
"I thank you," said Johanna, and for an instant her pale face glowed
with the same fire which had distinguished her father. Her cousin's
simple cordiality of tone did her good, inspired her with confidence,
and yet she felt a timidity in his presence quite foreign to her.
"It is the result of the distressing consciousness of knowing nothing of
my nearest relatives," she thought.
"Grandpapa requests you to come to him," the young man said, handing
Johanna a sealed letter. "Do not be led astray by his manner of
expression, which is probably as blunt and cold in this letter as it is
in daily personal intercourse. There is much kindliness beneath his
rough exterior. Our grandfather is a nobleman in the full sense of the
word, with all the prejudice and narrowness of his class. You will soon
understand and value him, and I hope soon to see you in Dönninghausen."
"Are you going back there again?" asked Johanna, trying to find
something to say.
"Not now," he replied. "My regiment is stationed on the Rhine, and I am
returning to it after having assisted last week in the celebration of my
grandfather's birthday, on which occasion we are all wont to assemble at
Dönninghausen."
"Who are all?" asked Johanna. "I know little, almost nothing, of my
mother's family; she had become estranged from her kindred."
"Unfortunately," her cousin interposed, "I have but a faint remembrance
of my aunt Agnes. I am the eldest son of her second brother, who was
attached to our embassy in London."
"Was he not called Waldemar?" asked Johanna.
"You are right," the young man replied. "Grandpapa's eldest son, Johann
Georg, was already dead when Aunt Agnes left her home. He left only one
child, a son, Johann Leopold, who has been brought up in Dönninghausen,
and lives there now. He has pursued various studies, and is the heir. I
have a younger brother, named for our father, Waldemar; he has entered
upon a diplomatic career. My two sisters, Hedwig and Hildegard, are
married to two distant cousins belonging to the Wildenhayn-Oderbuchs.
Finally, grandpapa's youngest son, Major Karl Anton, also dead, left one
child, a daughter, young and beautiful and a widow of two years'
standing. Her name is Magelone; her husband, Lieutenant von der Aue,
who lived only eighteen months after their marriage, contrived in that
time to run through all her property, and she now lives at
Dönninghausen, under the chaperonage of our grand-aunt Thekla,
grandpapa's unmarried sister. Let me add that Magelone is as clever as
she is beautiful, as accomplished as she is amiable, and that she is
especially desirous of welcoming Cousin Johanna to Dönninghausen."
"Me?" Johanna asked, blushing. "I cannot understand----"
"I will read the riddle for you," Otto interposed. "Do you not remember
meeting two years ago, among the guests at Lindenbad, a certain Frau von
Werth? She visits at Dönninghausen, and has told wonderful tales of you.
I will spare your modesty further details."
He
|
--
Whose thoughts are flint and steel--whose words are flame,
For they all stir us like some hero's name:
But once again the Commonwealth extends
Her open hand in welcome to her friends;
Come ye from North, or South, or West, or East,
No bull's head enters at Virginia's feast.
And ye who've journeyed hither from afar,
Know that fair Freedom's liquid morning star
Still sheds its glories in a thousand beams,
Gilding our forests, fountains, mountains, streams,
With light as luminous as on that morn
When the Messiah of the land was born.
Then as we here partake the mystic rites
To which his memory like a priest invites;
Kneeling beside the altars of this day,
Let every heart subdued one moment pray,
[Footnote 3: Governor Wise.]
* * * * *
That He who lit our morning star's pure light
Will never blot it from the nation's sight;
That He will banish those portentous clouds
Which from so many its effulgence shrouds--
Which none will deem me Hamlet-mad when I
Say hang like banners on the darkened sky,
Suggesting perils in their warlike shape,
Which Heavenly Father grant that we escape!
* * * * *
Why touch upon these topics, do you ask?
Why blend these themes with my allotted task?
My answer's brief, 'tis, Citizens, because
I see fierce warfare made upon the Laws.
A people's poets are that people's seers,
The prophet's faculty, in part, is theirs,
And thus 'tis fit that from this statue's base,
Beneath great Washington's majestic face,
That I should point the dangers which menace
Our social temple's symmetry and grace.
* * * * *
But here I pause, for happier omens look,
And playing Flamen turn to Nature's book:
Where late rich Autumn sat on golden throne,
A stern usurper makes the crown his own;
The courtier woodlands, robbed of all their state,
Stripped of their pomp, look grim and desolate;
Reluctant conscripts, clad in icy mail,
Their captive pleadings rise on every gale.
Now mighty oaks stand like bereaved Lears;
Pennons are furled on all the sedgy spears
Where the sad river glides between its banks,
Like beaten general twixt his pompless ranks;
And the earth's bosom, clad in armor now,
Bids stern defiance to the iron plough,
While o'er the fields so desolate and damp
Invading Winter spreads his hostile camp.[4]
And as he shakes his helmet's snowy plume
The landscape saddens into deeper gloom.
But yet ere many moons have flung to lea,
To begging billows of the hungry sea,
Their generous gold--like oriental queens--
A change will pass o'er all these wintry scenes;
There'll come the coronation of glad Spring,
Grander than any made for bride of king.
[Footnote 4: The statue was unveiled in a snow-storm.]
* * * * *
Earth's hodden grey will change to livelier hues
Enriched with pearl drops of the limpid dews;
Plenty will stand with her large tranquil eyes
To see her treasures o'er the landscape rise.
Thus may the lover of his country hope
To see again the Nation's spring-tide ope,
And freedom's harvest turn to ripened gold,
So that our world may give unto the old
Of its great opulence, as Joseph gave
Bread to his brothers when they came to crave.
But from his name I've paused too long you think?
Yet he who stands beside Niagra's brink
Breaketh not forth at once of its grand strife;
'Tis thus I stand subdued by his great life--
* * * * *
And with his name a host of others rise,
Climbing like planets, Fame's eternal skies:
Great names, my Brothers! with such deeds allied
That all Virginians glow with filial pride--
That here the multitude shall daily pace
Around this statue's hero-circled base,
Thinking on those who, though long sunk in sleep,
Still round our camp the guard of sentries keep--
Who when a foe encroaches on our line,
Prompt the stern challenge for the countersign--
Who with proud memories feed our bright watch-fire
Which ne'er has faded, never will expire;
Grand benedictions, they in bronze will stand
To guard and consecrate our native land!
Great names are theirs! But his, like battle song,
In quicker current sends our blood along;
For at its music hearts throb quick and large,
Like those of horsemen thundering in the charge.
God's own Knight-Errant! There his figure stands!
Our souls are full--our bonnets in our hands!
When the fierce torrent--lava-like--of bronze
To mould this statue burst it furnace bonds,
When it out-thundered in its liquid flow,
With splendid flame and scintillating glow,
'Twas in its wild tumultuous throb and storm
Type of the age which moulded into form
The god-like character of him sublime,
Whose name is reared a statue for all time
In the great minster of the whole world's heart.
* * * * *
I've called his name a statue. Stern and vast
It rests enthroned upon the mighty past:
Fit plinth for him whose image in the mind
Looms up as that of one by God designed!
Fit plinth in sooth! the mighty past for him
Whose simple name is Glory's synonyme!
E'en Fancy's self, in her enchanted sleep,
Can dream no future which may cease to keep
His name in guard, like sentinel and cry
From Time's great bastions: "It shall never die."
* * * * *
His simple name a statue? Yes, and grand
'Tis reared in this and every other land.
Around its base a group more noble stands
Than e'er was carved by human sculptor's hands,
E'en though each form, like that of old should flush
With vivid beauty's animating blush--
Though dusky bronze, or pallid stone should thrill
With sudden life at some Pygmalion's will--
For these great figures, with his own enshrined,
Are seen, my Countrymen, by men, though blind.
There Valor fronts us with her storied shield,
Brave in devices won on many a field;
A splendid wreath snatched from the carnage grim
Is twined around that buckler's burnished rim,
And as we gaze, the brazen trumpets blare
With shrill vibration shakes the frightened air--
The roll of musketry--the clash of steel--
The clang of hoofs as charging squadrons wheel--
The hoarse command--the imprecative cry--
Swell loud and long, while Fancy's eager eye
Sees the stern van move on with crimson strides
Where Freedom's warrior on his war-horse rides,
Sees the great cannon flash out red and fast
Through battle mists which canopy the past.
And solemn-fronted Truth with earnest eyes,
Stands there serenely beautiful and wise;
Her stately form in undisturbed repose,
Rests by her well, where limpid crystal flows
While on her face, which can severely frown,
A smile is breaking as she gazes down;
For clearly marked upon that tranquil wave
Slumbers his image in a picture brave,
And leaning on the fountain's coping stone,
She scarce can tell his shadow from her own.
And Wisdom, with her meditative gaze,
Beside its base her mighty chart displays;
There with her solemn and impressive hand
Writes as she stoops--as Christ wrote on the sand--
But what she traces all may read--'tis this:
An invocation by our dreams of bliss--
By hopes to do and by our great deeds done,
The war of sections thro' all time to shun--
She writes the words which almost seem divine,
"Our deadliest foe's a geographic line!"
And Justice, with her face severely grand,
Stands'mid the group, her balances in hand:
Faultless in judging trivial deeds, or great,
Unmoved by love and unimpressed by hate.
Beside her gleams undimmed by spot, or rust,
A mighty blade to strike when strike she must;
And this bright falchion like that which defends
The guarded gate where earth in Eden ends,
With flame terrific and with ponderous sway
Frightens each Brennus from her scales away.
And there we see pale, pleading Mercy bow,
A troubled shadow on her saintly brow;
Her fringed lashes tremulous with tears,
Which glitter still through all the change of years:
And as we see those tear drops slowly rise,
Giving new softness to her tender eyes,
Away the mists which o'er the dark past drift
Are rent and scattered, while the sudden rift
Shows, like some distant headland vast and dim
Seen through the tempest, the great soul of him
Who guarding against the native traitor, could
Turn from her pleadings for his country's good.
And Honor last completes the stately group,
With eye like eagle's in descending swoop,
Fronted like goddess beautiful and proud
When sailing on the "lazy-pacing cloud":
Prouder her port than that of all the rest,
With radiant forehead and translucent breast,
She needs no gesture of supreme command
For us to know her foremost of the band:
They were his counsellors, she as the mind
By which their promptings were in deeds combined--
In deeds which Fame, like fasces bears before
The noblest consul that earth ever bore.
* * * * *
Why are we here? It were a bitter shame
To pay this homage to a hero's name,
And yet forget the principles which gave
His true defiance to oblivion's wave!
Aye! Sirs, remember when the day is spent,
In Freedom's camp our soldier pitched his tent!
Maintain your own--respect your brother's right--
Thus will you praise Jehovah's belted Knight.
Are we Pompeians gathered here to-day,
Gazing upon our last superb display?
Crowning the hours with many a festal wreath,
While red Vesuvius bubbles underneath?
Oh! no, my Countrymen! This cloud must be
The smoke of incense floating o'er the free!
No lava-flood can e'er o'erwhelm this land,
Held as 'tis holden, in God's mighty hand.
And when the garlands of to-day are pale,
Shall clang of armorers riveting our mail
Rise in harsh dissonance where now the song
In surging music sweeps the land along?
No, Brothers, no! The Providence on high
Stretches above us like the arching sky;
As o'er the world that broad empyrean field,
So o'er the nation God's protecting shield!
* * * * *
His the great will which sways the tide of earth--
His the great will which giveth empires birth--
And this grand truth through every age and clime
Is written out in characters sublime;
But most we see the traces of His hand
In the great Epic of our native land.
This new world had its Adam and he fled--
God's was the voice and God's the mighty tread
Which scared the red man from his Eden bowers
God's the decree which made the garden ours!
And Eden 'twas and such it still remains:
Oh, Brothers! shall we prove a race of Cains?
Shall impious hands be armed with deadly things,
Because we bring up different offerings
Unto our altars? To the Nation's shrine
I take my gift; my brother, take thou thine!
Again I ask: While this proud bronze remains,
Shall this great people prove a race of Cains?
Here make your answer at this statue's base,
Beneath this warrior's calm, majestic face;
And here remember that your best applause
To him is shown in standing by the Laws!
But if our rights shall ever be denied,
I call upon you, by your race's pride,
To seek some "West Augusta" and unfurl
Our banner where the mountain vapors curl:
Lowland and valley then will swell the cry,
He left us free: thus will we live, or die!
One other word, Virginia, hear thy son,
Whose filial service now is nearly done--
Hear me old State! Thou art supremely blest:
A hero's ashes slumber in thy breast!
Oh, Mother! if the ashes of a king
Could nerve to deeds with which Fame's trumpets ring,
What glove of challenger shall make thee start,
When thy great son lies sleeping on thy heart!
HOW IT FELL CALM ON SUMMER NIGHT.
My Lady's rest was calm and deep:
She had been gazing at the moon;
And thus it chanced she fell asleep
One balmy night in June.
Freebooter winds stole richest smells
From roses bursting in the gloom,
And rifled half-blown daffodils,
And lilies of perfume.
These dainty robbers of the South
Found "beauty" sunk in deep repose,
And seized upon her crimson mouth,
Thinking her lips a rose.
The wooing winds made love full fast--
To rouse her up in vain they tried--
They kist and kist her, till, at last,
In ecstasy they died.
A FRIEND OF MINE.
We sat beneath tall waving trees that flung
Their heavy shadows o'er the dewy grass.
Over the waters, breaking at our feet,
Quivered the moon, and lighted solemnly
The scene before us.
He with whom I talked
Was in the noble vigor of his youth:
Tall, much beyond the standard, and well knit,
With a dark, Norman face, from which the breeze
Flung back his locks of ebon darkness which
In rare luxuriance fell around his brow,
That, in its massive beauty, brought me up
Pictures by ancient masters; or the sharp
And perfect features carved by Grecian hands,
In days when Gods, in forms worthy of Gods,
Started from marble to bewitch the world--
A brow so beautiful was his, that one
Might well conceive it always bound with dreams;
His eyes were luminous and full of gleams,
That made me think of waves wherein I've seen
The moon-hued lightning breaking in the dark
With sudden flashes of phosphoric light:
His cheeks were bronze, his firm lips scarlet-hued.
The Roman's valor, the Assyrian's love
Of ease and pomp sat on his crimson lips,
Uneasy rulers on the self-same throne,
Spoiling the empire of the soul within:
Such was his face.
* * * * *
His thoughts went forth like emperors, and all
His words arrayed themselves around them like
Imperial guards.
* * * * *
Opinions which I had been taught to hold
As full of pith and gravity, he took
As 'twere, 'twixt thumb and finger of his wit--
Rubbed off their gloss, until they seemed to me,
All, as he said, varnished hypocrisies.
* * * * *
Most wise for one so young! and strangely read
In books of quaint philosophy--although
His mind's strange alchemy could find some
Rich thought hidden in the basest thing,
Which he transmuted into golden words,
So that in hearing him I often thought
Upon the story of that Saint whose mouth
Was radiant with the angel's blessed touch,
Which gave him superhuman eloquence;
And though he was thus gifted, yet--ah me!
* * * * *
Still earnest with my theme, I bade him think
Of Auerbach's cellar, and that wassail night
Whole centuries ago: and then in phrase,
Better than that which cometh to me now
I likened it--the necromancy which
Drew richest vintage from the rugged boards--
Unto the spell wherewith he'd bound himself--
The spell by which he drew from simplest things
Conceptions beautiful, as Faust drew wine
From the rude table; for this friend of mine
Was a true poet, though he seldom wrote:
The wealth which might have royally endowed
Some noble charity for coming time
Was idly wasted--pearls dissolved in wine--
* * * * *
Still on my theme I hung and pointed out,
Full eagerly, how Mephistopheles
Ordered the gimlet wherewith it was drawn:
* * * * *
But he who went his way that summer night,
Beneath the shadow of those stately trees
Comes back to me--to earth--ah! nevermore.
* * * * *
He fell obscurely in the common ranks--
His keen sword rusted in its splendid sheath.
God pardon him his faults! for faults he had;
But oh! so blent with goodness, that the while
The lip of every theory of his
Curved with a sneer, each action smiled
With Christian charity.
Like Manfred he had summoned to his aid
Forbidden ministers--but unlike his--
Of the earth, earthy, which did slowly clutch
Upon his lofty faculties until
They summoned him from the lone tow'r of thought
And false philosophy wherein he dwelt.
God pardon him! Amen.
INDOLENCE. [5]
* * * * *
I turn aside; and, in the pause, might start
As Mem'ry's elbow leans upon Time's Chart,
Which shows, alas! how soon all men must glide
Over meridians on life's ocean tide--
Meridians showing how both youth and sage
Are sailing northward to the zone of age:
On to an atmosphere of gloom I wist,
Where mariners are lost in melancholy mist.
But gayer thoughts, like spring-tide swallows, dart
Through youth's brave mind and animate its heart.
* * * * *
But Indolence is seen a pallid Ruth--
A timid gleaner in the fields of youth--
A wretched gath'rer of the scattered grain
Left by the reapers who have swept the plain;
But with no Boaz standing by the while,
To watch its figure with approving smile.
[Footnote 5: (From a Poem pronounced before the Phi Beta Kappa
Society and graduating classes of William and Mary College, July 4th,
1858.)]
THE JAMESTOWN ANNIVERSARY ODE.
* * * * *
In those vast forests dwelt a race of kings,
Free as the eagle when he spreads his wings--
His wings which never in their wild flight lag--
In mists which fly the fierce tornado's flag;
Their flight the eagle's! and their name, alas!
The eagle's shadow swooping o'er the grass,
Or, as it fades, it well may seem to be
The shade of tempest driven o'er the sea.
Fierce, too, this race, as mountain torrent wild,
With haughty hearts, where Mercy rarely smiled--
All their traditions--histories imbued
With tales of war and sanguinary feud,
Yet though they never couched the knightly lance,
The glowing songs of Europe's old romance
Can find their parallels amid the race,
Which, on this spot, met England face to face.
And when they met the white man, hand to hand,
Twilight and sunrise stood upon the strand--
Twilight and sunrise? Saxon sunshine gleams
To-day o'er prairies and those distant streams,
Which hurry onward through far Western plains,
Where the last Indian, for a season, reigns.
Here, the red CANUTE on this spot, sat down,
His splendid forehead stormy with a frown,
To quell, with the wild lightning of his glance
The swift encroachment of the wave's advance;
To meet and check the ruthless tide which rose,
Crest after crest of energetic foes,
While high and strong poured on each cruel wave,
Until they left his royalty--a grave;
But, o'er this wild, tumultuous deluge glows
A vision fair as Heaven to saint e'er shows;
A dove of mercy o'er the billows dark
Fluttered awhile then fled within God's ark.
Had I the power, I'd reverently describe
That peerless maid--the "pearl of all her tribe,"
As evening fair, when coming night and day
Contend together which shall wield its sway.
But, here abashed, my paltry fancy stays;
For her, too humble its most stately lays.
A shade of twilight's softest, sweetest gloom--
The dusk of morning--found a splendid tomb
In England's glare; so strange, so vast, so bright,
The dusk of morning burst in splendid light,
Which falleth through the Past's cathedral aisles,
Till sculptured Mercy like a seraph smiles.
And though Fame's grand and consecrated fane
No kingly statue may, in time, retain,
_Her_ name shall linger, nor with age grow faint;
Its simple sound--the image of a saint.
Sad is the story of that maiden's race,
Long driven from each legendary place.
All their expansive hunting-grounds are now
Torn by the iron of the Saxon's plough,
Which turns up skulls and arrow-heads and bones--
Their places nameless and unmarked by stones.
Now freighted vessels toil along the view,
Where once was seen the Indian's bark canoe;
And to the woods the shrill escaping steam
Proclaims our triumph in discordant scream.
Where rose the wigwam in its sylvan shade,
Where the bold hunter in his freedom strayed,
And met his foe or chased the bounding stag,
The lazy horses at the harrow lag.
Where the rude dance was held or war-song rose,
The scene is one of plenty and repose.
The quiver of her race is empty now,
Its bow lies broken underneath the plough;
And where the wheat-fields ripple in the gale,
The vanished hunter scarcely leaves a trail.
'Twas where yon river musically flows,
The European's nomenclature rose;
A keen-edged axe, which since, alas! has swept
Away their names--those boughs, which blossoms kept,
Leaving so few, that when their story's drowned,
'Twill sink, alas! with no fair garland crowned.
What strange vicissitudes and perils fell
On the first settlers 'tis not mine to tell;
I scarce may pause to syllable the name
Which the great Captain left behind to fame;
A name which echoes through the tented past
Like sound of charge rung in a bugle's blast.
His age, although it still put faith in stars,
No longer glanced through feudal helmet's bars,
But stood in its half armor; thus stands he
An image half of antique chivalry,
And half presented to our eager eyes,
The brilliant type of modern enterprise.
A knightly blade, without one spot of rust,
Undimmed by time and undefaced by dust,
His name hangs up in that past age's hall,
Where many hang, the brightest of them all.
AN ELEGIAC ODE.[6]
* * * * *
He chastens us as nations and as men,
He smites us sore until our pride doth yield,
And hence our heroes, each with hearts for ten,
Were vanquished in the field;
And stand to-day beneath our Southern sun
O'erthrown in battle and despoiled of hope,
Their drums all silent and their cause undone,
And they all left to grope
In darkness till God's own appointed time
In His own manner passeth fully by.
Our Penance this. His Parable sublime
Means we must learn to die.
Not as our soldiers died beneath their flags,
Not as in tumult and in blood they fell,
When from their columns, clad in homely rags,
Rose the Confederate yell.
Not as they died, though never mortal men
Since Tubal Cain first forged his cruel blade
Fought as they fought, nor ever shall agen
Such Leader be obeyed!
No, not as died our knightly, soldier dead,
Though they, I trust, have found above surcease
For all life's troubles, but on Christian bed
Should we depart in peace,
Falling asleep like those whose gentle deeds
Are governed through time's passions and its strife,
So justly that we might erect new creeds
From each well ordered life,
Whose saintly lessons are so framed that we
May learn that pain is but a text sublime,
Teaching us how to learn at Sorrow's knee
To value things of time.
Thus thinking o'er life's promise-breaking dreams,
Its lights and shadows made of hopes and fears,
I say that Death is kinder than he seems,
And not the King of Tears.
[Footnote: 6: It may not be out of place to state that this ode was
written at the express and urgent request of the ladies of Warren
county, North Carolina, and recited by the author, August 8th, 1866,
on the occasion of the completion of the monument, erected by the
ladies of Warren county, over the ashes of Miss Annie Carter Lee,
who was the daughter of General Robert E. Lee and Mary Custis Lee;
born at Arlington, Va., June 18th, 1839, and died at the White
Sulphur Springs, Warren county, North Carolina, October 20th, 1862.
The monument was unveiled in the presence of a great concourse of
people, and with Major-Generals G.W.C. Lee and W.H.F. Lee, in
attendance, as representatives of their family.]
THE CADETS AT NEW MARKET.[7]
* * * * *
Their sleep is made glorious,
And dead they're victorious
Over defeat!
Never Lethean billows
Shall roll o'er their pillows,
Red with the feet
Of Mars from the wine press
So bitterly sweet!
Sleeping, but glorious,
Dead in Fame's portal,
Dead, but victorious,
Dead, but immortal!
They gave us great glory,
What more could they give?
They have left us a story,
A story to live--
And blaze on the brows of the State like a crown,
While from these grand mountains the rivers run down,
While grass grows in graveyards, or the Ocean's deep calls,
Their deeds and their glory shall fresco these walls.
[Footnote 7: Delivered at Virginia Military Institute, 1870.]
OUR HEROIC DEAD.
I.
A King once said of a Prince struck down,
"Taller he seems in death."
And this speech holds truth, for now as then
'Tis after death that we measure men,
And as mists of the past are rolled away
Our heroes, who died in their tattered grey,
Grow "taller" and greater in all their parts
Till they fill our minds as they fill our hearts.
And for those who lament them there's this relief--
That Glory sits by the side of Grief,
Yes, they grow "taller" as the years pass by
And the World learns how they could do and die.
II.
A Nation respects them. The East and West,
The far-off slope of the Golden Coast,
The stricken South and the North agree
That the heroes who died for you and me--
Each valiant man, in his own degree,
Whether he fell on the shore or sea,
Did deeds of which
This Land, though rich
In histories may boast,
And the Sage's Book and the Poet's Lay
Are full of the deeds of the Men in Grey.
III.
No lion cleft from the rock is ours,
Such as Lucerne displays,
Our only wealth is in tears and flowers,
And words of reverent praise.
And the Roses brought to this silent Yard
Are Red and White. Behold!
They tell how wars for a kingly crown,
In the blood of England's best writ down,
Left Britain a story whose moral old
Is fit to be graven in text of gold:
The moral is, that when battles cease
The ramparts smile in the blooms of peace.
And flowers to-day were hither brought
From the gallant men who against us fought;
York and Lancaster!--Grey and Blue!
Each to itself and the other true--
And so I say
Our Men in Grey
Have left to the South and North a tale
Which none of the glories of Earth can pale.
IV.
Norfolk has names in the sleeping host
Which fill us with mournful pride--
Taylor and Newton, we well may boast,
McPhail, and Walke, and Selden, too,
Brave as the bravest, as truest true!
And Grandy struck down ere his May became June,
A battle-flag folded away too soon,
And Williams, than whom not a man stood higher,
'Mid the host of heroes baptized in fire.
And Mallory, whose sires aforetime died,
When Freedom and Danger stood side by side.
McIntosh, too, with his boarders slain,
Saunders and Jackson, the unripe grain,
And Taliaferro, stately as knight of old,
A blade of steel with a sheath of gold.
And Wright, who fell on the Crater's red sod,
Giving life to the Cause, his soul to GOD.
And there is another, whose portrait at length
Should blend graces of Sidney with great Raleigh's strength.
Ah, John Randolph Tucker![8] To match me this name
You must climb to the top of the Temple of Fame!
These are random shots o'er the men at rest,
But each rings out on a warrior's crest.
Yes, names like bayonet points, when massed,
Blaze out as we gaze on the splendid past.
V.
That past is now like an Arctic Sea
Where the living currents have ceased to run,
But over that past the fame of Lee
Shines out as the "Midnight Sun:"
And that glorious Orb, in its march sublime,
Shall gild our graves till the end of time!
[Footnote 8: That splendid seaman, Admiral Tucker.]
MAHONE'S BRIGADE.[9]
A METRICAL ADDRESS.
"In pace decus, in bello praesidium."--_Tacitus_.
I.
Your arms are stacked, your splendid colors furled,
Your drums are still, aside your trumpets laid,
But your dumb muskets once spoke to the world--
And the world listened to Mahone's Brigade.
Like waving plume upon Bellona's crest,
Or comet in red majesty arrayed,
Or Persia's flame transported to the West,
Shall shine the glory of Mahone's Brigade.
Not once, in all those years so dark and grim,
Your columns from the path of duty strayed;
No craven act made your escutcheon dim--
'Twas burnished with your blood, Mahone's Brigade.
Not once on post, on march, in camp, or field,
Was your brave leader's trust in you betrayed,
And never yet has old Virginia's shield
Suffered dishonor through Mahone's Brigade.
Who has forgotten at the deadly Mine,
How our great Captain of great Captains bade
Your General to retake the captured line?
How it was done, you know, Mahone's Brigade.
Who has forgotten how th' undying dead,
And you, yourselves, won that for which Lee prayed?
Who has forgotten how th' Immortal said:
That "heroes" swept that field, Mahone's Brigade?
From the far right, beneath the "stars and bars,"
You marched amain to Bushrod Johnson's aid,
And when you charged--an arrow shot by Mars
Went forward in your rush, Mahone's Brigade.
In front stood death. Such task as yours before
By mortal man has rarely been essayed,
There you defeated Burnside's boasted corps,
And did an army's work, Mahone's Brigade.
And those who led you, field, or line, or staff,
Showed they were fit for more than mere parade;
Their motto: "Victory or an epitaph,"
And well they did their part, Mahone's Brigade.
II.
Were mine the gift to coin my heart of hearts
In living words, fit tribute should be paid
To all the heroes whose enacted parts
Gave fame immortal to Mahone's Brigade.
But he who bore the musket is the man
Whose figure should for future time be made--
Cleft from a rock by some new Thorwaldsen--
The Private Soldier of Mahone's Brigade.
His was that sense of duty only felt
By souls heroic. In the modest shade
He lived, or fell; but his, Fame's Starry Belt--
His, Fame's own Galaxy, Mahone's Brigade.
And in that Belt--all luminous with stars,
Unnamed and woven in a wondrous braid--
A blaze of glory in the sky of Mars--
Your orbs are thickly set, Mahone's Brigade.
The Private Soldier is the man who comes
From mart, or plain, or grange, or sylvan glade,
To answer calls of trumpets and of drums--
So came the Soldier of Mahone's Brigade.
His messmate, hunger; comrades, heat and cold;
His decorations, death or wounds, conveyed
To the brave patriot in ways manifold--
But yet he flinched not in Mahone's Brigade.
When needing bread, Fate gave him but a stone;
Ragged, he answered when the trumpet brayed;
Barefoot he marched, or died without a groan;
True to his battle-flag, Mahone's Brigade.
Could some Supreme Intelligence proclaim,
Arise from all the pomp of rank and grade,
War's truest heroes, oft we'd hear some name,
Unmentioned by the world, Mahone's Brigade.
And yet they have a name, enriched with thanks
And tears and homage--which shall never fade--
Their name is simply this: Men of the Ranks--
The Knights without their spurs--Mahone's Brigade.
And though unbelted and without their spurs,
To them is due Fame's splendid accolade;
And theirs the story which to-day still stirs
The pulses of your heart, Mahone's Brigade.
Men of the Ranks, step proudly to the front,
'Twas yours unknown through sheeted flame to wade,
In the red battle's fierce and deadly brunt;
Yours be full laurels in Mahone's Brigade.
III.
For those who fell be yours the sacred trust
To see forgetfulness, shall not invade
The spots made holy by their noble dust;
Green keep them in your hearts, Mahone's Brigade.
Oh, keep them green with patriotic tears!
Forget not, now war's fever is allayed,
Those valiant men, who, in the vanished years,
Kept step with you in ranks, Mahone's Brigade.
Each circling year, in the sweet month of May,
Your countrywomen--matron and fair maid--
Still pay their tribute to the Soldier's clay,
And strew his grave with flow'rs, Mahone's Brigade.
Join
|
Philip suddenly seized
the leading members of the order, accused it of hideous crimes, and
confiscated all its vast wealth and hundreds of strong castles
throughout France. He secured from his French Pope approval of the
extermination of the entire order and the torture and execution of its
chiefs. Whether the charges against them were true or not, their
helplessness in the grip of the King shows clearly the low ebb to which
knighthood had fallen, and the rising power of the monarchs. The day of
feudalism was past.[2]
We may read yet other signs of the age in the career of this cruel,
crafty King. To strengthen himself in his struggle against the Pope, he
called, in 1302, an assembly or "states-general" of his people; and,
following the example already established in England, he gave a voice in
this assembly to the "Third Estate," the common folk or "citizens," as
well as to the nobles and the clergy. So even in France we find the
people acquiring power, though as yet this Third Estate speaks with but
a timid and subservient voice, requiring to be much encouraged by its
money-asking sovereigns, who little dreamed it would one day be strong
enough to demand a reckoning of all its tyrant overlords.[3]
Another event to be noted in this same year of 1302 took place farther
northward in King Philip's domains. The Flemish cities Ghent, Liège, and
Bruges had grown to be the great centres of the commercial world, so
wealthy and so populous that they outranked Paris. The sturdy Flemish
burghers had not always been subject to France--else they had been less
well to-do. They regarded Philip's exactions as intolerable, and
rebelled. Against them marched the royal army of iron-clad knights; and
the desperate citizens, meeting these with no better defence than stout
leather jerkins, led them into a trap. At the battle of Courtrai the
knights charged into an unsuspected ditch, and as they fell the burghers
with huge clubs beat out such brains as they could find within the
helmets. It was subtlety against stupidity, the merchant's shrewdness
asserting itself along new lines. King Philip had to create for himself
a fresh nobility to replenish his depleted stock.[4]
The fact that there is so much to pause on in Philip's reign will in
itself suggest the truth, that France had grown the most important state
in Europe. This, however, was due less to French strength than to the
weakness of the empire, where rival rulers were being constantly elected
and wasting their strength against one another. If Courtrai had given
the first hint that these iron-clad knights were not invincible in war,
it was soon followed by another. The Swiss peasants formed among
themselves a league to resist oppression. This took definite shape in
1308 when they rebelled openly against their Hapsburg overlords.[5]
The Hapsburg duke of the moment was one of two rival claimants for the
title of emperor, and was much too busy to attend personally to the
chastisement of these presumptuous boors. The army which he sent to do
the work for him was met by the Swiss at Morgarten, among their mountain
passes, overwhelmed with rocks, and then put to flight by one fierce
charge of the unarmored peasants. It took the Austrians seventy years to
forget that lesson, and when a later generation sent a second army into
the mountains it was overthrown at Sempach. Swiss liberty was
established on an unarguable basis.[6]
A similar tale might be told of Bannockburn, where, under Bruce, the
Scotch common folk regained their freedom from the English.[7] Courtrai,
Morgarten, Bannockburn! Clearly a new force was growing up over all
Europe, and a new spirit among men. Knighthood, which had lost its power
over kings, seemed like to lose its military repute as well.
The development of the age was, of course, most rapid in Italy, where
democracy had first asserted itself. In its train came intellectual
ability, and by the middle of the fourteenth century Italy was in the
full swing of the intellectual renaissance.[8] In 1341 Petrarch,
recognized by all his contemporary countrymen as their leading scholar
and poet, was crowned with a laurel wreath on the steps of the Capitol
in Rome. This was the formal assertion by the age of its admiration for
intellectual worth. To Petrarch is ascribed the earliest recognition of
the beauty of nature. He has been called the first modern man. In
reading his works we feel at last that we speak with one of our own,
with a friend who understands.[9]
THE PERIOD OF DISASTER
Unfortunately, however, the democracy of Italy proved too intense, too
frenzied and unbalanced. Rienzi established a republic in Rome and
talked of the restoration of the city's ancient rule. But he governed
like a madman or an inflated fool, and was slain in a riot of the
streets.[10] Scarce one of the famous cities succeeded in retaining its
republican form. Milan became a duchy. Florence fell under the sway of
the Medici. In Venice a few rich families seized all authority, and
while the fame and territory of the republic were extended, its dogeship
became a mere figurehead. All real power was lodged in the dread and
secret council of three.[11] Genoa was defeated and crushed in a great
naval contest with her rival, Venice.[12] Everywhere tyrannies stood out
triumphant. The first modern age of representative government was a
failure. The cities had proved unable to protect themselves against the
selfish ambitions of their leaders.
In Germany and the Netherlands town life had been, as we have seen,
slower of development.[13] Hence for these Northern cities the period of
decay had not yet come. In fact, the fourteenth century marks the zenith
of their power. Their great trading league, the Hansa, was now fully
established, and through the hands of its members passed all the wealth
of Northern Europe. The league even fought a war against the King of
Denmark and defeated him. The three northern states, Denmark, Norway,
and Sweden, fell almost wholly under the dominance of the Hansa, until,
toward the end of the century, Queen Margaret of Denmark, "the Semiramis
of the North," united the three countries under her sway, and partly at
least upraised them from their sorry plight.[14]
On the whole this was not an era to which Europe can look back with
pride. The empire was a scene of anarchy. One of its wrangling rulers,
Charles IV, recognizing that the lack of an established government lay
at the root of all the disorder, tried to mend matters by publishing his
"Golden Bull," which exactly regulated the rules and formulæ to be gone
through in choosing an emperor, and named the seven "electors" who were
to vote. This simplified matters so far as the repeatedly contested
elections went; but it failed to strike to the real difficulty. The
Emperor remained elective and therefore weak.[15]
Moreover, in 1346 the "Black Death," most terrible of all the repeated
plagues under which the centuries previous to our own have suffered,
began to rear its dread form over terror-stricken Europe.[16] It has
been estimated that during the three years of this awful visitation
one-third of the people of Europe perished. Whole cities were wiped out.
In the despair and desolation of the period of scarcity that followed,
humanity became hysterical, and within a generation that oddest of all
the extravagances of the Middle Ages, the "dancing mania," rose to its
height. Men and women wandered from town to town, especially in
Germany, dancing frantically, until in their exhaustion they would beg
the bystanders to beat them or even jump on them to enable them to
stop.[17]
France and England were also in desolation. The long "Hundred Years'
War" between them began in 1340. France was not averse to it. In fact,
her King, Philip of Valois, rather welcomed the opportunity of wresting
away Guienne, the last remaining French fief of the English kings.
France, as we have seen, was regarded as the strongest land of Europe.
England was thought of as little more than a French colony, whose Norman
dukes had in the previous century been thoroughly chastised and deprived
of half their territories by their overlord. To be sure, France was
having much trouble with her Flemish cities, which were in revolt again
under the noted brewer-nobleman, Van Artevelde,[18] yet it seemed
presumption for England to attack her--England, so feeble that she had
been unable to avenge her own defeat by the half-barbaric Scots at
Bannockburn.
But the English had not nearly so small an opinion of themselves as had
the rest of Europe. The heart of the nation had not been in that strife
against the Scots, a brave and impoverished people struggling for
freedom. But hearts and pockets, too, welcomed the quarrel with France,
overbearing France, that plundered their ships when they traded with
their friends the Flemings. The Flemish wool trade was at this time a
main source of English wealth, so Edward III of England, than whom
ordinarily no haughtier aristocrat existed, made friends with the brewer
Van Artevelde, and called him "gossip" and visited him at Ghent, and
presently Flemings and English were allied in a defiance of France. By
asserting a vague ancestral claim to the French throne, Edward eased the
consciences of his allies, who had sworn loyalty to France; and King
Philip had on his hands a far more serious quarrel than he realized.[19]
In England's first great naval victory, Edward destroyed the French
fleet at Sluys and so started his country on its wonderful career of
ocean dominance. Moreover, his success established from the start that
the war should be fought out in France and not in England.[20] Then, in
1346, he won his famous victory of Crécy against overwhelming numbers of
his enemies. It has been said that cannon were effectively used for the
first time at Crécy, and it was certainly about this time that gunpowder
began to assume a definite though as yet subordinate importance in
warfare. But we need not go so far afield to explain the English
victory. It lay in the quality of the fighting men. Through a century
and a half of freedom, England had been building up a class of sturdy
yeomen, peasants who, like the Swiss, lived healthy, hearty, independent
lives. France relied only on her nobles; her common folk were as yet a
helpless herd of much shorn sheep. The French knights charged as they
had charged at Courtrai, with blind, unreasoning valor; and the English
peasants, instead of fleeing before them, stood firm and, with deadly
accuracy of aim, discharged arrow after arrow into the soon disorganized
mass. Then the English knights charged, and completed what the English
yeomen had begun.
Poitiers, ten years later, repeated the same story; and what with the
Black Death sweeping over the land, and these terrible English ravaging
at will, France sank into an abyss of misery worse even than that which
had engulfed the empire. The unhappy peasantry, driven by starvation
into frenzied revolt, avenged their agony upon the nobility by hideous
plunderings and burnings of the rich châteaux.[21] A partial peace with
England was patched up in 1360; but the "free companies" of mercenary
soldiers, who had previously been ravaging Italy, had now come to take
their pleasure in the French carnival of crime, and so the plundering
and burning went on until the fair land was wellnigh a wilderness, and
the English troops caught disease from their victims and perished in the
desolation they had helped to make. By simply refusing to fight battles
with them and letting them starve, the next French king, Charles V, won
back almost all his father had lost; and before his death, in 1380, the
English power in France had fallen again almost to where it stood at the
beginning of the war.
Edward III had died, brooding over the emptiness of his great triumph.
His son the Black Prince had died, cursing the falsity of Frenchmen.
England also had gone through the great tragedy of the Black Death and
her people, like those of France, had been driven to the point of
rebellion--though with them this meant no more than that they felt
themselves over-taxed.[22]
The latter part of the fourteenth century must, therefore, be regarded
as a period of depression in European civilization, of retrograde
movement during which the wheels of progress had turned back. It even
seemed as though Asia would once more and perhaps with final success
reassert her dominion over helpless Europe. The Seljuk Turks who, in
1291, had conquered Acre, the last European stronghold in the Holy Land,
had lost their power; but a new family of the Turkish race, the one that
dwells in Europe to-day, the Osmanlis, had built up an empire by
conquest over their fellows, and had begun to wrest province after
province from the feeble Empire of the East. In 1354 their advance
brought them across the Bosporus and they seized their first European
territory.[23] Soon they had spread over most of modern Turkey. Only the
strong-walled Constantinople held out, while its people cried
frantically to the West for help. The invaders ravaged Hungary. A
crusade was preached against them; but in 1396 the entire crusading
army, united with all the forces of Hungary, was overthrown, almost
exterminated in the battle of Nicopolis.
Perhaps it was only a direct providence that saved Europe. Another
Tartar conqueror, Timur the Lame, or Tamburlaine, had risen in the Far
East.[24] Like Attila and Genghis Khan he swept westward asserting
sovereignty. The Sultan of the Turks recalled all his armies from Europe
to meet this mightier and more insistent foe. A gigantic battle, which
vague rumor has measured in quite unthinkable numbers of combatants and
slain, was fought at Angora in 1402. The Turks were defeated and
subjugated by the Tartars. Timur's empire, being founded on no real
unity, dissolved with his death, and the various subject nations
reasserted their independence. Yet Europe was granted a considerable
breathing space before the Turks once more felt able to push their
aggressions westward.
THE COUNCIL OF CONSTANCE
Toward the close of this unlucky fourteenth century a marked religious
revival extended over Europe. Perhaps men's sufferings had caused it.
Many sects of reformers appeared, protesting sometimes against the
discipline, sometimes the doctrines, of the Church. In Germany Nicholas
of Basel established the "Friends of God." In England Wycliffe wrote the
earliest translation of the Bible into any of our modern tongues.[25]
The Avignon popes shook off their long submission to France and returned
to Italy, to a Rome so desolate that they tell us not ten thousand
people remained to dwell amid its stupendous ruins. Unfortunately this
return only led the papacy into still deeper troubles. Several of the
cardinals refused to recognize the Roman Pope and elected another, who
returned to Avignon. This was the beginning of the "Great Schism" in the
Church.[26] For forty years there were two, sometimes three, claimants
to the papal chair. The effect of their struggles was naturally to
lessen still further that solemn veneration with which men had once
looked up to the accepted vicegerent of God on earth. Hitherto the
revolt against the popes had only assailed their political supremacy;
but now heresies that included complete denial of the religious
authority of the Church began everywhere to arise. In England Wycliffe's
preachings and pamphlets grew more and more opposed to Roman doctrine.
In Bohemia John Huss not only said, as all men did, that the Church
needed reform, but, going further, he refused obedience to papal
commands.[27] In short, the reformers, finding themselves unable to
purify the Roman Church according to their views, began to deny its
sacredness and defy its power.
At length an unusually energetic though not oversuccessful emperor,
Sigismund, the same whom the Turks had defeated at Nicopolis, persuaded
the leaders of the Church to unite with him in calling a grand council
at Constance.[28] This council ended the great schism and restored order
to the Church by securing the rule of a single pope. It also burned John
Huss as a heretic, and thereby left on Sigismund's hands a fierce
rebellion among the reformer's Bohemian followers. The war lasted for a
generation, and during its course all the armies of Germany were
repeatedly defeated by the fanatic Hussites.[29]
Another interesting performance of the Emperor Sigismund was that, being
deep in debt, he sold his "electorate" of Brandenburg to a friend, a
Hohenzollern, and thus established as one of the four chief families of
the empire those Hohenzollerns who rose to be kings of Prussia and have
in our own day supplanted the Hapsburgs as emperors of Germany.[30] Also
worth noting of Sigismund is the fact that during the sitting of his
Council of Constance he made a tour of Europe to persuade all the
princes and various potentates to join it. When he reached England he
was met by a band of Englishmen who waded into the sea to demand whether
by his imperial visit he meant to assert any supremacy over England.
Sigismund assured them he did not, and was allowed to land. We may look
to this English parade of independence as our last reminder of the old
mediæval conception of the Emperor as being at least in theory the
overlord of the whole of Europe.
LATTER HALF OF THE HUNDRED YEARS' WAR
By this time England had in fact recovered from her period of temporary
disorder and depression. King Richard II, the feeble son of the Black
Prince, had been deposed in 1399,[31] and a new and vigorous line of
rulers, the Lancastrians, reached their culmination in Henry V
(1415-1422). Henry revived the French quarrel, and paralleled Crécy and
Poitiers with a similar victory at Agincourt.[32] The French King was a
madman, and, aided by a civil war among the French nobility, Henry soon
had his neighbor's kingdom seemingly helpless at his feet. By the
treaty of Troyes he was declared the heir to the French throne, married
the mad King's daughter, and dwelt in Paris as regent of the
kingdom.[33]
The Norman conquest of England seemed balanced by a similar English
conquest of France. But the chances of fate are many. Both Henry and his
insane father-in-law died in the same year, and while Henry left only a
tiny babe to succeed to his claims, the French King left a full-grown
though rather worthless son. This young man, Charles VII, continued to
deny the English authority, from a safe distance in Southern France. He
made, however, no effort to assert himself or retrieve his fortunes; and
the English captains in the name of their baby King took possession of
one fortress after another, till, in 1429, Orleans was the only French
city of rank still barring their way from Charles and the far south.[34]
Then came the sudden, wonderful arousing of the French under their
peasant heroine, Jeanne d'Arc, and her tragic capture and execution.[35]
At last even the French peasantry were roused; and the French nobles
forgot their private quarrels and turned a united front against the
invaders. The leaderless English lost battle after battle, until of all
France they retained only Edward III's first conquest, the city of
Calais.
France, a regenerated France, turned upon the popes of the Council of
Constance, and, remembering how long she had held the papacy within her
own borders, asserted at least a qualified independence of the Romans by
the "Pragmatic Sanction" which established the Gallican Church.[36]
This semi-defiance of the Pope was encouraged by King Charles, who, in
fact, made several shrewd moves to secure the power which his
good-fortune, and not his abilities, had won. Among other innovations he
established a "standing army," the first permanent body of government
troops in Teutonic Europe. By this step he did much to alter the
mediæval into the modern world; he did much to establish that supremacy
of kings over both nobles and people which continued in France and more
or less throughout all Europe for over three centuries to follow.
Another sign of the coming of a new and more vigorous era is to be seen
in the beginning of exploration down the Atlantic coast of Africa by the
Portuguese, and their discovery and settlement of the Canary Isles. As a
first product of their voyages the explorers introduced negro slavery
into Europe[37]--a grim hint that the next age with increasing power was
to face increasing responsibilities as well.
An even greater change was coming, was already glimmering into light. In
that same year of King Charles' Pragmatic Sanction (1438), though yet
unknown to warring princes and wrangling churchmen, John Gutenberg, in a
little German workshop, had evolved the idea of movable type, that is,
of modern printing. From his press sprang the two great modern genii,
education and publicity, which have already made tyrannies and slaveries
impossible, pragmatic sanctions unnecessary, and which may one day do as
much for standing armies.
DANTE COMPOSES THE "DIVINA COMMEDIA"
A.D. 1300-1318
RICHARD WILLIAM CHURCH
Out of what may be called the civil and religious
storm-and-stress period through which the Middle passed into
the modern age, there came a great literary foregleam of the
new life upon which the world was about to enter. From
Italy, where the European ferment, both in its political and
its spiritual character, mainly centred, came the prophecy
of the new day, in a poet's "vision of the invisible
world"--Dante's _Divina Commedia_--wherein also the deeper
history of the visible world of man was both embodied from
the past and in a measure predetermined for the human race.
Dante's great epic was called by him a comedy because its
ending was not tragical, but "happy"; and admiration gave it
the epithet "divine." It is in three parts--_Inferno_
(hell), _Purgatorio_ (purgatory), and _Paradiso_ (paradise).
It has been made accessible to English readers in the
metrical translations of Carey, Longfellow, Norton, and
others, and in the excellent prose version (_Inferno_) of
John Aitken Carlyle, brother of Thomas Carlyle.
Dante (originally Durante) Alighieri was born at Florence in
May, 1265, and died at Ravenna September 14, 1321. Both the
_Divina Commedia_ and his other great work, the _Vita Nuova_
(the new life), narrate the love--either romantic or
passionate--with which he was inspired by Beatrice
Portinari, whom he first saw when he was nine years old and
Beatrice eight. His whole future life and work are believed
to have been determined by this ideal attachment. But an
equally noteworthy fact of his literary career is that his
works were produced in the midst of party strifes wherein
the poet himself was a prominent actor. In the bitter feuds
of the Guelfs and Ghibellines he bore the sufferings of
failure, persecution, and exile. But above all these trials
rose his heroic spirit and the sublime voice of his poems,
which became a quickening prophecy, realized in the birth of
Italian and of European literature, in the whole movement of
the Renaissance, and in the ever-advancing development of
the modern world.
Church's clear-sighted interpretations of the mind and life
of Dante, and of the history-making _Commedia_, attest the
importance of including the poet and his work in this record
of Great Events.
The _Divina Commedia_ is one of the landmarks of history. More than a
magnificent poem, more than the beginning of a language and the opening
of a national literature, more than the inspirer of art and the glory of
a great people, it is one of those rare and solemn monuments of the
mind's power which measure and test what it can reach to, which rise up
ineffaceably and forever as time goes on marking out its advance by
grander divisions than its centuries, and adopted as epochs by the
consent of all who come after. It stands with the _Iliad_ and
Shakespeare's plays, with the writings of Aristotle and Plato, with the
_Novum Organon_ and the _Principia_, with Justinian's Code, with the
Parthenon and St. Peter's. It is the first Christian poem; and it opens
European literature, as the _Iliad_ did that of Greece and Rome. And,
like the _Iliad_, it has never become out of date; it accompanies in
undiminished freshness the literature which it began.
We approach the history of such works, in which genius seems to have
pushed its achievements to a new limit. Their bursting out from nothing,
and gradual evolution into substance and shape, cast on the mind a
solemn influence. They come too near the fount of being to be followed
up without our feeling the shadows which surround it. We cannot but
fear, cannot but feel ourselves cut off from this visible and familiar
world--as we enter into the cloud. And as with the processes of nature,
so it is with those offsprings of man's mind by which he has added
permanently one more great feature to the world, and created a new power
which is to act on mankind to the end. The mystery of the inventive and
creative faculty, the subtle and incalculable combinations by which it
was led to its work, and carried through it, are out of reach of
investigating thought. Often the idea recurs of the precariousness of
the result; by how little the world might have lost one of its
ornaments--by one sharp pang, or one chance meeting, or any other among
the countless accidents among which man runs his course. And then the
solemn recollection supervenes that powers were formed, and life
preserved, and circumstances arranged, and actions controlled, and thus
it should be; and the work which man has brooded over, and at last
created, is the foster-child too of that "Wisdom which reaches from end
to end, strongly and sweetly disposing of all things."
It does not abate these feelings that we can follow in some cases and to
a certain extent the progress of a work. Indeed, the sight of the
particular accidents among which it was developed--which belong perhaps
to a heterogeneous and wildly discordant order of things, which are out
of proportion and out of harmony with it, which do not explain it; which
have, as it seems to us, no natural right to be connected with it, to
bear on its character, or contribute to its accomplishment; to which we
feel, as it were, ashamed to owe what we can least spare, yet on which
its forming mind and purpose were dependent, and with which they had to
conspire--affects the imagination even more than cases where we see
nothing. We are tempted less to musing and wonder by the _Iliad_, a work
without a history, cut off from its past, the sole relic and vestige of
its age, unexplained in its origin and perfection, than by the _Divina
Commedia_, destined for the highest ends and most universal sympathy,
yet the reflection of a personal history, and issuing seemingly from its
chance incidents.
The _Divina Commedia_ is singular among the great works with which it
ranks, for its strong stamp of personal character and history. In
general we associate little more than the name--not the life--of a great
poet with his works; personal interest belongs more usually to greatness
in its active than its creative forms. But the whole idea and purpose of
the _Commedia_, as well as its filling up and coloring, are determined
by Dante's peculiar history. The loftiest, perhaps, in its aim and
flight of all poems, it is also the most individual; the writer's own
life is chronicled in it, as well as the issues and upshot of all
things. It is at once the mirror to all time of the sins and perfections
of men, of the judgments and grace of God, and the record, often the
only one, of the transient names, and local factions, and obscure
ambitions, and forgotten crimes of the poet's own day; and in that awful
company to which he leads us, in the most unearthly of his scenes, we
never lose sight of himself. And when this peculiarity sends us to
history, it seems as if the poem which was to hold such a place in
Christian literature hung upon and grew out of chance events, rather
than the deliberate design of its author. History, indeed, here, as
generally, is but a feeble exponent of the course of growth in a great
mind and great ideas. It shows us early a bent and purpose--the man
conscious of power and intending to use it--and then the accidents among
which he worked; but how the current of purpose threaded its way among
them, how it was thrown back, deflected, deepened by them, we cannot
learn from history.
It presents a broken and mysterious picture. A boy of quick and
enthusiastic temper grows up into youth in a dream of love. The lady of
his mystic passion dies early. He dreams of her still, not as a wonder
of earth, but as a saint in paradise, and relieves his heart in an
autobiography, a strange and perplexing work of fiction--quaint and
subtle enough for a metaphysical conceit; but, on the other hand, with
far too much of genuine and deep feeling. It is a first essay; he closes
it abruptly as if dissatisfied with his work, but with the resolution of
raising at a future day a worthy monument to the memory of her whom he
has lost. It is the promise and purpose of a great work. But a prosaic
change seems to come over his half-ideal character. The lover becomes
the student--the student of the thirteenth century--struggling painfully
against difficulties, eager and hot after knowledge, wasting eyesight
and stinting sleep, subtle, inquisitive, active-minded and sanguine, but
omnivorous, overflowing with dialectical forms, loose in premise and
ostentatiously rigid in syllogism, fettered by the refinements of
half-awakened taste and the mannerisms of the Provençals.
Boethius and Cicero and the mass of mixed learning within his reach are
accepted as the consolation of his human griefs; he is filled with the
passion of universal knowledge, and the desire to communicate it.
Philosophy has become the lady of his soul--to write allegorical poems
in her honor, and to comment on them with all the apparatus of his
learning in prose, his mode of celebrating her. Further, he marries; it
is said, not happily. The antiquaries, too, have disturbed romance by
discovering that Beatrice also was married some years before her death.
He appears, as time goes on, as a burgher of Florence, the father of a
family, a politician, an envoy, a magistrate, a partisan, taking his
full share in the quarrels of the day.
Beatrice reappears--shadowy, melting at times into symbol and
figure--but far too living and real, addressed with too intense and
natural feeling, to be the mere personification of anything. The lady of
the philosophical Canzoni has vanished. The student's dream has been
broken, as the boy's had been; and the earnestness of the man,
enlightened by sorrow, overleaping the student's formalities and
abstractions, reverted in sympathy to the earnestness of the boy, and
brooded once more on that saint in paradise, whose presence and memory
had once been so soothing, and who now seemed a real link between him
and that stable country "where the angels are in peace." Round her
image, the reflection of purity and truth and forbearing love, was
grouped that confused scene of trouble and effort, of failure and
success, which the poet saw round him; round her image it arranged
itself in awful order--and that image, not a metaphysical abstraction,
but the living memory, freshened by sorrow, and seen through the
softening and hallowing vista of years, of Beatrice Portinari--no
figment of imagination, but God's creature and servant. A childish love,
dissipated by heavy sorrow--a boyish resolution, made in a moment of
feeling, interrupted, though it would be hazardous to say, in Dante's
case, laid aside, for apparently more manly studies, gave the idea and
suggested the form of the "sacred poem of earth and heaven."
And the occasion of this startling unfolding of the poetic gift, of this
passage of a soft and dreamy boy into the keenest, boldest, sternest of
poets, the free and mighty leader of European song, was, what is not
ordinarily held to be a source of poetical inspiration--the political
life. The boy had sensibility, high aspirations, and a versatile and
passionate nature; the student added to this energy, various learning,
gifts of language, and noble ideas on the capacities and ends of man.
But it was the factions of Florence which made Dante a great poet.
The connection of these feuds with Dante's poem has given to the
Middle-Age history of Italy an interest of which it is not undeserving
in itself, full as it is of curious exhibitions of character and
contrivance, but to which politically it cannot lay claim, amid the
social phenomena, so far grander in scale and purpose and more
felicitous in issue, of other western nations. It is remarkable for
keeping up an antique phase, which, in spite of modern arrangements, it
has not yet lost. It is a history of cities. In ancient history all that
is most memorable and instructive gathers round cities; civilization and
empire were concentrated within walls; and it baffled the ancient mind
to conceive how power should be possessed and wielded by numbers larger
than might be collected in a single market-place. The Roman Empire,
indeed, aimed at being one in its administration and law; and it was not
a nation nor were its provinces nations, yet everywhere but in Italy it
prepared them for becoming nations. And while everywhere else parts were
uniting and union was becoming organization--and neither geographical
remoteness nor unwieldiness of number nor local interests and
differences were untractable obstacles to that spirit of fusion which
was at once the ambition of the few and the instinct of the many; and
cities, even where most powerful, had become the centres of the
attracting and joining forces, knots in the political network--while
this was going on more or less happily throughout the rest of Europe, in
Italy the ancient classic idea lingered in its simplicity, its
narrowness and jealousy, wherever there was any political activity. The
history of Southern Italy, indeed, is mainly a foreign one--the history
of modern Rome merges in that of the papacy; but Northern Italy has a
history of its own, and that is a history of separate and independent
cities--points of reciprocal and indestructible repulsion, and within,
theatres of action where the blind tendencies and traditions of classes
and parties weighed little on the freedom of individual character, and
citizens could watch and measure and study one another with the
minuteness of private life.
Dante, like any other literary celebrity of the time, was not less from
the custom of the day than from his own purpose a public man. He took
his place among his fellow-citizens; he went out to war with them; he
fought, it is said, among the skirmishers at the great Guelf victory at
Campaldino; to qualify himself for office in the democracy, he enrolled
himself in one of the guilds of the people, and was matriculated in the
|
the pursuit of the diurnal Lepidoptera?" he
inquired, still staring intently at the American.
"I don’t know anything about them," explained Brown. "What are
Lepidoptera?"
"The _schmetterling_--the butterfly. In Amerika, sir, you have many fine
species, notably Parnassus clodius and the Parnassus smintheus of the four
varietal forms." His prominent eyes shifted from one detail of Brown’s
costume to another--not apparently an intelligent examination, but a sort
of protruding and indifferent stare.
His gaze, however, was arrested for a moment where the lump under Brown’s
tunic indicated something concealed--a hunting knife, for example. Brown’s
automatic was strapped there. But the bulging eyes, expressionless still,
remained fixed for a second only, then travelled on toward the Ross
rifle--the Athabasca Regiment having been permitted to exchange this
beloved weapon for the British regulation piece recently issued to the
Canadians. From behind the thick lenses of his spectacles the Herr
Professor examined the rifle while his monotonously dreary voice continued
an entomological monologue for Brown’s edification. And all the while Von
Glahn and Stent, reclining nearby among the ferns, were exchanging what
appeared to be the frankest of confidences and the happiest of youthful
reminiscences.
"Of the Parnassians," rumbled on Professor von Dresslin, "here in the Alps
we possess one notable example--namely, the Parnassus Apollo. It is for
the capture of this never-to-be-sufficiently studied butterfly that I
have, upon this ibex-hunting expedition, myself equipped with net and
suitable paraphernalia."
"I see," nodded Brown, eyeing the green tin box and the net. The Herr
Professor’s pop-eyed attention was now occupied with the service puttees
worn by Brown. A sportsman also might have worn them, of course.
"The Apollo butterfly," droned on Professor Dresslin, "iss a butterfly of
the larger magnitude among European Lepidoptera, yet not of the largest.
The Parnassians, allied to the Papilionidæ, all live only in high
altitudes, and are, by the thinly scaled and always-to-be-remembered red
and plack ge-spotted wings, to be readily recognized. I haf already two
specimens captured this morning. I haff the honour, sir, to exhibit them
for your inspection----"
He fished out a flat green box from his pocket, opened it under Brown’s
nose, leaning close enough to touch Brown with an exploring and furtive
elbow--and felt the contour of the automatic.
Amid a smell of carbolic and camphor cones Brown beheld, pinned side by
side upon the cork-lined interior of the box, two curiously pretty
butterflies.
Their drooping and still pliable wings seemed as thin as white tissue
paper; their bodies were covered with furry hairs. Brick-red and black
spots decorated the frail membrane of the wings in a curiously pleasing
harmony of pattern and of colour.
"Very unusual," he said, with a vague idea he was saying the wrong thing.
Monotonously, paying no attention, Professor von Dresslin continued: "I,
the life history of the Parnassus Apollo, haff from my early youth
investigated with minuteness, diligence, and patience."--His protuberant
eyes were now fixed on Brown’s rifle again.--"For many years I haff bred
this Apollo butterfly from the egg, from the caterpillar, from the
chrysalis. I have the negroid forms, the albino forms, the dwarf forms,
the hybrid forms investigated under effery climatic condition. Notes
sufficient for three volumes of quarto already exist as a residuum of my
investigations----"
He looked up suddenly into the American’s face--which was the first sudden
movement the Herr Professor had made----
"Ach wass! Three volumes! It is nothing. Here iss material for thirty!--A
lifetime iss too short to know all the secrets of a single species.... If
I may inquire, sir, of what pattern is your most interesting and admirable
rifle?"
"A--Ross," said Brown, startled into a second’s hesitation.
"So? And, if I may inquire, of what nationality iss it, a R-r-ross?"
"It’s a Canadian weapon. We Americans use it a great deal for big game."
"So?... And it iss also by the Canadian military employed perhaps, sir?"
"I believe," said Brown, carelessly, "that the British Government has
taken away the Ross rifle from the Canadians and given them the regulation
weapon."
"So? Permit--that I examine, sir?"
Brown did not seem to hear him or notice the extended
hand--blunt-fingered, hairy, persistent.
The Professor, not discouraged, repeated: "Sir, _bitte darf ich_, may I be
permitted?" And Brown’s eyes flashed back a lightning shaft of inquiry.
Then, carelessly smiling, he passed the Ross rifle over to the Herr
Professor; and, at the same time, drew toward him that gentleman’s
silver-mounted weapon, and carelessly cocked it.
"Permit me," he murmured, balancing it innocently in the hollow of his
left arm, apparently preoccupied with admiration at the florid workmanship
of stock and guard. No movement that the Herr Professor made escaped him;
but presently he thought to himself--"The old dodo is absolutely
unsuspicious. My nerves are out of order.... What odd eyes that Fritz
has!"
When Herr Professor von Dresslin passed back the weapon Brown laid the
German sporting piece beside it with murmured complimentary comment.
"Yess," said the German, "such rifles kill when properly handled. We
Germans may cordially recommend them for our American--friends--" Here was
the slightest hesitation--"Pardon! I mean that we may safely guarantee
this rifle _to_ our friends."
Brown looked thoughtfully at the thick lenses of the spectacles. The
popeyes remained expressionless, utterly, Teutonically inscrutable. A big
heather bee came buzzing among the _alpenrosen_. Its droning hum resembled
the monotone of the Herr Professor.
Behind them Brown heard Stent saying: "Do you remember our ambition to
wear the laurels of Parnassus, Siurd? Do you remember our notes at the
lectures on the poets? And our ambition to write at least one deathless
poem apiece before we died?"
Von Glahn’s dark eyes narrowed with merriment and his gentle laugh and
attractive voice sounded pleasantly in Brown’s ears.
"You wrote at least _one_ famous poem to Rosa," he said, still laughing.
"To Rosa? Oh! Rosa of the Café Luitpold! By Jove I did, didn’t I, Siurd?
How on earth did you ever remember that?"
"I thought it very pretty." He began to repeat aloud:
"Rosa with the winsome eyes,
When my beer you bring to me;
I can see through your disguise!
I my goddess recognize--
Hebe, young immortally,
Sweet nepenthe pouring me!"
Stent laughed outright:
"How funny to think of it now--and to think of Rosa!... And you, Siurd, do
you forget that you also composed a most wonderful war-poem--to the metre
of ’Fly, Eagle, Fly!’ Do you remember how it began?
"Slay, Eagle, Slay!
They die who dare decry us!
Red dawns ’The Day.’
The western cliffs defy us!
Turn their grey flood
To seas of blood!
And, as they flee, Slay, Eagle! Slay!
For God has willed this German ’Day’!"
"Enough," said Siurd Von Glahn, still laughing, but turning very red.
"What a terrible memory you have, Harry! For heaven’s sake spare my
modesty such accurate reminiscences."
"I thought it fine poetry--then," insisted Stent with a forced smile. But
his voice had subtly altered.
They looked at each other in silence, the reminiscent smile still stamped
upon their stiffening lips.
For a brief moment the years had seemed to fade--time was not--the
sunshine of that careless golden age had seemed to warm them once again
there where they sat amid the _alpenrosen_ below the snow line on the Col
de la Reine.
But it did not endure; everything concerning earth and heaven and life and
death had so far remained unsaid between these two. And never would be
said. Both understood that, perhaps.
Then Von Glahn’s sidelong and preoccupied glance fell on Stent’s field
glasses slung short around his neck. His rigid smile died out. Soldiers
wore field glasses that way; hunters, when they carried them instead of
spyglasses, wore them _en bandoulière_.
He spoke, however, of other matters in his gentle, thoughtful
voice--avoiding always any mention of politics and war--chatted on
pleasantly with the familiarity and insouciance of old acquaintance. Once
he turned slowly and looked at Brown--addressed him politely--while his
dark eyes wandered over the American, noting every detail of dress and
equipment, and the slight bulge at his belt line beneath the tunic.
Twice he found pretext to pick up his rifle, but discarded it carelessly,
apparently not noticing that Stent and Brown always resumed their own
weapons when he touched his.
Brown said to Von Glahn:
"Ibex stalking is a new game to me. My friend Stent tells me that you are
old at it."
"I have followed some few ibex, Mr. Brown," replied the young man
modestly. "And--other game," he added with a shrug.
"I know how it’s done in theory," continued the American; "and I am
wondering whether we are to lie in this spot until dawn tomorrow or
whether we climb higher and lie in the snow up there."
"In the snow, perhaps. God knows exactly where we shall lie tonight--Mr.
Brown."
There was an odd look in Siurd’s soft brown eyes; he turned and spoke to
Herr Professor von Dresslin, using dialect--and instantly appearing to
recollect himself he asked pardon of Stent and Brown in his very perfect
English.
"I said to the Herr Professor in the Traun dialect: ’Ibex may be stirring,
as it is already late afternoon. We ought now to use our glasses.’ My
family," he added apologetically, "come from the Traunwald; I forget and
employ the vernacular at times."
The Herr Professor unslung his telescope, set his rifle upright on the
moss, and, kneeling, balanced the long spyglass alongside of the
blued-steel barrel, resting it on his hand as an archer fits the arrow he
is drawing on the bowstring.
Instantly both Brown and Stent thought of the same thing: the chance that
these Germans might spy others of the Athabasca regiment prowling among
the ferns and rocks of neighbouring slopes. The game was nearly at an end,
anyway.
They exchanged a glance; both picked up their rifles; Brown nodded almost
imperceptibly. The tragic comedy was approaching its close.
"_Hirsch_" grunted the Herr Professor--"_und stück_--on the north
alm"--staring through his telescope intently.
"Accorded," said Siurd Von Glahn, balancing his spyglass and sweeping the
distant crags. "_Stück_ on the western shoulder," he added--"and a stag
royal among them."
"Of ten?"
"Of twelve."
After a silence: "Why are they galloping--I wonder--the herd-stag and
_stück_?"
Brown very quietly laid one hand on Stent’s arm.
"A _geier_, perhaps," suggested Siurd, his eye glued to his spyglass.
"No ibex?" asked Stent in a voice a little forced.
"_Noch nicht, mon ami. Tiens! A gemsbok_--high on the third
peak--feeding."
"Accorded," grunted the Herr Professor after an interval of search; and he
closed his spyglass and placed his rifle on the moss.
His staring, protuberant eyes fell casually upon Brown, who was laying
aside his own rifle again--and the German’s expression did not alter.
"Ibex!" exclaimed Von Glahn softly.
Stent, rising impulsively to his feet, bracketted his field glasses on the
third peak, and stood there, poised, slim and upright against the sky on
the chasm’s mossy edge.
"I don’t see your ibex, Siurd," he said, still searching.
"On the third peak, _mon ami_"--drawing Stent familiarly to his side--the
lightest caressing contact--merely enough to verify the existence of the
automatic under his old classmate’s tunic.
If Stent did not notice the impalpable touch, neither did Brown notice it,
watching them. Perhaps the Herr Professor did, but it is not at all
certain, because at that moment there came flopping along over the bracken
and _alpenrosen_ a loppy winged butterfly--a large, whitish creature,
seeming uncertain in its irresolute flight whether to alight at Brown’s
feet or go flapping aimlessly on over Brown’s head.
The Herr Professor snatched up his net--struck heavily toward the winged
thing--a silent, terrible, sweeping blow with net and rifle clutched
together. Brown went down with a crash.
At the shocking sound of the impact Stent wheeled from the abyss, then
staggered back under the powerful shove from Von Glahn’s nervous arm.
Swaying, fighting frantically for foothold, there on the chasm’s awful
edge, he balanced for an instant; fought for equilibrium. Von Glahn,
rigid, watched him. Then, deathly white, his young eyes looking straight
into the eyes of his old classmate--Stent lost the fight, fell outward,
wider, dropping back into mid-air, down through sheer, tremendous
depths--down there where the broad river seemed only a silver thread and
the forests looked like beds of tender, velvet moss.
After him, fluttering irresolutely, flitted Parnassus Apollo, still
winging its erratic way where God willed it--a frail, dainty, translucent,
wind-blown fleck of white above the gulf--symbol, perhaps of the soul
already soaring up out of the terrific deeps below.
The Herr Professor sweated and panted as he tugged at the silk
handkerchief with which he was busily knotting the arms of the unconscious
American behind his back.
"Pouf! Ugh! Pig-dog!" he grunted--"mit his pockets full of automatic
clips. A Yankee, eh? What I tell you, Siurd?--English and Yankee they are
one in blood and one at heart--pig-dogs effery one. Hey, Siurd, what I
told you already _gesternabend_? The British _schwein_ are in Italy
already. Hola! Siurd! Take his feet and we turn him over _mal_!"
But Von Glahn remained motionless, leaning heavily against the crag, his
back to the abyss, his blond head buried in both arms.
So the Herr Professor, who was a major, too, began, with his powerful,
stubby hands, to pull the unconscious man over on his back. And, as he
worked, he hummed monotonously but contentedly in his bushy beard
something about _something_ being "_über alles_"--God, perhaps, perhaps
the blue sky overhead which covered him and his sickened friend alike, and
the hurt enemy whose closed lids shut out the sky above--and the dead man
lying very, very far below them--where river and forest and moss and
Parnassus were now alike to him.
CHAPTER VI
IN FINISTÈRE
It was a dirty trick that they played Stent and Brown--the three
Mysterious Sisters, Fate, Chance, and Destiny. But they’re always billed
for any performance, be it vaudeville or tragedy; and there’s no use
hissing them off: they’ll dog you from the stage entrance if they take a
fancy to you.
They dogged Wayland from the dock at Calais, where the mule transport
landed, all the way to Paris, then on a slow train to Quimperlé, and then,
by stagecoach, to that little lost house on the moors, where ties held him
most closely--where all he cared for in this world was gathered under a
humble roof.
In spite of his lameness he went duck-shooting the week after his arrival.
It was rather forcing his convalescence, but he believed it would
accelerate it to go about in the open air, as though there were nothing
the matter with his shattered leg.
So he hobbled down to the point he knew so well. He had longed for the sea
off Eryx. It thundered at his feet.
And, now, all around him through clamorous obscurity a watery light
glimmered; it edged the low-driven clouds hurrying in from the sea; it
outlined the long point of rocks thrust southward into the smoking
smother.
The din of the surf filled his ears; through flying patches of mist he
caught glimpses of rollers bursting white against the reef; heard duller
detonations along unseen sands, and shattering reports where heavy waves
exploded among basalt rocks.
His lean face of an invalid glistened with spray; salt water dripped from
cap and coat, spangled the brown barrels of his fowling-piece, and ran
down the varnished supports of both crutches where he leaned on them,
braced forward against an ever-rising wind.
At moments he seemed to catch glimpses of darker specks dotting the
heaving flank of some huge wave. But it was not until the wild ducks rose
through the phantom light and came whirring in from the sea that his gun,
poked stiffly skyward, flashed in the pallid void. And then, sometimes, he
hobbled back after the dead quarry while it still drove headlong inland,
slanting earthward before the gale.
Once, amid the endless thundering, in the turbulent desolation around him,
through the roar of wind in his ears, he seemed to catch deadened sounds
resembling distant seaward cannonading--_real_ cannonading--as though
individual shots, dully distinct, dominated for a few moments the unbroken
uproar of surf and gale.
He listened, straining his ears, alert, intent upon the sounds he ought to
recognize--the sounds he knew so well.
Only the ceaseless pounding of the sea assailed his ears.
Three wild duck, widgeon, came speeding through the fog; he breasted the
wind, balanced heavily on both crutches and one leg, and shoved his gun
upward.
At the same instant the mist in front and overhead became noisy with wild
fowl, rising in one great, panic-stricken, clamoring cloud. He hesitated;
a muffled, thudding sound came to him over the unseen sea, growing louder,
nearer, dominating the gale, increasing to a rattling clatter.
Suddenly a great cloudy shape loomed up through the whirling mist
ahead--an enormous shadow in the fog--a gigantic spectre rushing inland on
vast and ghostly pinions.
As the man shrank on his crutches, looking up, the aëroplane swept past
overhead--a wounded, wavering, unsteady, unbalanced thing, its right
aileron dangling, half stripped, and almost mangled to a skeleton.
Already it was slanting lower toward the forest like a hard-hit duck,
wing-crippled, fighting desperately for flight-power to the very end. Then
the inland mist engulfed it.
And after it hobbled Wayland, painfully, two brace of dead ducks and his
slung fowling piece bobbing on his back, his rubber-shod crutches groping
and probing among drenched rocks and gullies full of kelp, his left leg in
splints hanging heavily.
He could not go fast; he could not go very far. Further inland, foggy
gorse gave place to broom and blighted bracken, all wet, sagging with
rain. Then he crossed a swale of brown reeds and tussock set with little
pools of water, opaque and grey in the rain.
Where the outer moors narrowed he turned westward; then a strip of low,
thorn-clad cliff confronted him, up which he toiled along a V-shaped cleft
choked with ferns.
The spectral forest of Läis lay just beyond, its wind-tortured branches
tossing under a leaden sky.
East and west lonely moors stretched away into the depths of the mist;
southward spread the sea; to the north lay the wide woods of Läis, equally
deserted now in this sad and empty land.
He hobbled to the edge of the forest and stood knee deep in discoloured
ferns, listening. The sombre beech-woods spread thick on either hand, a
wilderness of crossed limbs and meshed branches to which still clung great
clots of dull brown leaves.
He listened, peering into sinister, grey depths. In the uncertain light
nothing stirred except the clashing branches overhead; there was no sound
except the wind’s flowing roar and the ghostly noise of his own voice,
hallooing through the solitude--a voice in the misty void that seemed to
carry less sound than the straining cry of a sleeper in his dreams.
If the aëroplane had landed, there was no sign here. How far had it
struggled on, sheering the tree-tops, before it fell?--if indeed it had
fallen somewhere in the wood’s grey depths?
As long as he had sufficient strength he prowled along the forest,
entering it here and there, calling, listening, searching the foggy
corridors of trees. The rotting brake crackled underfoot; the tree tops
clashed and creaked above him.
At last, having only enough strength left to take him home, he turned
away, limping through the blotched and broken ferns, his crippled leg
hanging stiffly in its splints, his gun and the dead ducks bobbing on his
back.
The trodden way was soggy with little pools full of drenched grasses and
dead leaves; but at length came rising ground, and the blue-green,
glimmering wastes of gorse stretching away before him through the
curtained fog.
A sheep path ran through; and after a little while a few trees loomed
shadowy in the mist, and a low stone house took shape, whitewashed,
flanked by barn, pigpen, and a stack of rotting seaweed.
A few wet hens wandered aimlessly by the doorstep; a tiny bed of white
clove-pinks and tall white phlox exhaled a homely welcome as the lame man
hobbled up the steps, pulled the leather latchstring, and entered.
In the kitchen an old Breton woman, chopping herbs, looked up at him out
of aged eyes, shaking her head under its white coiffe.
"It is nearly noon," she said. "You have been out since dawn. Was it wise,
for a convalescent, Monsieur Jacques?"
"Very wise, Marie-Josephine. Because the more exercise I take the sooner I
shall be able to go back."
"It is too soon to go out in such weather."
"Ducks fly inland only in such weather," he retorted, smiling. "And we
like roast widgeon, you and I, Marie-Josephine."
And all the while her aged blue eyes were fixed on him, and over her
withered cheeks the soft bloom came and faded--that pretty colour which
Breton women usually retain until the end.
"Thou knowest, Monsieur Jacques," she said, with a curiously quaint
mingling of familiarity and respect, "that I do not counsel caution
because I love thee and dread for thee again the trenches. But with thy
leg hanging there like the broken wing of a _vanneau_----"
He replied good humouredly:
"Thou dost not know the Legion, Marie-Josephine. Every day in our trenches
we break a comrade into pieces and glue him together again, just to make
him tougher. Broken bones, once mended, are stronger than before."
He was looking down at her where she sat by the hearth, slicing vegetables
and herbs, but watching him all the while out of her lovely, faded eyes.
"I understand, Monsieur Jacques, that you are like your father--God knows
he was hardy and without fear--to the last"--she dropped her head--"Mary,
glorious--intercede--" she muttered over her bowl of herbs.
Wayland, resting on his crutches, unslung his ducks, laid them on the
table, smoothed their beautiful heads and breasts, then slipped the
soaking _bandoulière_ of his gun from his shoulder and placed the dripping
piece against the chimney corner.
"After I have scrubbed myself," he said, "and have put on dry clothes, I
shall come to luncheon; and I shall have something very strange to tell
you, Marie-Josephine."
He limped away into one of the two remaining rooms--the other was
hers--and closed his door.
Marie-Josephine continued to prepare the soup. There was an egg for him,
too; and a slice of cold pork and a _brioche_ and a jug of cider.
In his room Wayland was whistling "Tipperary."
Now and again, pausing in her work, she turned her eyes to his closed
door--wonderful eyes that became miracles of tenderness as she listened.
He came out, presently, dressed in his odd, ill-fitting uniform of the
Legion, tunic unbuttoned, collarless of shirt, his bright, thick hair, now
of decent length, in boyish disorder.
Delicious odours of soup and of Breton cider greeted him; he seated
himself; Marie-Josephine waited on him, hovered over him, tucked a sack of
feathers under his maimed leg, placed his crutches in the corner beside
the gun.
Still eating, leisurely, he began:
"Marie-Josephine--a strange thing has happened on Quesnel Moors which
troubles me.... Listen attentively. It was while waiting for ducks on the
Eryx Rocks, that once I thought I heard through the roar of wind and sea
the sound of a far cannonading. But I said to myself that it was only the
imagination of a haunted mind; that in my ears still thundered the
cannonade of Lens."
"Was it nevertheless true?" She had turned around from the fire where her
own soup simmered in the kettle. As she spoke again she rose and came to
the table.
He said: "It must have been cannon that I heard. Because, not long
afterward, out of the fog came a great aëroplane rushing inland from the
sea--flying swiftly above me--right over me!--and staggering like a
wounded duck--it had one aileron broken--and sheered away into the fog,
northward, Marie-Josephine."
Her work-worn hands, tightly clenched, rested now on the table and she
leaned there, looking down at him.
"Was it an enemy--this airship, Jacques?"
"In the mist flying and the ragged clouds I could not tell. It might have
been English. It must have been, I think--coming as it came from the sea.
But I am troubled, Marie-Josephine. Were the guns at sea an enemy’s guns?
Did the aëroplane come to earth in safety? Where? In the Forest of Laïs? I
found no trace of it."
She said, tremulous perhaps from standing too long motionless and intent:
"Is it possible that the Boches would come into these solitary moors,
where there are no people any more, only the creatures of the Laïs woods,
and the curlew and the lapwings which pass at evening?"
He ate thoughtfully and in silence for a while; then:
"They go, usually--the Boches--where there is plunder--murder to be
done.... Spying to be done.... God knows what purpose animates the
Huns.... After all, Lorient is not so far away.... Yet it surely must have
been an English aëroplane, beaten off by some enemy ship--a submarine
perhaps. God send that the rocks of the Isle des Chouans take care of
her--with their teeth!"
He drank his cider--a sip or two only--then, setting aside the glass:
"I went from the Rocks of Eryx to Laïs Woods. I called as loudly as I
could; the wind whirled my voice back into my throat.... I am not yet very
strong....
"Then I went into the wood as far as my strength permitted. I heard and
saw nothing, Marie-Josephine."
"Would they be dead?" she asked.
"They were planing to earth. I don’t know how much control they had,
whether they could steer--choose a landing place. There are plenty of safe
places on these moors."
"If their airship is crippled, what can they do, these English flying men,
out there on the moors in the rain and wind? When the coast guard passes
we must tell him."
"After lunch I shall go out again as far as my strength allows.... If the
rain would cease and the mist lift, one might see something--be of some
use, perhaps----"
"Ought you to go, Monsieur Jacques?"
"Could I fail to try to find them--Englishmen--and perhaps injured? Surely
I should go, Marie-Josephine."
"The coast guard----"
"He passed the Eryx Rocks at daylight. He is at Sainte-Ylva now. Tonight,
when I see his comrade’s lantern, I shall stop him and report. But in the
meanwhile I must go out and search."
"Spare thyself--for the trenches, Jacques. Remain indoors today." She
began to unpin the coiffe which she always wore ceremoniously at meals
when he was present.
He smiled: "Thou knowest I must go, Marie-Josephine."
"And if thou come upon them in the forest and they are Huns?"
He laughed: "They are English, I tell thee, Marie-Josephine!"
She nodded; under her breath, staring at the rain-lashed window: "Like thy
father, thou must go forth," she muttered; "go always where thy spirit
calls. And once _he_ went. And came no more. And God help us all in
Finistère, where all are born to grief."
CHAPTER VII
THE AIRMAN
She had seated herself on a stool by the hearth. Presently she spread her
apron with trembling fingers, took the glazed bowl of soup upon her lap
and began to eat, slowly, casting long, unquiet glances at him from time
to time where he still at table leaned heavily, looking out into the rain.
When he caught her eye he smiled, summoning her with a nod of his boyish
head. She set aside her bowl obediently, and, rising, brought him his
crutches. And at the same moment somebody knocked lightly on the outer
door.
Marie-Josephine had unpinned her coiffe. Now she pinned it on over her
_bonnet_ before going to the door, glancing uneasily around at him while
she tied her tresses and settled the delicate starched wings of her
bonnet.
"That’s odd," he said, "that knocking," staring at the door. "Perhaps it
is the lost Englishman."
"God send them," she whispered, going to the door and opening it.
It certainly seemed to be one of the lost Englishmen--a big,
square-shouldered, blond young fellow, tall and powerful, in the leather
dress of an aëronaut. His glass mask was lifted like the visor of a
tilting helmet, disclosing a red, weather-beaten face, wet with rain.
Strength, youth, rugged health was their first impression of this
leather-clad man from the clouds.
He stepped inside the house immediately, halted when he caught sight of
Wayland in his undress uniform, glanced involuntarily at his crutches and
bandaged leg, cast a quick, penetrating glance right and left; then he
spoke pleasantly in his hesitating, imperfect French--so oddly imperfect
that Wayland could not understand him at all.
"Who are you?" he demanded in English.
The airman seemed astonished for an instant, then a quick smile broke out
on his ruddy features:
"I say, this _is_ lucky! Fancy finding an Englishman here!--wherever this
place may be." He laughed. "Of course I know I’m ’somewhere in France,’ as
the censor has it, but I’m hanged if I know where!"
"Come in and shut the door," said Wayland, reassured. Marie-Josephine
closed the door. The aëronaut came forward, stood dripping a moment, then
took the chair to which Wayland pointed, seating himself as though a
trifle tired.
"Shot down," he explained, gaily. "An enemy submarine winged us out yonder
somewhere. I tramped over these bally moors for hours before I found a
sign of any path. A sheepwalk brought me here."
"You are lucky. There is only one house on these moors--this! Who are
you?" asked Wayland.
"West--flight-lieutenant, 10th division, Cinque-Ports patrolling
squadron."
"Good heavens, man! What are you doing in Finistère?"
"_What!_"
"You are in Brittany, province of Finistère. Didn’t you know it?"
The air-officer seemed astounded. Presently he said: "The dirty weather
foxed us. Then that fellow out yonder winged us. I was glad enough to see
a coast line."
"Did you fall?"
"No; we controlled our landing pretty well."
"Where did you land?"
There was a second’s hesitation; the airman looked at Wayland, glanced at
his crippled leg.
"Out there near some woods," he said. "My pilot’s there now trying to
patch up.... You are not French, are you?"
"American."
"Oh! A--volunteer, I presume."
"Foreign Legion--2d."
"I see. Back from the trenches with a leg."
"It’s nearly well. I’ll be back soon."
"Can you walk?" asked the airman so abruptly that Wayland, looking at him,
hesitated, he did not quite know why.
"Not very far," he replied, cautiously. "I can get to the window with my
crutches pretty well."
And the next moment he felt ashamed of his caution when the airman laughed
frankly.
"I need a guide to some petrol," he said. "Evidently you can’t go with
me."
"Haven’t you enough petrol to take you to Lorient?"
"How far is Lorient?"
Wayland told him.
"I don’t know," said the flight-lieutenant; "I’ll have to try to get
somewhere. I suppose it is useless for me to ask," he added, "but have
you, by any chance, a bit of canvas--an old sail or hammock?--I don’t need
much. That’s what I came for--and some shellac and wire, and a screwdriver
of sorts? We need patching as well as petrol; and we’re a little short of
supplies."
Wayland’s steady gaze never left him, but his smile was friendly.
"We’re in a tearing hurry, too," added the flight-lieutenant, looking out
of the window.
Wayland smiled. "Of course there’s no petrol here. There’s nothing here. I
don’t suppose you could have landed in a more deserted region if you had
tried. There’s a château in the Laïs woods, but it’s closed; owner and
servants are at the war and the family in Paris."
He shrugged his shoulders. "Everybody has cleared out; the war has
stripped the country; and there never were any people on these moors,
excepting shooting parties and, in the summer, a stray artist or two from
Quimperlé."
The lieutenant looked at him. "You say there is nobody here--between here
and Lorient? No--troops?"
"There’s nothing to guard. The coast is one vast shoal. Ships pass hull
down. Once a day a coast guard patrols along the cliffs----"
"When?"
"He has passed, unfortunately. Otherwise he might signal by relay to
Lorient and have them send you out some petrol. By the way--are you
hungry?"
The flight-lieutenant showed all his firm, white teeth under a yellow
mustache, which curled somewhat upward. He laughed in a carefree way, as
though something had suddenly eased his mind of perplexity--perhaps the
certainty that there was no possible chance for petrol. Certainty is said
to be more endurable
|
adventure in that
direction again. And he owed his defeat to strange guns such as had
not come into his life before. Guns that fired not a couple of shots,
but a whole volley; an endless fusillade that even his wild warriors
could not face.
He went back to El-Ammeh determined to get hold of some of those
wonderful guns.
Obviously it was out of the question to attack St. Louis where they
came from. If they were to be obtained, they must be searched for in
some other direction.
Sore with defeat, he brooded on the strange guns. And very often he
talked of them to the boy he called his son.
Raoul Le Breton was about thirteen when the Sultan met with his first
rebuff at the hands of France. And he had the welfare and prestige of
the desert kingdom at heart, and was as anxious as the Sultan to
possess this new weapon.
Far away in the south was the outpost of another European power; just a
handful of white men struggling to keep a hold on a country an
indifferent and short-sighted government was inclined to let slip.
Round and about the River Gambia the British had a footing. Among the
men most determined to keep a hold on this strip of territory was
Captain George Barclay.
He was a man of about twenty-eight, of medium height and wiry make,
with a thin face and steady grey eyes where tragedy lurked. His
confrères said that Barclay had no interests outside of his work. But
they were wrong.
He had one thing that was more to him than his own life; a tiny,
velvety-eyed, golden-haired daughter.
He had come out to North-West Africa in quest of forgetfulness.
At twenty-three, although he was only a penniless lieutenant, the
beauty of the London season, the prospective heiress of millions, had
thought well to marry him. It was a runaway match. For his sake Pansy
Carrington had risked losing both wealth and position. She was only
nineteen, and her guardian and godfather, whose acknowledged heiress
she was, had disapproved of George Barclay; gossip said because he was
madly in love with her himself, although he was nearly thirty years her
senior.
However, whether this was so or not, Henry Langham had forgiven the
girl. He had taken her back into his good graces, and, in due course,
had become godfather to the second Pansy. "Grand-godfather," the child
called him as soon as she could talk.
It had seemed to George Barclay that no man's life could be happier
than his. Then, without any warning, tragedy came upon him after five
years of bliss. For one day his girl-wife was brought back to him
dead, the result of an accident in the hunting-field.
With her death all light had gone out of his life. To escape from
himself he had gone out to Gambia; and his tiny daughter now lived, as
her mother had lived before her, with her godfather, Henry Langham.
But it was not of his daughter Barclay was thinking at that moment;
other matters occupied his mind.
He stood on the roof of a little stone fort, gazing at the landscape in
a speculative manner.
The building itself consisted of four rooms, set on a platform of rock
some three feet from the ground. All the windows were small, and high
up and barred. One room had no communication with the others: it was a
sort of guardroom entered by a heavy wooden door. To the other three
rooms one solid door gave entry, and from one of them a ladder and
trap-door led up to the roof which had battlements around it.
Below was a large compound, rudely stockaded, in which half a dozen
native huts were built.
In that part of Gambia Captain Barclay represented the British
Government. He had to administer justice and keep the peace, and in
this task he was aided by a white subaltern, twenty Hausa soldiers, and
a couple of maxim guns.
On three sides of the little British outpost an endless expanse of
forest showed, with white mist curling like smoke about it. On the
fourth was a wide shallow valley, with dwarf cliffs on either side,
alive with dog-faced baboons. The valley was patched with swamps and
lakes, and through it a river wended an erratic course, its banks
heavily fringed with reeds and mimosa trees; a valley from which, with
approaching evening, a stream of miasma rose.
Barclay's gaze, however, never strayed in the direction of the shallow
valley.
He looked to the north.
A week or so ago word had come through that a notorious raider was on
the move; a man whom the French Government had been endeavouring to
catch for the last five years or more. What he was doing so far south
as Gambia, the district officer did not know. But he knew he was there.
Only the previous day news had come that one of the villages within
his, Barclay's, jurisdiction had been practically wiped out. A similar
fate might easily fall to the lot of the British outpost, considering
that the Arab chief's force outnumbered Barclay's ten to one.
From the roof of his quarters the Englishman saw the sun set. It
seemed to sink and drown in a lake of orange that lay like a blazing
furnace on the horizon; a lake that spread and scattered when the sun
disappeared, drifting off in islands of clouds, gold, rose, mauve and
vivid red, sailing slowly across a tense blue sky, getting ever thinner
and more ragged, until night came suddenly and swallowed up their
tattered remains.
A dense, purple darkness fell upon the land, soft and velvety, that
reminded Barclay of his little daughter's eyes. And in a vault as
darkly purple, a host of great stars flashed. Away in the forest an
owl hooted. From the wide valley came the coughing roar of a leopard.
Every now and again some night bird passed, a vague shadow in the
darkness. In silver showers the fireflies danced in the thick, hot
air. Down in the compound glow-worms showed, looking like a lot of
smouldering cigarette ends cast carelessly aside.
Upon the roof, with gaze fixed on the misty, baffling darkness that
soughed and hissed around him, Barclay stayed, until the gong took him
down to dinner.
There his junior waited, a round-faced youngster of about nineteen.
The meal was a poor repast of tinned soup, hashed tinned beef, yams and
coffee, all badly cooked and indifferently served.
During the course of the meal the youngster remarked:
"What a joke if we nabbed the Sultan Casim Ammeh, or whatever he calls
himself, and went one better than the French johnnies."
"It would be more than a joke. It would be a jolly good riddance,"
Barclay responded.
"It's queer nobody knowing where he really comes from."
"You may be sure he doesn't play his tricks anywhere near his own
headquarters. More likely than not, he and his cut-throat lot start
out disguised as peaceful merchants, in separate bands, and join up
when they reach the seat of operations. There are vast tracts of
Senegal practically unexplored. They would give endless cover to one
of his kidney."
"If you had the luck to bag him, what should you do?"
"Shoot him straight off, knowing the earth was well rid of a villain."
"But what's his idea in coming as far south as this? He's never been
heard of on this side of the Senegal River before."
"Plunder. Guns, most likely. He's heard we're none too welcome, and
hardly settled here, and thinks we shall prove an easy prey."
However, the little English force was not to prove quite the easy prey
the Sultan had imagined when he came south in quest of new weapons.
The next night, without any warning, he attacked Barclay's headquarters.
He struck at an hour when all was darkest; not with his usual swoop of
wild horsemen, but stealthily.
Unchallenged and unmolested, he and his following scaled the stockade
and crept towards the tiny fort, vague shadows moving silently in the
purple darkness.
But each night Barclay had laid a trap for his expected foe.
He knew the enemy force outnumbered his, and that his little handful
could be starved out within a week, if the Arab chief wanted to make a
siege of it.
Barclay had no intention of letting this come to pass.
He did a bold thing.
Each night, after dark, the little British garrison divided into three
units. A Hausa sergeant and fifteen men were left on the roof of the
fort. Barclay, two soldiers and one maxim gun, his junior, with two
more soldiers and the other gun, crept out from the place, and hid in
the dense undergrowth, at different points outside of the stockade;
first removing a plank here and there in the enclosure to enable them
to work their guns through.
Barclay's ruse succeeded.
Whilst the Sultan and his followers were busy trying to scale the fort
and get at the handful of men peppering at them from its roof, without
any warning there came an unexpected fusillade from, the rear. He
turned and attacked in that direction, only to find a further fusillade
pouring in on him from another point.
The Sultan sensed that he had fallen into a trap; that he was
surrounded on all sides. Sore and furious he turned to go, more
quickly than he had come. But before he had reached the stockade, the
world slipped from him suddenly.
CHAPTER V
When the skirmish was over, Barclay and his junior, with half a dozen
Hausas and a lantern or two, made a round of the compound, counting the
dead and attending to the wounded.
His own garrison was practically unscathed, but his guns had played
grim havoc with the attacking party; fully fifty dead and wounded lay
within the stockade.
Barclay went about his task cautiously. He knew Arabs and their little
ways. Giving no quarter themselves, they expected none, and would sham
death and then stab those who came to succour them.
Among the prisoners was a lean, lithe man of about forty, who appeared
more stunned than hurt from a bullet that had grazed his forehead.
Barclay came across the wounded man just when the latter was coming
back to consciousness. Although in dress he differed in no way from
the rest of his following, the knives in his belt were heavily
jewelled, and gems flashed on his brown fingers.
By the light of a lantern the Englishman scanned him, noting his array
of jewels and his cruel, arrogant, commanding face, the face of a
savage leader.
"My son," he said to the subaltern, "I believe your joke has come to
pass."
"My joke!" the youngster repeated blankly.
Then the light of understanding came to his face.
"You don't mean to say this cruel-looking cuss is the Sultan Casim
Ammeh!"
"I'd be surprised to hear he wasn't," Barclay responded.
Suspicious of his man, and knowing him to be no more than stunned, the
captain had him handcuffed and locked up in one of the inner rooms of
the fort.
When the wounded had been attended to they were left in the guardroom,
and the little garrison retired once more within the fort.
The enemy had had such a thorough beating that Barclay did not expect
another attack. For all that, he was taking no risks.
Just before daybreak, when the world was a place of curling white mist
and greyness, there came a stampede of horses. And, above the thunder
of hoofs, the wild Mohammedan war-cry.
"Deen! Deen Muhammed!"
That wild swoop and yell was the Sultan's usual way of attacking.
"It seems we didn't get our man last night," Barclay remarked, as the
guns were trained in the direction of the sound. "According to report,
this is his usual method of attack."
Out of the greyness of approaching morning a mêlée of wild horsemen
appeared. Their leader was hardly the man Barclay had pictured to
himself as the blood-stained Arab chief, but a smooth-faced youth in
white burnoose, mounted on a huge black stallion.
More than this Barclay did not wait to see. He opened fire on the
massed horsemen, his guns playing deadly havoc. Within a few minutes
their ranks broke. In wild disorder they turned and stampeded back,
soon to be lost in the screening mist.
"I don't think they'll face another dose," the junior remarked.
However, he was wrong.
Presently from out of the fog came the same wild war-cry and the
thunder of hoofs. There was another charge with sadly depleted numbers.
For reckless courage Barclay had never seen anything to equal their
youthful leader. Again and again he rallied his men and brought them
on, until finally, with only about a dozen men, he swept through the
deadly zone and on towards the fort.
In the very teeth of the Maxims his black horse literally flew over the
high stockade. But the youngster was the only one who faced the guns.
His following broke up and turned back under the fierce fusillade.
Although the leader got over the stockade alive, his horse did not. It
crashed and fell dead beneath him. With a quick side spring--a
marvellous piece of horsemanship--he avoided injury and, with drawn
sword, rushed on towards the little fort.
The Hausas would have shot down the reckless youngster, but Barclay
stopped them.
"We don't make war on children," he said in their dialect.
A closer inspection showed the leader of the Arab horde to be hardly
more than a child; a handsome boy of about fourteen who, suddenly,
realising that his followers had deserted him, now stood gazing round
in a fierce, thwarted fashion.
On finding he was alone he did not retreat, although Barclay gave him
every opportunity. Instead, he stood his ground and hurled a challenge
in Arabic at the men clustered on the top of the fort.
Since there was no reply to that, he shouted again, this time in French.
"Who and what is the youngster?" Barclay asked. "He doesn't look any
more Arabian than I do. And now he's yelling at us in pure Parisian
French."
However, nobody could find any reply. So Barclay descended alone to
interview the one remaining member of the Sultan Casim's forces.
He was hardly out in the compound before he wished he had not gone.
He had just time to draw his sword when the boy fell upon him.
Barclay was a skilled duellist, but in this wild youth from the desert
he met his match.
For all his finesse and superior height and weight, the Englishman had
his cheek laid open and his arm ripped up in the course of a minute.
Things would have gone badly with him, except that a shot from his
junior put the boy's sword arm out of action.
With a rattle his weapon fell to the ground, his arm useless at his
side.
But, even then, there was no plea for mercy. With a proud gesture he
threw up his head, facing his enemy in arrogant fashion.
"Kill me," he said in French, "but let my father live."
"Who is your father?" Barclay asked, as with a handkerchief he tried to
stop the blood gushing from his cheek.
"The Sultan Casim Ammeh," the boy answered proudly.
The reply told Barclay that the man he had under lock and key really
was the marauding Arab chief.
He scanned the boy closely.
Except for his coal-black hair and eyes and fierce, arrogant
expression, there was no resemblance between father and son. If he had
not heard to the contrary, he would have said the boy was as French as
the language he spoke.
"I've no intention of killing _you_," Barclay remarked. "On the
contrary, young man, I'm going to have your arm set and bound up before
you bleed to death."
The blood was dripping from the boy's fingers, making a pool on the
ground. But he paid no heed to his own hurt. All his thoughts were
for the Sultan Casim.
"I'm not asking mercy for myself, but for my father," he said haughtily.
"I'm afraid that's useless, considering two Governments have condemned
him."
"You will dare to kill him?"
Barclay said nothing. But his very silence was ominous.
A dazed, incredulous look crossed the boy's face.
As the Englishman watched him it seemed that, blood-stained murderer as
the Sultan was, at least this big, handsome son of his loved him.
Like one stunned, the youngster submitted to being led into the fort,
where his arm was set and his wounds bound up.
When this was done he said to Barclay:
"I'll give you wealth in jewels that will amount to three hundred
thousand francs in French money if you will let my father go free and
take my life instead."
Barclay made no reply.
"You will murder my father?" the boy went on, dreading the worst from
Barclay's silence.
The word made the Englishman wince. For it did seem like murder with
this fierce, handsome boy pleading desperately for his father's life.
Again he said nothing.
To escape from the sight of the pain and anguish his silent verdict had
aroused, Barclay went from the room, leaving the youngster in the
charge of a couple of soldiers.
About noon that day, at the hands of the British Government, the Sultan
Casim Ammeh met a well-deserved end. He met it bravely, (refusing to
be blindfolded), with a slight, cruel smile facing the guns levelled at
him.
It was evening before Barclay summoned up enough courage to meet his
youthful prisoner. And when he did, it seemed he had never seen so
much concentrated hatred on any face.
"So, you shot my father?" the boy said in a slow, savage manner.
Barclay had not come to discuss the dead malefactor. He wanted to
learn more about the son--where he had learnt his excellent French; how
he came to differ so in appearance from the Arab chief and his wild
following.
"Your father has paid the penalty of his crimes," he said quietly.
"And you shall pay the penalty of yours!" the boy cried passionately;
"for I shall kill you as you have killed my father. Your daughters I
shall sell as slaves. Your sons shall toil in chains in my city. Your
wives shall become the bondswomen of my servants. Remember, white man,
for I do not speak lightly. I will be avenged. I, Casim Ammeh, whose
father you have thought well to murder!"
The savage threats of a wild, heart-broken boy did not trouble George
Barclay much. But his mind did go to his tiny four-year-old daughter,
and he was glad she was safe in England and not within reach of this
savage lad.
At that moment he was more worried about his youthful captive than the
latter's wild threats.
He did not want to make a criminal of the boy; for, obviously, whatever
wrong he had done was done under the influence of his savage father.
And there looked to be the makings of a fine man in him, if only he had
good guidance.
Barclay decided to put the case before the French Government, together
with a suggestion of his own--that the youngster should be sent
somewhere where he could be brought up to be of use to the country, not
a constant thorn in its flesh, as his father had been.
But Captain Barclay need not have troubled himself with making plans
for the future of the youthful Sultan of El-Ammeh, for that night the
boy escaped, and his future was left in his own hands.
CHAPTER VI
After some two years out in Gambia, George Barclay returned to England.
He returned with a scar across his right cheek.
That scar was the first thing his little daughter remarked upon when
the excitement of reunion had died down.
Perched on his knee, she touched it with gentle little fingers and
kissed it with soft lips.
"Who has hurt my nice new Daddy?" she asked distressfully.
Then there followed the story of the youthful Sultan Casim Ammeh.
"Oh, what a wicked boy!" she exclaimed.
Then she glanced across at her godfather who was sitting near.
"Isn't he a bad, naughty boy, Grand-godfather, to want to kill my Daddy
and sell me as a slave?"
Henry Langham had listened to the story with interest, and very
heartily he agreed with her.
"I shall tell Bobby," the little girl went on indignantly, "and he'll
go and kill the Sultan Casim Ammeh."
"Who's Bobby?" her father asked.
"My sweetheart. Master Robert Cameron."
"So in my absence I've been cut out, have I?" her father said
teasingly. "I'm dreadfully jealous."
But Pansy snuggled closer to him, and her arms went round his neck in a
tight hug.
"There'll never be anyone as nice as my Daddy," she whispered.
George Barclay held the tiny girl closer, kissing the golden head.
Often during his months in England, Pansy would scramble on his knee
and say:
"Daddy, tell me the story of Casim Ammeh. That naughty boy who hurt
your poor face."
To Pansy it was some new Arabian Nights, vastly interesting because her
father was one of the principal characters. Although she had heard it
quite fifty times, she was ready to hear it quite fifty times more.
"But, my darling, you've heard it scores of times," Barclay said one
day.
For all that he told the story again.
Quietly she listened until the end was reached. Then she said:
"I don't like him. Not one little bit. Do you like him, Daddy?"
"To tell you the truth, Pansy, I did like him. He was a very brave
boy."
"I shall never like him, because he hurt you," she said firmly, her
little flower-like face set and determined.
"Well, my girlie, you're never likely to meet him, so it won't make
much difference to him whether you like him or not."
But--in the Book of Fate it was written otherwise.
CHAPTER VII
Somewhere off the Boulevard St. Michel there is a cabaret. The big
dancing hall has red walls painted with yellow shooting stars, and,
overhead, electric lights blaze under red and yellow shades. There is
a bar at one end, and several little tables for the patrons' use when
they tire of dancing. In the evenings a band, in seedy, red uniforms
with brass buttons, fills, with a crash of sound, an atmosphere ladened
with patchouli and cigarette smoke, and waiters, in still more seedy
dress-suits, attend to the tables. Never at any time is the gathering
select, and generally there are quite a few foreigners of all colours
present.
One night, the most noticeable among the patrons was an Englishman,
well-groomed and tailored, and a big youth of about eighteen in a
flowing white burnoose.
They were in no way connected with each other, but chance, in the shape
of their female companions, had brought them to adjacent tables.
The girl with the youngster was very pretty in a hard, metallic way,
with the white face and vivid red lips of the Parisienne, and brown
eyes, bright and polished-looking, that were about as expressionless as
pebbles. She was attired in a cheap, black evening dress, cut very
low, and about her plump throat was a coral necklace. Her hair was
elaborately dressed, and her shoes, although well worn, were tidy.
By day, Marie Hamon earned a meagre living for herself in a florist's
shop. At night, she added to her earnings in the recognized way of
quite a few of the working girls of Paris. And this particular cabaret
was one of her hunting grounds.
As Marie sat there "making eyes" at the youth in the white burnoose,
the man at the next table remarked in French, in an audible and
disgusted tone:
"Look at that girl there making up to that young nigger. A beastly
spectacle, I call it."
Before his companion had time to reply the youth was up, his black eyes
flashing, and he grasped the Englishman's shoulder in an angry,
indignant fashion.
"I am no nigger!" he cried. "I'm the Sultan Casim Ammeh."
"I don't care a damn who you are so long as you keep your black paws
off me!"
The youth's hands were not black, but deeply bronzed like his face,
which looked darker than it really was against the whiteness of his
hood.
"Take back that word," he said savagely, "or, by Allah, it shall be
wiped out in blood!"
He drew his knife. The girls screamed. Excited waiters rushed towards
the table. The mixed company stopped dancing and pressed forward to
watch what looked like the beginning of a royal row. Such incidents
were by no means unusual in the cabaret.
Only the Englishman remained calm. He grasped his opponent's wrist
quickly.
"No, you don't," he said. "You damned niggers seem to think you own
the world nowadays."
There was a brief scuffle. But the Englishman was big and heavy, and
half a dozen waiters were hanging on to the enraged and insulted youth.
His knife was wrested from his hand. He was hustled this way and that;
and, finally, worsted and smouldering, he retired, to be led to another
and more distant table by his female companion.
The episode was over in a couple of minutes. Disappointed at the lack
of bloodshed, the spectators returned to their dancing. Relieved, the
waiters went back to their various spheres. The Englishman seated
himself again as if nothing had happened. At a distant table the youth
sat and glowered at him.
"Who is that man?" he asked presently, pointing a lean forefinger at
his late opponent.
Marie shrugged her plump shoulders.
"I've never seen him here before. He looks to me like an Englishman."
With renewed interest the youth studied the distant figure, hate
smouldering in his black eyes.
So he was one of the nation who had murdered his father! This man who
had insulted him.
But, for all his hatred of the Englishman, reluctantly he admired his
coolness and his clothes.
The world had enlarged for Annette Le Breton's son since his first
experience with the English.
On escaping from Barclay, with the remaining handful of the defunct
Sultan's following, he had returned to El-Ammeh, at the age of fourteen
its recognised ruler.
The boy was not lacking in sense. Defeat at the hands of both British
and French made him decide to give up what had been the late Sultan's
chief source of income--marauding. With a wisdom beyond his years,
Casim Ammeh, as he was now always called, decided to go in for trading;
and before many years had passed he saw it was a better paying game
than marauding, despite its lack of excitement.
Then he extended his operations.
There were always caravans coming to his desert city, and a great
demand for articles that came from the Europe his mother had told him
of.
With one or two of his principal merchants he went down to St. Louis,
but he did not go as the Sultan Casim Ammeh; that name was too well
known to the French Government. Instead, he went under the name his
mother used to call him, Raoul Le Breton. And under that name he
opened a store in St. Louis.
There was a new generation in the town since his real father's day, and
the name roused no comment. It was an ordinary French one. In St.
Louis there were quite a few half-breed French-Arabs, as the youth
supposed himself to be, living and trading under European names.
His business ventures were so successful that he opened several more
stores at various points between St. Louis and his own capital; but the
whereabouts of his own city he did not divulge to strangers.
At sixteen it had seemed to the boy that St. Louis was the hub of the
universe; but at eighteen a craving that amounted to nostalgia drove
him further afield--to Paris.
And he went in Arabian garments, for he was intensely proud of his
sultanship and the desert kingdom he ruled with undisputed sway.
To his surprise, he felt wonderfully at home in his mother's city. It
did not feel as strange as St. Louis had felt, but more as if he had
once lived there and had forgotten about it.
He had been a couple of days in Paris, wandering at will, when on the
second evening his wanderings had brought him in contact with Marie
Hamon. She was by no means the first of her sort to accost him, but
she was the first he had condescended to take any notice of. She had
smiled at him as, aloof and haughty, he had stalked along the Boulevard
St. Michel, and had fallen into step beside him. He had looked at her
in a peculiar manner that was half amusement, half contempt, but he had
not shaken her off.
She had suggested they should have dinner together, and he had fallen
in with her suggestion; not exactly with alacrity, but as if he wanted
to study the girl further. For all her plump prettiness and
profession, there was a shrewd, sensible air about her. Afterwards, at
her instigation, they had repaired to the cabaret.
As the youth continued to scowl at the distant Englishman, with the
idea of preventing further trouble, Marie tried to get his mind on
other matters.
"Casim, let's have a dance?" she suggested.
"I can afford to pay for hired dancers, so why should I posture for the
benefit of others?" he asked scornfully.
She tittered.
"Well, get me another drink instead, then."
He beckoned a waiter and gave a curt order. However, he did not touch
the cheap champagne himself. Instead, he kept strictly to coffee.
"Have a drop of cognac in it to cheer you up a bit," Marie said. "You
make me feel as if I were at a funeral."
"I'm a Mohammedan, and strong drink is forbidden."
"You are the limit! I shouldn't quarrel with the good things of this
life even if I were a Mohammedan."
"By my religion women have no souls," he replied in a voice that spoke
volumes.
But Marie was not easily abashed.
"The lack of a soul doesn't trouble me in the least," she responded
lightly. "A pretty body is of greater use to a woman any day. Do you
think I'm pretty, Casim?" she finished coquettishly.
"I shouldn't be with you unless you were," he replied, as if her
question were an insult to his taste.
For some minutes there was silence. As the girl sipped her champagne
she watched her escort in a calculating manner.
"You've got lots of money, haven't you?" she said presently.
"Not as much as I intend to have," he replied.
"But enough to buy me a new frock?" she questioned.
"Fifty, if you want them."
Marie threw her arms around his neck.
"You nice boy!" she cried, kissing him soundly.
He resented her attentions, removing her arms in a none too gentle
manner.
"I object to such displays of affection in public," he said, with an
air of ruffled dignity.
"Come home with me, then," she suggested.
"Home" to Marie was an attic in a poor street. There Casim Ammeh went,
not as a victim to her charms, as she imagined, but seeing in her a
means to his own end.
The next morning as he sat at breakfast with the girl--a meagre repast
of black coffee and rolls--from somewhere out of his voluminous robes
he produced a string of pearls and dangled it before his hostess.
Marie looked at them, her mouth round with surprise, for they were real
and worth at least ten thousand francs.
"If I give you these, Marie, will you teach me to become a Frenchman?"
he asked.
"Won't I just!" she cried enthusiastically, and without hesitation
continued: "First of all we must get an apartment. And, _mon Dieu!_
yes, you must cut your hair short."
The youth wore his hair long, knotted under his hood in the Arab
fashion.
It was three months before Casim Ammeh left Paris. And he left it in a
correctly cut English suit and with his smooth, black hair brushed back
over his head. In the spick-and-span young man it would have been
difficult to recognise the barbaric youth who had come there knowing
nothing of civilised life except what his mother had told him and what
he had seen in St. Louis; and, what was more, he felt at ease in his
new garments, in spite of having worn burnoose and hood all his life.
The day before he left, Marie sat with him in the _salon_ of the pretty
flat they had occupied since the day they struck their bargain. And
she looked very different, too.
Her evening frock was no longer of shabby black. It was one of the
several elaborate gowns she now possessed, thanks to the young man.
And she no longer wore a string of coral beads about her pretty throat,
but the pearl necklace.
Although Marie had taken on the youth as a business speculation, within
a few days she loved him passionately. She was loath to let her
benefactor go, but all her wiles failed to keep him.
"When you're back in Africa you won't quite forget your little Marie
who taught you to be a man, will you?" she whispered tearfully.
Her remarks made him laugh.
"I've had women of my own for at least a year before I met you," he
replied.
It seemed to Marie she had never really known the youth who had come to
her a savage and was leaving her looking a finished man of the world.
He never talked to her of himself or his affairs. Although kind and
generous, he demanded swift obedience, and he treated her always as
something infinitely inferior to himself.
"Say you love me," she pleaded. "That you'll think of me sometimes."
"Love!" he said contemptuously. "I don't love women. I have them for
my pleasure. I'm not one of your white men who spend their days
whining at some one woman's feet pleading for favours. Women to me are
only toys. Good to look upon, if beautiful, but not so good as horses."
"Oh, you are cruel!" she said, weeping. "And I thought you loved me."
"It is the woman's place to love. There are other things in a man's
life."
Marie realised she had never had any hold on her protégé. She had been
of use to him, and he had paid her well for it, and there, as far as he
was concerned, the matter ended.
Being sensible, she sat up and dried her tears, gathering consolation
from the fact that he had been a good speculation. There would be no
immediate need to return to the florist's shop when he had gone. In
fact, if she liked to sell the necklace, she could buy a business of
her own.
"Shall you come to Paris again, Casim?" she asked.
"Oh yes, often. It's a good city, full of beautiful women who are easy
to buy."
But he made a reservation to himself.
When he came again he would come under the name his mother used to call
him--Raoul Le Breton, and he would come in European clothes. Then the
English he hated would not be able to hurl that detestable word
"nigger" at him.
CHAPTER VIII
In a select French boarding-school a girl sat reading a letter. She
was about fifteen years old, a slender, lovely child, light and
graceful, with a cascade of golden curls reaching to her waist, and
wide, purple eyes. Her complexion was perfect. She had a vivid little
red mouth, impulsive and generous, and a pink rose on each cheek.
On reading the letter, sorrow clouded her face. For it ran:--
"My Dear Little Pansy,
When you get this letter I shall be with your mother. I am leaving you
the money she would not have. And it was worth having,
|
emed in a powerful hurry to git away, sayin' as how the Archangel
Gabriel himself couldn't do business in this town."
Seeing the effect her words produced, and that even the usually
imperturbable and disdainful Deputy Sheriff was impressed by them, she
could not refrain from embroidering her statement a little.
"Now ez I come to think of it," she went on, "I did notice as how he
seemed kind of excited an' nervous like, so's he could hardly stop to
finish his breakfus'. But he took time to make me knock half-a-dollar
off his bill."
"Mac," said Blackstock sharply, turning to Red Angus MacDonald, the
village constable, "you take two of the boys an' go after the Book
Agent. Find him, an' fetch him back. But no funny business with him,
mind you. We hain't got a spark of evidence agin him. We jest want him
as a witness, mind."
The crowd's excitement was somewhat damped by this pronouncement, and
Hawker's exasperating voice was heard to drawl:
"No _evidence_, hey? Ef that ain't _evidence_, him skinnin' out that way
afore sun-up, I'd like to know what is!"
But to this and similar comments Tug Blackstock paid no heed whatever.
He hurried on down the road toward the scene of the tragedy, his lean
jaws working grimly upon a huge chew of tobacco, the big, black dog not
now at his heels but trotting a little way ahead and casting from one
side of the road to the other, nose to earth. The crowd came on behind,
but Blackstock waved them back.
"I don't want none o' ye to come within fifty paces of me, afore I tell
ye to," he announced with decision. "Keep well back, all of ye, or ye'll
mess up the tracks."
But this proved a decree too hard to be enforced for any length of time.
When he arrived at the place where the game-warden kept watch beside the
murdered man, Blackstock stood for a few moments in silence, looking
down upon the body of his friend with stony face and brooding eyes. In
spite of his grief, his practised observation took in the whole scene to
the minutest detail, and photographed it upon his memory for reference.
The body lay with face and shoulder and one leg and arm in a deep,
stagnant pool by the roadside. The head was covered with black, clotted
blood from a knife-wound in the neck. Close by, in the middle of the
road, lay a stout leather satchel, gaping open, and quite empty. Two
small memorandum books, one shut and the other with white leaves
fluttering, lay near the bag. Though the roadway at this point was dry
and hard, it bore some signs of a struggle, and toward the edge of the
water there were several little, dark, caked lumps of puddled dust.
Blackstock first examined the road minutely, all about the body, but the
examination, even to such a practised eye as his, yielded little result.
The ground was too hard and dusty to receive any legible trail, and,
moreover, it had been carelessly over-trodden by the game-warden and his
son. But whether he found anything of interest or not, Blackstock's
grim, impassive face gave no sign.
At length he went over to the body, and lifted it gently. The coat and
shirt were soaked with blood, and showed marks of a fierce struggle.
Blackstock opened the shirt, and found the fatal wound, a knife-thrust
which had been driven upwards between the ribs. He laid the body down
again, and at the same time picked up a piece of paper, crumpled and
blood-stained, which had lain beneath it. He spread it open, and for a
moment his brows contracted as if in surprise and doubt. It was one of
the order forms for "Mother, Home, and Heaven."
He folded it up and put it carefully between the leaves of the note-book
which he always carried in his pocket.
Stephens, who was close beside him, had caught a glimpse of the paper,
and recognized it.
"Say!" he exclaimed, under his breath. "I never thought o' _him_!"
But Blackstock only shook his head slowly, and called the big black dog,
which had been waiting all this time in an attitude of keen expectancy,
with mouth open and tail gently wagging.
"Take a good look at him, Jim," said Blackstock.
The dog sniffed the body all over, and then looked up at his master as
if for further directions.
"An' now take a sniff at this." And he pointed to the rifled bag.
"What do you make of it?" he inquired when the dog had smelt it all over
minutely.
Jim stood motionless, with ears and tail drooping, the picture of
irresolution and bewilderment.
Blackstock took out again the paper which he had just put away, and
offered it to the dog, who nosed it carefully, then looked at the dead
body beside the pool, and growled softly.
"Seek him, Jim," said Blackstock.
At once the dog ran up again to the body, and back to the open book.
Then he fell to circling about the bag, nose to earth, seeking to pick
up the elusive trail.
At this point the crowd from the village, unable longer to restrain
their eagerness, surged forward, led by Hawker, and closed in,
effectually obliterating all trails. Jim growled angrily, showing his
long white teeth, and drew back beside the body as if to guard it.
Blackstock stood watching his action with a brooding scrutiny.
"What's that bit o' paper ye found under him, Tug?" demanded Hawker
vehemently.
"None o' yer business, Sam," replied the deputy, putting the
blood-stained paper back into his pocket.
"I seen what it was," shouted Hawker to the rest of the crowd. "It was
one o' them there dokyments that the book agent had, up to the store. I
always _said_ as how 'twas him."
"We'll ketch him!" "We'll string him up!" yelled the crowd, starting
back along the road at a run.
"Don't be sech fools!" shouted Blackstock. "Hold on! Come back I tell
ye!"
But he might as well have shouted to a flock of wild geese on their
clamorous voyage through the sky. Fired by Sam Hawker's exhortations,
they were ready to lynch the black-whiskered stranger on sight.
Blackstock cursed them in a cold fury.
"I'll _hev_ to go after them, Andy," said he, "or there'll be trouble
when they find that there book agent."
"Better give 'em their head, Tug," protested the warden. "Guess he done
it all right. He'll git no more'n's good for him."
"_Maybe_ he did it, an' then agin, maybe he didn't," retorted the
Deputy, "an' anyways, they're just plumb looney now. You stay here, an'
I'll follow them up. Send Bob back to the Ridge to fetch the coroner."
He turned and started on the run in pursuit of the shouting crowd,
whistling at the same time for the dog to follow him. But to his
surprise Jim did not obey instantly. He was very busy digging under a
big whitish stone at the other side of the pool. Blackstock halted.
"Jim," he commanded angrily, "git out o' that! What d'ye mean by foolin'
about after woodchucks a time like this? Come here!"
Jim lifted his head, his muzzle and paws loaded with fresh earth, and
gazed at his master for a moment. Then, with evident reluctance, he
obeyed. But he kept looking back over his shoulder at the big white
stone, as if he hated to leave it.
"There's a lot o' ordinary pup left in that there dawg yet," explained
Blackstock apologetically to the game-warden.
"There ain't a dawg ever lived that wouldn't want to dig out a
woodchuck," answered Stephens.
III
The black-whiskered stranger had been overtaken by his pursuers about
ten miles beyond Brine's Rip, sleeping away the heat of the day under a
spreading birch tree a few paces off the road. He was sleeping
soundly--too soundly indeed, as thought the experienced constable, for a
man with murder on his soul.
But when he was roughly aroused and seized, he seemed so terrified that
his captors were all the more convinced of his guilt. He made no
resistance as he was being hurried along the road, only clinging firmly
to his black leather case, and glancing with wild eyes from side to side
as if nerving himself to a desperate dash for liberty.
When he had gathered, however, a notion of what he was wanted for, to
the astonishment of his captors, his terror seemed to subside--a fact
which the constable noted narrowly. He steadied his voice enough to ask
several questions about the murder--questions to which reply was curtly
refused. Then he walked on in a stolid silence, the ruddy colour
gradually returning to his face.
A couple of miles before reaching Brine's Rip, the second search party
came in sight, the Deputy Sheriff at the head of it and the shaggy black
form of Jim close at his heels. With a savage curse Hawker sprang
forward, and about half the party with him, as if to snatch the prisoner
from his captors and take instant vengeance upon him.
But Blackstock was too quick for them. The swiftest sprinter in the
county, he got to the other party ahead of the mob and whipped around to
face them, with one hand on the big revolver at his hip and Jim showing
his teeth beside him. The constable and his party, hugely astonished,
but confident that Blackstock's side was the right one to be on, closed
protectingly around the prisoner, whose eyes now almost bulged from his
head.
"You keep right back, boys," commanded the Deputy in a voice of steel.
"The law will look after this here prisoner, if he's the guilty one."
"Fur as we kin see, there ain't no 'if' about it," shouted Hawker,
almost frothing at the mouth. "That's the man as done it, an' we're
agoin' to string 'im up fer it right now, for fear he might git off some
way atween the jedges an' the lawyers. You keep out of it now, Tug."
About half the crowd surged forward with Hawker in front. Up came
Blackstock's gun.
"Ye know me, boys," said he. "Keep back."
They kept back. They all _fell_ back, indeed, some paces, except Hawker,
who held his ground, half crouching, his lips distorted in a snarl of
rage.
"Aw now, quit it, Sam," urged one of his followers. "'Tain't worth it.
An' Tug's right, anyways. The law's good enough, with Tug to the back of
it." And putting forth a long arm he dragged Hawker back into the crowd.
"Put away yer gun, Tug," expostulated another. "Seein's ye feel that way
about it, we won't interfere."
Blackstock stuck the revolver back into his belt with a grin.
"Glad ye've come back to yer senses, boys," said he, perceiving that the
crisis was over. "But keep an eye on Hawker for a bit yet. Seems to 'ave
gone clean off his head."
"Don't fret, Tug. We'll look after him," agreed several of his comrades
from the mill, laying firmly persuasive hands upon the excited man, who
cursed them for cowards till they began to chaff him roughly.
"What's makin' you so sore, Sam?" demanded one. "Did the book agent try
to make up to Sis Hopkins?"
"No, it's Tug that Sis is making eyes at now," suggested another.
"That's what's puttin' Sam so off his nut."
"Leave the lady's name out of it, boys," interrupted Blackstock, in a
tone that carried conviction.
"Quit that jaw now, Sam," interposed another, changing the subject, "an'
tell us what ye've done with that fancy belt o' yourn 'at ye're so proud
of. We hain't never seen ye without it afore."
"That's so," chimed in the constable. "That accounts for his
foolishness. Sam _ain't_ himself without that fancy belt."
Hawker stopped his cursing and pulled himself together with an effort,
as if only now realizing that his followers had gone over completely to
the side of the law and Tug Blackstock.
"Busted the buckle," he explained quickly. "Mend it when I git time."
"Now, boys," said Blackstock presently, "we'll git right back along to
where poor Jake's still layin', and there we'll ask this here stranger
what _he_ knows about it. It's there, if anywheres, where we're most
likely to git some light on the subject. I've sent over to the Ridge fer
the coroner, an' poor Jake can't be moved till he comes."
The book agent, his confidence apparently restored by the attitude of
Blackstock, now let loose a torrent of eloquence to explain how glad he
would be to tell all he knew, and how sorry he was that he knew nothing,
having merely had a brief conversation with poor Mr. Sanderson on the
morning of the previous day.
"Ye'll hev lots o' time to tell us all that when we're askin' ye,"
answered Blackstock. "Now, take my advice an' keep yer mouth shet."
As Blackstock was speaking, Jim slipped in alongside the prisoner and
rubbed against him with a friendly wag of the tail as if to say:
"Sorry to see you in such a hole, old chap."
Some of the men laughed, and one who was more or less a friend of
Hawker's, remarked sarcastically:
"Jim don't seem quite so discriminatin' as usual, Tug."
"Oh, I don't know," replied the Deputy drily, noting the dog's attitude
with evident interest. "Time will show. Ye must remember a man ain't
_necessarily_ a murderer jest because he wears black side-lights an'
tries to sell ye a book that ain't no good."
"No good!" burst out the prisoner, reddening with indignation. "You show
me another book that's half as good, at double the price, an' I'll give
you--"
"Shet up, you!" ordered the Deputy, with a curious look. "This ain't no
picnic ye're on, remember."
Then some one, as if for the first time, thought of the money for which
Sanderson had been murdered.
"Why don't ye search him, Tug?" he demanded. "Let's hev a look in that
there black knapsack."
"Ye bloomin' fool," shouted Hawker, again growing excited, "ye don't
s'pose he'd be carryin' it on him, do ye? He'd hev it buried somewheres
in the woods, where he could git it later."
"Right ye are, Sam," agreed the Deputy. "The man as done the deed ain't
likely to carry the evidence around on him. But all the same we'll
search the prisoner bime-by."
By the time the strange procession had got back to the scene of the
tragedy it had been swelled by half the population of the village. At
Blackstock's request, Zeb Smith, the proprietor of the store, who was
also a magistrate, swore in a score of special constables to keep back
the crowd while awaiting the arrival of the coroner. Under the
magistrate's orders--which satisfied Blackstock's demand for strict
formality of procedure--the prisoner was searched, and could not refrain
from showing a childish triumph when nothing was found upon him.
Passing from abject terror to a ridiculous over-confidence, he with
difficulty restrained himself from seizing the opportunity to harangue
the crowd on the merits of "Mother, Home, and Heaven." His face was
wreathed in fatuous smiles as he saw the precious book snatched from its
case and passed around mockingly from hand to hand. He certainly did not
look like a murderer, and several of the crowd, including Stephens, the
game-warden, began to wonder if they had not been barking up the wrong
tree.
"I've got the idee," remarked Stephens, "it'd take a baker's dozen o'
that chap to do in Jake Sanderson that way. The skate as killed Jake was
some man, anyways."
"I'd like to know," sneered Hawker, "how ye're going to account for that
piece o' paper, the book-agent's paper, 'at Tug Blackstock found there
under the body."
"Aw, shucks!" answered the game-warden, "that's easy. He's been a-sowin'
'em round the country so's anybody could git hold of 'em, same's you er
me, Sam!"
This harmless, if ill-timed pleasantry appeared to Hawker, in his
excitement, a wanton insult. His lean face went black as thunder, and
his lips worked with some savage retort that would not out. But at that
instant came a strange diversion. The dog Jim, who under Blackstock's
direction had been sniffing long and minutely at the clothes of the
murdered man, at the rifled leather bag, and at the ground all about,
came suddenly up to Hawker and stood staring at him with a deep,
menacing growl, while the thick hair rose stiffly along his back.
For a moment there was dead silence save for that strange accusing
growl. Hawker's face went white to the lips. Then, in a blaze of fury he
yelled:
"Git out o' that! I'll teach ye to come showin' yer teeth at me!" And he
launched a savage kick at the animal.
"JIM!! Come here!" rapped out the command of Tug Blackstock, sharp as a
rifle shot. And Jim, who had eluded the kick, trotted back, still
growling, to his master.
"Whatever ye been doin' to Jim, Sam?" demanded one of the mill hands. "I
ain't never seen him act like that afore."
"He's _always_ had a grudge agin me," panted Hawker, "coz I had to give
him a lickin' once."
"Now ye're lyin', Sam Hawker," said Blackstock quietly. "Ye know right
well as how you an' Jim were good friends only yesterday at the store,
where I saw ye feedin' him. An' I don't think likely ye've ever given
Jim a lickin'. It don't _sound_ probable."
"Seems to me there's a lot of us has gone a bit off their nut over this
thing, an' not much wonder, neither," commented the game-warden. "Looks
like Sam Hawker has gone plumb crazy. An' now there's Jim, the
sensiblest dog in the world, with lots more brains than most men-kind,
foolin' away his time like a year-old pup a-tryin' to dig out a darn old
woodchuck hole."
Such, in fact, seemed to be Jim's object. He was digging furiously with
both forepaws beneath the big white stone on the opposite side of the
pool.
"He's bit me. I'll kill him," screamed Hawker, his face distorted and
foam at the corners of his lips. He plucked his hunting-knife from its
sheath, and leapt forward wildly, with the evident intention of darting
around the pool and knifing the dog.
But Blackstock, who had been watching him intently, was too quick for
him.
"No, ye don't, Sam!" he snapped, catching him by the wrist with such a
wrench that the bright blade fell to the ground. With a scream, Hawker
struck at his face, but Blackstock parried the blow, tripped him neatly,
and fell on him.
"Hold him fast, boys," he ordered. "Seems like he's gone mad. Don't let
him hurt himself."
In five seconds the raving man was trussed up helpless as a chicken, his
hands tied behind his back, his legs lashed together at the knees, so
that he could neither run nor kick. Then he was lifted to his feet, and
held thus, inexorably but with commiseration.
"Sorry to be rough with ye, Sam," said one of the constables, "but ye've
gone crazy as a bed-bug."
"Never knowed Sam was such a friend o' Jake's!" muttered another, with
deepest pity.
But Blackstock stood close beside the body of the murdered man, and
watched with a face of granite the efforts of Jim to dig under the big
white stone. His absorption in such an apparently frivolous matter
attracted the notice of the crowd. A hush fell upon them all, broken
only by the hoarse, half-smothered ravings of Sam Hawker.
"'Tain't no woodchuck Jim's diggin' for, you see!" muttered one of the
constables to the puzzled Stephens.
"Tug don't seem to think so, neither," agreed Stephens.
"Angus," said Blackstock in a low, strained voice to the constable who
had just spoken, "would ye mind stepping round an' givin' Jim a lift
with that there stone!"
The constable hastened to obey. As he approached, Jim looked up, his
face covered thickly with earth, wagged his tail in greeting, then fell
to work again with redoubled energy.
The constable set both hands under the stone, and with a huge heave
turned it over. With a yelp of delight Jim plunged his head into the
hole, grabbed something in his mouth, and tore around the pool with it.
The something was long and whitish, and trailed as he ran. He laid it at
Blackstock's feet.
Blackstock held it up so that all might see it. It was a painted Indian
belt, and it was stained and smeared with blood. The constable picked
out of the hole a package of bills.
For some moments no one spoke, and even the ravings of Hawker were
stilled.
Then Tug Blackstock spoke, while every one, as if with one consent,
turned his eyes away from the face of Sam Hawker, unwilling to see a
comrade's shame and horror.
"This is a matter now for jedge and jury, boys," said he in a voice that
was grave and stern. "But I think you'll all agree that we hain't no
call to detain this gentleman, who's been put to so much inconvenience
all on account of our little mistake."
"Don't mention it, don't mention it," protested the book agent, as his
guards, with profuse apologies, released him. "That's a mighty
intelligent dawg o' yours, Mr. Blackstock."
"He's sure done _you_ a good turn this day, mister," replied the Deputy
grimly.
III. THE HOLE IN THE TREE
I
It was Woolly Billy who discovered the pile--notes and silver, with a
few stray gold pieces--so snugly hidden under the fish-hawk's nest.
The fish-hawk's nest was in the crotch of the old, half-dead rock-maple
on the shore of the desolate little lake which lay basking in the
flat-lands about a mile back, behind Brine's Rip Mills.
As the fish-hawk is one of the most estimable of all the wilderness
folk, both brave and inoffensive, troubling no one except the fat and
lazy fish that swarmed in the lake below, and as he is protected by a
superstition of the backwoodsmen, who say it brings ill-luck to disturb
the domestic arrangements of a fish-hawk, the big nest, conspicuous for
miles about, was never disturbed by even the most amiable curiosity.
But Woolly Billy, not fully acclimatized to the backwoods tradition and
superstition, and uninformed as to the firmness and decision with which
the fish-hawks are apt to resent any intrusion, had long hankered to
explore the mysteries of that great nest. One morning he made up his
mind to try it.
Tug Blackstock, Deputy Sheriff of Nipsiwaska County, was away for a day
or two, and old Mrs. Amos, his housekeeper, was too deaf and rheumatic
to "fuss herself" greatly about the "goings-on" of so fantastic a child
as Woolly Billy, so long as she knew he had Jim to look after him. This
serves to explain how a small boy like Woolly Billy, his
seven-years-and-nine-months resting lightly on his amazingly fluffy
shock of pale flaxen curls, could be trotting off down the lonely
backwoods trail with no companion or guardian but a big, black dog.
Woolly Billy was familiar with the mossy old trail to the lake, and did
not linger upon it. Reaching the shore, he wasted no time throwing
sticks in for Jim to retrieve, but, in spite of the dog's eager
invitations to this pastime, made his way along the dry edge between
undergrowth and water till he came to the bluff. Pushing laboriously
through the hot, aromatic-scented tangle of bushes, he climbed to the
foot of the old maple, which looked dwarfed by the burden of the huge
nest carried in its crotch.
Woolly Billy was an expert tree-climber, but this great trunk presented
new problems. Twice he went round it, finding no likely spot to begin.
Then, certain roughnesses tempted him, and he succeeded in drawing
himself up several feet. Serene in the consciousness of his good
intentions, he struggled on. He gained perhaps another foot. Then he
stuck. He pulled hard upon a ragged edge of bark, trying to work his way
further around the trunk. A patch of bark came away suddenly in his grip
and he fell backwards with a startled cry.
He fell plump on Jim, rolled off into the bushes, picked himself up,
shook the hair out of his eyes and stood staring up at a round hole in
the trunk where the patch of bark had been.
A hole in a tree is always interesting. It suggests such possibilities.
Forgetting his scratches, Woolly Billy made haste to climb up again, in
spite of Jim's protests. He peered eagerly into the hole. But he could
see nothing. And he was cautious--for one could never tell what lived in
a hole like that--or what the occupant, if there happened to be any,
might have to say to an intruder. He would not venture his hand into the
unknown. He slipped down, got a bit of stick and thrust _that_ into the
hole. There was no result, but he learnt that the hole was shallow. He
stirred the stick about. There came a slight jingling sound in return.
Woolly Billy withdrew the stick and thought for a moment. He reasoned
that a thing that jingled was not at all likely to bite. He dropped the
stick and cautiously inserted his hand to the full length of his little
arm. His fingers grasped something which felt more or less familiar, and
he drew forth a bank-note and several silver coins.
Woolly Billy's eyes grew very round and large as he stared at his
handful. He was sure that money did not grow in hollow trees. Tug
Blackstock kept _his_ money in an old black wallet. Woolly Billy liked
money because it bought peppermints, and molasses candy, and gingerpop.
But this money was plainly not his. He reluctantly put it back into the
hole.
Thoughtfully he climbed down. He knew that money was such a desirable
thing that it led some people--bad people whom Tug Blackstock hated--to
steal what did not belong to them. He picked up the patch of bark and
laboriously fitted it back into its place over the hole, lest some of
these bad people should find the money and appropriate it.
"Not a word, now, not one single word," he admonished Jim, "till Tug
comes home. We'll tell him all about it."
II
It was five o'clock in the sleepy summer afternoon, and the flies buzzed
drowsily among the miscellaneous articles that graced the windows of the
Corner Store. The mills had shut down early, because the supply of logs
was running low in the boom, and no more could be expected until there
should be a rise of water. Some half-dozen of the mill hands were
sitting about the store on nail-kegs and soap-boxes, while Zeb Smith,
the proprietor, swung his long legs lazily from the edge of the littered
counter.
Woolly Billy came in with a piece of silver in his little fist to buy a
packet of tea for Mrs. Amos. Jim, not liking the smoke, stayed outside
on the plank sidewalk, and snapped at flies. The child, who was regarded
as the mascot of Brine's Rip Mills, was greeted with a fire of solemn
chaff, which he received with an impartial urbanity.
"Oh, quit coddin' the kiddie, an' don't try to be so smart," growled
Long Jackson, the Magadavy river-man, lifting his gaunt length from a
pile of axe-handles, and thrusting his fist deep into his trousers'
pocket. "Here, Zeb, give me a box of peppermints for Woolly Billy. He
hain't been in to see us this long while."
He pulled out a handful of coins and dollar bills, and proceeded to
select a silver bit from the collection. The sight was too much for
Woolly Billy, bursting with his secret.
"_I_ know where there's _lots_ more money like that," he blurted out
proudly, "in a hole in a tree."
During the past twelve months or more there had been thefts of money,
usually of petty sums, in Brine's Rip Mills and the neighbourhood, and
all Tug Blackstock's detective skill had failed to gain the faintest
clue to the perpetrator. Suspicions there had been, but all had vanished
into thin air at the touch of investigation. Woolly Billy's amazing
statement, therefore, was like a little bombshell in the shop.
Every one of his audience stiffened up with intense interest.
One swarthy, keen-featured, slim-waisted, half-Indian-looking fellow,
with the shapely hands and feet that mark so many of the Indian
mixed-bloods, was sitting on a bale of homespun behind Long Jackson, and
smoking solemnly with half-closed lids. His eyes opened wide for a
fraction of a second, and darted one searching glance at the child's
face. Then he dropped his lids slowly once more till the eyes were all
but closed. The others all stared eagerly at Woolly Billy.
Pleased with the interest he had excited, Woolly Billy glanced about
him, and shook back his mop of pale curls self-consciously.
"_Lots_ more!" he repeated. "Big handfuls."
Then he remembered his discretion, his resolve to tell no one but Tug
Blackstock about his discovery. Seeking to change the subject, he beamed
upon Long Jackson.
"Thank you, Long," he said politely. "I _love_ peppermints. An' Jim
loves them, too."
"_Where_ did you say that hole in the tree was?" asked Long Jackson,
reaching for the box that held the peppermints, and ostentatiously
filling a generous paper-bag.
Woolly Billy looked apologetic and deprecating.
"Please, Long, if you don't mind _very_ much, I can't tell anybody but
Tug Blackstock _that_."
Jackson laid the bag of peppermints a little to one side, as if to
convey that their transfer was contingent upon Woolly Billy's behaviour.
The child looked wistfully at the coveted sweets; then his red lips
compressed themselves with decision and resentment.
"I won't tell anybody but Tug Blackstock, _of course_," said he. "An' I
don't want any peppermints, thank you, Long."
He picked up his package of tea and turned to leave the shop, angry at
himself for having spoken of the secret and angry at Jackson for trying
to get ahead of Tug Blackstock. Jackson, looking annoyed at the rebuff,
extended his leg and closed the door. Woolly Billy's blue eyes blazed.
One of the other men strove to propitiate him.
"Oh, come on, Woolly Billy," he urged coaxingly, "don't git riled at
Long. You an' him's pals, ye know. We're all pals o' yourn, an' of
Tug's. An' there ain't no harm _at all_, at all, in yer showin' us this
'ere traysure what you've lit on to. Besides, you know there's likely
some o' that there traysure belongs to us 'uns here. Come on now, an'
take us to yer hole in the tree."
"Ye ain't agoin' to git out o' this here store, Woolly Billy, I tell ye
that, till ye promise to take us to it right off," said Long Jackson
sharply.
Woolly Billy was not alarmed in the least by this threat. But he was so
furious that for a moment he could not speak. He could do nothing but
stand glaring up at Long Jackson with such fiery defiance that the
good-natured mill-hand almost relented. But it chanced that he was one
of the sufferers, and he was in a hurry to get his money back. At this
point the swarthy woodsman on the bale of homespun opened his narrow
eyes once again, took the pipe from his mouth, and spoke up.
"Quit plaguin' the kid, Long," he drawled. "The cash'll be all there
when Tug Blackstock gits back, an' it'll save a lot of trouble an'
misunderstandin', havin' him to see to dividin' it up fair an' square.
Let Woolly Billy out."
Long Jackson shook his head obstinately, and opened his mouth to reply,
but at this moment Woolly Billy found his voice.
"Let me out! Let me out! _Let me out!_" he screamed shrilly, stamping
his feet and clenching his little fists.
Instantly a heavy body was hurled upon the outside of the door, striving
to break it in.
Zeb Smith swung his long legs down from the counter hurriedly.
"The kid's right, an' Black Dan's right. Open the door, Long, an' do it
quick. I don't want that there dawg comin' through the winder. An' he'll
be doin' it, too, in half a jiff."
"Git along, then, Woolly, if ye insist on it. But no more peppermints,
mind," growled Jackson, throwing open the door and stepping back
discreetly. As he did so, Jim came in with a rush, just saving himself
from knocking Woolly Billy over. One swift glance assured him that the
child was all right, but very angry about something.
"It's all right, Jim. Come with me," said Woolly Billy, tugging at the
animal's collar. And the pair stalked away haughtily side by side.
III
Tug Blackstock arrived the next morning about eleven. Before he had time
to sit down for a cup of that strenuous black tea which the woodsmen
consume at all hours, he had heard from Woolly Billy's eager lips the
story of the hole in the tree beneath the fish-hawk's nest. He heard
also of the episode at Zeb Smith's store, but Woolly Billy by this time
had quite forgiven Long Jackson, so the incident was told in such a way
that Blackstock had no reason to take offence.
"Long tried _hard_," said the child, "to get me to tell where that hole
was, but I _wouldn't_. And Black Dan was awful nice, an' made him stop
botherin' me, an' said I was quite right not to tell _anybody_ till you
came home, coz you'd know just what to do."
"H'm!" said the Deputy-Sheriff thoughtfully, "Long's had a lot of money
stole from him, so, of course, he wanted to git his eyes on to that hole
quick. But 'tain't like Black Dan to be that thoughtful. Maybe he
_hasn't_ had none taken."
While he was speaking, a bunch of the mill-hands arrived at the door,
word of Blackstock's return having gone through the village
|
in a low circle upon the horizon, had
looked angry in the morning, and there had been a threat of storm,
which, as was always the case, had excited and agitated me. But since
mid-day the clouds had dispersed, the sun was free in a clear sky, the
thunder was only muttering at a single point, rolling slowly through the
depths of a heavy cloud which, seeming to unite earth and heaven,
blended with the dust of the fields, and was furrowed by pale zig-zags
of distant lightning. It was evident that for us at least there was no
more to be dreaded for that day. In the part of the road running behind
the garden there was continual sound and motion, now the slow, long
grind of a wagon loaded with sheaves, now the quick jolt of the empty
telégas[B] as they passed each other, or the rapid steps of the
drivers, whose white smocks we could see fluttering as they hurried
along. The thick dust neither blew away nor fell, it remained suspended
above the hedges, a hazy background for the clear green leaves of the
garden trees. Farther off, about the barn, resounded more voices, more
grinding wheels; and I could see the yellow sheaves, brought in the
carts to the enclosure, being tossed off into the air, and heaped up,
until at length I could distinguish the stacks, rising like oval
sharp-roofed buildings, and the silhouettes of the peasants swarming
about them. Presently, there were new _telégas_ moving in the dusty
fields, new piles of yellow sheaves, and in the distance the wheels, the
voices, the chanted songs.
The dust and heat invaded everything, except our little favorite nook of
the garden. Yet on all sides, in the dust and heat, the blaze of the
burning sun, the throng of laborers chattered, made merry, and kept in
continual movement. As for me, I looked at Macha, sleeping so sweetly on
our bench, her face shaded by her cambric handkerchief; the black juicy
cherries on the plate; our light, dazzlingly clean dresses, the carafe
of clear water, where the sun's rays were playing in a little rainbow;
and I felt a sense of rare comfort. "What must I do?" thought I;
"perhaps it is wicked to be so happy? But can we diffuse our happiness
around us? How, and to whom, can we wholly consecrate
ourselves--ourselves and this very happiness?"
The sun had disappeared behind the tops of the old birch-trees bordering
the path, the dust had subsided; the distances of the landscape stood
out, clear and luminous, under the slanting rays; the clouds had
dispersed entirely, long ago; on the other side of the trees I could
see, near the barn, the pointed tops rise upon three new stacks of
grain, and the peasants descend from them; finally, for the last time
that day, the _telégas_ passed rapidly, making the air resound with
their noisy jolts; the women were going homewards, singing, their rakes
on their shoulders, and their binding withes hanging at their girdles;
and still Sergius Mikaïlovitch did not come, although long ago I had
seen him at the foot of the mountain. Suddenly he appeared at the end of
the path, from a direction where I had not been looking for him at all,
for he had to skirt the ravine to reach it. Raising his hat he came
towards me, his face lighted up with sudden joy. At the sight of Macha,
still asleep, his eyes twinkled, he bit his lip, and began tip-toeing
elaborately. I saw at once that he was in one of those fits of causeless
gayety which I liked so much in him, and which, between ourselves, we
called "_le transport sauvage_." At such times he was like a boy just
let out of school, his whole self from head to foot instinct with
delight and happiness.
"How do you do, little violet, how goes the day with you? Well?" said
he, in a low voice, coming near and pressing my hand.... "And with me?
oh, charmingly, also!" he replied to my similar question, "to-day I am
really not over thirteen years old; I would like to ride a
stick-horse,--I want to climb the trees!"
"_Le transport sauvage!_" I commented, looking into his laughing eyes,
and feeling this _transport sauvage_ take possession of me also.
"Yes," he murmured, at the same time raising his eyebrows with an
enquiring glance, and keeping back a smile. "But why are you so furious
with our poor Macha Karlovna?"
In fact I then became conscious that, while I was gazing up at him and
continuing to brandish my linden bough, I had whipped off Macha's
handkerchief, and was sweeping her face with the leaves. I could not
help laughing.
"And she will say she has not been asleep," I said, whispering, as if
afraid of waking her; but I did not do it altogether for that,--it was
so delightful to whisper when I spoke to him!
He moved his lips in almost dumb show, imitating me, and as if he, on
his side, was saying something that no one else must hear. Then, spying
the plate of cherries, he pretended to seize it and carry it off by
stealth, running away towards Sonia, and dropping on the grass under the
linden-tree in the midst of her accumulation of dolls. Sonia was about
to fly into a little rage, but he made peace with her by proposing a
new game, the point of which lay in seeing which of the two could devour
the most cherries.
"Shall I order some more?" I asked, "or shall we go gather them for
ourselves?"
He picked up the plate, piled Sonia's dolls in it, and we all three
started for the cherry orchard. Sonia, shouting with laughter, trotted
after him, tugging at his coat to make him give her back her family. He
did so; and turning gravely to me:
"Come, how can you convince me that you are not a violet?" he said,
still speaking very low, though there was now no one for him to be
afraid of waking; "as soon as I came near you, after having been through
so much dust and heat and fatigue, I seemed to perceive the fragrance of
a violet, not, it is true, that violet with the powerful perfume, but
the little early one, you know, which steals out first, still modest, to
breathe at once the expiring snow and the springing grass...."
"But, tell me, is the harvest coming on well?" I put in hastily, to
cover the happy confusion his words caused me.
"Wonderfully! what excellent people these all are,--the more one knows
them, the more one loves them."
"Oh, yes!--A little while ago, before you came, I sat watching their
work, and it really went to my conscience to see them toiling so
faithfully, while I was just idly taking my ease, and...."
"Do not play with these sentiments, Katia," he interrupted, with a
serious manner, giving me at the same time a caressing glance, "there is
holy work there. May God guard you from _posing_ in such matters!"
"But it was only to you that I said that!"
"I know it.--Well, and our cherries?"
The cherry orchard was locked, not a single gardener was to be found (he
had sent them all to the harvest fields). Sonia ran off to look for the
key; but, without waiting for her return, he climbed up at a corner by
catching hold of the meshes of the net, and jumped down inside the
wall.
"Will you give me the plate?" he asked me, from within.
"No, I want to gather some, myself; I will go get the key, I doubt if
Sonia can find it."
But at that moment a sudden fancy seized me, to find out what he was
doing there, how he looked, in short his demeanor when he supposed no
one could see him. Or rather, honestly, perhaps just then I did not feel
like losing sight of him for a single instant. So on my tip-toes,
through the nettles, I made a circuit around the little orchard and
gained the opposite side, where the enclosure was lower; there, stepping
up on an empty tub, I found the wall but breast-high, and leaned over. I
made a survey of everything within; looked at the crooked old trees, the
large serrated leaves, the black, vertical clusters of juicy fruit; and,
slipping my head under the net, I could observe Sergius Mikaïlovitch
through the twisted boughs of an old cherry-tree. He was certainly
confident that I had gone, and that no one could see him.
With bared head and closed eyes he was sitting on the mouldering trunk
of an old tree, absently rolling between his fingers a bit of
cherry-gum. All at once, he opened his eyes, and murmured something,
with a smile. The word and smile were so little in keeping with what I
knew of him that I was ashamed of having watched him. It really seemed
to me that the word was: Katia! "That cannot be!" I said to myself.
"Dear Katia!" he repeated lower, and still more tenderly. And this time
I heard the two words distinctly. My heart began to beat so fast, I was
so filled with joyful emotion, I even felt, as it were, such a kind of
shock, that I had to hold on to the wall with both hands, to keep myself
from falling, and so betraying myself. He heard my movement, and glanced
behind him, startled; then suddenly casting down his eyes he blushed,
reddening like a child. He made an effort to speak to me, but could not,
and this failure made his face grow deeper and deeper scarlet. Yet he
smiled as he looked at me. I smiled at him too. He looked all alive with
happiness; this was no longer, then,--oh, no, this _was_ no longer an
old uncle lavishing cares and caresses upon me; I had there before my
eyes a man on my own level, loving me and fearing me; a man whom I
myself feared, and loved. We did not speak, we only looked at each
other. But suddenly he bent his brows darkly; smile and glow went out of
his eyes simultaneously, and his bearing became again cold and fatherly,
as if we had been doing something wrong, as if he had regained control
of himself and was counselling me to do the same.
"Get down from there, you will hurt yourself," said he. "And arrange
your hair; you ought to see what you look like!"
"Why does he dissemble so? Why does he wish to wound me?" I thought,
indignantly. And at the moment came an irresistible desire to move him
again, and to try my power over him.
"No, I want to gather some cherries, myself," I said; and grasping a
neighboring bough with my hands, I swung myself over the wall. He had
no time to catch me, I dropped to the ground in the middle of the little
space.
"What folly is this?" he exclaimed, flushing again, and endeavoring to
conceal his alarm under a semblance of anger. "You might injure
yourself! And how are you going to get out?"
He was much more perturbed than when he first caught sight of me; but
now this agitation no longer gladdened me, on the contrary it made me
afraid. I was attacked by it in my turn; I blushed, moved away, no
longer knowing what to say to him, and began to pick cherries very fast,
without having anything to put them in. I reproached myself, I repented,
I was frightened, it seemed to me that by this step I had ruined myself
forever in his eyes. We both remained speechless, and the silence
weighed heavily upon both. Sonia, running back with the key, freed us
from our embarrassing situation. However, we still persistently avoided
speaking to each other, both preferring to address little Sonia instead.
When we were again with Macha, (who vowed she had not been asleep, and
had heard everything that had gone on,) my calmness returned, while he,
on his side, made another effort to resume his tone of paternal
kindness. But the effort was not successful, and did not deceive me at
all. A certain conversation that had taken place two days before still
lived in my memory.
Macha had announced her opinion that a man loves more easily than a
woman, and also more easily expresses his love. She added:
"A man can say that he loves, and a woman cannot."
"Now it seems to me that a man neither ought nor can say that he loves,"
was his reply.
I asked him why.
"Because it would always be a lie. What is this discovery that a man
_loves_? As if he had only to pronounce the word, and there must
immediately spring from it something extraordinary, some phenomenon or
other, exploding all at once! It seems to me that those people who say
to you solemnly: 'I love you,' either deceive themselves, or, which is
worse, deceive others."
"Then you think a woman is to know that she is loved, without being
told?" asked Macha.
"That I do not know; every man has his own fashion of speech. But such
feelings make themselves understood. When I read a novel, I always try
to imagine the embarrassed air of Lieutenant Crelski or Alfred, as he
declares: 'Eléonore, I love thee!' which speech he fancies is going to
produce something astounding, all of a sudden,--while in reality it
causes nothing at all, neither in her nor in him: features, look,
everything, remain precisely the same!"
He spoke jestingly, but I thought I detected an undertone of serious
meaning, which might have some reference to me; and Macha never allowed
even playful aspersions upon her heroes of romance.
"Always paradoxes!" she exclaimed. "Come now, be honest, have you
yourself never said to a woman that you loved her?"
"Never have I said so, never have I bowed a knee," he replied laughing,
"and never will I!"
"Yes, he need not tell me that he loves me!" I thought, now vividly
recalling this conversation. "He does love me, and I know it. And all
his efforts to seem indifferent cannot take away this conviction!"
During the whole evening he said very little to me, but in every word,
in every look and motion, I felt love, and no longer had any doubts. The
only thing that vexed and troubled me was that he should still judge it
necessary to conceal this feeling, and to feign coldness, when already
all was so clear, and we might have been so easily and so frankly happy
almost beyond the verge of possibility. Then, too, I was tormenting
myself as though I had committed a crime, for having jumped down into
the cherry orchard to join him, and it seemed as if he must have ceased
to esteem me, and must feel resentment against me.
After tea, I went to the piano, and he followed.
"Play something, Katia, I have not heard you for a long time," he said,
joining me in the drawing-room.
"I wished... Sergius Mikaïlovitch!" And suddenly I looked right into
his eyes. "You are not angry with me?"
"Why should I be?"
"Because I did not obey you this afternoon," said I, blushing.
He understood me, shook his head, and smiled. And this smile said that
perhaps he would willingly have scolded me a little, but had no longer
the strength to do so.
"That is done with, then, isn't it? And we are good friends again?" I
asked, seating myself at the piano.
"I think so, indeed!"
The large, lofty apartment was lighted, only by the two candles upon the
piano, and the greater portion of it was in semi-darkness; through the
open windows we beheld the luminous stillness of the summer night. The
most perfect calm reigned, only broken at intervals by Macha's footfall
in the adjoining room, which was not yet lighted, or by an occasional
restless snort or stamp from our visitor's horse, which was tied under
one of the casements. Sergius Mikaïlovitch was seated behind me, so
that I could not see him, but in the imperfect darkness of the room, in
the soft notes that filled it, in the very depths of my being, I seemed
to feel his presence. Every look, every movement, though I could not
distinguish them, seemed to enter and echo in my heart. I was playing
Mozart's Caprice-sonata, which he had brought me, and which I had
learned before him and for him. I was not thinking at all of what I
played, but I found that I was playing well and thought he was pleased.
I shared his enjoyment, and without seeing him, I knew that from his
place his eyes were fixed on me. By a quite involuntary movement, while
my fingers continued to run over the keys, unconscious of what they were
doing, I turned and looked at him; his head stood out in dark relief
against the luminous background of the night. He was sitting with his
brow resting on his hand, watching me attentively with sparkling eyes.
As mine met them, I smiled, and stopped playing. He smiled also, and
made a motion with his head towards my notes, as if reproaching me and
begging me to keep on. Just then the moon, midway in her course, soared
in full splendor from a light cloud, pouring into the room waves of
silvery radiance which overcame the feeble gleam of our wax candles, and
swept in a sea of glory over the inlaid floor. Macha said that what I
had done was like nothing at all, that I had stopped at the very
loveliest part, and that, besides, I had played miserably; he, on the
contrary, insisted that I had never succeeded better than this evening,
and began pacing about restlessly, from the dim drawing-room into the
hall, from the hall back again into the drawing-room, and every time he
passed he looked at me and smiled. I smiled too though without any
reason; I wanted to laugh, so happy was I at what had taken place that
day, at that moment even. While the door hid him from me for an instant
I pounced upon Macha and began to kiss her in my pet place on her soft
throat under her chin, but when he reappeared I was perfectly grave,
although it was hard work to keep from laughing.
"What has happened to her, to-day?" Macha said.
He made no answer, but began to tease and make laughing conjectures. He
knew well enough what had happened to me!
"Just see what a night!" he said presently, from the door of the
drawing-room, opening on the garden balcony.
We went and stood by him, and indeed I never remember such a night. The
full moon shone down upon us from above the house with a glory I have
never seen in her since; the long shadows of the roof, of the slender
columns and tent-shaped awning of the terrace stretched out in oblique
foreshortening, over the gravel walk and part of the large oval of turf.
The rest lay in brilliant light, glistening with dew-drops turned by the
moon's rays to liquid silver. A wide path, bordered with flowers, was
diagonally cut into at one edge by the shadows of tall dahlias and their
supporting stakes, and then ran on, an unbroken band of white light and
gleaming pebbles until it was lost in the mist of distance. The glass
roof of the orangery sparkled through the trees, and a soft vapor
stealing up the sides of the ravine grew denser every moment. The tufts
of lilac, now partially faded, were pierced through and through by the
light; every slender foot-stalk was visible, and the tiny flowers,
freshened by the dew, could easily be distinguished from each other. In
the paths light and shadow were so blended that one would no longer have
said there were trees and paths, but transparent edifices shaken with
soft vibrations. On the right of the house all was obscure, indistinct,
almost a horror of darkness. But out of it sprang, more resplendent from
the black environment, the fantastic head of a poplar which, by some
strange freak, ended abruptly close above the house in an aureole of
clear light, instead of rising to lose itself in the distant depths of
dark blue sky.
"Let us go to walk," said I.
Macha consented, but added that I must put on my galoshes.
"It is not necessary," I said; "Sergius Mikaïlovitch will give me his
arm."
As if that could keep me from getting my feet wet! But at that moment,
to each of us three, such absurdity was admissible, and caused no
astonishment. He had never given me his arm, and now I took it of my own
accord, and he did not seem surprised. We all three descended to the
terrace. The whole universe, the sky, the garden, the air we breathed,
no longer appeared to me what I had always known.
As I looked ahead of me in the path we were pursuing, I began to fancy
that one could not go beyond, that there the possible world ended, and
that all there would abide forever in its present loveliness.
However, as we went on, this enchanted wall, this barrier built of pure
beauty, receded before us and yielded us passage, and I found myself in
the midst of familiar objects, garden, trees, paths, dry leaves. These
were certainly real paths that we were pursuing, where we crossed
alternate spaces of light and spheres of darkness, where the dry leaves
rustled beneath our feet, and the dewy sprays softly touched my cheek as
we passed. It was really he, who walked by my side with slow, steady
steps and with distant formality, allowed my arm to rest upon his own.
It was the real moon, high in the heavens, whose light came down to us
through the motionless branches.
Once I looked at him. There was only a single linden in the part of the
path we were then following, and I could see his face clearly. He was so
handsome; he looked so happy....
He was saying: "Are you not afraid?" But the words I heard, were: "I
love thee, dear child! I love thee! I love thee!" His look said it, and
his arm said it; the light, the shadow, the air, and all things repeated
it.
We went through the whole garden, Macha walked near us, taking short
steps, and panting a little, she was so tired. She said it was time to
go in, and I was so sorry for the poor creature. "Why does not she feel
like us?" I thought. "Why is not everybody always young and happy? How
full this night is of youth and happiness,--and we too!"
We returned to the house, but it was a long time before Sergius
Mikaïlovitch went away. Macha forgot to remind us that it was late; we
talked of all sorts of things, perhaps trivial enough, sitting side by
side without the least suspicion that it was three o'clock in the
morning. The cocks had crowed for the third time, before he went. He
took leave of us as usual, not saying anything particular. But I could
not doubt that from this day he was mine, and I could no longer lose
him. Now that I recognized that I loved him, I told Macha all. She was
delighted and touched, but the poor woman got no sleep that night; and
as for me, after walking a long, long time up and down the terrace, I
went to the garden again, seeking to recall every word, every incident,
as I wandered through the paths where we had so lately passed together.
I did not go to bed, that night, and, for the first time in my life, I
saw the sun rise and knew what the dawn of day is. Never again have I
seen such a night and such a morning. But I still kept asking myself why
he did not tell me frankly that he loved me. "Why," thought I, "does he
invent such or such difficulties, why does he consider himself old,
when everything is so simple and so beautiful? Why lose thus a precious
time which perhaps will never return? Let him say that he loves, let him
say it in words, let him take my hand in his, bend down his head and
say: "I love." Let his face flush, and his eyes fall before me, and then
I will tell him all. Or, rather, I will tell him nothing, I will only
hold him fast in my arms and let my tears flow. But if I am
mistaken?--if he does not love me?" This thought suddenly crossed my
mind.
I was terrified by my own feeling. Heaven knows where it might have led
me; already the memory of his confusion and my own when I suddenly
dropped down into the cherry orchard beside him, weighed upon me,
oppressed my heart. The tears filled my eyes, and I began to pray. Then
a thought, a strange thought, came to me, which brought me a great
quietness, and rekindled my hope. This was, the resolution to commence
my devotions, and to choose my birthday as my betrothal day.
How and why? How could it come to pass? That I knew nothing about,--but
from this moment I believed that it would be so. In the meantime, broad
day had come, and every one was rising as I returned to my chamber.
CHAPTER IV.
It was the _Carême de l'Assomption_,[C] and consequently no one was
surprised at my commencing a season of devotion.
During this whole week Sergius Mikaïlovitch did not once come to see us,
and far from being surprised, alarmed, or angry with him, I was content,
and did not expect him before my birthday. Throughout this week I rose
very early every day, and while the horses were being harnessed I walked
in the garden, alone, meditating upon the past, and thinking what I must
do in order that the evening should find me satisfied with my day, and
proud of having committed no faults.
When the horses were ready, I entered the droschky, accompanied by Macha
or a maid-servant, and drove about three versts to church. In entering
the church, I never failed to remember that we pray there for all those
"who enter this place in the fear of God," and I strove to rise to the
level of this thought, above all when my feet first touched the two
grass-grown steps of the porch. At this hour there were not usually in
the church more than ten or a dozen persons, peasants and droroviés,
preparing to make their devotions; I returned their salutations with
marked humility, and went myself, (which I regarded as an act of
superior merit,) to the drawer where the wax tapers were kept, received
a few from the hand of the old soldier who performed the office of
staroste,[D] and placed them before the images. Through the door of the
sanctuary I could see the altar-cloth Mamma had embroidered, and above
the iconstase[E] two angels spangled with stars, which I had considered
magnificent when I was a little girl; and a dove surrounded by a gilded
aureole which, at that same period, often used to absorb my attention.
Behind the choir I caught a glimpse of the embossed fonts near which I
had so often held the children of our droroviés, and where I myself had
received baptism. The old priest appeared, wearing a chasuble cut from
cloth which had been the pall of my father's coffin, and he intoned the
service in the same voice which, as far back as I could remember, had
chanted the offices of the Church at our house, at Sonia's baptism, at
my father's funeral service, at my mother's burial. In the choir I heard
the familiar cracked voice of the precentor; I saw, as I had always seen
her, a certain old woman, almost bent double, who came to every service,
leaned her back against the wall, and, holding her faded handkerchief in
her tightly clasped hands, gazed with eyes full of tears at one of the
images in the choir, mumbling I knew not what prayers with her toothless
mouth. And all these objects, all these beings,--it was not mere
curiosity or reminiscence which brought them so near to me; all seemed
in my eyes great and holy, all were full of profound meaning.
I lent an attentive ear to every word of the prayers I heard read, I
endeavored to bring my feelings into accord with them, and if I did not
comprehend them, I mentally besought God to enlighten me, or substituted
a petition of my own for that which I had not understood. When the
penitential prayers were read, I recalled my past, and this past of my
innocent childhood appeared to me so black in comparison with the state
of serenity in which my soul was, at this time, that I wept over myself,
terrified; yet I felt that all was forgiven me, and that even if I had
had many more faults to reproach myself with, repentance would only have
been all the sweeter to me.
At the conclusion of the service, at the moment when the priest
pronounced the words: "May the blessing of the Lord our God be upon
you," I seemed to feel within me, instantaneously communicated to all my
being, a sense of even, as it were, physical comfort, as if a current of
light and warmth had suddenly poured into my very heart.
When the service was over, if the priest approached me to ask if he
should come to our house to celebrate vespers, and what hour would suit
me, I thanked him with emotion for his offer, but told him that I would
come myself to the church either on foot or in the carriage.
"So you will yourself take that trouble?" he asked.
I could not answer, for fear of sinning from pride. Unless Macha was
with me, I sent the carriage home from the church, and returned on foot,
alone, saluting humbly all whom I met, seeking occasion to assist them,
to advise them, to sacrifice myself for them in some way; helping to
lift a load or carry a child, or stepping aside into the mud to yield a
passage.
One evening I heard our intendant, in making his report to Macha, say
that a peasant, Simon, had come to beg for some wood to make a coffin
for his daughter, and for a silver rouble to pay for the mortuary
service, and that his request had been complied with.
"Are they so poor?" I enquired.
"Very poor, my lady; they live without salt,"[F] replied the intendant.
I was distressed, yet, at the same time, in a manner rejoiced to hear
this. Making Macha believe that I was going for a walk, I ran upstairs,
took all my money (it was very little, but it was all I had,) and,
having made the sign of the cross, hurried off, across the terrace and
garden, to Simon's cottage in the village. It was at the end of the
little cluster of houses, and, unseen by anyone, I approached the
window, laid the money upon the sill and tapped gently. The door opened,
some one came out of the cottage and called to me; but I, cold and
trembling with fear like a criminal, ran away home. Macha asked where I
had been, what was the matter with me? But I did not even understand
what she was saying, and made no reply.
Everything at this moment appeared to me so small, and of so little
consequence! I shut myself up in my chamber, and walked up and down
there alone, for a long time, not feeling disposed to do anything, to
think anything, and incapable of analyzing my own sensations. I imagined
the delight of the whole family, and what they would all say about the
person who had placed the money upon their window, and I began to regret
that I had not given it to them myself. I wondered what Sergius
Mikaïlovitch would have said, if he had known what I had done, and I was
delighted to think that he never would know it. And I was so seized with
joy, so filled with a sense of the imperfection in myself and in all,
yet so inclined to view with gentleness all these others, as well as
myself, that the thought of death offered itself to me as a vision of
bliss. I smiled, I prayed, I wept, and at this instant I suddenly loved
every creature in the world, and I loved myself with a strange ardor.
Searching my prayer-book, I read many passages from the Gospel, and all
that I read in this volume became more and more intelligible; the story
of that divine life, appeared to me more touching and simple, while the
depth of feeling and of thought revealed to me, in this reading, became
more terrible and impenetrable. And how clear and easy everything
seemed, when, on laying aside the book, I looked at my life and
meditated upon it. It seemed impossible not to live aright, and very
simple to love every one and to be loved by every one. Besides, every
one was good and gentle to me, even Sonia, whom I continued to teach,
and who had become totally different, who really made an effort to
understand, and to satisfy me, and give me no annoyance. What I was
trying to be to others, others were to me.
Passing then to my enemies, from whom I must obtain forgiveness before
the great day, I could not think of any except one young lady in the
neighborhood, whom I had laughed at before some company, about a year
before, and who had ceased to visit at our house. I wrote a letter to
her, acknowledging my fault, and begging her pardon. She responded by
fully granting it, and asking mine in return. I shed tears of pleasure
while reading these frank lines, which seemed to me full of deep and
touching sentiment. My maid wept when I asked her pardon also. Why were
they all so good to me? How had I deserved so much affection? I asked
myself. Involuntarily I began to think about Sergius Mikaïlovitch. I
could not help it, and besides I did not consider it a light or
frivolous diversion. True I was not thinking about him at all as I had
done on that night when, for the first time, I found out that I loved
him; I was thinking of him just as of myself, linking him, in spite of
myself, with every plan and idea of my future. The dominating influence
which his presence had exercised over me, faded away completely in my
imagination. I felt myself to-day his equal, and, from the summit of the
ideal edifice whence I was looking down, I had full comprehension of
him. Whatever in him had previously appeared strange to me was now
intelligible. To-day, for the first time, I could appreciate the thought
he had expressed to me, that happiness consists in living for others,
and to-day I felt in perfect unison with him. It appeared to me that we
two were to enjoy a calm and illimitable happiness. No thought entered
my mind of journeys to foreign lands, guests at home, excitement, stir,
and gayety; it was to be a peaceful existence, a home life in the
country, perpetual abnegation of one's own will, perpetual love for
each other, perpetual and absolute thankfulness to a loving and helpful
Providence.
I concluded my devotions, as I had purposed, upon the anniversary of my
birth. My heart was so overflowing with happiness, that day, when I
returned from church, that there resulted all kinds of dread of life,
fear of every feeling, terrors of whatever might disturb this happiness.
But we had scarcely descended from the droschky to the steps before the
house, when I heard the well-known sound of his cabriolet upon the
bridge, and in a moment Sergius Mikaïlovitch was with us. He offered me
his congratulations, and we went into the drawing-room together. Never
since I had known him, had I found myself so calm, so independent in his
presence, as upon
|
of the human race to-day are alcohol, opium and tobacco, and they
are so because they cause waste, but do not immediately produce painful
but rather pleasurable feelings.
Pain, as the sensation of waste, is the precursor of death, of the part
or system. By parity of evolution, pleasure came to be the sensation of
continuance, of uninterrupted action, of increasing vigor and life.
Every action, however, is accompanied by waste, and hence every pleasure
developes pain. But it is all important to note that the latter is the
mental correlative not of the action but of its cessation, not of the
life of the part but of its ceasing to live. Pain, it is true, in
certain limits excites to action; but it is by awakening the
self-preservative tendencies, which are the real actors. This
physiological distinction, capable of illustration from sensitive
vegetable as well as the lowest animal organisms, has had an intimate
connection with religious theories. The problems of suffering and death
are precisely the ones which all religions set forth to solve in theory
and in practice. Their creeds and myths are based on what they make of
pain. The theory of Buddhism, which now has more followers than any
other faith, is founded on four axioms, which are called "the four
excellent truths." The first and fundamental one is: "Pain is
inseparable from existence." This is the principle of all pessimism,
ancient and modern. Schopenhauer, an out-and-out pessimist, lays down
the allied maxim, "All pleasure is negative, that is, it consists in
getting rid of a want or pain,"[13-1] a principle expressed before his
time in the saying "the highest pleasure is the relief from pain."
Consistently with this, Buddhism holds out as the ultimate of hope the
state of Nirvana, in which existence is not, where the soul is "blown
out" like the flame of a candle.
But physiology demolishes the corner-stone of this edifice when it shows
that pain, so far from being inseparable from existence, has merely
become, through transmitted experience, nearly inseparable from the
progressive cessation of existence. While action and reaction are equal
in inorganic nature, the principle of life modifies the operation of
this universal law of force by bringing in _nutrition_, which, were it
complete, would antagonize reaction. In such a case, pleasure would be
continuous, pain null; action constant, reaction hypothetical. As,
however, nutrition in fact never wholly and at once replaces the
elements altered by vital action, both physicians and metaphysicians
have observed that pleasure is the fore-runner of pain, and has the
latter as its certain sequel.[14-1]
Physiologically and practically, the definition of pleasure is, _maximum
action with minimum waste_.
This latter generalization is the explanation of the esthetic emotions.
The modern theory of art rests not on a psychological but a
physiological, and this in turn on a physical basis. Helmholtz's theory
of musical harmony depends on the experimental fact that a continued
impression gives a pleasant, a discontinuous an unpleasant sensation.
The mechanics of muscular structure prove that what are called graceful
motions are those which are the mechanical resultant of the force of
the muscle,--those which it can perform at least waste. The pleasure we
take in curves, especially "the line of beauty," is because our eyes can
follow them with a minimum action of its muscles of attachment. The
popular figure called the Grecian figure or the walls of Troy, is
pleasant because each straight line is shorter, and at right angles to
the preceding one, thus giving the greatest possible change of action to
the muscles of the eye.
Such a mechanical view of physiology presents other suggestions. The
laws of vibratory motion lead to the inference that action in accordance
with those laws gives maximum intensity and minimum waste. Hence the
pleasure the mind takes in harmonies of sound, of color and of odors.
The correct physiological conception of the most perfect physical life
is that which will continue the longest in use, not that which can
display the greatest muscular force. The ideal is one of extension, not
of intension.
Religious art indicates the gradual recognition of these principles.
True to their ideal of inaction, the Oriental nations represent their
gods as mighty in stature, with prominent muscles, but sitting or
reclining, often with closed eyes or folded hands, wrapped in robes, and
lost in meditation. The Greeks, on the other hand, portrayed their
deities of ordinary stature, naked, awake and erect, but the limbs
smooth and round, the muscular lines and the veins hardly visible, so
that in every attitude an indefinite sense of repose pervades the whole
figure. Movement without effort, action without waste, is the
immortality these incomparable works set forth. They are meant to teach
that the ideal life is one, not of painless ease, but of joyous action.
The law of continuity to which I have alluded is not confined to simple
motions. It is a general mathematical law, that the longer anything
lasts the longer it is likely to last. If a die turns ace a dozen times
handrunning, the chances are large that it will turn ace again. The
Theory of Probabilities is founded upon this, and the value of
statistics is based on an allied principle. Every condition opposes
change through inertia. By this law, as the motion caused by a
pleasurable sensation excites by the physical laws of associated motions
the reminiscences of former pleasures and pains, a tendency to
permanence is acquired, which gives the physical basis for Volition.
Experience and memory are, therefore, necessary to volition, and
practically self restraint is secured by calling numerous past
sensations to mind, deterrent ones, "the pains which are indirect
pleasures," or else pleasurable ones. The Will is an exhibition under
complex relations of the tendency to continuance which is expressed in
the first law of motion. Its normal action is the maintenance of the
individual life, the prolongation of the pleasurable sensations, the
support of the forces which combat death.
Whatever the action, whether conscious or reflex, its real though often
indirect and unaccomplished object is the preservation or the
augmentation of the individual life. Such is the dictum of natural
science, and it coincides singularly with the famous maxim of Spinoza:
_Unaquaeque res, quantum in se est, in suo esse perseverare conatur._
The consciousness which accompanies volitional action is derived from
the common feeling which an organism has, as the result of all its parts
deriving their nutrition from the same centre. Rising into the sphere of
emotions, this at first muscular sensation becomes "self-feeling." The
Individual is another name for the boundaries of reflex action.
Through memory and consciousness we reach that function of the mind
called the intellect or reason, the product of which is _thought_. Its
physical accompaniments are chemical action, and an increase of
temperature in the brain. But the sum of the physical forces thus
evolved is not the measure of the results of intellectual action. These
differ from other forms of force in being incommensurate with extension.
They cannot be appraised in units of quantity, but in quality only. The
chemico-vital forces by which a thought rises into consciousness bear
not the slightest relation to the value of the thought itself. It is
here as in those ancient myths where an earthly maiden brings forth a
god. The power of the thought is dependent on another test than physical
force, to wit, its _truth_. This is measured by its conformity to the
laws of right reasoning, laws clearly ascertained, which are the common
basis of all science, and to which it is the special province of the
science of logic to give formal expression.
Physical force itself, in whatever form it appears, is only known to us
as feeling or as thought; these alone we know to be real; all else is at
least less real.[18-1] Not only is this true of the external world, but
also of that assumed something, the reason, the soul, the ego, or the
intellect. For the sake of convenience these words may be used; but it
is well to know that this introduction of something that thinks, back
of thought itself, is a mere figure of speech. We say, "_I_ think," as
if the "I" was something else than the thinking. At most, it is but the
relation of the thoughts. Pushed further, it becomes the limitation of
thought by sensation, the higher by the lower. The Cartesian maxim,
_cogito ergo sum_, has perpetuated this error, and the modern philosophy
of the _ego_ and _non-ego_ has prevented its detection. A false reading
of self-consciousness led to this assumption of "a thinking mind." Our
personality is but the perception of the solidarity of our thoughts and
feelings; it is itself a thought.
These three manifestations of mind--sensations, emotions and
thoughts--are mutually exclusive in their tendencies. The patient
forgets the fear of the result in the pain of the operation; in intense
thought the pulse falls, the senses do not respond, emotions and action
are absent. We may say that ideally the unimpeded exercise of the
intellect forbids either sensation or emotion.
Contrasting sensation and emotion, on the one side, with intellect on the
other, feeling with thought, they are seen to be polar or antithetical
manifestations of mind. Each requires the other for its existence, yet in
such wise that the one is developed at the expense of the other. The one
waxes as the other wanes. This is seen to advantage when their most
similar elements are compared. Thus consciousness in sensation is keenest
when impressions are strongest; but this consciousness is a bar to
intellectual self-consciousness, as was pointed out by Professor Ferrier
in his general Law of consciousness.[20-1] When emotion and sensation are
at their minimum, one is most conscious of the solidarity of one's
thoughts; and just in proportion to the vividness of self-consciousness
is thought lucid and strong. In an ideal intelligence, self-consciousness
would be infinite, sensation infinitesimal.
Yet there is a parallelism between feeling and thought, as well as a
contrast. As pain and pleasure indicate opposite tendencies in the
forces which guide sensation and emotion, so do the true and the untrue
direct thought, and bear the same relation to it. For as pain is the
warning of death, so the untrue is the detrimental, the destructive. The
man who reasons falsely, will act unwisely and run into danger thereby.
To know the truth is to be ready for the worst. Who reasons correctly
will live the longest. To love pleasure is not more in the grain of man
than to desire truth. "I have known many," says St. Augustine, "who like
to deceive; to be deceived, none." Pleasure, joy, truth, are the
respective measures of life in sensation, emotion, intellect; one or the
other of these every organism seeks with all its might, its choice
depending on which of these divisions of mind is prominently its own. As
the last mentioned is the climax, truth presents itself as in some way
the perfect expression of life.
We have seen what pleasure is, but what is truth? The question of Pilate
remains, not indeed unanswered, but answered vaguely and
discrepantly.[21-1] We may pass it by as one of speculative interest
merely, and turn our attention to its practical paraphrase, what is
true?
The rules of evidence as regards events are well known, and also the
principles of reaching the laws of phenomena by inductive methods. Many
say that the mind can go no further than this, that the truth thus
reached, if not the highest, is at least the highest for man. It is at
best relative, but it is real. The correctness of this statement may be
tested by analyzing the processes by which we acquire knowledge.
Knowledge reaches the mind in two forms, for which there are in most
languages, though not in modern English, two distinct expressions,
_connaitre_ and _savoir_, _kennen_ and _wissen_. The former relates to
knowledge through sensation, the latter through intellection; the former
cannot be rendered in words, the latter can be; the former is reached
through immediate perception, the latter through logical processes. For
example: an odor is something we may certainly know and can identify,
but we cannot possibly describe it in words; justice on the other hand
may be clearly defined to our mind, but it is equally impossible to
translate it into sensation. Nevertheless, it is generally agreed that
the one of these processes is, so far as it goes, as conclusive as the
other, and that they proceed on essentially the same principles.[22-1]
Religious philosophy has to do only with the second form of knowledge,
that reached through notions or thoughts.
The enchainment or sequence of thoughts in the mind is at first an
accidental one. They arise through the two general relations of nearness
in time or similarity in sensation. Their succession is prescribed by
these conditions, and without conscious effort cannot be changed. They
are notions about phenomena only, and hence are infinitely more likely
to be wrong than right. Of the innumerable associations of thought
possible, only one can yield the truth. The beneficial effects of this
one were felt, and thus by experience man slowly came to distinguish the
true as what is good for him, the untrue as what is injurious.
After he had done this for a while, he attempted to find out some plan
in accordance with which he could so arrange his thoughts that they
should always produce this desirable result. He was thus led to
establish the rules for right reasoning, which are now familiarly known
as Logic. This science was long looked upon as a completed one, and at
the commencement of this century we find such a thinker as Coleridge
expressing an opinion that further development in it was not to be
expected. Since then it has, however, taken a fresh start, and by its
growth has laid the foundation for a system of metaphysics which will be
free from the vagaries and unrealities which have thrown general
discredit on the name of philosophy.
In one direction, as applied logic and the logic of induction, the
natural associations of ideas have been thoroughly studied, and the
methods by which they can be controlled and reduced have been taught
with eminent success. In this branch, Bentham, Mill, Bain, and others
have been prominent workers.
Dealing mainly with the subjects and materials of reasoning, with
thoughts rather than with thinking, these writers, with the tendency of
specialists, have not appreciated the labors of another school of
logicians, who have made the investigation of the process of thinking
itself their especial province. This is abstract logic, or pure logic,
sometimes called, inasmuch as it deals with forms only, "formal logic,"
or because it deals with names and not things, "the logic of names." It
dates its rise as an independent science from the discovery of what is
known as "the quantification of the predicate," claimed by Sir William
Hamilton. Of writers upon it may be mentioned Professor De Morgan, W.
Stanley Jevons, and especially Professor George Boole of Belfast. The
latter, one of the subtlest thinkers of this age, and eminent as a
mathematician, succeeded in making an ultimate analysis of the laws of
thinking, and in giving them a symbolic notation, by which not only the
truth of a simple proposition but the relative degree of truth in
complex propositions may be accurately estimated.[24-1]
This he did by showing that the laws of correct thinking can be
expressed in algebraic notation, and, thus expressed, will be subject to
all the mathematical laws of an algebra whose symbols bear the uniform
value of unity or nought (1 or 0)--a limitation required by the fact
that pure logic deals in notions of quality only, not of quantity.
This mathematical form of logic was foreseen by Kant when he declared
that all mathematical reasoning derives its validity from the logical
laws; but no one before Professor Boole had succeeded in reaching the
notation which subordinated these two divisions of abstract thought to
the same formal types. His labors have not yet borne fruit in proportion
to their value, and they are, I believe, comparatively little known. But
in the future they will be regarded as epochal in the science of mind.
They make us to see the same law governing mind and matter, thought and
extension.
Not the least important result thus achieved was in emphasizing the
contrast between the natural laws of mental association, and the laws of
thinking which are the foundation of the syllogism.
By attending to this distinction we are enabled to keep the form and the
matter of thought well apart--a neglect to do which, or rather a studied
attempt to ignore which, is the radical error of the logic devised by
Hegel, as I shall show more fully a little later.
All applied logic, inductive as well as deductive, is based on formal
logic, and this in turn on the "laws of thought," or rather of thinking.
These are strictly regulative or abstract, and differ altogether from
the natural laws of thought, such as those of similarity, contiguity and
harmony, as well as from the rules of applied logic, such as those of
agreement and difference. The fundamental laws of thinking are three in
number, and their bearing on all the higher questions of religious
philosophy is so immediate that their consideration becomes of the last
moment in such a study as this. They are called the laws of
Determination, Limitation and Excluded Middle.
The first affirms that every object thought about must be conceived as
itself, and not as some other thing. "A is A," or "_x_ = _x_," is its
formal expression. This teaches us that whatever we think of, must be
thought as one or a unity. It is important, however, to note that this
does not mean a mathematical unit, but a logical one, that is, identity
and not contrast. So true is this that in mathematical logic the only
value which can satisfy the formula is a concept which does not admit of
increase, to wit, a Universal.
From this necessity of conceiving a thought under unity has arisen the
interesting tendency, so frequently observable even in early times, to
speak of the universe as one whole, the ~to pan~ of the Greek
philosophers; and also the monotheistic leaning of all thinkers, no
matter what their creed, who have attained very general conceptions.
Furthermore, the strong liability of confounding this speculative or
logical unity with the concrete notion of individuality, or mathematical
unity, has been, as I shall show hereafter, a fruitful source of error
in both religious and metaphysical theories. Pure logic deals with
quality only, not with quantity.
The second law is that of Limitation. As the first is sometimes called
that of Affirmation, so this is called that of Negation. It prescribes
that a thing is not that which it is not. Its formula is, "A is not
not-A." If this seems trivial, it is because it is so familiar.
These two laws are two aspects of the same law. The old maxim is, _omnis
determinatio est negatio_; a quality can rise into cognition only by
being limited by that which it is not. It is not a comparison of two
thoughts, however, nor does it limit the quality itself. For the
negative is not a thought, and the quality is not _in suo genere
finita_, to use an expression of the old logicians; it is limited not by
itself but by that which it is not. These are not idle distinctions, as
will soon appear.
The third law comes into play when two thoughts are associated and
compared. There is qualitative identity, or there is not. A is either B
or not B. An animal is either a man or not a man. There is no middle
class between the two to which it can be assigned. Superficial truism as
this appears, we have now come upon the very battle ground of the
philosophies. This is the famous "Law of the contradictories and
excluded middle," on the construction of which the whole fabric of
religious dogma, and I may add of the higher metaphysics, must depend.
"One of the principal retarding causes of philosophy," remarks Professor
Ferrier, "has been the want of a clear and developed doctrine of the
contradictory."[28-1] The want is as old as the days of Heraclitus of
Ephesus, and lent to his subtle paradoxes that obscurity which has not
yet been wholly removed.
Founding his arguments on one construction of this law, expressed in the
maxim, "The conceivable lies between two contradictory extremes," Sir
William Hamilton defended with his wide learning those theories of the
Conditioned and the Unconditioned, the Knowable and Unknowable, which
banish religion from the realm of reason and knowledge to that of faith,
and cleave an impassable chasm between the human and the divine
intelligence. From this unfavorable ground his orthodox followers,
Mansel and Mozley, defended with ability but poor success their
Christianity against Herbert Spencer and his disciples, who also
accepted the same theories, but followed them out to their legitimate
conclusion--a substantially atheistic one.
Hamilton in this was himself but a follower of Kant, who brought this
law to support his celebrated "antinomies of the human understanding,"
warnings set up to all metaphysical explorers to keep off of holy
ground.
On another construction of it, one which sought to escape the dilemma of
the contradictories by confining them to matters of the understanding,
Hegel and Schelling believed they had gained the open field. They taught
that in the highest domain of thought, there where it deals with
questions of pure reason, the unity and limits which must be observed in
matters of the understanding and which give validity to this third law,
do not obtain. This view has been closely criticized, and, I think, with
justice. Pretending to deal with matters of pure reason, it constantly
though surreptitiously proceeds on the methods of applied logic; its
conclusions are as fallacious logically as they are experimentally. The
laws of thought are formal, and are as binding in transcendental
subjects as in those which concern phenomena.
The real bearing of this law can, it appears to me, best be derived from
a study of its mathematical expression. This is, according to the
notation of Professor Boole, _x_^{2}=_x_. As such, it presents a
fundamental equation of thought, and it is because it is of the second
degree that we classify in pairs or opposites. This equation can only be
satisfied by assigning to _x_ the value of 1 or 0. The "universal type
of form" is therefore _x_(1-_x_)=0.
This algebraic notation shows that there is, not two, but only one
thought in the antithesis; that it is made up of a thought and its
expressed limit; and, therefore, that the so-called "law of
contradictories" does not concern contradictories at all, in pure logic.
This result was seen, though not clearly, by Dr. Thompson, who indicated
the proper relation of the members of the formula as a positive and a
privative. He, however, retained Hamilton's doctrine that "privative
conceptions enter into and assist the higher processes of the reason in
all that it can know of the absolute and infinite;" that we must, "from
the seen realize an unseen world, not by extending to the latter the
properties of the former, but by assigning to it attributes entirely
opposite."[31-1]
The error that vitiates all such reasoning is the assumption that the
privative is an independent thought, that a thought and its limitation
are two thoughts; whereas they are but the two aspects of the one
thought, like two sides to the one disc, and the absurdity of speaking
of them as separate thoughts is as great as to speak of a curve seen
from its concavity as a different thing from the same curve regarded
from its convexity. The privative can help us nowhere and to nothing;
the positive only can assist our reasoning.
This elevation of the privative into a contrary, or a contradictory, has
been the bane of metaphysical reasoning. From it has arisen the doctrine
of the synthesis of an affirmative and a negative into a higher
conception, reconciling them both. This is the maxim of the Hegelian
logic, which starts from the synthesis of Being and Not-being into the
Becoming, a very ancient doctrine, long since offered as an explanation
of certain phenomena, which I shall now touch upon.
A thought and its privative alone--that is, a quality and its
negative--cannot lead to a more comprehensive thought. It is devoid of
relation and barren. In pure logic this is always the case, and must be
so. In concrete thought it may be otherwise. There are certain
propositions in which the negative is a reciprocal quality, quite as
positive as that which it is set over against. The members of such a
proposition are what are called "true contraries." To whatever they
apply as qualities, they leave no middle ground. If a thing is not one
of them, it is the other. There is no third possibility. An object is
either red or not red; if not red, it may be one of many colors. But if
we say that all laws are either concrete or abstract, then we know that
a law not concrete has all the properties of one which is abstract. We
must examine, then, this third law of thought in its applied forms in
order to understand its correct use.
It will be observed that there is an assumption of space or time in many
propositions having the form of the excluded middle. They are only true
under given conditions. "All gold is fusible or not," means that some is
fusible at the time. If all gold be already fused, it does not hold
good. This distinction was noted by Kant in his discrimination between
_synthetic_ judgments, which assume other conditions; and _analytic_
judgments, which look only at the members of the proposition.
Only the latter satisfy the formal law, for the proposition must not
look outside of itself for its completion. Most analytic propositions
cannot extend our knowledge beyond their immediate statement. If A is
either B or not B, and it is shown not to be B, it is left uncertain
what A may be. The class of propositions referred to do more than this,
inasmuch as they present alternative conceptions, mutually exhaustive,
each the privative of the other. Of these two contraries, the one always
evokes the other; neither can be thought except in relation to the
other. They do not arise from the dichotomic process of classification,
but from the polar relations of things. Their relation is not in the
mind but in themselves, a real externality. The distinction between such
as spring from the former and the latter is the most important question
in philosophy.
To illustrate by examples, we familiarly speak of heat and cold, and to
say a body is not hot is as much as to say it is cold. But every
physicist knows that cold is merely a diminution of heat, not a distinct
form of force. The absolute zero may be reached by the abstraction of
all heat, and then the cold cannot increase. So, life and death are not
true contraries, for the latter is not anything real but a mere
privative, a quantitative diminution of the former, growing less to an
absolute zero where it is wholly lost.
Thus it is easy to see that the Unconditioned exists only as a part of
the idea of the Conditioned, the Unknowable as the foil of the Knowable;
and the erecting of these mere privatives, these negatives, these
shadows, into substances and realities, and then setting them up as
impassable barriers to human thought, is one of the worst pieces of work
that metaphysics has been guilty of.
The like does not hold in true contrasts. Each of them has an existence
as a positive,and[TN-3] is never lost in a zero of the other. The one is
always thought in relation to the other. Examples of these are subject
and object, absolute and relative, mind and matter, person and
consciousness, time and space. When any one of these is thought, the
other is assumed. It is vain to attempt their separation. Thus those
philosophers who assert that all knowledge is relative, are forced to
maintain this assertion, to wit, All knowledge is relative, is
nevertheless absolute, and thus they falsify their own position. So
also, those others who say all mind is a property of matter, assume in
this sentence the reality of an idea apart from matter. Some have argued
that space and time can be conceived independently of each other; but
their experiments to show it do not bear repetition.
All true contraries are universals. A universal concept is one of
"maximum extension," as logicians say, that is, it is without limit. The
logical limitation of such a universal is not its negation, but its
contrary, which is itself also a universal. The synthesis of the two can
be in theory only, yet yields a real product. To illustrate this by a
geometrical example, a straight line produced indefinitely is, logically
considered, a universal. Its antithesis or true contrary is not a
crooked line, as might be supposed, but the straight line which runs at
right angles to it. Their synthesis is not the line which bisects their
angle but that formed by these contraries continually uniting, that is,
the arc of a circle, the genesis of which is theoretically the union of
two such lines. Again, time can only be measured by space, space by
time; they are true universals and contraries; their synthesis is
_motion_, a conception which requires them both and is completed by
them. Or again, the philosophical extremes of downright materialism and
idealism are each wholly true, yet but half the truth. The insoluble
enigmas that either meets in standing alone are kindred to those which
puzzled the old philosophers in the sophisms relating to motion, as, for
instance, that as a body cannot move where it is and still less where it
is not, therefore it cannot move at all. Motion must recognise both time
and space to be comprehensible. As a true contrary constantly implies
the existence of its opposite, we cannot take a step in right reasoning
without a full recognition of both.
This relation of contraries to the higher conception which logically
must include them is one of the well-worn problems of the higher
metaphysics.
The proper explanation would seem to be, as suggested above, that the
synthesis of contraries is capable of formal expression only, but not of
interpretation. In pursuing the search for their union we pass into a
realm of thought not unlike that of the mathematician when he deals with
hypothetical quantities, those which can only be expressed in symbols--,
[square root] 1 for example,--but uses them to good purpose in reaching
real results. The law does not fail, but its operations can no longer be
expressed under material images. They are symbolic and for speculative
thought alone, though pregnant with practical applications.
As I have hinted, in all real contraries it is theoretically possible to
accept either the one or the other. As in mathematics, all motion can be
expressed either under formulas of initial motion (mechanics), or of
continuous motion (kinematics), or as all force can be expressed as
either static or as dynamic force; in either case the other form
assuming a merely hypothetical or negative position; so the logic of
quality is competent to represent all existence as ideal or as material,
all truth as absolute or all as relative, or even to express the
universe in formulæ of being or of not-being. This perhaps was what
Heraclitus meant when he propounded his dark saying: "All things are
_and_ are not." He added that "All is not," is truer than "All is."
Previous to his day, Buddha Sakyamuni had said: "He who has risen to the
perception of the not-Being, to the Unconditioned, the Universal, his
path is difficult to understand, like the flight of birds in the
air."[37-1] Perhaps even he learned his lore from some older song of the
Veda, one of which ends, "Thus have the sages, meditating in their
souls, explained away the fetters of being by the not-being."[37-2] The
not-being, as alone free from space and time, impressed these sages as
the more real of the two, the only absolute.
The error of assigning to the one universal a preponderance over the
other arose from the easy confusion of pure with applied thought. The
synthesis of contraries exists in the formal law alone, and this is
difficult to keep before the mind. In concrete displays they are forever
incommensurate. One seems to exclude the other. To see them correctly we
must there treat them as alternates. We may be competent, for instance,
to explain all phenomena of mind by organic processes; and equally
competent to explain all organism as effects of mind; but we must never
suppose an immediate identity of the two; this is only to be found in
the formal law common to both; still less should we deny the reality of
either. Each exhausts the universe; but at every step each presupposes
the other; their synthesis is life, a concept hopelessly puzzling unless
regarded in all its possible displays as made up of both.
This indicates also the limits of explanation. By no means every man's
reason knows when it has had enough. The less it is developed, the
further is it from such knowledge. This is plainly seen in children, who
often do not rest satisfied with a really satisfactory explanation. It
is of first importance to be able to recognize what is a good reason.
I may first say what it is _not_. It is not a _cause_. This is nothing
more than a prior arrangement of the effect; the reason for an
occurrence is never assigned by showing its cause. Nor is it a
_caprice_, that is, motiveless volition, or will as a motor. In this
sense, the "will of God" is no good reason for an occurrence. Nor is it
_fate_, or physical necessity. This is denying there is any explanation
to give.
The reason can only be satisfied with an aliment consubstantial with
itself. Nothing material like cause, nor anything incomprehensible like
caprice, meets its demands. Reason is allied to order, system and
purpose above all things. That which most completely answers to these
will alone satisfy its requirements. They are for an ideal of order.
Their complete satisfaction is obtained in universal types and measures,
pure abstractions, which are not and cannot be real. The _formal law_ is
the limit of explanation of phenomena, beyond which a sound intellect
will ask nothing. It fulfils all the requirements of reason, and leaves
nothing to be desired.
Those philosophers, such as Herbert Spencer, who teach that there is
some incogitable "nature" of something which is the immanent "cause" of
phenomena, delude themselves with words. The history and the laws of a
phenomenon _are_ its nature, and there is no chimerical something beyond
them. They are exhaustive. They fully answer the question _why_, as well
as the question _how_.[39-1]
For it is important to note that the word "law" is not here used in the
sense which Blackstone gives to it, a "rule of conduct;" nor yet in that
which science assigns to it, a "physical necessity." Law in its highest
sense is the type or form, perceived by reason as that toward which
phenomena tend, but which they always fail to reach. It was shown by
Kant that all physical laws depend for their validity on logical laws.
These are not authoritative, like the former, but purposive only. But
their purpose is clear, to wit, the attainment of proportion,
consistency or truth. As this purpose is reached only in the abstract
form, this alone gives us the absolutely true in which reason can rest.
In the concrete, matter shows the law in its efforts toward form, mind
in its struggle for the true. The former is guided by physical force,
and the extinction of the aberrant. The latter, in its highest
exhibition in a conscious intelligence, can alone guide itself by the
representation of law, by the sense of Duty. Such an intelligence has
both the faculty to see and the power to choose and appropriate to its
own behoof, and thus to build itself up out of those truths which are
"from everlasting unto everlasting."
A purely formal truth of this kind as something wholly apart from
phenomena, not in any way connected with the knowledge derived through
the senses, does not admit of doubt and can never be changed by future
conquests of the reasoning powers. We may rest upon it as something more
permanent than matter, greater than Nature.
Such was the vision that inspired the noble lines of Wordsworth:--
"What are things eternal?--Powers depart,
Possessions vanish, and
|
and amity supposed to exist between himself and Henry, Charles
was stipulating with Henry for a descent to be made by the English on
the shores of France, not later than March, 1522. A fleet was to be
provided by both parties, each contributing 3,000 men. It would be
possible to regard Francis with some pity, as a miserable dupe, were
it not for his own propensity for the same amount of false swearing.
By February, he was in possession of the facts, but for some reason or
other, war was not declared till June. On the 6th May, Contarini, the
Venetian envoy, was able to inform the Signory of Mary’s approaching
betrothal to the Emperor, adding that Henry was about to send a
gentleman to France, to repudiate the French treaty.
On the 27th, Charles landed at Dover, and was received on the sands
by Wolsey, attended by 300 nobles, knights and gentlemen. Leaning
on the Cardinal’s arm, the Emperor proceeded to Dover Castle, where
he remained for two days, being joined by Henry. On the road to
Canterbury, and thence to Greenwich, they were greeted by the people
with every demonstration of joy, the English looking upon Charles as
the monarch of the world, and feeling flattered by his condescension
in wedding a daughter of England.[30] At the great gates of Greenwich
Palace stood the Queen and her daughter Mary, now six years old, to
welcome him. The Emperor dropped on one knee, and asked Katharine’s
blessing, “having,” says the chronicler Hall, “great joy to see the
queen, his aunt, and in especiall his young cousin germain, the lady
Mary”.
All who saw Mary at this time spoke favourably of her appearance. “She
promises,” said Martin de Salinas, “to become a handsome lady, although
it is difficult to form an idea of her beauty, as she is still so
small.” Others describe her as a fair child, with a profusion of flaxen
ringlets, and the admiration of all.
The usual revels were held in honour of the Emperor’s visit. The court
removed to London, and Charles was magnificently lodged at Blackfriars.
But he seems to have regarded the prodigality displayed with Hapsburg
seriousness, if not with absolute disapproval. He was urgently in need
of money, and would doubtless have been better pleased with a fresh
loan, than with all that was done in his honour. At all events, the
sombre stateliness of Windsor was more in accordance with his taste
and humour, and he was altogether in his native element when the terms
of the treaty were at last discussed. These included: (1) a settlement
of the differences between the Emperor and Francis; (2) a marriage
contract between the Emperor and the Princess Mary; (3) a league
between the Emperor and Henry for making war upon France, and for
recovering the territory which the English had lost in that country. A
clause was inserted, to the effect that Mary should be sent to Spain
to finish her education, when she was twelve years old.[31] The treaty
of Windsor was signed on the 19th June, but was not then published,
and “peace with France was dissembled”. Other things were dissembled
also; and, although Mary was brought to Windsor, to take leave of
her imperial cousin as his future bride, Wolsey soon discovered that
no reliance could be placed on the Emperor’s words or promises, and
that, as far as Charles was concerned, the whole negotiation and the
treaty of Windsor itself were nothing but a political fiction, in order
to alarm Francis. But indeed, in a competition of duplicity between
Charles, Henry, Francis and Wolsey, it would be rash to speculate as to
which of them would have borne the palm. Wolsey played a particularly
odious part, inasmuch as he not only convinced Francis that he was
anxious for the French alliance, but he was moreover in receipt of a
yearly pension from him. Meanwhile, the determination of the Princess
Isabella of Portugal to marry Charles served to further complicate
matters. She took for her motto the trenchant device, _Aut Cæsar aut
nihil_,[32] and the grandees of Spain threw their weight into the
scale with her, urging the Emperor to marry her, with whom he would
receive a million of gold, and not the English Princess, “about whom he
thought less than of the first named”.[33] Still Charles hesitated, or
affected to hesitate, and writing to Wolsey from Valladolid, the 10th
February 1523, he begs to have news of the King: “et de ma mieulx aimee
fiancee la Princesse, future Imperatrix”.[34] But much as Henry held
to the fulfilment of the contract, he had no longer any real hope of
it, and began to look for other possible alliances. It was thought in
France that the Dauphin would soon be crowned, and that then he would
marry the English princess,[35] but Gonzolles, the French ambassador
in Scotland, wrote to the Duke of Albany: “The King of England has
promised to give his daughter in marriage to the King of Scots, with
a large pension, and proclaim him prince of his kingdom if they can
agree”.
Henry would nevertheless have much preferred giving her to the Emperor,
if by any means Charles could be persuaded to keep to his engagements,
and he sent Tunstal, Bishop of London, and Sir Richard Wingfield, as
extraordinary ambassadors to Spain, with orders to promote the marriage
in every possible way.
In April 1525, Mary sent Charles an emerald with a curious message,
showing that she was still taught to consider herself his promised
bride. “Her Grace,” so ran the letter which accompanied the gift, “hath
devised this token, for a better knowledge to be had, when God shall
send them grace to be together, whether his Majesty do keep himself
as continent and chaste as with God’s grace she woll, whereby ye may
say, his Majesty may see that her assured love towards the same hath
already such operation in her, that it is also confirmed by jealousy,
being one of the greatest signs and tokens of hearty love and cordial
affection.”[36]
After the victory of Pavia, Charles, no longer in fear of Francis,
declared openly that he owed nothing to the help of his allies, and
released himself from his pledges to Henry by the very extravagance
of his demands. He sent a commission to Wolsey requiring that Mary
should be sent to Spain at once, with a dowry of 400,000 ducats, and
200,000 crowns besides, to defray the expenses of the war with France.
Nothing was said about the sums he had borrowed from Henry, while the
whole transaction was in direct violation of the terms of the treaty of
Windsor. The Cardinal replied that the Princess was still too young to
be given up, and that the Spaniards had no hostages to offer that could
be sufficient security for her, whom the English people looked upon
as the treasure of the kingdom. The envoys whom the Emperor sent in
return, in paying their respects to the King and Queen, were permitted
to address “a short peroration in Latin to the Princess, to which she
replied in the same tongue, with as much assurance and facility as if
she were twelve years old,” and she did and said, they added, “many
other gracious things on the occasion, of which they purpose giving an
account at a future time”.[37] But the moment for fair speeches and
compliments had gone by. Charles demanded that Henry should either
agree to his conditions, or release him from his oath, “for all Spain”
compelled him “to contract a marriage with Portugal”. Henry told him
roundly that he would give him his daughter when she was of proper age,
but no increase of dowry.[38] “If,” continued the King of England,
“he should seek a maistress for hyr, to frame hyr after the manner of
Spayne, and of whom she might take example of virtue, he shulde not
find in all Christendome a more mete than she now hath, that is the
Quene’s grace, her mother, who is comen of the house of Spayne, and who
for the affection she bereth the Emperour, will norishe and bring hyr
up as maybe hereafter to his most contentacion.”[39]
At the same time Tunstal and Wingfield represented that, as the
Princess was not much more than nine years old, it might greatly
endanger her health to be transported into an air so different from
that of England. In replying more particularly to the Emperor’s
statement, that his subjects wished him to marry the Portuguese
Princess, Mary being still of tender age, Henry, seeing that nothing
was to be gained by a breach with his nephew-in-law, told him that the
Princess his daughter was still young; she was his own treasure and
that of his kingdom; she was not of age to be married;[40] that the
demands of the Spanish people seemed reasonable, and that desiring
always to preserve the Emperor’s friendship, he consented to the
Portuguese alliance under three conditions. These were: (1) that
peace should be made with France; (2) that the Emperor should pay his
debts to Henry; (3) that the treaties of Windsor and London should be
annulled.[41]
The treaty of Windsor was rescinded on the 6th July 1525, and on the
22nd was signed the marriage contract between Charles V. and Isabella
of Portugal. But the Emperor did not pay his debts, and henceforth
no Spaniard coveted the post of ambassador to the English Court. To
console Henry for the failure of his schemes, Tunstal assured him that
Mary was “a pearl well worth the keeping”.[42]
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 1: According to some accounts the 18th.]
[Footnote 2: The servants of the Prior of Christchurch, Canterbury,
received £4 for carrying the font to and from Greenwich on this
occasion. Add. MS. 21,481. _The King’s Book of Payments_, Brit. Mus.]
[Footnote 3: Harl. MS. 3504, f. 232, Brit. Mus.]
[Footnote 4: Gius. Desp., i., 182, Venetian Archives.]
[Footnote 5: MS. in St. Mark’s Library, class vii., No. 1233.]
[Footnote 6: Gius. Desp., i., 90.]
[Footnote 7: _Ibid._, i., 77.]
[Footnote 8: Gius. Desp., i., 81.]
[Footnote 9: Brewer, _Letters and Papers of the Reign of Henry VIII.,
Cal._, i., 5203.]
[Footnote 10: Erasmus to Paul Bombasius (Brewer, _Letters and Papers_,
vol. ii., pt. ii., 4340).]
[Footnote 11: _Life of King Henry the Eighth_ (ed. 1649), p. 7.]
[Footnote 12: Add. MS. 21,404, 8, Brit. Mus.]
[Footnote 13: Egerton MS. 616, 35, Brit. Mus.]
[Footnote 14: She afterwards filled the same position in the household
of Henry’s other children, Elizabeth and Edward. See Ellis’s _Original
Letters_, 2nd series, vol. ii., p. 78.]
[Footnote 15: _The King’s Household Book_, March 1516-17.]
[Footnote 16: “Really, this is a very honest man, and worthy to be
loved. I have no better or more faithful servant. Write to your master
that I have spoken of him with commendation.” A curious instance of the
colloquial Latin then in vogue (Gius. Desp., ii., 157).]
[Footnote 17: Gius. Desp., ii., 95.]
[Footnote 18: Brewer, _Calendar of State Papers_, vol. ii., pt. ii.,
4687.]
[Footnote 19: Sanuto Diaries, vol. xxix., p. 155.]
[Footnote 20: MS. in St. Mark’s Library, class vii., No. 1233.]
[Footnote 21: He is reported to have said that he had “liever have my
lady princess, and though the king’s grace had ten children, than the
King of Portingale’s daughter, with all the spices her father hath”
(Cotton MS. Calig. D. viii., 40, Brit. Mus.).]
[Footnote 22: _Hall’s Chronicle_, p. 604.]
[Footnote 23: Sir Richard Wingfield had written from Paris that great
search was being made there to bring to the meeting the fairest ladies
that might be found, and he hoped that the Queen would bring such in
her hand “that the visage of England, which hath always had the prize,
be not lost” (Brewer, _Cal._, vol. iii., pt. i., 698).]
[Footnote 24: Rymer, xiii., 719.]
[Footnote 25: Cotton MS. Vesp. F. xiii., 129, Brit. Mus. Ellis’s
_Letters_, 1st series, i., 174.]
[Footnote 26: Cotton MS. Calig. D. vii., 231.]
[Footnote 27: Sanuto Diaries, vol. xxix., p. 558. In February 1520, £40
was given by Henry to a gentleman sent by the French King and Queen
with tokens for the Princess (see _The King’s Book of Payments_).]
[Footnote 28: Brewer, _Calendar of State Papers_, vol. iii., pt. ii.,
1437, 1439, 1533.]
[Footnote 29: Cotton MS. Calig. E. i., art. 11, 46, Brit. Mus.]
[Footnote 30: Brewer, _Cal._, vol. iii., pt. ii., 2306.]
[Footnote 31: Cotton MS. Galba B. vii., 102, Brit. Mus.]
[Footnote 32: Rawdon Brown, _Venetian Calendar_, vol. iii., 852 note.]
[Footnote 33: Sanuto Diaries, vol. xxxix., p. 147.]
[Footnote 34: Cotton MS. Vesp. C. ii., 93*, Brit. Mus.]
[Footnote 35: Cotton MS. Calig. D. viii., 302, Brit. Mus.]
[Footnote 36: Westminster, 3rd April 1525, Record Office.]
[Footnote 37: Gayangos, _England and Spain, Cal._, vol. iii., pt. i.,
p. 82.]
[Footnote 38: Sanuto Diaries, vol. xl., p. 17.]
[Footnote 39: Cotton MS. Vesp. C. iii., f. 177, Brit. Mus.]
[Footnote 40: Gayangos, _Cal._, vol. iii., pt. i., pp. 78, 191 _et
seq._ Brewer, _Cal._, vol. iv., pt. i., p. 662.]
[Footnote 41: Cotton MS. Vesp. C. iii., f. 62, Brit. Mus.]
[Footnote 42: _Ibid._, f. 135.]
CHAPTER II.
PRINCESS OF WALES.
1525-1527.
When Mary was about ten years old, her father, mindful it was said
of his Welsh origin, turned his attention towards that principality,
thinking wisely by redressing some of its grievances to reduce it to
a more strict obedience. It was, therefore, determined by the King in
Council, to send “our dearest, best beloved, and only daughter, the
Princess, accompanied with an honourable, sad, discreet and expert
counsayle, to reside and remain in the Marches of Wales and the parties
thereabouts, furnished with sufficient power and authority to hold
courts of _oyer_ and _determiner_, for the better administration of
justice”.[43]
Disappointed in his hope of further issue, Henry had, in a more special
manner than at her christening, declared his daughter heiress to the
Crown, and Princess of Wales, consoling himself with the conviction,
that her extreme popularity would be a sufficient counterpoise to
the somewhat hazardous novelty of a queen regnant. The news of her
departure for the west was communicated to the Venetian Government by
Lorenzo Orio in August, 1525:—
“On Saturday, the Princess went to her principality of Wales, with
a suitable and honourable escort, and she will reside there until
the time of her marriage. She is a rare person, and singularly
accomplished, most particularly in music, playing on every instrument,
especially on the lute and harpsichord.”[44]
The term borders or marches of Wales was somewhat loosely applied,
and “the parties thereabouts” seem to have included the whole of the
south-western, and some of the midland counties, for we find Mary
during this time not only at Chester and Shrewsbury, but also at
Tewkesbury and Gloucester. A great deal of power was put into the hands
of her council, with the means of enforcing their decrees, but the
details of her short sojourn in the west are very meagre, and we are
entirely dependent on a few sidelights, to show the kind of authority
that was centred in her person, and the amount of state that was kept.
This last was indeed considerable. A communication from her council to
Sir Andrew Windsor, Sir John Dauncy and Sir William Skeffington, refers
them to the King’s pleasure, “touching such ordnance and artillery
as should be delivered for the Princess into the marches of Wales,
and for despatching the payments for carriage by land or water. They
desire that the two gunners, John Rauffe and Laurence Clayton, and
the armourer, William Carter, now being the Princess’s servants, may
have livery coats of the Princess’s colours.”[45] What those colours
were may be learned from a letter of Wolsey’s to Sir Andrew Windsor,
authorising him to deliver to Dr. Buttes, “appointed physician to my
lady Princess, a livery of blue and green in damask, for himself, and
in blue and green cloth for his two servants; also a cloth livery for
the apothecary”. On the margin of a document, in which are inscribed
the names of all the ladies and gentlemen who accompanied the Princess,
is a memorandum, signed by Wolsey, relating to the quantity of black
velvet to be allowed and delivered to each. Those of inferior rank were
to have black damask.
Mary’s head-quarters were at Ludlow, but she travelled constantly
from place to place, visiting all the more accessible parts of the
principality, and the surrounding country. On the 3rd September 1526,
she was at Langley, as we learn from a letter addressed to Wolsey from
that place:—
“My lady Princess came on Saturday. Surely, Sir, of her age, as goodly
a child as ever I have seen, and of as good gesture and countenance.
Her Grace was well accompanied with a goodly number of persons of
gravity.”[46]
These “persons of gravity” included, besides councillors, chamberlains,
clerks, surveyors, etc., the Countess of Salisbury, the Countess of
Devon, Lady Katharine Grey, Dr. Wootton, Dean of the Chapel; Mr. John
Featherstone, schoolmaster, and many others, amounting in all to 304
persons, of the most honourable sort.
Mary had authority to kill or give deer at her pleasure, in any forest
or park within the territory appointed to her, and her warrants were
served under pain of the King’s indignation.[47] Careful directions
had been given by the King in Council, concerning her own training,
health, clothing, food and recreation, for all of which the Countess
of Salisbury was primarily responsible. She was “to take open air in
gardens, sweet and wholesome places, and walks,” and everything about
her was to be “pure, sweet, clean and wholesome,” while “all things
noisome and displeasant” were to be “forborne and excluded”. Great
attention was to be paid to her food, and to the manner in which it
was served, with cheerful society, “comfortable, joyous and merry
communication, in all honourable and virtuous maner”. Her council was
to meet once a month, at least, and to consult on her health, virtuous
education, etc., “taking into communication my lady Governess, and
the Princess if expedient”.[48] Mr. Featherstone was to instruct her
in Latin, in the place of the Queen, who had hitherto undertaken this
branch of her studies. Shortly before going to Wales, Mary had received
a letter from her mother, in which, after expressing her trouble at the
long absence of the King, and of her daughter, and assuring her that
her health is “meetly good” and that she rejoices to hear that Mary’s
own health is mended, Katharine goes on to say:—
“As for your writing in Latin, I am glad that ye shall change from me
to master Federston, for that shall do you much good to learn by him
to write aright. But yet sometimes I would be glad when ye do write to
master Federston of your own inditing, when he hath read it, that I
may see it, for it shall be a great comfort to me to see you keep your
Latin and fair writing and all, and so I pray you to recommend me to my
lady of Salisbury.”[49]
Katharine had spared no pains in the education of her daughter,
basing it upon a solid foundation of piety, and imparting a taste for
learning, which helped to support Mary in the dark days to come. The
celebrated Ludovicus Vives had already contributed to her instruction
before her departure into Wales, and on her return continued to direct
one branch of her studies. In 1524 he had dedicated to the Princess
213 symbols or mottoes, with paraphrases upon each. The first one
was called _Scopus Vitæ Christus_, and the last _Mente Deo defixus_,
“and these,” says a contemporary writer, “the Princess seemed to have
in perpetual memory, by the practice of her whole life, for she made
Christ the beginning and end of all her actions, from whose goodness
all things do proceed, and to whom all things do tend, having a most
lively example in her virtuous mother”.[50]
The list of Latin works proposed by Vives, and in which Mary soon began
to delight, is startling from the profound character of the subjects
chosen. Among these works were the _Epistles of St. Jerome_, the
_Dialogues of Plato_, “particularly,” observes Sir Frederick Madden,
“those of a political turn”;[51] the works of Cicero, Seneca, Plutarch,
St. Ambrose, St. Augustine, St. Thomas, and other equally serious books.
That her mind responded to this severely classical and religious
training, is evident from the remarks scattered about the
correspondence of the more or less distinguished personages who at
different times came in contact with her. Her own countrymen were not a
little proud of her talents. Lord Morley, in the preface to his book,
_A New-Year’s Angelical Salutation by Tho. Aquine_, which he presented
to Mary as a New-Year’s gift, mentions the translation of a prayer
by St. Thomas which she had made. “I do remember,” he says, “that
skante ye were come to xij. yeres of age, but that ye were so rype in
the Laten tongue that rathe doth happen to the women sex, that your
grace not only could perfectly rede, wright and construe Laten, but
furthermore translate eny harde thing of the Laten in to our Inglysshe
tongue, and among all other your most vertuous occupacions, I have seen
one prayer translated of your doing of Sayncte Thomas Alquyne, that I
do ensuer your grace is so well done, so near to the Laten, that when
I loke upon it, as I have one of the exemplars of yt, I have not only
mervell at the doinge of it, but further for the well doing, have set
yt as well in my boke or bokes, as also in my pore wyfe’s, your humble
beadeswoman, and my chyldern, to gyve them occasion to remember to
praye for your grace.“[52]
The Princess of Wales had not long to maintain the vice-regal dignity
in the west. Fresh schemes were on foot for disposing of her in
marriage, and her presence was required at court.
After his disastrous defeat at Pavia, the news of which he communicated
to his mother in the famous words, “_Tout est perdu fors l’honneur_,”
Francis I. had been taken captive to Madrid, from whence he only
escaped by submitting to the most suicidal conditions, leaving his
two eldest sons as hostages in the hands of the Emperor. But having
signed the treaty of Madrid as a prisoner, and being therefore no free
agent, he was scarcely likely to consider its terms binding. One of its
stipulations was that he should marry the Emperor’s sister, Eleanor,
Dowager Duchess of Austria, but this he had no intention of doing,
provided he could regain possession of his children by any other means.
In the perpetual game of see-saw played by the three principal
monarchs of Christendom, with a constant change of partners, it is not
surprising to find Francis now looking towards England for a way out of
his difficulties. He had contrived to form a league against Charles,
consisting of the Pope, the Swiss, the Venetians, and the Florentines;
and if England could be persuaded to join it, this league would be
strong enough to defy the Emperor, and France might not only regain her
lost possessions, but dictate the terms of peace.
But Henry and Wolsey had no particular interest in making things
pleasant for Francis, whose overtures met with no eager response. It
was not clear to the King or his Chancellor what advantage would be
derived by them from an alliance with Francis.
“This king will not spend money to make an enemy of his friend, and
gain nothing,” replied the astute Wolsey to the Venetian, Gasparo
Spinelli, and he assured him that England would not join the league,
unless his most Christian Majesty first undertook to restore Boulogne,
and to marry the Princess Mary.[53]
But France had suffered too many humiliating losses willingly to give
up so important a place, and later, when Henry sent a special envoy to
negotiate a marriage between Mary and Francis, all mention of Boulogne
was dropped.
It would seem incredible, but for authentic evidence, that Henry should
have seriously entertained the notion of bestowing on a middle-aged
profligate such as the King of France, whose actual life would not
bear investigation, the young daughter whom he professed to love and
cherish, as “the pearl of the world”. Nevertheless, for a time at
least, his mind was fixed on this purpose, and Wolsey was never more
keenly alive to his own interests than in the fabrication of this
delicate piece of diplomacy. Francis was equally in earnest, on account
of his impatience to take reprisals on the Emperor, and the Queen
mother, Louise of Savoy, told the English ambassadors that her son had
long been anxious to marry their Princess, “both for her manifold
virtues and other gay qualities, which they assured them were not here
unknown”.
The next step was to send ambassadors to England to treat of the
marriage. These were the Bishop of Tarbes, afterwards Cardinal
Grammont, first president of the Parliament of Toulouse, the Vicomte
de Turenne, and La Viste, president of the Parliament of Paris. They
were instructed by Francis to go straight to the Princess Mary,
visit and salute her in his name, and to express his “sore longing
to have her portraiture”. Hereupon, Henry sent Francis his own and
Mary’s picture,[54] assuring him that he was much obliged to him for
condescending to take his little daughter, who did not deserve such
honour.[55]
The Venetians looked upon the marriage as certain, and thought that
war would be waged in consequence, in every direction;[56] but the
more general opinion in Europe was that Henry would not succeed in a
matrimonial alliance with any foreign potentate, but that the English
would insist on having a king of their own, and would not suffer a
foreigner to sit upon the throne.[57]
“In time of war,” said the Archbishop of Capua to Charles V., “the
English made use of their Princess as they did of an owl, as a decoy
for alluring the smaller birds.” The Emperor, not understanding the
allusion, asked the Archbishop what he meant by “owl,” and when it was
explained to him laughed heartily.
Meanwhile, the French envoys saw the Princess, on St. George’s Day
(1527). She spoke to them in French and Latin, and was made to display
her achievements in writing and on the harpsichord. Spinelli wrote
that a solemn betrothal had taken place at Greenwich, when the Bishop
of Tarbes had delivered an oration, after which he and the Vicomte
de Turenne had dined with the King, the others dining apart. At the
end of dinner they went to the Queen’s apartments, where the Princess
danced with de Turenne, who considered her very handsome, and admirable
by reason of her great and uncommon mental endowments, but so thin,
spare and small, as to render it impossible for her to be married for
the next three years.[58] A succession of jousts and masks of the most
dazzling description followed. Spinelli, in relating the brilliant
course of entertainments, says of one in particular:—
“Thereupon there fell to the ground at the extremity of the hall, a
painted canvas from an aperture, in which was seen a most verdant cave
approached by four steps, each side being guarded by four of the chief
gentlemen of the Court, clad in tissue doublets and tall plumes, each
of whom carried a torch. Well grouped, within the cave, were eight
damsels of such rare beauty, as to be supposed goddesses rather than
human beings. They were arrayed in cloth of gold, their hair gathered
into a net, with a very richly jewelled garland surmounted by a velvet
cap, the hanging sleeves of their surcoats being so long, that they
well-nigh touched the ground, and so well and richly wrought as to be
no slight ornament to their beauty. They descended gracefully from
their seats to the sound of trumpets, the first of them being the
Princess, with the Marchioness of Exeter. Her beauty in this array
produced such effect on everybody, that all the other marvellous sights
previously witnessed were forgotten, and they gave themselves up solely
to contemplation of so fair an angel. On her person were so many
precious stones, that their splendour and radiance dazzled the sight,
in such wise as to make one believe that she was decked with all the
gems of the eighth sphere. Dancing thus, they presented themselves to
the King, their dance being very delightful by reason of its variety,
as they formed certain groups and figures most pleasing to the sight.
Their dance being finished, they ranged themselves on one side, and
in like order, the eight youths, leaving their torches, came down from
the cave, and after performing their dances, each of them took by the
hand one of those beautiful nymphs, and having led a courant together,
for a while returned to their places. Six masks then entered. To
detail their costume would be but to repeat the words ‘cloth of gold,’
‘cloth of silver,’ etc. They chose such ladies as they pleased for
their partners, and commenced various dances, which being ended, the
King appeared. The French ambassador, the Marquis of Turrenne (_sic_),
was at his side, and behind him four couples of noblemen all masked,
and all wearing black velvet slippers on their feet, this being done
lest the King should be distinguished from the others, as from the
hurt which he received lately when playing at tennis, he wears a black
velvet slipper. They were all clad in tissue doublets, over which was
a very long and ample gown of black satin, with hoods of the same
material; and on their heads caps of tawney velvet. They then took by
the hand an equal number of ladies, dancing with great glee, and at the
end of the dance unmasked, whereupon, the Princess with her companions
again descended, and came to the King, who in the presence of the
French ambassadors, took off her cap, and the net being displaced,
a profusion of silver tresses, as beautiful as ever seen on human
head, fell over her shoulders, forming a most agreeable sight. The
aforesaid ambassadors then took leave of her, and all departing from
that beautiful place, returned to the supper hall, where the tables
were spread with every kind of confection and choice wines, for all who
chose to cheer themselves with them. The sun I believe greatly hastened
his course, having perhaps had a hint from Mercury of so rare a sight;
so showing himself already on the horizon, warning being thus given of
his presence, everybody thought it time to quit the royal chambers,
returning to their own with such sleepy eyes, that the daylight could
not keep them open.”[59]
Little progress was, however, made with the negotiations. Compliments
flowed freely on both sides, but did not advance matters, and Wolsey
determined to seek an interview with Francis, bring the affair to a
crisis, and settle certain other matters which had lately supervened,
to complicate immeasurably the tangled politics of Europe. One of
these was the sack of Rome by the imperial army, and the consequent
imprisonment of the Pope and the whole College of Cardinals, in the
Castle of St. Angelo. Another, which more immediately concerned
England, was known as yet but to a chosen few as “the king’s secret
matter,” but which was ultimately to inflame the whole of Christendom.
Wolsey was flattered, courted and feared by all the powers. He was
at once the most brilliant, the most daring and the least scrupulous
diplomat in Europe. His boundless ambition was easily entertained by
the notion that the Papal authority might be delegated to himself,
during the Pope’s captivity, and that thus by one swing of the
pendulum, he might be raised to the highest dignity on earth. This one
swing of the pendulum was to be effected by a promise, that if Henry
secured his election, he would, as Pope, pass a decree in favour of
“the king’s secret matter”.[60]
But before this dream could be realised, Francis must be won over to
the scheme of his candidature, and the votes of the French cardinals
secured. Francis, bent only on checkmating the Emperor, was fascinated
with the idea of marrying the English princess, and of drawing England
into the league against Charles; and Wolsey, ever tactful, kept his own
plans in the background, until the royal suitor should be satisfied.
The Cardinal of York and the French King were to meet at Amiens, and
the moment that Wolsey set foot in France he received from the King
a commission, authorising him to pardon and liberate under his own
letters patent, such prisoners as he chose, in the towns through which
he passed, except those committed for treason, murder, and similar
crimes. After their first interview, the Cardinal wrote an account
to Henry of all that had passed between them. Francis had spoken of
Mary as “the cornerstone of the new covenant,” “and I,” added Wolsey,
“being her godfather, loving her entirely, next unto your Highness, and
above all other creatures, assured him that I was desirous she should
be bestowed upon his person, as in the best and most worthy place in
Christendom”.
Francis coveted the honour of possessing the Garter, and his hint to
that effect was ingenious, if somewhat broad. Taking hold of the image
of St. Michael, which he wore on his neck, he said
|
The Naturalist.
* * * * *
LENGTH AND FINENESS OF THE SILKWORM'S WEB, &c.
Baker in _The Microscope made Easy_, says, "A silkworm's web being
examined, appeared perfectly smooth and shining, every where equal,
and much finer than any thread the best spinster in the world can
make, as the smallest twine is finer than the thickest cable. A pod of
this silk being wound off, was found to contain 930 yards; but it is
proper to take notice, that as two threads are glewed together by the
worm through its whole length, it makes double the above number, or
1,860 yards; which being weighed with the utmost exactness, were found
no heavier than two grains and a half. What an exquisite fineness is
here! and yet, this is nothing when compared with the web of a small
spider, or even with the silk that issued from the mouth of this very
worm, when but newly hatched from the egg."
Under the article _Silk_, in _Rees's Cyclopaedia_, the writer says,
"that those who have examined it attentively, think they speak within
compass, when they affirm that each ball contains silk enough to reach
the length of _six_ English miles."
Baker tells us, "not to neglect the _skins_ these animals cast off
three times before they begin to spin; for the eyes, mouth, teeth,
ornaments of the head, and many other parts may be discovered better
in the _cast_-off skins than in the real animal."
P.T.W.
* * * * *
CUCKOO
Mr. Jerdan, editor of the _Literary Gazette_, in a letter to Mr.
Loudon, says, "about fifteen years ago I obtained a cuckoo from the
nest of (I think) a hedge sparrow, at Old Brompton, where I then
resided. It was rather curious, as being within ten yards of my house,
Cromwell Cottage, and in a narrow and much frequented lane, leading
from near Gloucester Lodge to Kensington. This bird I reared and kept
alive till late in January; when it fell suddenly from its perch,
while feeding on a rather large dew worm. It was buried: but I had,
long afterwards, strange misgivings, that my poor feathered favourite
was only choked by his food, or in a fit of some kind--his apparent
death was so extremely unexpected from his health and liveliness at
the time. I assure you that I regretted my loss much, my bird being in
full plumage and a very handsome creature. He was quite tame, for in
autumn I used to set him on a branch of a tree in the garden, while I
dug worms for him to dine upon, and he never attempted more than a
short friendly flight. During the coldest weather, and it was rather a
sharp winter, my only precaution was, nearly to cover his cage with
flannel; and when I used to take it off, more or less, on coming into
my breakfast room in the morning, I was recognised by him with
certainly not all the cry "unpleasant to a married ear," but with its
full half "_Cuck_! _Cuck_!"--the only sounds or notes I ever heard
from my bird. Though trifling, these facts may be so far curious as
illustrating the natural history of a remarkable genus, and I have
great pleasure in offering them for your excellent Journal." _Mag.
Nat. Hist._
* * * * *
MUSICAL SNAILS.
As I was sitting in my room, on the first floor, about nine P.M. (4th
of October last), I was surprised with what I supposed to be the notes
of a bird, under or upon the sill of a window. My impression was, that
they somewhat resembled the notes of a wild duck in its nocturnal
flight, and, at times, the twitter of a redbreast, in quick
succession. To be satisfied on the subject, I carefully removed the
shutter, and, to my surprise, found it was a garden snail, which, in
drawing itself along the glass, had produced sounds similar to those
elicited from the musical glasses.--_Ibid_.
* * * * *
BEWICK.
In the museum at Newcastle are many of the identical specimens from
which the illustrious townsman Bewick drew his figures for the
wood-cuts which embellish his unique and celebrated work. This truly
amiable man, and, beyond all comparison, greatest genius Newcastle has
ever produced, died on the 8th of November last, in the 76th year of
his age. He continued to the last in the enjoyment of all his
faculties; his single-heartedness and enthusiasm not a jot abated, and
his wonder-working pencil still engaged in tracing, with his wonted
felicity and fidelity, those objects which had all his life afforded
him such delight, and which have charmed, and must continue to charm,
all those who have any relish for the pure and simple beauties of
nature.--_Ibid_.
* * * * *
[Illustration: The Argonaut, or Paper Nautilus.]
Learn of the little Nautilus to sail,
Spread the thin oar, and catch the driving gale.
This species of shell-fish, (see the cut,) is named from _Argonautes_,
the companions of Jason, in the celebrated ship, Argo, and from the
Latin _naus_, a ship; the shells of all the Nautili having the
appearance of a ship with a very high poop. The shell of this
interesting creature is no thicker than paper, and divided into forty
compartments or chambers, through every one of which a portion of its
body passes, connected as it were, by a thread. In the cut it is
represented as sailing, when it expands two of its arms on high, and
between these supports a membrane which serves as a sail, hanging the
two other arms out of its shell, to serve as oars, the office of
steerage being generally served by the tail.
The shell of the Nautilus being exceedingly thin and fragile, the
tenant has many enemies, and among others the Trochus who makes war on
it with unrelenting fury. Pursued by this cruel foe, it ascends to the
top of the water, spreads its little sail to catch the flying breeze,
and rowing with all its might, scuds along, like a galley in
miniature, and often escapes its more cumbrous pursuer. Sometimes,
however, all will not do, the Trochus nears and nears, and escape
appears impossible; but when the little animal, with inexplicable
ingenuity, suddenly and secretly extricates itself from its tortuous
and fragile dwelling, the Trochus immediately turns to other prey. The
Nautilus then returns to tenant and repair its little bark; but it too
often happens, that before he can regain it, it is by a species of
shipwreck, dashed to pieces on the shore. Thus wretchedly situated,
this hero of the testaceous tribe seeks some obscure corner "where to
die," but which seldom, if ever, happens, until after he has made
extraordinary exertions to establish himself anew. What a fine picture
of virtue nobly struggling with misfortune.[8]
When the sea is calm, whole fleets of these Nautili may be seen
diverting themselves; but when a storm rises, or they are disturbed,
they draw in their legs, take in as much water as makes them
specifically heavier, than that in which they float, and then sink to
the bottom. When they rise again they void this water by numerous
holes, of which their legs are full. The other species of Nautilus,
whose shell is thick, never quits that habitation. The shells of both
varieties are exceedingly beautiful when polished, and produce high
prices among Conchologists.
It is easy to conceive that the ingenious habits of this wonderful
creature may have suggested to man the power of sailing upon the sea,
and of the various apparatus by which he effects that object. The
whole creation abounds with similar instances of Nature ministering to
the proud purposes of art: one of them, the origin of the Gothic Arch
from the "high o'erarching groves," is mentioned by Warburton, in his
_Divine Legation_, and is a sublime lesson for besotted man.
[8] Magazine of Natural History, No.1.
* * * * *
THE SELECTOR;
AND
LITERARY NOTICES OF _NEW WORKS_.
* * * * *
VIDOCQ.
[We have abridged one of the most striking chapters in the very
extraordinary history of Vidocq; premising that the interest of the
adventure will compensate for the space it here occupies.]
A short time before the first invasion (1814), M. Senard, one of the
richest jewellers of the Palais Royal, having gone to pay a visit to
his friend the Curè of Livry, found him in one of those perplexities
which are generally caused by the approach of our good friends the
enemy. He was anxious to secrete from the rapacity of the cossacks
first the consecrated vessels, and then his own little treasures.
After much hesitation, although in his situation he must have been
used to interments, Monsieur le Curè decided on burying the objects
which he was anxious to save, and M. Senard, who, like the other
gossips and misers, imagined that Paris would be given over to
pillage, determined to cover up, in a similar way, the most precious
articles in his shop. It was agreed that the riches of the pastor and
those of the jeweller should be deposited in the same hole. But, then,
who was to dig the said hole? One of the singers in church was the
very pearl of honest fellows, father Moiselet, and in him every
confidence could be reposed. He would not touch a penny that did not
belong to him. The hole, made with much skill, was soon ready to
receive the treasure which it was intended to preserve, and six feet
of earth were cast on the specie of the Curè, to which were united
diamonds worth 100,000 crowns, belonging to M. Senard, and enclosed in
a small box. The hollow filled up, the ground was so well flattened,
that one would have betted with the devil that it had not been stirred
since the creation. "This good Moiselet," said M. Senard, rubbing his
hands, "has done it all admirably. Now, gentlemen cossacks, you must
have fine noses if you find it out!" At the end of a few days the
allied armies made further progress, and clouds of Kirguiz, Kalmucs,
and Tartars, of all hordes and all colours, appeared in the environs
of Paris. These unpleasant guests are, it is well known, very greedy
for plunder: they made, every where, great ravages; they passed no
habitation without exacting tribute: but in their ardour for pillage
they did not confine themselves to the surface, all belonged to them
to the centre of the globe; and that they might not be frustrated in
their pretensions, these intrepid geologists made a thousand
excavations, which, to the regret of the naturalists of the country,
proved to them, that in France the mines of gold or silver are not so
deep as in Peru. Such a discovery was well calculated to give them
additional energy; they dug with unparalleled activity, and the spoil
they found in many places of concealment threw the Croesuses of many
cantons into perfect despair. The cursed Cossacks! But yet the
instinct which so surely led them to the spot where treasure was
hidden, did not guide them to the hiding place of the Curè. It was
like the blessing of heaven, each morning the sun rose and nothing
new; nothing new when it set.
Most decidedly the finger of heaven must be recognised in the
impenetrability of the mysterious inhumation performed by Moiselet. M.
Senard was so fully convinced of it, that he actually mingled
thanksgivings with the prayers which he made for the preservation and
repose of his diamonds. Persuaded that his vows would be heard, in
growing security he began to sleep more soundly, when one fine day,
which was, of all days in the week, a Friday, Moiselet, more dead than
alive, ran to the Curè's.
"Ah, sir, I can scarcely speak."
"What's the matter, Moiselet?"
"I dare not tell you. Poor M. le Curè, this affects me deeply, I am
paralyzed. If my veins were open not a drop of blood would flow."
"What is the matter? You alarm me."
"The hole."
"Mercy! I want to learn no more. Oh, what a terrible scourge is war!
Jeanneton, Jeanneton, come quickly, my shoes and hat."
"But, sir, you have not breakfasted."
"Oh, never mind breakfast."
"You know, sir, when you go out fasting you have such spasms----."
"My shoes, I tell you."
"And then you complain of your stomach."
"I shall have no want of a stomach again all my life. Never any
more--no, never--ruined."
"Ruined--Jesu--Maria! Is it possible? Ah! sir, run then,--run--."
Whilst the Curè dressed himself in haste, and, impatient to buckle the
strap, could scarcely put on his shoes, Moiselet, in a most lamentable
tone, told him what he had seen.
"Are you sure of it?" said the Curè, perhaps they did not take all."
"Ah, sir, God grant it, but I had not courage enough to look."
They went together towards the old barn, when they found that the
spoliation had been complete. Reflecting on the extent of his loss,
the Curè nearly fell to the ground. Moiselet was in a most pitiable
state; the dear man afflicted himself more than if the loss had been
his own. It was terrific to hear his sighs and groans. This was the
result of love to one's neighbour. M. Senard little thought how great
was the desolation at Livry. What was his despair on receiving the
news of the event! In Paris the police is the providence of people who
have lost any thing. The first idea, and the most natural one, that
occurred to M. Senard was, that the robbery had been committed by the
Cossacks, and, in such a case, the police could not avail him
materially; but M. Senard took care not to suspect the Cossacks.
One Monday when I was in the office of M. Henry, I saw one of those
little abrupt, brisk men enter, who, at the first glance, we are
convinced are interested and distrustful: it was M. Senard, who
briefly related his mishap, and concluded by saying, that he had
strong suspicions of Moiselet. M. Henry thought also that he was the
author of the robbery, and I agreed with both. "It is very well," he
said, "but still our opinion is only founded on conjecture, and if
Moiselet keeps his own counsel we shall have no chance of convicting
him. It will be impossible."
"Impossible!" cried M. Senard, "what will become of me? No, no, I
shall not vainly implore your succour. Do not you know all? can you
not do all when you choose? My diamonds! my poor diamonds! I will give
one hundred thousand francs to get them back again."
[Vidocq promises to recover the jewels, and the jeweller offers him
10,000 francs.]
In spite of successive abatements of M. Senard, in proportion as he
believed the discovery probable, I promised to exert every effort in
my power to effect the desired result. But before any thing could be
undertaken, it was necessary that a formal complaint should be made;
and M. Senard and the Curè, thereupon, went to Pontoise, and the
declaration being consequently made, and the robbery stated, Moiselet
was taken up and interrogated. They tried every means to make him
confess his guilt; but he persisted in avowing himself innocent, and,
for lack of proof to the contrary, the charge was about to be dropped
altogether, when to preserve it for a time, I set an agent of mine to
work. He, clothed in a military uniform, with his left arm in a sling,
went with a billet to the house where Moiselet's wife lived. He was
supposed to have just left the hospital, and was only to stay at Livry
for forty-eight hours; but a few moments after his arrival, he had a
fall, and a pretended sprain suddenly occurred, which put it out of
his power to continue his route. It was then indispensable for him to
delay, and the mayor decided that he should remain with the cooper's
wife until further orders.
The cooper's wife was charmed with his many little attentions. The
soldier could write, and became her secretary; but the letters which
she addressed to her dear husband were of a nature not to compromise
her--not the least expression that can have a twofold construction--it
was innocence corresponding with innocence. At length, after a few
day's experience, I was convinced that my agent, in spite of his
talent, would draw no profit from his mission. I then resolved to
manoeuvre in person, and, disguised as a travelling hawker, I began to
visit the environs of Livry. I was one of those Jews who deal in every
thing,--clothes, jewels, &c. &c.; and I took in exchange gold, silver,
jewels, in fact, all that was offered me. An old female robber, who
knew the neighbourhood perfectly, accompanied me in my tour: she was
the widow of a celebrated thief, Germain Boudier, called Father
Latuil, who, after having undergone half-a-dozen sentences, died at
last at Saint Pelagie. I flattered myself that Madame Moiselet,
seduced by her eloquence, and by our merchandize, would bring out the
store of the Curè's crowns, some brilliant of the purest water, nay,
even the chalice or paten, in case the bargain should be to her
liking. My calculation was not verified; the cooper's wife was in no
haste to make a bargain, and her coquetry did not get the better of
her.
The Jew hawker was soon metamorphosed into a German servant; and under
this disguise I began to ramble about the vicinity of Pontoise, with a
design of being apprehended. I sought out the gendarmes, whilst I
pretended to avoid them; but they, thinking I wished to get away from
them, demanded a sight of my papers. Of course I had none, and they
desired me to accompany them to a magistrate, who, knowing nothing of
the jargon in which I replied to his questions, desired to know what
money I had; and a search was forthwith commenced in his presence. My
pockets contained some money and valuables, the possession of which
seemed to astonish him. The magistrate, as curious as a commissary,
wished to know how they came into my hands; and I sent him to the
devil with two or three Teutonic oaths, of the most polished kind; and
he, to teach me better manners another time, sent me to prison.
Once more the iron bolts were drawn upon me. At the moment of my
arrival, the prisoners were playing in the prison yard, and the jailer
introduced me amongst them in these terms, "I bring you a murderer of
the parts of speech; understand him if you can."
They immediately flocked about me, and I was accosted with salutations
of _Landsman_ and _Meinheer_ without end. During this reception, I
looked out for the cooper of Livry.
[He meets with him.]
"Mossié, Mossié," I said, addressing the prisoner, who seemed to think
I said Moiselet, "Mossié Fine Hapit, (not knowing his name, I so
designated him, because his coat was the colour of flesh,) sacrement,
ter teufle, no tongue to me; yer François, I miseraple, I trink vine;
faut trink for gelt, plack vine."
I pointed to his hat, which was black; he did not understand me; but
on making a gesture that I wanted to drink, he found me perfectly
intelligible. All the buttons of my great coat were twenty-franc
pieces; I gave him one: he asked if they had brought the wine, and
soon afterwards I heard a turnkey say,
"Father Moiselet, I have taken up two bottles for you." The
flesh-coloured coat was then Moiselet. I followed him into his room,
and we began to drink with all our might. Two other bottles arrived;
we only went on in couples. Moiselet, in his capacity of chorister,
cooper, sexton, &c. &c. was no less a sot than gossip; he got tipsy
with great good-will, and incessantly spoke to me in the jargon I had
assumed.
Matters progressed well; after two or three hours such as these I
pretended to get stupid. Moiselet, to set me to rights, gave me a cup
of coffee without sugar; after coffee came glasses of water. No one
can conceive the care which my new friend took of me; but when
drunkenness is of such a nature it is like death--all care is useless.
Drunkenness overpowered me. I went to bed and slept; at least Moiselet
thought so; but I saw him many times fill my glass and his own, and
gulp them both down. The next day, when I awoke, he paid me the
balance, three francs and fifty centimes, which, according to him,
remained from the twenty-franc piece. I was an excellent companion;
Moiselet found me so, and never quitted me. I finished the
twenty-franc piece with him, and then produced one of forty francs,
which vanished as quickly. When he saw it drunk out also he feared it
was the last.
"Your button again," said he to me, in a tone of extreme anxiety, and
yet very comical.
I showed him another coin. "Ah, your large button again," he shouted
out, jumping for joy.
This button went the same way as all the other buttons, until at
length, by dint of drinking together, Moiselet understood and spoke my
language almost as well as I did myself, and we could then disclose
our troubles to each other. Moiselet was very curious to know my
history, and that which I trumped up was exactly adapted to inspire
the confidence I wished to create.
"My master and I come to France--I was tomestic--master of mein
Austrian marechal--Austrian with de gelt in family. Master always
roving, always gay, joint regiment at Montreau. Montreau, oh, mein
Gott, great, great pattle--many sleep no more but in death. Napoleon
coom--poum, poum go gannon. Prusse, Austrian, Rousse all disturb. I,
too, much disturb. Go on my ways with master mein, with my havresac on
mein horse--poor teufel was I--but there was gelt in it. Master mein
say, 'Galop, Fritz.' I called Fritz in home mein. Fritz galop to
Pondi--there halt Fritz--place havresac not visible; and if I get
again to Yarmany with havresac, me rich becomen, mistress mein rich,
father mein rich, you too rich."
Although the narrative was not the cleverest in the world, father
Moiselet swallowed it all as gospel; he saw well that during the
battle of Montereau, I had fled with my master's portmanteau, and
hidden it in the forest of Bondy. The confidence did not astonish him,
and had the effect of acquiring for me an increase of his affection.
This augmentation of friendship, after a confession which exposed me
as a thief, proved to me that he had an accommodating conscience. I
thenceforth remained convinced that he knew better than any other
person what had become of the diamonds of M. Senard, and that it only
depended on him to give me full and accurate information.
One evening, after a good dinner, I was boasting to him of the
delicacies of the Rhine: he heaved a deep sigh, and then asked me if
there was good wine in that country.
"Yes, yes," I answered, "goot vine and charming girl."
"Charming girl too!"
"Ya, ya."
"Landsman, shall I go with you."
"Ya, ya, me grat content."
"Ah, you content, well! I quit France, yield the old woman, (he showed
me by his fingers that Madame Moiselet was three-and-thirty,) and in
your land I take little girl no more as fifteen years."
"Ya, bien, a girl no infant: a! you is a brave lad."
Moiselet returned more than once to his project of emigration; he
thought seriously of it, but to emigrate liberty was requisite, and
they were not inclined to let us go out. I suggested to him that he
should escape with me on the first opportunity--and when he had
promised me that we would not separate, not even to take a last adieu
of his wife, I was certain that I should soon have him in my toils.
This certainly was the result of very simple reasoning. Moiselet, said
I to myself, will follow me to Germany: people do not travel or live
on air: he relies on living well there: he is old, and, like king
Solomon, proposes to tickle his fancy with some little Abishag of
Sunem. Oh, father Moiselet has found the _black hen_; here he has no
money, therefore his black hen is not here; but where is she? We shall
soon learn, for we are to be henceforward inseparable.
As soon as my man had made all his reflections, and that, with his
head full of his castles in Germany, he had so soon resolved to
expatriate himself, I addressed to the king's attorney-general a
letter, in which, making myself known as the superior agent of the
Police de Sûreté, I begged him to give an order that I should be sent
away with Moiselet, he to go to Livry, and I to Paris.
We did not wait long for the order, and the jailer announced it to us,
on the eve of its being put into execution; and I had the night before
me to fortify Moiselet in his resolutions. He persisted in them more
strongly than ever, and acceded with rapture to the proposition I made
him of effecting an escape from our escort as soon as it was feasible.
So anxious was he to commence his journey, that he could not sleep. At
daybreak, I gave him to understand that I took him for a thief as well
as myself.
"Ah, ah, grip also," said I to him, "deep, deep François, you not
spoken, but tief all as von."
He made me no answer; but when, with my fingers squeezed together _à
la Normande_, he saw me make a gesture of grasping something, he could
not prevent himself from smiling, with that bashful expression of
_Yes_, which he had not courage to utter. The hypocrite had some shame
about him, the shame of a devotee. I was understood.
At length the wished-for moment of departure came, which was to enable
us to accomplish our designs. Moiselet was ready three whole hours
beforehand, and to give him courage, I had not neglected to push about
the wine and brandy, and he did not leave the prison until after
having received all his sacraments.
We were tied with a very thin cord, and on our way he made me a signal
that there would be no difficulty in breaking it. He did not think
that he should break the charm which had till then preserved him. The
further we went the more he testified that he placed his hopes of
safety in me; at each minute he reiterated a prayer that I would not
abandon him; and I as often replied, "Ya, François, ya, I not leave
you." At length the decisive moment came, the cord was broken. I
leaped a ditch, which separated us from a thicket. Moiselet, who
seemed young again, jumped after me: one of the gendarmes alighted to
follow us, but to run and jump in jack-boots and with a heavy sword
was difficult; and whilst he made a circuit to join us, we disappeared
in a hollow, and were soon lost to view.
A path into which we struck led us to the wood of Vaujours. There
Moiselet stopped, and having looked carefully about him, went towards
some bushes. I saw him then stoop, plunge his arm into a thick tuft,
whence he took out a spade: arising quickly, he went on some paces
without saying a word; and when we reached a birch tree, several of
the boughs of which I observed were broken, he took off his hat and
coat, and began to dig. He went to work with so much good-will, that
his labour rapidly advanced. Suddenly he stooped down, and then
escaped from him that ha! which betokens satisfaction, and which
informed me, without the use of a conjuror's rod, that he had found
his treasure. I thought the cooper would have fainted; but recovering
himself, he made two or three more strokes with his spade, and the box
was exposed to view. I seized on the instrument of his toil, and
suddenly changing my language, declared, in very good French, that he
was my prisoner.
"No resistance," I said, "or I will cleave your skull in two."
At this threat he seemed in a dream; but when he knew that he was
gripped by that iron hand which had subdued the most vigorous
malefactors, he was convinced that it was no vision. Moiselet was as
quiet as a lamb. I had sworn not to leave him, and kept my word.
During the journey to the station of the brigade of gendarmerie, where
I deposited him, he frequently cried out,
"I am done--who could have thought it? and he had such a simple look
too!"
At the assizes of Versailles, Moiselet was sentenced to six months'
solitary confinement.
M. Senard was overpowered with joy at having recovered his hundred
thousand crowns worth of diamonds. Faithful to his system of
abatement, he reduced the reward one-half; and still there was
difficulty in getting five thousand francs from him, out of which I
had been compelled to expend more than two thousand: in fact, at one
moment I really thought I should have been compelled to bear the
expenses myself.
* * * * *
SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS
THE TOYMAN IS ABROAD.
"En fait d'inutilités, il ne faut que le nécessaire."
CHAMPFORT.
There is no term in political philosophy more ambiguous and lax in its
meaning than Luxury. In Ireland, salt with a potato is, by the
peasant, placed in this category. Among the Cossacks, a clean shirt is
more than a luxury--it is an effeminacy; and a Scotch nobleman is
reported to have declared, that the act of scratching one's self is a
luxury too great for any thing under royalty. The Russians (there is
no disputing on tastes) hold train-oil to be a prime luxury; and I
remember seeing a group of them following an exciseman on the quays at
Dover to plunder the oil casks, as they were successively opened for
his operations. A poor Finland woman, who for her sins had married an
Englishman and followed him to this country, was very glad to avail
herself of her husband's death to leave a land where the people were
so unhappy as to be without a regular supply of seal's flesh for their
dinner. While the good man lived, her affection for him somewhat
balanced her hankering after this native luxury; but no sooner was the
husband dead, than her lawyer-like propensity re-assumed its full
force, and, like Proteus released from his chains, she abandoned
civilized life to get back to her favourite shores, to liberty, and
the animals of her predilection. "If I were rich," said a poor
farmer's boy, "I would eat fat pudding, and ride all day on a gate;"
which was evidently his highest idea of human luxury. But it is less
with the quality of our indulgences, than their extent, that I have
now to treat. Diogenes, who prided himself on cutting his coat
according to his cloth, and thought himself a greater man, in
proportion as he diminished his wants, placed his luxuries in idleness
and sunshine, and seems to have relished these enjoyments with as much
sensuality as Plato did his fine house and delicate fare. Even he was
more reasonable than those sectarians, who have prevailed in almost
all religions, and who, believing that the Deity created man for the
express purpose of inflicting upon him every species of torture, have
inveighed against the most innocent gratifications, and have erected
luxury into a deadly sin. These theologians will not allow a man to
eat his breakfast with a relish; and impute it as a vice if he smacks
his lips, though it be but after a draught of water. Nay, there have
been some who have thought good roots and Adam's ale too great
luxuries for a Christian lawfully to indulge in; and they have
purposely ill-cooked their vegetables, and mixed them with ashes, and
even more disgusting things, to mortify the flesh, as they called
it--i.e. to offer a sacrifice of their natural feelings to the demon
of which they have made a god.
Of late years, more especially, our ideas on this subject have much
enlarged; and all ranks of Englishmen hold an infinity of objects as
prime necessaries, which their more modest ancestors ranked as
luxuries, fit only for their betters to enjoy. This should be a matter
of sincere rejoicing to all true patriots; because it affords
indubitable evidence of the progress of civilization. A civilized
gentleman differs from a savage, principally in the multiplicity of
his wants; and Mandeville, in his fable of the bees, has proved to
demonstration that extravagance is the mother of commerce. What,
indeed, are steam-engines, macadamized roads, man-traps that break no
bones, patent cork-screws, and detonating fowling-pieces, safety
coaches and cork legs, but luxuries, at which a cynic would scoff; yet
how could a modern Englishman get on without them? It is perfectly
true that our Henries and Edwards contrived to beat their enemies
unassisted by these inventions. Books, likewise, which were a luxury
scarcely known to the wisdom of our ancestors, are a luxury now so
indispensable, that there is hardly a mechanic who has not his little
library: while a piano forte also has become as necessary to a
farm-house as a mangle or a frying-pan; and there are actually more
copies printed of "Cherry ripe," than of Tull's husbandry. Is not a
silver fork, moreover, an acknowledged necessary in every decent
establishment? while the barbarous Mussulman dispenses with knives and
forks altogether, and eats his meal, like a savage as he is, with his
fingers. Nor can it be deemed an objection to this hypothesis, that
the Turk, who rejects all the refinements of European civilization,
excepting only gunpowder, esteems four wives to be necessary to a
decent establishment; while the most clear-sighted Englishmen think
one more than enough for enjoyment. The difference is more formal than
real.
Henry the fourth of France had but one coach between himself and his
queen; whereas no respectable person can now dispense at the least
with a travelling chariot, a barouche, a cab, and a dennet.
Civilization, which received a temporary check during the
revolutionary war, has resumed its march in double-quick time
|
to Greek, and like Greek is one of
the Indo-European family of languages, to which English and the other
most important languages of Europe belong. It started with the same
material as Greek, but while Greek developed constantly more variety,
more delicacy, and more flexibility, Latin is fixed and rigid, a
language adapted to laws and commands rather than to the lighter and
more graceful kinds of utterance. Circumstances, aided no doubt by the
natural bent of their minds, tended to make the Romans political,
military, and practical, rather than artistic.
Roman literature, as might be expected after what has just been
said, is often not the spontaneous outpouring of literary genius,
but the means by which some practical ends or purposes are to be
attained. Almost from first to last, the writings of Roman authors
have a political purpose, and the influence of political events upon
the literature is most marked. [Sidenote: Political purpose of
Roman writings.] Even those kinds of Roman literature which seem at
first sight to have the least connection with political matters have
nevertheless a political purpose. Plays were written to enhance the
splendor of public festivals provided by office holders who were at
the same time office seekers and hoped to win the favor of the people
by successful entertainments; history was written to teach the proper
methods of action for future use or (sometimes) to add to the influence
of living leaders of the state by calling to mind the great deeds
of their ancestors; epic and lyric poems were composed to glorify
important persons at Rome, or at least to prove the right of Rome to
the foremost place among the nations by giving her a literature worthy
to rank with that of the Greeks.
[Sidenote: Divisions of Roman literature.] The development of Roman
literature is closely connected with political events, and its three
great divisions correspond to the divisions of Roman political history.
The first or Republican Period extends from the beginning of Roman
literature after the first Punic war (240 B. C.) to the battle of
Actium in 31 B. C. The second or Augustan Period, from 31 B. C. to 14
A. D., is the period in which the institutions of the republic were
transformed to serve the purposes of the monarchy. The “Golden Age”
of Roman literature comprises the last part of the Republican Period
and the whole Augustan Period, from 81 B. C. to 14 A. D. The third or
Imperial Period lasts from 14 A. D. to the beginning of the Middle
Ages. The first part of this period, from 14 to 117 A. D., is called
the “Silver Age.” In the first period the Romans learn to imitate
Greek literature and develop their language until it is capable of
fine literary treatment, and in the latter part of this time they
produce some of their greatest works, especially in prose. The second
period, made illustrious by Horace and Virgil, is the time when
Roman poetry reaches its greatest height. The third period is a time
of decline, sometimes rapid, sometimes retarded for a while, during
which Roman literature shows few great works and many of very slight
literary value. Throughout the first and second periods, and even
for the most part in the third period, Latin literature is produced
almost entirely at Rome, is affected by changes in the city, and
reflects the sentiments of the city population. It is therefore proper
to speak of Roman literature, rather than Latin literature, for that
which interests us is the literature of the city by the Tiber and of
the civilization with which the city is identified, rather than works
written in the Latin language.
[Sidenote: Elements of native Roman literature.] The beginning of a
real literature at Rome was made by a foreigner of Greek birth, and
naturally took the form of an imitation of Greek works. This would
undoubtedly have been the case, even if the first professional author
had been a native Roman, for the Romans had for some time been in
close touch with the Greeks of Italy, and Greek literature presented
itself to them as a finished product, calling for their admiration
and inciting them to imitate it. Nevertheless there were in existence
at Rome in early times materials from which a native literature might
have arisen if the Greek influence had not been so strong as to prevent
their development. The early Romans sang songs at weddings and at
harvest festivals, chanted hymns to the gods, and were familiar with
rude popular performances which might have given rise to a native
drama. The words of such songs and performances were of course, for the
most part at least, rhythmical, but few if any of them were committed
to writing until much later times. The art of writing was, however,
known to the Romans as early as the sixth century B. C., for the Greek
colonies on the coast of Italy must have had trade connections with the
Romans at a very early time, and writing was thoroughly familiar to
the Greeks by the time Rome was two centuries old.
From early times the Romans kept lists of officials, records of
prodigies, lists of the _dies fasti_, i. e., of the days on which
it was lawful to conduct public business, and other simple records.
The twelve tables of the laws are said to have been written in 451
and 450 B. C., and these had some influence on Roman prose, for they
were the first attempt at connected prose in the Latin language. No
doubt other laws and probably also treaties were written in Latin and
preserved at an early date. Funeral orations called for some practise
in oratory, but probably not for careful preparation, and certainly not
for composition in writing in the early days of Rome. [Sidenote: Appius
Claudius Cæcus.] The first Roman speech known to have been written
out for publication is the speech delivered in 280 B. C., by the aged
Appius Claudius Cæcus, in which he urged the rejection of the terms of
peace offered by Pyrrhus. This speech was known and read at Rome for
two centuries after the death of its author. A collection of sayings
or proverbs was also current under the name of Claudius, and he was
actively interested in adapting more perfectly to the Latin language
the alphabet which the Romans had received from the Greeks, and in
fixing the spelling of Latin words.
All this is, however, not so much literature as the material from which
literature might have developed if Rome had been removed from the
sphere of Greek influence. Since that was not the case, these first
steps toward a national literature led to nothing, though they show
that the Romans had some originality, and help us to understand some
of the peculiarities of Roman literature as distinguished from its
Greek prototype. Still Roman literature is a literature of imitation,
and the beginning of it was made by a Greek named Andronicus, who
was brought to Rome after the capture of Tarentum in 272 B. C. when
he was still a boy. At Rome he was the slave of M. Livius Salinator,
whose children he instructed in Greek and Latin. [Sidenote: L.
Livius Andronicus.] When set free, he took the name of Lucius Livius
Andronicus, and continued to teach. As there were no Latin books which
he could use in teaching, he conceived the idea of translating Homer’s
Odyssey into Latin, thereby making the beginning of Latin literature.
His translation of the Odyssey was rude and imperfect. Andronicus made
no attempt to reproduce in Latin the hexameter verse of Homer, but
employed the native Saturnian verse (see page 7), probably because it
seemed to him better fitted to the Latin language than the more stately
hexameter. After the first Punic war, at the _Ludi Romani_ in 240 B.
C., Andronicus produced and put upon the stage Latin translations of
a Greek tragedy and a Greek comedy. In these and his later dramas he
retained the iambic and trochaic metres of the originals, and his
example was followed by his successors. He also composed hymns for
public occasions. Of his works only a few fragments are preserved,
hardly more than enough to show that they had little real literary
merit. But he had made a beginning, and long before his death, which
took place about 204 B. C., his successors were advancing along the
lines he had marked out.
Gnæus Nævius, a freeborn citizen of a Latin city in Campania, was the
first native Latin poet of importance. [Sidenote: Gnæus Nævius.] He was
a soldier in the first Punic war, at the end of which, while still a
young man, he came to Rome, where he devoted himself to poetry. He was
a man of independent spirit, not hesitating to attack in his comedies
and other verses the most powerful Romans, especially the great family
of the Metelli. For many years he maintained his position, but at last
the Metelli brought about his imprisonment and banishment, and he died
in exile in 199 B. C., at about seventy years of age. His dramatic
works were numerous, both tragedies and comedies, for the most part
translations and adaptations from the Greek, but alongside of these he
produced also plays based upon Roman legends. These were called _fabulæ
prætextæ_ or _prætextatæ_, “plays of the purple stripe,” because the
characters wore Roman costumes. In one of these plays, the _Romulus_
(or in two, if the _Lupus_ or “Wolf” is not the _Romulus_ under another
title), he dramatized the story of Romulus and Remus, and in another,
the _Clastidium_, the defeat (in 222 B. C.) of the Insubrians by M.
Claudius Marcellus and Cn. Cornelius Scipio. In his later years he
turned to epic poetry and wrote in Saturnian verse the history of the
first Punic war, introduced by an account of the legendary history of
Rome from the departure of Æneas for Italy after the fall of Troy. This
poem was read and admired for many years, and parts of it were imitated
by Virgil in the _Æneid_. Nævius also wrote other poems, called
_Satires_, on various subjects, partly, but not entirely, in Saturnian
metre. Of all these works only inconsiderable fragments remain. They
show, however, that Nævius was a poet of real power, and that with him
the Latin language was beginning to develop some fitness for literary
use. His epitaph, preserved by Aulus Gellius, will serve not only to
show the stiff and monotonous rhythm of the Saturnian verse, but also,
since it was probably written by Nævius himself, to exhibit his proud
consciousness of superiority:
_Immórtalés mortáles sí forét fas flére
Flerént divaé Caménae Naéviúm poétam.
Itáque póstquam est Órci tráditús thesaúro
Oblíti súnt Romái loquiér linguá Latína._
If it were right that mortals be wept for by immortals,
The goddess Muses would weep for Nævius the poet.
And so since to the treasure of Orcus he’s departed,
The Romans have forgotten to speak the Latin language.
Nævius had a right to be proud. He had made literature a real force at
Rome, able to contend with the great men of the city; he had invented
the drama with Roman characters, and had written the first national
epic poem. In doing all this he had at the same time added to the
richness and grace of the still rude Latin language. But great as were
the merits of Nævius, he was surpassed in every way by his successor.
Quintus Ennius, a poet of surprising versatility and power, was born
at Rudiæ, in Calabria, in 239 B. C. [Sidenote: Quintus Ennius.] While
he was serving in the Roman army in Sardinia, in 204 B. C., he met
with M. Porcius Cato, who took him home to Rome. Here Ennius gave
lessons in Greek and translated Greek plays for the Roman stage. He
became acquainted with several prominent Romans, among them the elder
Scipio Africanus, went to Ætolia as a member of the staff of M. Fulvius
Nobilior, and obtained full Roman citizenship in 184 B. C. His death
was brought on by the gout in 169 B. C.
[Sidenote: Various works of Ennius.] The works of Ennius were many and
various, including tragedies, comedies, a great epic poem, a metrical
treatise on natural philosophy, a translation of the work of Euhemerus,
in which he explained the nature of the gods and declared that they are
merely famous men of old times,[1] a poem on food and cooking, a series
of _Precepts_, epigrams (in which the elegiac distich was used for the
first time in Latin), and satires. His most important works were his
tragedies and his great epic, the _Annales_.
The tragedies were, like those of Nævius, translations of the works of
the great Greek tragedians and their less great, but equally popular,
successors. [Sidenote: His dramatic works.] The titles and some
fragments of twenty-two of these plays are preserved, from which it
is evident that Ennius sometimes translated exactly and sometimes
freely, while he allowed himself at other times to depart from his
Greek original even to the extent of changing the plot more or less.
For the most part, however, the invention of the plot, the delineation
of character, and the poetic imagery of his plays were due to the
Greek dramatists whose works he presented in Latin form. To Ennius
himself belong the skillful use of the Latin language, the ability
to express in a new language the thoughts rather than the words of
the Greek poets, and also such changes as were necessary to make
the Greek tragedies appeal more strongly to a Roman audience. It is
impossible to tell from the fragments just what changes were made, but
the popularity of the plays, which continued long after the death of
Ennius, proves that the changes attained their object and pleased the
audience. The titles of two _fabulæ prætextæ_ by Ennius are known, the
_Sabine Women_, a dramatic presentation of the legend of the Rape of
the Sabines, and _Ambracia_, a play celebrating the capture of Ambracia
by M. Fulvius Nobilior. His comedies seem to have been neither numerous
nor especially successful.
[Sidenote: The Annales.] The most important work of Ennius is his great
epic in eighteen books, the _Annales_, in which he told the legendary
and actual history of the Romans from the arrival of Æneas in Italy to
his own time. In this work, as in his tragedies, he may be said to have
followed in the way pointed out by Nævius, but the _Annales_ mark an
immense advance beyond the _Bellum Punicum_ of Nævius. The monotonous
and unpolished Saturnian metre could not, even in the most skillful
hands, attain the dignity or the melodious cadences appropriate to
great epic poems. Ennius therefore gave up the native Italian metre
and wrote his epic in hexameter verse in imitation of Homer. This was
no easy matter, for the laws of the verse as it existed in Greek could
not be applied without change to Latin, but Ennius modified them in
some particulars and thus fixed the form of the Latin hexameter, at the
same time establishing in great part the rules of Latin prosody. Only
about six hundred lines of the _Annales_ remain, and many of these are
detached from their context, yet from these we can see that Ennius had
much poetic imagination, great skill in the use of words, and great
dignity of diction. The line _At tuba terribili sonitu taratantara
dixit_ shows at once his ability to make the sound of his words imitate
the sound he wishes to describe (in this case that of a trumpet) and
his liking for alliteration. This last quality is found in many Roman
poets, but in none more frequently than Ennius.
The _Annales_ continued to be read and admired even after the time of
Virgil, though the _Æneid_ soon took rank as the greatest Roman epic.
Some of the lines of Ennius breathe the true Roman spirit of military
pride and civic rectitude, as
_Moribus antiquis res stat Romana virisque_,[2]
or _Quem nemo ferro potuit superare nec auro_,[3]
or _Nec cauponantes bellum sed belligerentes_.[4]
Among the existing fragments are several which seem to have suggested
to Virgil some of the passages in the _Æneid_, and there is no doubt
that Virgil found Ennius worthy of imitation.
We may learn something of the character of Ennius from a passage
of the _Annales_ in which he is said,[5] on the authority of the
grammarian L. Ælius Stilo, to be describing himself: “A man of such
a nature that no thought ever prompts him to do a bad deed either
carelessly or maliciously; a learned, faithful, pleasant man, eloquent,
contented and happy, witty, speaking fit words in season, courteous,
and of few words, possessing much ancient buried lore; a man whom old
age made wise in customs old and new and in the laws of many ancients,
both gods and men; one who knew when to speak and when to be silent.”
[Sidenote: Continued production of tragedies, but not of epics.]
Ennius was the first great epic poet at Rome. After him epic poetry
was neglected, until it was taken up again a hundred years later.
Tragedy, however the other branch of literature in which Ennius chiefly
excelled, was cultivated without interruption, for it had become usual
to produce tragedies at the chief festivals of the city and on other
public occasions, and new plays were therefore constantly in demand.
But as gladiatorial shows grew more frequent and more magnificent,
tragedy declined in popularity, though tragedies continued to be
written, and even acted. The development of Roman tragedy is, however,
contained within a few generations, the professional authors of
tragedies about whom we have any information are few, and their works
are lost, with the exception of such fragments as have happened to be
quoted by later writers. It is therefore best to continue the account
of Roman tragedy now, even at the sacrifice of strict chronological
order.
[Sidenote: Marcus Pacuvius.] The successor of Ennius as a writer of
tragedies was his nephew, Marcus Pacuvius, who was born at Brundusium
in 220 B. C., but spent most of his life at Rome. As an old man he
returned to southern Italy, and died at Tarentum about 130 B. C. He was
a painter, as well as a writer of tragedies, and it may be due to his
activity as a painter that his plays were comparatively few. The titles
of twelve tragedies are known, in addition to one _fabula prætexta_,
the _Paulus_, written in honor of the victory of L. Æmilius Paulus over
King Perseus in the battle of Pydna (168 B. C.). These plays are all
lost, and the existing fragments (about 400 lines) are unsatisfactory.
Cicero considered Pacuvius the greatest Roman tragic writer, and
Horace speaks of him as “learned.” Probably this epithet refers to
his careful use of language as well as to his knowledge of the less
popular legends of Greek mythology. The extant fragments show more
ease and grace of style than do those of Ennius, and great richness of
vocabulary. Some of the words used are not found elsewhere, and seem to
have been invented by Pacuvius himself; at any rate they did not come
into ordinary use. Of the real dramatic ability of Pacuvius we can not
judge, but his literary skill is evident even from the poor fragments
we have. We may therefore believe that Cicero’s favorable judgment of
him was in some measure justified.
[Sidenote: Lucius Accius.] The last important writer of tragedies,
and probably the greatest of all, was Lucius Accius, of Pisaurum, in
Umbria. He was born in 170 B. C., and one of his first tragedies was
produced in 140 B. C., when Pacuvius produced one of his last. Accius
lived to a great age, but the date of his death is not known. Cicero,
as a young man, was well acquainted with him, and used to listen to
his stories of his own early years. The shortness of the life of Roman
tragedy, and the rapidity with which Roman literature developed, may
be seen by observing that Cicero, the great master of Latin prose,
knew Accius, whose birth took place only thirty-four years after the
death of Livius Andronicus. Of the plays of Accius somewhat more
than 700 lines are preserved, and about fifty titles are known. The
fragments are for the most part detached lines, but some are long
enough to let us see that the poet had a vigorous and graceful style,
and a vivid imagination. Like most of his predecessors, Accius wrote
various minor poems, and was interested in the development of the
Latin language. He proposed a number of innovations, including some
changes in the alphabet, but these last were not adopted by others.
Besides his tragedies translated from the Greek, he wrote at least two
_fabulæ prætextæ_, the _Brutus_, in which he dramatized the tale of
the expulsion of the Tarquins, and _Æneadæ_, glorifying the death of
Publius Decius Mus at the battle of Sentinum in 295 B. C. Even in his
regular tragedies he departed occasionally from the original Greek so
far as to show his own power of invention, though these plays were for
the most part mere free translations. One of the longer fragments,[6]
in which a shepherd, who has never seen a ship before, describes the
coming of the Argo, may give some idea of Accius’s skill in description:
So great a mass glides on, roaring from the deep with vast sound
and breath, rolls the waves before it, and stirs up the whirlpools
mightily. It rushes gliding forward, scatters and blows back
the sea. Now you might think a broken cloud was rolling on, now
that a lofty rock, torn off, was being swept along by winds or
hurricanes, or that eddying whirlwinds were rising as the waves
rush together; or that the sea was stirring up some confused heaps
of earth, or that perhaps Triton with his trident overturning the
cavern down below, in the billowy tide, was raising from the deep
a rocky mass to heaven.
With Accius, Roman tragedy reaches its height. Contemporary with him
were C. Titius and C. Julius Cæsar Strabo (died 87 B. C.), both of whom
were orators as well as tragic poets. [Sidenote: Decay of tragedy.]
Of their works only slight traces remain. After this time tragedies
were written by literary men as a pastime, or for the entertainment of
their friends, and some of their plays were actually performed. The
Emperor Augustus began a play entitled _Ajax_, Ovid wrote a _Medea_,
and Varius (about 74-14 B. C.) was famous for his _Thyestes_, but none
of these works has left more than a mere trace of its existence. The
tragedies of Seneca (about 1-65 A. D.) were rather literary exercises
than productions for the stage. With the growth of prose literature,
especially of oratory, on the one hand, and the increased splendor of
the gladiatorial shows on the other, tragedy ceased to be a living
branch of Roman literature.
[Sidenote: The Roman theatre.] Before passing on to the treatment of
comedy, it would be well to try to picture to ourselves the Roman
theatre and the manner of producing a play. In the early days of Livius
Andronicus there was no permanent theatre building, and the spectators
stood up during the performance, but, as time went on, arrangements
for seating the audience were made, and finally, in 55 B. C., a stone
theatre was erected. Stone theatres had long been in use in Greece,
and in course of time they came to be built in all the large cities of
the Roman empire. The Roman theatre differed somewhat from the Greek
theatre, though resembling it in its general appearance. [Sidenote: The
stage.] The Roman stage was about three or four feet high, and long
and wide enough to give room for several actors, usually not more than
four or five at a time, one or two musicians, a chorus of indefinite
number, and as many supernumeraries as might be needed. These last were
sometimes very numerous, when kings appeared with their body-guards, or
generals led their armies or their hosts of prisoners upon the stage.
At the back of the stage was a building, usually three stories high,
representing a palace. In the middle was a door leading into the royal
apartments, and two other doors, one at each side, led to the rooms
for guests. At each end of the stage was a door, the one at the right
leading to the forum, the other to the country or the harbor. Changes
of scene were imperfectly made by changing parts of the decoration. In
comedies, the background represented not a palace, but a private house
or a street of houses.
In front of the stage was the semicircular _orchestra_ or _arena_, in
which distinguished persons had their seats. [Sidenote: The orchestra
and the cavea.] This semicircle was flat and level. The front of the
stage formed the diameter. From the curve of the orchestra rose the
_cavea_, consisting of seats in semicircular rows, rising from the
orchestra at an angle sufficient to enable those who sat in any row
to see over those who sat in front of them. The theatre had no roof,
but in the luxurious times of the empire, and even before the end of
the republic, a covering of canvas or silk was stretched like a tent
between the spectators and the sun.
[Sidenote: Masks and costumes.] In the early days of the Roman drama,
the actors did not wear masks, but before the end of the republic
masks were introduced. These were useful in the large theatres of the
time, as they added to the volume of the actor’s voice, and since the
expression of the actor’s face could be seen by only a small proportion
of the spectators, little was lost by hiding it with a mask. The masks
themselves were carefully made, and were appropriate to the different
characters. The costumes were conventional, kings wearing long robes
and holding sceptres in their left hands, all tragic actors wearing
boots with thick soles to raise them above the stature of the chorus,
and all comic actors wearing low shoes without heels. The actors were,
as a rule at least, slaves, but the profits of the profession were so
great that a successful actor can have had but little difficulty in
buying his freedom.
[Sidenote: Dialogue and song.] In Roman tragedies, as in their Greek
originals, the dialogue was carried on in simple metres, mostly
trochaic and iambic, and a chorus of trained singers sang between the
acts, but probably took little part in the action of the play. The
songs of the chorus were composed in more elaborate metres than the
dialogue, and were sung to the accompaniment of the flute. In Roman
comedy there was no chorus, but parts of the play were sung as solos
or duets. These were called _cantica_, while the dialogue parts of the
comedy were called _diverbia_.
[Sidenote: Brilliancy of dramatic performances.] Plays were performed
at Rome on various occasions when the people were to be entertained,
and the ædiles and other officials and public men vied with each other
in showing their wealth and in courting popularity. We must, therefore,
imagine, that when a play was performed in the latter part of the
republican period the actors, chorus, and supernumeraries were dressed
in the richest and most gorgeous costumes, and everything possible was
done to add to the spectacular effect of the performance, while the
audience, excited by the scene and the action, lost no opportunity of
cheering their favorite actors, or hissing those who failed to please.
CHAPTER II
COMEDY
Comedy imported—Plautus, about 254 to 184 B. C.—Plots of Roman
comedies—Extant plays of Plautus—Degree of originality in
Plautus—Statius Cæcilius, birth unknown, death about 165 B.
C.—Other comic writers—Terence, about 190 to 159 B. C.—Plays
of Terence—Plautus and Terence compared—Turpilius, died 103
B. C.—Fabula togata—Titinius, about 150 B. C. (?)—Titus
Quinctius Atta, died 77 B. C.—Lucius Afranius, born about 150
B. C.—Fescennine verses—Fabulæ Atellanæ—Pomponius and Novius,
about 90 B. C.—Mimes—Decimus Laberius and Publilius Syrus, about
50 B. C.
[Sidenote: Comedy an imported product.] Comedy, like tragedy, was an
imported product, not an original growth, at Rome. There had, to be
sure, been improvised dialogues of more or less dramatic nature even
before Livius Andronicus, but these, about which a few words will
be said later, have nothing to do with the origin of Roman comedy,
which is an imitation of the new Attic comedy as it existed at Athens
after the time of Alexander the Great, being at its best from about
320 to about 280 B. C. No plays of the new Attic comedy are preserved
in the original Greek, but there are fragments which supplement the
knowledge we derive from the Latin imitations. The poets of the new
comedy, Menander, Philemon, Diphilus, and others, avoided historical
and political subjects and drew their comedies from private life,
finding in petty intrigues, interesting situations, and unexpected
complications, some compensation for the general meagreness of the
plot. This kind of play was called at Rome _fabula palliata_ because
the actors wore the _pallium_, or Greek costume. Another kind of
comedy, in which Roman characters and scenes were represented, though
even in this kind of plays the plots were derived from Greek originals,
was called _fabula togata_, because the actors wore the Roman toga. Of
this latter kind of plays only a few fragments are preserved, and it
seems never to have been so popular as the _fabula palliata_.
Livius Andronicus, Ennius, and Pacuvius, all produced comedies at Rome,
as did other writers of tragedies, but of these works only scanty
fragments remain. Three writers, Plautus, Cæcilius, and Terence,
devoted themselves exclusively to comedy, and it is from the extant
plays of the eldest and the youngest of these, Plautus and Terence,
that most of our knowledge of Roman comedy is derived.
[Sidenote: T. Maccius Plautus.] Titus Maccius Plautus (Flatfoot) was
born at Sarsina, a town of Umbria, about 254 B. C. He went to Rome
while still a boy, and seems to have earned so much as a servant or
assistant of actors, that he was able to leave the city and engage
in trade at some other place. His business venture was a failure; he
lost his money, and returned to Rome, where he hired himself out to a
miller, in whose service he was when he wrote his first three plays.
His first appearance with a play was probably about 224 B. C. Further
details of his life are unknown. He died in 184 B. C., at the age of
about seventy years. He was, therefore, a younger contemporary of
Livius Andronicus and Nævius, but older than Ennius and Pacuvius.
Of the plays of Plautus twenty are extant, besides extensive fragments
of another. His total production is said to have been one hundred and
thirty plays, though some of these were probably wrongly ascribed to
him. The plots of his plays, as of those of Terence, are usually
founded upon a love affair between a young man of good family and a
girl of low position and doubtful character. [Sidenote: The plots and
characters of Roman comedies.] The young man is aided by his servant
or a parasite, but his father is opposed to his having anything to do
with the girl. The girl’s mother or mistress usually aids the lovers,
but often has to be won over by money, which the young man and his
servant have to get from his father. Sometimes the characters mentioned
are duplicated, and we have two pairs of lovers, two irate fathers,
two cunning slaves, etc. Other typical characters are the procurer,
the parasite, the boastful soldier, and a few more, who help to bring
about amusing situations, and serve as the butt of many jokes. In the
end, the lovers are usually united, and the girl turns out to be of
good birth, often the long-lost daughter of one of the older men in the
play. Sometimes other plots are chosen, as in the _Amphitruo_, which
is founded on the story that Jupiter, when he visited Alcmene, used
to take the form of her husband Amphitryon, and the fun of the play
is caused by the confusion between the real husband and the disguised
god. In a few plays the plot is less decidedly a love plot, but, as a
general rule, the Roman comedies had love stories for their foundation.
There is, however, room for considerable variety, as may be seen by a
brief sketch of the contents of the extant plays of Plautus.
[Sidenote: The extant plays of Plautus.] The _Amphitruo_, bringing the
“Father of gods and men” into comic confusion with a mortal, and under
very suspicious circumstances at that, is a burlesque, full of rather
broad fun and amusing situations, perhaps the most interesting of all
Latin comedies. In the _Asinaria_, the _Casina_, and the _Mercator_,
father and son are rivals for the affection of the same girl. Of these
three, the _Casina_ is the worst in its indecency, while the other two
lack interest. These plays, however, like all the comedies of Plautus,
are full of animal spirits, plays on words, and clever dialogue. The
_Aulularia_, or _Pot of Gold_, has a plot of little interest, but
is famous for the brilliant and lifelike presentation of the chief
character, the old miser Euclio. The _Captivi_, one of the best of the
plays, has for its subject the friendship between a master and his
slave. There are no female characters, and the piece is entirely free
from the coarseness and immorality which disfigure most of the others.
The _Trinummus_, or _Three-penny Piece_, has also friendship, not love,
as its leading motive, though it ends with a betrothal. This play also
is free from coarseness, and gives an attractive picture of the good
old days when friend was true to friend. The _Curculio_ is interesting
chiefly through the cleverness of the parasite, who succeeds in making
the rival of his employer furnish the money needed to obtain the girl.
The _Epidicus_, the _Mostellaria_, and the _Persa_, also owe their
interest to the tricks and rascalities of the parasite or the valet.
The _Cistellaria_, only part of which is preserved, contains a love
affair, but has for its chief interest the recognition between a father
and his long-lost daughter. The _Vidularia_, too, which exists only
in fragments, leads up to a recognition, this time between a
|
so he escaped;
but only for a time.”
There was something in the tone of the leader which told his men that
Kent King would find a dangerous man upon his trail in Captain Dash,
who seemed determined to track him to the bitter end.
In his fancy dress, half buckskin, half Mexican. Captain Dash looked
exceedingly handsome, for his face was flushed with his rapid ride;
but the beauty of his expressive mouth was marred by the stern look
resting upon it, while in his dark-blue eyes dwelt a light that was
almost cruel.
“Captain, Ben Tabor wanted me ter say that he would like ter see yer,
when yer returned,” said Seven-foot Harry.
“Where is Tabor?”
“Over in ther woods yonder, nursin’ Poker Dick.”
“Ah, Poker Dick was on guard when Kent King escaped! Was he hurt?”
“Suthin’ ails him, cap’n, as I’ll show yer,” and Seven-foot Harry led
the way to where a camp fire had been made some distance off from the
others.
Pacing to and fro before the burning logs was Ben Tabor, a frank-faced
young Texan, who now wore a troubled look that ill became him.
Before the fire was a prostrate form, rolled in his blankets, and as
motionless as though dead.
“Well, Tabor, is that Poker Dick, and is he hurt?” asked Captain Dash,
as he walked up to the two men.
“That is Poker Dick, captain, and he’s hurt,” was the quiet response.
“I was angry with him for allowing the gambler to escape, but I’ll
forgive him now, for----”
“Pard, don’t yer say nuthin’ kind ter me, or it’ll break my heart,
tough as it are.”
The form arose from the blanket, and the blood-besmeared face of Poker
Dick was turned full upon his chief, a slight gash in the forehead
showing where Kent King had struck him with his pistol, the blow
momentarily stunning him.
“Why, Dick, old fellow, I don’t want to blame you, so tell me how it
was,” and Captain Dash rested his hand kindly on the shoulder of Poker
Dick.
But the man drew back quickly and said, in trembling tones:
“Don’t tech me, cap’n, don’t tech me, fer I is awful wicked.”
“The blow has turned your mind----”
“No, cap’n, my mind ain’t hurt, but my heart are. Tell him, Ben, for I
hesn’t ther power, an’ ther words would choke me.”
Impressed with the strange manner of Poker Dick, Captain Dash turned to
Ben Tabor.
“I hate to tell, too, Dick,” said Tabor, “but I cannot help it. Captain
Dash, I was the first one to get to Dick, and finding him senseless, I
remained, while the other boys went in chase of King.”
“You did right, as you saw that he was wounded,” was the captain’s
response.
“I only wish some one else had been in my place, for they would have to
tell what I found.”
“And what was it, Ben?” asked the captain.
Before he got a reply Poker Dick spoke up:
“Cap’n, Ben hes a heart like a woman an’ don’t want to tell on his old
pard Dick, so I’ll spit the story out myself, an’ I’ll feel better, for
it gives me a awful bad taste in my mouth an’ pain in my heart.
“Yer see, cap’n, I was guard ter-night. Lately ther boys hes won all my
dust from me, an’ I got low-spirited; an’ thet devil, Kent King, told
me he’d give me a belt o’ gold an’ some dimints’ ef I’d----”
“By Heaven! You turned traitor and accepted his bribe?” cried Captain
Dash, in angry tones.
“Jist so; you hes cut ther story down to ther kernel darn quick,
cap’n. He give me nine hundred dollars in gold slugs, an’ two dimints
as was worth five times thet much. Ben hes ’em. He found ’em on me.
Knowin’ as I was dead broke afore, he sighted my leetle game, knowed I
were a darn rascal, and played ther trump on me, an’ here I is.”
“And thet blow on your head, sir?” the captain asked.
“Thet were a keepsake, given me as a partin’ present from Kent King.
Arter he hed gi’n me his gold an’ dimints, an’ I fotched him his
saddle, he jist tapped me on ther head, ter get back his wealth, I
reckon. But ther boys must hev crowded him too fast.”
“And you found this belt of gold upon him, Tabor?”
“Yes, Captain Dash; and seeing it in my hand when he came to, Poker
Dick told me all.”
“You know the forfeit for one of our band to become a traitor, sir?”
and Captain Dash turned sternly upon the prisoner.
“I does, cap’n; it are death,” was the firm reply.
“Dick, never would I have suspected you of such an act. Your temptation
was great; but you have set free a man whose life has been one long
crime, and who injured me deeply, and is now at liberty to harm those I
care for. That he will do so, if in his power, I know full well. I must
start on his trail before it is too late.”
“He said he were going ter Santa Fe, cap’n, for thar he would be on
ekil terms with you!”
“Those are the terms I wish to meet him on; but now to the crime you
have committed.”
Captain Dash looked the traitor squarely in the face.
“Yas, cap’n. I is list’nin’.”
“You have kindred living at Austin, I believe?”
“Ther old folks live thar, cap’n. My father an’ my mother, an’ I hes a
leetle brother o’ seventeen.”
“This gold I will send to them, and put with it a hundred dollars of my
own, and I know the boys will do the same.”
“I’ll give a hundred, cap’n,” said Ben Tabor.
“And I’ll chip in ther same,” put in Seven-foot Harry.
“All that is added will go to your parents, Dick; they shall never know
that you were a traitor, but believe you were killed by Kent King,
instead of wounded.”
“You intends ter kill me, then, cap’n?”
“You know the forfeit is death.”
“Yas; ther’s no gittin’ round thet, an’ I desarves it; but yer’ll send
ther old folks ther gold, fer they depends on me ter keep ther pot
b’ilin’.”
“Yes; but the diamonds I will keep for a special purpose.”
“You kin hev ’em, cap’n. I s’pose they is mine, seein’ as I made a swap
with the gambler fer ’em; but when is I ter hev my chips called in,
cap’n?”
“I will soon tell you; and Dick, if I can save you I will, as you have
confessed all, and from my heart I pity you. Harry, you and Ben remain
here until I return.”
“I’ll not attempt ter skip, cap’n; but ther boys hed better stay, so as
yer’ll feel yer’ve got me,” called out the prisoner, as Captain Dash
walked away toward the camp fire, around which the other members of the
band were gathered.
With eager eyes, staring as a starving man at food he could not touch,
Poker Dick watched Captain Dash as he joined the band of Texans. He
saw them gather around the captain in an excited way, while the bright
firelight falling upon their faces told that they were listening to the
story of his crime.
Having heard the tale of his treachery, the prisoner saw them all sit
down around the fire. Each moment then seemed an eternity. He knew that
his life was in their hands, and that when he had joined the Revolver
Riders oaths of membership bound them together which to break would
bring death.
Once before a man of the band had turned traitor, and his life had
been spared by the vote of all, and shortly after he had deserted and
become a bandit, leaguing himself with Mexicans and Indians. With this
recollection, would they spare Poker Dick?
He answered the question himself:
“I guess not; ef ther boys did, they’d be fools. I will hev ter pass in
my chips.”
He turned to Seven-foot Harry and Ben Tabor.
“They seems ’arnest ’bout suthin’, pards.”
“The captain seems pleading for you, Dick,” answered Tabor.
“Yas, he’s powerful good; but I guesses the boys will string me.”
“I hopes not, Dick; I fer one decides ter pardon yer,” remarked
Seven-foot Harry.
“’Tain’t no use, boys. I is ter be called on fer what chips I has got,
an’ ther game’s agin’ me, fer I don’t hold a trump keerd: see, ther
boys is comin’.”
Not a quiver of Poker Dick’s face showed any emotion, as the silent,
stern-looking men came near and formed in a circle around him. Then
Captain Dash said, in a low but distinct tone:
“Dick Martin, I regret, more than I can express, to have to say to
you that your act this night, in aiding the escape of Kent King, that
accursed gambler guide, has cost you your life.”
“I desarves all yer can say agin’ me, pards, so don’t let up on me,”
was the quiet rejoinder.
“No, I throw no abuse or words of unkindness in the teeth of a man
who stands on the brink of his grave. I have urged that your comrades
overlook your crime this once, and give you another trial; but there
are only three of us to beg this favor against twenty-seven who say you
must die.”
At a word from their leader the men ranged themselves in line, and
passed by the doomed man, grasping his hand in grim, silent farewell,
and then continuing on into the darkness beyond the firelight.
“Now, cap’n, here’s my last grip, an’ it’s not with ther hand thet tuk
ther slugs an’ dimints. Good-by, for I is goin’ over ther dark river,
an’ you’ll follow afore long.”
Captain Dash grasped the man’s hand, and then called out:
“Men, once more I ask it: spare this brave man’s life.”
A hoarse, low, stern answer came from back in the shadow:
“No!”
The leader bowed his head a moment, but quickly recovering himself,
called out in stern tones:
“Are you ready?”
A low assent came from the darkness beyond.
“One! two! three! fire!”
Six revolvers flashed together, and without a moan Poker Dick fell.
CHAPTER IV.
A RETROSPECTIVE GLANCE.
Some three months before the opening of this story, the Hale emigrant
train had pulled out from Border City, bound for Colorado, under the
guidance of a noted gambler, who had suddenly offered his services to
run the settlers to their destination.
This gambler guide was Kent King, a man well known as a good prairie
scout, yet supposed to think too much of his comfort to take to the
hardships of an overland journey again.
A skillful card player, he always had plenty of money; and, with the
education of a gentleman, he was very popular in the society of that
day. Judge Hale, the head and front of the settler’s train, was warned
against the Gambler Guide.
Hale was told that Kent King was only going in that capacity on
account of Mary Hale, the only child of the judge; but the warning was
unheeded, and the train pulled out on its way to the Far West.
As Kent King was a thorough plainsman, a dead shot, and a man of
undisputed courage, there were many along who congratulated themselves
upon their luck in securing as good a guide. But, from the first, it
was evident that Mary Hale was the attraction which drew Kent King. It
was also evident that the judge seemed willing that his daughter should
receive the attentions of the guide.
In fact, Judge Hale encouraged them to such an extent that Parson
Miller, an emigrating preacher along with the train, was notified to
hold himself in readiness to perform a marriage ceremony within a few
days.
That the wedding would have taken place there is no doubt but for the
timely arrival in camp of Buffalo Bill, the army scout. When Buffalo
Bill heard that the girl, with the consent of her father, was to be
forced into an immediate marriage with the gambler, he decided at once
that she should not be so sacrificed.
Buffalo Bill knew that the Gambler Guide was one of the most desperate
characters on the border. Therefore, he sought out a character of the
train, whose bargaining propensities had gained for him the name of Old
Negotiate, and held a conversation with him, the result of which was
the conclusion between them that without a parson there would be no
wedding.
And there was no wedding, for the next morning the parson and Old
Negotiate went on a hunt; the former got lost and was found by Buffalo
Bill; and when they at last reached the train, weeks after, they were
accompanied by a band of Texas herders known as Revolver Riders.
This band the reader has already met in this story, in the party of
Captain Dash and his men.
Their arrival in the camp of the settlers caused a change. Kent King
was taken prisoner by Captain Dash, who determined to carry him to
Texas, to be tried there for crimes committed, and Buffalo Bill was
made the guide of the train to Denver.
The judge seemed delighted at the change, for he had been acting under
a power held over him by the gambler, who held some secret of his past
life.
CHAPTER V.
BUFFALO BILL’S BET.
In one of the most popular resorts of Border City, combining hotel,
bar, and cardroom, a large crowd of men had assembled, as was their
wont every evening, to while away the time.
The shuffle of cards, click of faro chips, clink of glasses, and hum of
voices, mingled together continually, with now and then a hearty laugh
and fearful oath rising above the other sounds.
It was a motley gathering, for there were returned miners, gambling
away their silver and gold dust; plainsmen, back after a long trip
westward; teamsters, bullwhackers, scouts, soldiers, cattlemen, a
few Indians, vagabonds, and general dead beats, hanging around to be
treated, and to pick up a dishonest penny when possible.
At one table were gathered some cattle herders, lately arrived from
Texas, and as they were playing for large stakes, those uninterested
elsewhere in the room had been drawn to the point of most interest to
them.
“Pards, hasn’t I seen yer physymyhogamys before?” suddenly asked
a queer-looking character, forcing his way through the crowd, and
confronting the Texans, one of whom answered pleasantly:
“I think you have; you were one of the Hale emigrant train we struck on
the trail.”
“You hes it right; I were ther boss teamster, but I’ll lay yer a prime
pelt agin’ that pile o’ money thet yer can’t call my handle.”
A general laugh followed the remark of the borderman, and the Texan who
had before spoken answered:
“I will bet you wine for all round that I can, for the money is not
mine, and I guess you haven’t a pelt along with you.”
“Done; wine fer all ’ceptin’ ther dead beats.”
“But how are we to pick them out?”
“Oh, I knows ’em, Texas; now, come, what’s my appellations?”
“Old Negotiate,” answered the Texan, with a laugh.
A shout followed his reply, and the borderman said, in a lugubrious
tone:
“By ther Rockies! Yer hev calt me, pard; I is gettin’ too darned well
known in these parts; waal, what do you an’ yer pards drink?”
“We are one against many, and I believe in fair play, so you and your
friends drink with us,” frankly answered the Texan, and turning to the
crowd he continued:
“Gentlemen, join us; wine here, barkeeper.”
“Hold on, pard; let me sift ther dead beats out, fer----”
“No, no, Old Negotiate; I include all in my invitation; fill up all
around, barkeeper.”
The corks popped, the wine went round, and the health of the handsome
Texan was drunk with a cheer, after which Old Negotiate said:
“Pard, when last I see yer, thar were in your comp’ny a man by ther
name o’ Kent King.”
“Yes, the Gambler Guide, whom our captain was taking to Texas.”
“Thet were ther man; has he passed in yit?”
“No, he escaped from us, when we were near Santa Fe.”
“Escaped!”
“The Gambler Guide free?”
“Kent King not dead?”
Such were the expressions that ran round the crowd, after a general
exclamation of surprise that followed the Texan’s announcement.
“Yer say he escaped, an’ from you?”
“He certainly did.”
“Didn’t go by the way of a h’ist to a tree?”
“No; he gnawed the thongs from his wrist, secured his saddle and horse,
and, though we gave hot chase, managed to escape.”
“Boys, thar’ll be music in ther air afore long in Border City, fer
every man, woman, an’ kid heur hes been giving Kent King ther devil,
as wuss nor a horse thief. He’ll come back fer a reckoning, or I are a
screechin’ liar, and I bet a lariat agin’ a horse on it.”
“On which, Negoshy, that you are a liar, or thet King comes back?”
asked one of the crowd.
“I’ll bet both, or t’other way, jist fer ther negotiate, pard, ef it
suits yer; but, by ther Rockies, Buffalo Bill better look out, now thet
wolf are on his trail.”
“You refer to the scout who was instrumental in his capture?” asked the
Texan.
“Come ag’in, pard, fer I isn’t great on book larnin’.”
“Buffalo Bill was the one who run him to cover, I mean?”
“Yer has it; he are, an’ thet Kent King will kill him yet.”
“I fear you is right,” answered another. “Buffalo Bill hes got ter
look sharp. I’ll bet high the gambler kills him.”
“I’ll take the bet.”
The clear voice caused all to start and turn. The subject of the
conversation was before them.
“Buffalo Bill! Three cheers!” cried a voice; and a ringing salute was
given him as he forced his way to the table and asked quietly:
“Who is betting against my life?”
“Put it thar, pard; now I’ll tell yer,” cried Old Negotiate.
After grasping the hand of the scout, he continued:
“These Texans an’ myself were havin’ a leetle chin music, an’ I l’arns
from one thet Kent King escaped----”
“Ah! This is Mr. Tabor, I believe; an’ Seven-foot Harry,” and
recognizing the different men around the table, Buffalo Bill greeted
them warmly and asked:
“Has Kent King really escaped?”
“Yes, as I have just told these gentlemen, he escaped from us near
Santa Fe.”
“An’ he’ll raise a breeze here when he comes back, an’ we was bettin’
thet he’d kill you, Bill,” said Negotiate.
“And I take the bet; who will wager, and what sum?” said the scout.
“I’ll take your bet, sir,” and a heavily bearded, stout-formed man
stepped forward.
“You are a stranger to me, sir, and will have to plank down your dust,
unless some one here knows you,” said Buffalo Bill, eying the man
closely.
“I am a stranger in Border City, but I have the money to deposit, and
as I know Kent King well, I’ll bet on his killing you if you have
wronged him,” replied the stranger.
“Wronged him! Why, who could wrong a wolf? If he is your friend, I will
say that you keep low company; but what will you bet that he kills me?”
The man seemed angered for an instant by the outspoken words of the
scout, but answered quietly:
“Say a thousand dollars.”
“Done! It’s the amount you name, and I’ll seek a stakeholder!”
“I’ll get one,” the man answered.
“Hold on, pard; as you are a friend of Kent King, I am a little
doubtful about your stakeholder.”
“Sir, do you dare say mine came differently?”
The man turned fiercely upon Buffalo Bill, who answered:
“Take it as you please; you certainly look like a----”
“What?”
“Horse thief!”
Two hands fell upon their pistol butts at the same time, but Ben Tabor,
the Texan, sprang between the stranger and the scout, and said, in his
calm, forcible way:
“Hold! This must stop here.”
“True, Mr. Tabor; I forgot that he was like a cat in a strange garret;
for he is a stranger here, while I have a host of friends; come, sir,
let us conclude our bet,” said Buffalo Bill frankly.
“All right; I was a fool to get angry; but who holds the stakes?”
“There is the very one; here, Panther Kate! This way, please,” cried
the scout.
The one to whom he called had just entered the room. She was a young
girl. Her form was perfect, and her fancy dress of beaded buckskin,
with short skirt and tight-fitting waist, set it off to perfection,
while her soft gray hat, turned up upon one side, gave her face a
fearless, saucy air that was very winning.
In her belt hung holsters that held two ivory-handled revolvers,
and a knife was suspended to a short chain, while with a jaunty,
devil-may-care air, she held a small rifle upon her shoulder. Beautiful
she certainly was, and her dark eyes had won many a heart that had
failed to make hers ache in return.
In Border City all knew her. She had come there over half a year before
with a traveling dramatic company and had remained when they departed,
and was engaged as a singer and dancer at the town theater. After
appearing each night, she would mount her mustang and ride out to a
little ranch she had purchased, two miles distant, where she lived
alone, caring for her cattle herself, and devoting her days to hunting.
She was a superb horsewoman and a crack shot; in fact, her deadly aim
with the revolver had gained her her name, for one day she had killed
two panthers with her revolver as they were springing upon her. Having
finished her act at the theater, Panther Kate, or as she was known on
“the boards,” Kate Kearney, took a stroll through the various saloons.
This she did each night, as though she were constantly on the search
for some one; and, though no other of her sex dare go amid the wild set
of men to be seen there, she showed no fear, and was welcomed whenever
she appeared.
“Buffalo Bill, I am glad to see you back; did you call me?” she asked,
coming forward, the crowd giving way for her, while many shouted:
“Yes, make Panther Kate stakeholder!”
“Kate’s the gal fer ter hold ther dust!”
“Kate don’t gamble her duckits away!”
“Nor drink ’em up!”
Such were the cries heard on all sides. The girl turned to Buffalo
Bill, who said:
“Yes, Panther Kate; I have just made a bet with this--this stranger
here that I kill Kent King----”
“Hold! Is that your bet, sir? I thought it was to be that Kent King
killed you,” interrupted the stranger.
“Make it as you please, and in either case let the winner get the
money.”
“All right; if he kills you, I win; if you kill him, you win.”
“Yes, and, Kate, you are to hold the stakes; here’s my dust.”
“And here is mine, girl.”
“Let me fully understand the bet,” she asked quietly, and it was
explained to her.
“Thank you; I hope you will win, Mr. Cody; you know where to find me,
and this gentleman can look me up should he be the winner; good night!”
And taking the bag of precious metal, Panther Kate left the saloon.
Scarcely had the man departed from the saloon, when, like a returning
memory, there came to Buffalo Bill the knowledge that he had _seen this
man before_--that in truth he was none other than _Kent King_ himself,
so disguised as almost to defy detection.
CHAPTER VI.
OLD NEGOTIATE’S WARNING.
The next day, when Old Negotiate entered the hotel--which had been
named the Cody Hotel in honor of Buffalo Bill--he found there a motley
crowd.
There were tradesmen of the town, miners from the camps, cowboys from
the surrounding ranches, sports, idlers, and a few strangers who had
just arrived in Border City.
They were miners, they said, from up the country farther, and having
dug out a rich harvest of golden metal, they had come to Border City to
spend a little of it in having a good time.
There were five of them present, and they were evidently having a “good
time,” according to their ideas, for they were drinking heavily. One of
their number, dressed in corduroy, the same man who had made the bet
with Buffalo Bill the day before, was “standing treat” continually for
the thirsty souls in Border City, whose thirst seemed to increase after
every drink they took.
“Come, Old Negotiate, let me interdoose yer ter my pertickler friend,
Cap’n Corduroy, o’ Calamity City, up ther mountains,” cried a tipsy
idler, whose friendship with the “captain” had begun but half an hour
before and increased according to the treats he had received at his
hands.
Old Negotiate accepted the outstretched hand of the man in corduroys,
who then presented him to his four pards from Calamity City.
Captain Corduroy, it was evident, wanted to win the favor of the
denizens of Border City, and he sought the hearts of the masses by
filling their stomachs with liquor at his own expense.
“I understand this is called the Cody Hotel, in honor of that
desperado, Buffalo Bill?” said Captain Corduroy, addressing Old
Negotiate.
The latter turned and laid his hand upon the captain’s shoulders and
said, with solemnity:
“Stranger, this house were named in honor o’ Buffalo Bill; but don’t
you whistle out no such word as desperado whar that clean-grit white
man are concerned, or thar’ll be trouble.”
“You don’t mean thet he will cause me trouble?”
“I does mean that, and more.”
“What more?”
“Thar be friends o’ his heur as won’t hear a word said agin’ him.”
“Bah! I have heard that he is hated here by all who know him.”
“You hes heerd a darned lie, ef yer mother told it to yer.”
“What?”
“I say it are a lie, fer Buffalo Bill hev done more fer this town than
any other man, an’ thar ain’t no one in trouble as he don’t help out,
while he sometimes are on hand ter clean out them as come heur fer a
fight. I wants ter be friendly with yer, stranger pard, but don’t yer
say nothin’ agin’ Buffalo Bill, fer he are my friend.”
“Well, I don’t wish trouble with you, or any other man in Border City,
for we came here to have a good time, and are not quarrelsome. We’ll
spend our money free, and do the square thing all around; but I have
met Buffalo Bill, and I owe him a grudge I hope one day to settle.”
“Pard, yer talks squar’; but onless yer keeps yer tongue atween yer
teeth, ther fust thing yer know, up will go yer toes to ther moonlight,
an’ Buffalo Bill will be payin’ ther expenses o’ buryin’ yer.”
“I do not fear him!”
It was evident that the potations he had indulged in were making
Captain Corduroy very reckless of consequences.
“I don’t say yer is skeert; but onless yer wants deadly trouble, don’t
say nothin’ as will bring yer ter drawin’ agin’ Buffalo Bill.”
Having given this advice to Captain Corduroy, Old Negotiate called
for drinks, and when they had been disposed of, he slipped out of the
crowd. Going to Buffalo Bill’s room he failed to find him, and then he
strolled down to the store where the scout always traded.
There he found him laying in a supply of provisions for a trip, and
also filling his cartridge boxes with ammunition.
“Waal, Bill, yer is fixin’ fer ther trail, it seems?” he said.
“Yes, for I start soon.”
“Bill, I’d oughter let yer go without tellin’ yer suthin’; but somehow
I cannot.”
“What is it, Negotiate?”
“Waal, fust and foremost, there are five galoots in ther hotel who says
that they have come down from Calamity City ter hev a good time.”
“Well, can’t they be accommodated here?”
“Yas, fer as fer thet, their graveyard are not full, an’ there are room
fer more.”
“Ah! They want a row?”
“Thet seems ter be thar way o’ thinkin’, Bill.”
“Well, you keep out of it, Negotiate. There are five of them, you say,
and you are too good a man to be killed.”
“Bill, I is jist a leetle afeared thet it are a better man than I be
they is lookin’ fer.”
“Who?”
“You!”
“No!”
“I means it.”
“Who are they?”
“Ther cap’n calls hisself Cap’n Corduroy, an’ ther handles o’ ther
others I didn’t fasten ter.”
“I know no such man, at least by that name.”
“Names is slip’ry out heur, Bill.”
“Yes, but what makes you think they want a row with me?”
“I was interdooced to ther cap’n, who interducted me to his pards, and
he told me he had a grudge agin’ you, an’ calt you a desperado.”
“Well, I am often called pet names, Negotiate.”
“Yas, and thar are many who holds ill feelin’ agin’ yer, too; but I
thinks these fellers mean biz.”
“We can soon find out,” said the scout calmly.
“I knows it, an’ after that thar’ll be shootin’. But I wants ter tell
you thet after I left this Cap’n Corduroy and his men, the Chinee at
the hotel come ter me and said that Panther Kate wanted ter see yer.
She seems ter be afeared that thar’s trouble in the air, jest the same
as I am.”
Buffalo Bill seemed undisturbed.
“Negotiate,” he said, “will you do me a favor?”
“I’ll do it, ef it’s ter git drunk, Bill.”
“I have an idea that I know who this Captain Corduroy is. If I am
right, he is after my hair. Therefore, I want you to go back to the
hotel and take a seat on the piazza, where you can watch them.”
“I’ll do it, Bill.”
“I’m going up there to see what they want. When you see me coming up
the street, call out:
“‘Here comes Buffalo Bill!’”
“But that’ll give ’em warnin’, and they’ll be ready for ye, an’ lay ye
out a cold corpus.”
“I’ll be ready for them quite as soon as they can get ready for me. If
they show signs to prove that I am their game, you wave your hat to me,
and I’ll set the circus going. Now describe them to me.”
This Old Negotiate did. Then, while Buffalo Bill went after his
splendid black horse Midnight, Old Negotiate returned to the hotel.
CHAPTER VII.
BUFFALO BILL’S CHARGE.
When Old Negotiate returned to the Cody Hotel he first sought the
parlor, for the Chinese waiter told him he would there find Panther
Kate.
“I found Bill, miss,” said Old Negotiate. “I found him at the store,
and he will be up heur soon, and ef yer wishes ter see a immortal row,
just you lie low in this heur parler an’ wait fer ther music ter begin.”
“Will you allow a number of men to attack your friend?”
“Oh, I’ll be thar, miss, an’ thar shan’t be no underhan’ game played
agin’ Bill. But I must leave you. Jist you wait heur a leetle.”
With this remark Old Negotiate left the parlor. Panther Kate, riveted
by a fascination she could not resist, remained standing at the window,
half hidden by the heavy, coarse curtains, and waiting breathlessly for
the coming of what the scout had called a “circus.”
In the meantime Old Negotiate reëntered the bar and found the crowd
still drinking heavily and getting more intoxicated each moment.
But he saw that Captain Corduroy and his comrades, though they had
seemingly drunk freely, were apparently more sober than when he left
them, which further convinced him that they were playing a part and
were not allowing themselves to lose control of their faculties.
The reëntrance of Old Negotiate was greeted with a shout of welcome,
and of course he had to drink, and Captain Corduroy treated; but
Negotiate did not swallow the liquor, and watching closely he saw that
the strangers also failed to drink the contents of their glasses, a
circumstance none of the drunken crowd observed.
Going out upon the piazza, Old Negotiate called out:
“Pard strangers, thar comes a man, ef yer wants ter see one, who hesn’t
got his ekal in these heur parts.”
Captain Corduroy looked out and cried:
“Buffalo Bill! Be ready!”
Old Negotiate heard the words and asked quickly:
“Say, pards, does yer mean harm ter Bill?”
“He means harm to me, and I will but protect myself,” said Captain
Corduroy.
“All right; that are squar’; but as he don’t see yer, I’ll jist shout
an’ tell him.”
Then he raised his voice and shouted:
“Ho, Bill! Thar are danger camped on yer trail heur.”
The warning caused a dead silence to follow, and Captain Corduroy and
his pards dropped their hands upon revolvers, as though to first turn
them on Old Negotiate. But he had his weapon out already, and the
strangers seemed to realize that he was not the man to pick a quarrel
with then and there, for a dozen friends were around him.
With Buffalo Bill it was different. Negotiate’s hail had given out
a declaration of war. A man ever cool, Captain Corduroy was only an
instant nonplused; then he cried:
“Yes, pards, I have come on Buffalo Bill’s trail. He killed my two
brothers, and right here I intend to avenge them.”
This caused a general scattering of the crowd from the piazza. They
were not too drunk to forget that self-preservation is nature’s first
law, and they dashed into the barroom with an alacrity that was amusing.
Old Negotiate went, too, though not from fear. He thought that from a
window he could the better aid Buffalo Bill, and he took up his stand
just inside, and stood ready for what might follow. The strangers had
held their ground.
They had proven themselves generous fellows in facing the bar, and they
would not flinch now when it was a case where there were five against
one man, no matter what the reputation of that man might be.
“Give out ther hymn, cap’n, an’ we’ll shout ther doxology,” cried one
of them.
“I will meet him first,” sternly said the captain.
“Thet bein’ ther case, we’ll fall back a leetle,” and the first speaker
gave a backward step or two, which was followed by his immediate
comrades.
“You lose your geld if you desert me,” savagely cried Captain Corduroy.
“Ain’t desertin’, only takin’ up a more safer posish, cap’n.”
In the meantime Buffalo Bill was coming toward the hotel, his horse in
a slow walk. He had answered the hail of Old Negotiate with a wave of
the hand, and shown no other sign that he understood it.
He saw the sudden decamping of the crowd and smiled. Then his eyes fell
upon the form of Captain Corduroy, and he gave a slight start. Buffalo
Bill was
|
man.
The curious reader who is anxious to see a specimen of the Flying Dragon,
will be gratified with a young one, preserved in a case with two
Cameleons, and exposed for sale in the window of a dealer in articles of
_vertu_, in St. Martin's Court, Leicester Square.
COCHINEAL TRANSPLANTED TO JAVA.
The success with which the cultivation of the nopal and the breeding of
the insect which produces cochineal has been practised at Cadiz, and
thence at Malta, is well known. A French apothecary is said to have made
the experiment in Corsica, but on a very confined scale; and the King of
the Netherlands, on information that the Isle of Java was well adapted
for the cultivation of this important article of merchandize, determined
on attempting the transplantation into that colony. As the exportation
of the trees and of the insect is prohibited by the laws of Spain, some
management was requisite to acquire the means of forming this new
establishment. The following were those resorted to:--His Majesty sent to
Cadiz, and there maintained, for nearly two years, one of his subjects,
a very intelligent person, who introduced himself, and by degrees got
initiated into the _Garden of Acclimation_ of the Economic Society, where
the breeding of this important insect is carried on. He so well, fulfilled
his commission (for which the instructions, it is said, were drawn up
by his royal master himself), that he succeeded in procuring about one
thousand nopals, all young and vigorous, besides a considerable number of
insects; and, moreover, carried on his plans so ably, as to persuade the
principal gardener of the Garden of Acclimation to enter for six years
into the service of the King of the Netherlands, and to go to Batavia.
Between eight and ten thousand Spanish dollars are said to have been the
lure held out to him to desert his post. In the service of the Society he
gained three shillings a day, paid in Spanish fashion, that is, half, at
least, in arrear. A vessel of war was sent to bring away the precious
cargo, which, being furtively and safely shipped, the gardener and the
insects were on their voyage to Batavia before the least suspicion of
what was going on was entertained by the Society.--_From the French_.
BEES' NESTS.
A French journal says, in the woods of Brazil is frequently found hanging
from the branches the nest of a species of bee, formed of clay, and about
two feet in diameter. It is more probable that these nests belong to some
species of wasp, many of which construct hanging nests. One sort of these
is very common in the northern parts of Britain, though it is not often
found south of Yorkshire.
* * * * *
SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.
* * * * *
ASSASSINATION OF MAJOR LAING.
The _Literary Gazette_ of Saturday last contains the following very
interesting intelligence respecting the assassination of Major Laing, and
the existence of his Journal;--"In giving this tragical and disgraceful
story to the British public, (says the Editor), we may notice that the
individual who figures so suspiciously in it, viz. Hassouna d'Ghies, must
be well remembered a few years ago in London society. We were acquainted
with him during his residence here, and often met him, both at public
entertainments and at private parties, where his Turkish dress made him
conspicuous. He was an intelligent man, and addicted to literary pursuits;
in manners more polished than almost any of his countrymen whom we ever
knew, and apparently of a gentler disposition than the accusation of
having instigated this infamous murder would fix upon him."
The account then proceeds with the following translation from a
_Marseilles Journal_:--
It was about three years ago, that Major Laing, son-in-law of Colonel
Hammer Warrington, consul-general of England in Tripoli, quitted that
city, where he left his young wife, and penetrated into the mysterious
continent of Africa, the grave of so many illustrious travellers. After
having crossed the chain of Mount Atlas, the country of Fezzan, the
desert of Lempta, the Sahara, and the kingdom of Ahades, he arrived at
the city of Timbuctoo, the discovery of which has been so long desired
by the learned world. Major Laing, by entering Timbuctoo, had gained the
reward of 3,000_l_. sterling, which a learned and generous society in
London had promised to the intrepid adventurer who should first visit
the great African city, situated between the Nile of the Negroes and the
river Gambaron. But Major Laing attached much less value to the gaining
of the reward than to the fame acquired after so many fatigues and
dangers. He had collected on his journey valuable information in all
branches of science: having fixed his abode at Timbuctoo, he had
composed the journal of his travels, and was preparing to return to
Tripoli, when he was attacked by Africans, who undoubtedly were watching
for him in the desert. Laing, who had but a weak escort, defended
himself with heroic courage: he had at heart the preservation of his
labours and his glory. But in this engagement he lost his right hand,
which was struck off by the blow of a yatagan. It is impossible to
help being moved with pity at the idea of the unfortunate traveller,
stretched upon the sand, writing painfully with his left hand to his
young wife, the mournful account of the combat. Nothing can be so
affecting as this letter, written in stiff characters, by unsteady
fingers, and all soiled with dust and blood. This misfortune was only
the prelude to one far greater. Not long afterwards, some people of
Ghadames, who had formed part of the Major's escort, arrived at Tripoli,
and informed Colonel Warrington that his relation had been assassinated
in the desert. Colonel Warrington could not confine himself to giving
barren tears to the memory of his son-in-law. The interest of his glory,
the honour of England, the affection of a father--all made it his duty
to seek after the authors of the murder, and endeavour to discover what
had become of the papers of the victim. An uncertain report was soon
spread that the papers of Major Laing had been brought to Tripoli
by people of Ghadames; and that a Turk, named Hassouna Dghies, had
mysteriously received them. This is the same Dghies whom we have seen at
Marseilles, displaying so much luxury and folly, offering to the ladies
his perfumes and his shawls-- a sort of travelling Usbeck, without his
philosophy and his wit. From Marseilles he went to London, overwhelmed
with debts, projecting new ones, and always accompanied by women
and creditors. Colonel Warrington was long engaged in persevering
researches, and at length succeeded in finding a clue to this horrible
mystery. The Pasha, at his request, ordered the people who had made part
of the Major's escort to be brought from Ghadames. The truth was at
length on the point of being known; but this truth was too formidable
to Hassouna Dghies for him to dare to await it, and he therefore took
refuge in the abode of Mr. Coxe, the consul of the United States. The
Pasha sent word to Mr. Coxe, that he recognised the inviolability of the
asylum granted to Hassouna; but that the evidence of the latter being
necessary in the prosecution of the proceedings relative to the
assassination of Major Laing, he begged him not to favour his flight.
Colonel Warrington wrote to his colleague to the same effect. However,
Hassouna Dghies left Tripoli on the 9th of August, in the night, in the
disguise, it is said, of an American officer, and took refuge on board
the United States corvette _Fairfield_, Captain Parker, which was then
at anchor in the roads of Tripoli. Doubtless, Captain Parker was
deceived with respect to Hassouna, otherwise the noble flag of the
United States would not have covered with its protection a man accused
of being an accomplice in an assassination.
It is fully believed that this escape was ardently solicited by a French
agent. It is even said, that the proposal was first made to the captain
of one of our (French) ships, but that he nobly replied, that one of the
king's officers could not favour a suspicious flight--that he would not
receive Hassouna on board his ship, except by virtue of a written order,
and, at all events in open day, and without disguise.
The _Fairfield_ weighed anchor on the 10th of August, in the morning.
The Pasha, enraged at this escape of Hassouna, summoned to his palace
Mohamed Dghies, brother of the fugitive, and there, in the presence of
his principal officers, commanded him, with a stern voice, to declare the
truth. Mohamed fell at his master's feet, and declared upon oath, and in
writing, that his brother Hassouna had had Major Laing's papers in his
possession, but that he had delivered them up to a person, for a deduction
of forty per cent. on the debts which he had contracted in France, and the
recovery of which this person was endeavouring to obtain by legal
proceedings.
The declaration of Mohamed extends to three pages, containing valuable
and very numerous details respecting the delivery of the papers of the
unfortunate Major, and all the circumstances of this strange transaction.
* * * * *
The shape and size of the Major's papers are indicated with the most
minute exactness; it is stated that these papers were taken from him
near Timbuctoo, and subsequently delivered to the person abovementioned
_entire, and without breaking the seals of red wax_--a circumstance which
would demonstrate the participation of Hassouna in the assassination; for
how can it be supposed otherwise, that the wretches who murdered the Major
would have brought these packages to such a distance without having been
tempted by cupidity, or even the curiosity so natural to savages, to break
open their frail covers?
Mohamed, however, after he had left the palace, fearing that the Pasha in
his anger would make him answerable for his brother's crime, according to
the usual mode of doing justice at Tripoli, hastened to seek refuge in the
house of the person of whom we have spoken, and to implore his protection.
Soon afterwards the consul-general of the Netherlands, accompanied by his
colleagues the consuls-general of Sweden, Denmark, and Sardinia, proceeded
to the residence of the person pointed out as the receiver, and in the
name of Colonel Warrington, and by virtue of the declaration of Mohamed,
called upon him instantly to restore Major Laing's papers. He answered
haughtily, that this declaration was only a tissue of calumnies; and
Mohamed, on his side, trusting, doubtless, in a pretended inviolability,
yielding, perhaps, to fallacious promises, retracted his declaration,
completely disowned it, and even went so far as to deny his own
hand-writing.
This recantation deceived nobody; the Pasha, in a transport of rage, sent
to Mohamed his own son, Sidi Ali; this time influence was of no avail.
Mohamed, threatened with being seized by the _chiaoux_, retracted his
retractation; and in a new declaration, in the presence of all the
consuls, confirmed that which he made in the morning before the Pasha and
his officers.
One consolatory fact results from these afflicting details: the papers of
Major Laing exist, and the learned world will rejoice at the intelligence;
but in the name of humanity, in the name of science, in the name of the
national honour--compromised, perhaps, by disgraceful or criminal
bargains--it must be hoped that justice may fall upon the guilty, whoever
he may be.
* * * * *
A COFFEE-ROOM CHARACTER.
It was about the year 1805 that we were first ushered into the
dining-house called the Cheshire Cheese, in Wine-office-court. It is known
that Johnson once lodged in this court, and bought an enormous cudgel
while there, to resist a threatened attack from Macpherson, the author, or
editor, of _Ossian's Poems_. At the time we first knew the place (for its
visiters and keepers are long since changed for the third or fourth time,)
many came there who remembered Johnson and Goldsmith spending their
evenings in the coffee-room; old half-pay officers, staid tradesmen of the
neighbourhood, and the like, formed the principal portion of the company.
Few in this vast city know the alley in Fleet-street which leads to the
sawdusted floor and shining tables; those tables of mahogany, parted by
green-curtained seats, and bound with copper rims to turn the edge of the
knife which might perchance assail them during a warm debate; John Bull
having a propensity to commit such mutilations in the "torrent, tempest,
and whirlwind" of argument. Thousands have never seen the homely clock
that ticks over the chimney, nor the capacious, hospitable-looking
fire-place under,[3] both as they stood half a century ago, when
Fleet-street was the emporium of literary talent, and every coffee-house
was distinguished by some character of note who was regarded as the oracle
of the company.
[3] We may add that still fewer have seen the characteristic
whole-length portrait of "_Harry_," _the waiter_, which has
been placed over the fireplace, by subscription among the
frequenters of the room. _Wageman_ is the painter, and nothing
can describe the _bonhommie_ of Harry, who has just drawn the
cork of a pint of port, exulting in all the vainglory of crust
and bees' wing.--ED. MIRROR.
Among these was old Colonel L----e, in person short and thick-set. He
often sacrificed copiously to the jolly god, in his box behind the door;
he was a great smoker, and had numbered between seventy and eighty years.
Early in the evening he was punctually at his post; he called, for his
pipe and his "go of rack," according to his diurnal custom; and surveying
first the persons at his own table, and then those in other parts of
the room, he commonly sat a few minutes in silence, as if waiting the
stimulating effect of the tobacco to wind up his conversational powers,
or perhaps he was bringing out defined images from the dim reminiscences
which floated in his sensorium. If a stranger were near, he commonly
addressed him with an old soldier's freedom, on some familiar topic which
little needed the formalities of a set introduction; but soon changed the
subject, and commenced fighting "his battles o'er again." He talked much
of Minden, and the campaigns of 1758 and 59. He boasted of having carried
the colours of the 20th regiment, that bore the brunt of the day there,
and mainly contributed to obtain a "glorious victory," as Southey, in his
days of uncourtliness, called that of Blenheim. But though thus fond of
showing "how fields were won," he was equally delighted with recounting
his acquaintance with more peaceful subjects. He had known Johnson and
Goldsmith, together with the list of worthies who honoured Fleet-street by
making it their abode between thirty and forty years before, and were at
that time visitants of the house. "At this very table," said he, speaking
of that which is situated on the right-hand behind the door, "Johnson used
always to sit when he came here, and Goldsmith also. I knew them well.
Johnson overawed us all, and every one became silent when he spoke." The
colonel observed of Goldsmith, "That no one would have thought much of him
from his company, though he had a great name in the world."
The colonel also knew something of Churchill, described him as by no means
prepossessing in person, and one of the last who could have been supposed
capable of writing as he wrote. The colonel, in his old age, imagined he
too had a taste for poetry, and boasted of Goldsmith's having asserted
(perhaps jokingly) that he possessed a talent for writing verse. This idea
working in his mind for years, had induced him to print, in his old age,
what he called, to the best of my recollection, "A Continuation of the
Deserted Village." He always brought a copy with him of an evening, and
was fond of referring to it, and passing it round for the company to look
at--a weakness pardonable in a garrulous old man. On revisiting the house,
for old acquaintance sake, after an absence of some years from London, I
missed him from his accustomed place, which I observed to be occupied by a
stranger. On inquiry, I found that he was departed to where human vanity
and human wisdom are upon a level, and where man is alike deaf to the
voice of literary and military ambition.--_New Monthly Magazine_.
* * * * *
NOTES OF A READER.
* * * * *
THE ANNUALS FOR 1830.
We feel it a duty to the proprietors of these elegant works, as well as to
our readers, to give the following _annonces_ of the several volumes for
1830:--
The _Keepsake_ is very forward. Among the contributors are Sir Walter
Scott, Lord Byron, and the author of "Anastasius." Sir Walter's
contribution is a dramatic romance, in imitation of the German; and Lord
Byron's are ten letters written by him between 1821, and the time of his
lordship's death.
The _Forget-Me-Not_ will contain a very gem--being the first known attempt
at poetry, by Lord Byron, copied from the autograph of the noble poet, and
certified by the lady to whom it was addressed--the object of his
lordship's first, if not his only real attachment.
Mr. Ackermann has likewise announced a _Juvenile_ Forget-Me-Not, so as to
remember all growths.
The _Literary Souvenir_ is in a state of great forwardness. Among the
contributors are the authors of "Kuzzil-bash;" "Constantinople in 1828;"
"The Sorrows of Rosalie;" and "Rouge et Noir." The pencils of Sir Thomas
Lawrence, Howard, Collins, Chalon, Harlowe, and Martin, have furnished
subjects for the illustrations.
The _Amulet_, among its illustrations will contain an engraving from
Mulready's picture of an English Cottage; another from Wilkie's "Dorty
Bairn;" and another from a drawing by Martin, engraved by Le Keux, for
which he is said to have received one hundred and eighty guineas. Mr.
Hall, the editor, has likewise been equally fortunate in an accession of
literary talent.
The _Juvenile_ Forget-Me-Not, under the superintendence of Mrs. S.C. Hall,
also promises unusual attractions, both in picture and print.
The _Juvenile Keepsake_, edited by Mr. T. Roscoe, is said to be completed.
Another Juvenile Annual, to be called the _Zoological Keepsake_, is
announced, with a host of cuts to enliven the "birds, beasts, and fishes"
of the smaller growth.
The _Gem_ will re-appear as the _Annual Gem_, with thirteen
embellishments, superintended by A. Cooper, R. A.
The _Bijou_ promises well. The embellishments are of the first order,
from pictures by Sir Thomas Lawrence, Stothard, Wilkie, and the lamented
Bonington. Among the gems are a splendid portrait of _the King_, from the
president's picture, in the possession of Sir William Knighton, Bart.; and
a portrait of the beautiful Mrs. Arbuthnot.
The _Winter's Wreath _will bloom with more than its accustomed beauty.
Among the contributors we notice, for the first time, the author of "Rank
and Talent."
_Religious Annuals_ are on the increase. One of the novelties of this
class is "_Emmanuel_," to be edited by the author of "Clouds and
Sunshine," of the excellence of which we have many grateful recollections.
The _Iris_, to be edited by the Rev. Thomas Dale, is another novelty in
this way.
The _Musical Bijou_ has among its composers, Rossini, Bishop,
Kalk-brenner, Rodwell, J. Barnet, and others. The lyrists and prose
writers are Sir Walter Scott, T.H. Bayley, the Ettrick Shepherd, Messrs.
Planche, Richard Ryan, &c.
One of the most splendid designs of the season is a "_Landscape Annual,
or the Tourist in Italy and Switzerland_," from drawings by Prout; the
literary department by T. Roscoe, Esq. and to contain the most attractive
views which occur to the traveller on his route from Geneva to Rome. Some
of the plates are described as extremely brilliant.
Two _Transatlantic Annuals_, the _Atlantic Souvenir_, published at
Philadelphia, and the _Token_, published at Boston--may be expected in
London.
The foregoing are all the announcements we have been able to collect. We
miss two or three established favourites; but we hope to make their
promises the subject of a future paragraph.
* * * * *
THE GOOSE.
In England the goose is sacred to St. Michael; in Scotland, where dainties
were not going every day,
"'Twas Christmas sent its savoury goose."
The Michaelmas goose is said to owe its origin to Queen Elizabeth's dining
on one at the table of an English baronet on that day when she received
tidings of the dispersion of the Spanish Armada, in commemoration of which
she ordered the _goose_ to make its appearance every Michaelmas. In some
places, particularly Caithness, geese are cured and smoked, and are highly
relishing. Smoked Solan geese are well known as contributing to the
abundance of a Scottish breakfast, though too rank and fishy-flavoured for
unpractised palates. The goose has made some figure in English history.
The churlishness of the brave Richard Coeur de Lion, a sovereign
distinguished for an insatiable appetite and vigorous digestion, in an
affair of roast goose, was the true cause of his captivity in Germany. The
king, disguised as a palmer, was returning to his own dominions, attended
by Sir Fulk Doyley and Sir Thomas de Multon, "brothers in arms," and
wearing the same privileged garb. They arrived in Almain, (Germany,) at
the town of Carpentras, where,
"A _goose_ they dight to their dinner.
In a tavern where they were.
King Richard the fire bet,
Thomas to him the spit set;
Fouk Doyley tempered the wood;
Dear a-bought they that good;"
for in came a _Minstralle_, or she-Minstrel, with offer of specimens of
her art in return for a leg of the goose and a cup of the wine. Richard,
who loved "rich meats," and cared little at this time for their usual
accompaniment, "minstrelsy,"--
"--bade that she would go;
That turned him to mickle woe.
The Minstralle took in mind,
And said, ye are men unkind:
And if I may ye shall _for-think_
Ye gave me neither meat nor drink!"
The lady, who was English, recognised the king, and denounced him to the
king of Germany, who ordered the pilgrims into his presence, insulted
Richard, "said him shame," called him _taylard_, probably for his
affection for goose, and finally ordered him to a dungeon. But Richard,
a true knightly eater, who, besides roast goose, liked to indulge in
"Bread and wine,
Piment and clarry good and fine;
Cranes and swans, and venison;
Partridges, plovers, and heron,--
was neither dainty nor over-nice. At a pinch he could eat any thing, which
on sundry emergencies stood him in great stead. _Wax_ and _nuts_, and
tallow and grease mixed, carried him through one campaign, when the enemy
thought to have starved out the English army and its cormorant commander.
The courage and strength of Richard were always redoubled after dinner. It
was then his greatest feats were performed.--_Romance of Coeur de Lion_.
The livers of geese and poultry are esteemed a great delicacy by some
_gourmands_; and on the continent great pains are taken to procure fat
overgrown livers. The methods employed to produce this diseased state of
the animals are as disgusting to rational taste as revolting to humanity.
The geese are crammed with fat food, deprived of drink, kept in an
intolerably hot atmosphere, and fastened by the feet (we have heard of
nailing) to the shelves of the fattening cribs. The celebrated _Strasburg
pies_, which are esteemed so great a delicacy that they are often sent as
presents to distant places, are enriched with these diseased livers. It is
a mistake that these pies are wholly made of this artificial animal
substance.
* * * * *
TURKEY
Colonel Rottiers, a recent traveller in Turkey, holds out the following
temptation to European enterprise:--
The terrestrial paradise, which is supposed to be situated in Armenia,
appeared to M. Rottiers to stretch along the shores of the Black Sea. The
green banks, sloping into the water, are sometimes decked with box-trees
of uncommon size, sometimes clothed with natural orchards, in which
the cherries, pears, pomegranates, and other fruits, growing in their
indigenous soil, possess a flavour indescribably exquisite. The bold
eminences are crowned with superb forests or majestic ruins, which
alternately rule the scenes of this devoted country, from the water's
edge to the summit of the mountains. The moral and political condition
of the country contrasts forcibly with the flourishing aspect of nature.
At Sinope there is no commerce, and the Greeks having, in consequence,
deserted the place, the population is at present below 5,000. This city,
once the capital of the great Mithridates, enjoys natural advantages,
which, but for the barbarism of the Turkish government, would soon raise
it into commercial eminence. It has a deep and capacious harbour--the
finest timber in the world grows in its vicinity--and the district of the
interior, with which it immediately communicates, is one of the most
productive and industrious in Asiatic Turkey. Amasia, the ancient capital
of Cappadocia, Tokat, and Costambol, are rich and populous towns. Near the
last is held an annual fair, commencing fifteen days before the feast of
Ramadan, and which is said to be attended by at least fifty thousand
merchants, from all parts of the east. From the nature of the country in
which it is situated, M. Rottiers is disposed to believe that Sinope holds
out peculiarly strong inducements to European enterprise. He also had an
opportunity of observing, that its defences were gone totally to ruin, and
significantly remarks, that it could not possibly withstand a _coup de
main_. Amastra, a great and wealthy city while possessed by the Genoese
in the middle ages, is now a wretched village, occupied by a few Turkish
families, whose whole industry consists in making a few toys and articles
of wooden ware. It stands on a peninsula, which appears to have been
formerly an island, and the Isthmus uniting it to the mainland is wholly
composed, according to the account of Mr. Eton, who surveyed part of this
coast, of fragments of columns and marble friezes.
* * * * *
GEORGIAN WINE.
The chief production of Georgia is wine, which is of excellent quality,
and so abundant in the countries situated between the Caspian and the
Black Seas, that it would soon become a most important object of
exportation, if the people could be induced to improve their methods of
making and preserving it. At present the grapes are gathered and pressed
without any care, and the process of fermentation is so unskilfully
managed, that the wine rarely keeps till the following vintage. The skins
of animals are the vessels in which it is kept. The hair is turned
inwards, and the interior of the bag is thickly besmeared with asphaltum
or mineral tar, which renders the vessel indeed perfectly sound, but
imparts an abominable flavour to the wine, and even adds to its acescence.
The Georgians have not yet learned to keep their wine in casks, without
which it is vain to look for any improvements in its manufacture. Yet the
mountains abound in the requisite materials, and only a few coopers are
requisite to make the commencement. The consumption of wine in Georgia,
and above all at Tiflis, is prodigiously great. From the prince to the
peasant the ordinary ration of a Georgian, if we may believe M. Gamba,
is one _tonque_, (equal to five bottles and a half of Bordeaux) per day.
A _tonque_ of the best wine, such as is drunk by persons of rank, costs
about twenty sous; the inferior wines are sold for less than a sous per
bottle.--_Foreign Quar. Rev_.
* * * * *
HISTORICAL FIDELITY.
The court historiographer of the Burmese, has recorded in the national
chronicle his account of the war with the English to the following purport:
--"In the years 1186 and 87, the Kula-pyu, or white strangers of the west,
fastened a quarrel upon the Lord of the Golden Palace. They landed at
Rangoon, took that place and Prome, and were permitted to advance as far
as Yandabo; for the king, from motives of piety and regard to life, made
no effort whatever to oppose them. The strangers had spent vast sums of
money in their enterprise; and by the time they reached Yandabo, their
resources were exhausted, and they were in great distress. They petitioned
the king, who, in his clemency and generosity, sent them large sums of
money to pay their expenses back, and ordered them out of the country."--
_Crawfurd's Embassy to Ava._
To quote a vulgar proverb, this is making the best of a bad job.
* * * * *
DRESS.
How far a man's clothes are or are not a part of himself, is more than I
would take on myself to decide, without farther inquiry; though I lean
altogether to the affirmative. The inhabitants of the South Sea Islands
were astonished and alarmed when they, first saw the Europeans strip.
Yet they would have been much more so, could they have entered into the
notions prevalent in the civilized world on the subject of a wardrobe;
could they have understood how much virtue lies inherent in a superfine
broad cloth, how much respectability in a gilt button, how much sense in
the tie of a cravat, how much amiability in the cut of a sleeve, how much
merit of every sort in a Stultz and a Hoby. There are who pretend, and
that with some plausibilty, that these things are but typical; that taste
in dress is but the outward and visible sign of the frequentation of good
company; and that propriety of exterior is but evidence of a general sense
of the fitness of things. Yet if this were really the case, if there were
nothing intrinsic in the relation of the clothes to the wearer, how could
a good coat at once render a pickpocket respectable; or a clean shirt pass
current, as it does, with police magistrates for a clean conscience. In
England, a handsome _toggery_ is a better defensive armour, than "helm and
hauberk's twisted mail." While the seams are perfect, and the elbows do
not appear through the cloth, the law cannot penetrate it. A gentleman,
(that is to say, a man who can pay his tailor's bill,) is above suspicion;
and benefit of clergy is nothing to the privilege and virtue of a handsome
exterior. That the skin is nearer than the shirt, is a most false and
mistaken idea. The smoothest skin in Christendom would not weigh with a
jury like a cambric ruffle; and moreover, there is not a poor devil in
town striving to keep up appearances in spite of fortune, who would not
far rather tear his flesh than his unmentionables; which can only arise
from their being so much more important a part of himself.--_New Monthly
Magazine_.
* * * * *
The French have a kind of irritable jealousy towards the English, which
makes them forget their general politeness. Give them but a civil word,
make the least advance, and they receive you with open arms; but show them
that cold reserve with which an Englishman generally treats all strangers,
and every Frenchman's hand is on his sword.--_New Monthly Magazine_.
* * * * *
THE GATHERER.
A snapper up of unconsidered trifles.
SHAKSPEARE.
* * * * *
JACK SHEPPARD.
When this notorious felon was under sentence of death, the Right Hon.
Charles Wolfran Cornwall, then Speaker of the House of Commons, was
strongly solicited to apply to his majesty for a pardon, as he was related
to him. "No," said Mr. Cornwall, "I should deserve public censure if I
attempted to contribute to the prolongation of the life of a man who has
so frequently been a nuisance to society, and has given so many proofs
that kindness to him would be cruelty to others. Were my own son to offend
one-tenth part so often as he has done, I should think it my duty rather
to solicit his punishment than his pardon."
C.C.
* * * * *
EPITAPH
_On S---- E----, an intelligent and amiable boy, who was unfortunately
drowned while bathing_.
Though gentle as a dove, his soul sublime,
For heav'n impatient, would not wait for time;
Ere youth had bloom'd his virtues ripe were seen,
A man in intellect! a child in mien!
A hallow'd wave from mercy's fount was pour'd,
And, wash'd from clay, to bliss his spirit soar'd.
* * * * *
A HOLY HERMIT.
A hermit, named Parnhe, being upon the road to meet his bishop who had
sent for him, met a lady most magnificently dressed, whose incomparable
beauty drew the eyes of every body on her. The saint having looked at her,
and being himself struck with astonishment, immediately burst into tears.
Those who were with him wondering to see him weep, demanded the cause of
his grief. "I have two reasons," replied he, "for my tears; I weep to
think how fatal an impression that woman makes on all who behold her; and
I am touched with sorrow when I reflect that I, for my salvation, and to
please God, have never taken one-tenth part of the pains which this woman
has taken to please men alone."
* * * * *
BUNGLING TRANSLATION.
At a country village in Yorkshire, was an old established cobbler, who
cracked his joke, loved his pipe and lived happy. In short, he was a sober
and industrious man. His quiet, however, was disturbed by an unexpected
opposition in his trade, at the same village, and to add to his
misfortune, the new comer established himself directly opposite to the old
cobbler's stall, and at the same time to show his learning and probity,
painted in large letters over his door, "_Mens conscia recti_." To
conceive the meaning of this, the poor cobbler laboured night and day, but
unsuccessfully; he at last determined that this "_consciarecti_" was a new
sort of shoe made for men's use; he therefore painted over his door,
"_Men's and Women's consciarecti
|
is kept in
constant confusion and ill blood. You know, Jack, that it is your
duty, as a Christian, to forgive others their trespasses against you;
if, then, you fight upon every occasion, on which you may have
suffered even real injury, you disobey your blessed Saviour, by
violating one of his precepts. If any of your fellow-servants should
do you any harm, forgive it according to the command of our Lord; if
it should be often repeated, or be of a very heinous nature, come to
me, and I shall see justice done between you and him. You know you
cannot be a good judge in your own case, especially when your mind is
filled with anger; therefore, I forbid you to take the matter into
your own hands; you must not cause noise and riot in the family by
coming to blows, even where the insult you may receive has been most
unprovoked.”--Jack made very faithful promises of amendment; as indeed
he might very sincerely do, for except when he was hurried away for
the moment, he was ever ready to confess his failing.
Jack was now in a new sphere of life. His face was washed, his hair
combed, he was clothed afresh, and appeared a very smart active lad.
His business was, to help in the stable, to water the horses, to clean
shoes, to perform errands, and to do all the jobs of the family; and
in the discharge of these services, he soon gave universal
satisfaction. He was indefatigable in doing what he was ordered, never
grumbled, nor appeared out of temper, and seemed so quiet and
inoffensive in his manners, that every body wondered how he had
acquired the character of being quarrelsome. In a short time he became
both the favourite and the drudge of the whole family; for, speak but
kindly him, and call him a little soldier, and Jack was at every one’s
disposal. This was Jack’s particular foible and vanity: at his leisure
hours he would divert himself by the hour together, in poizing a
dung-fork, charging with a broom-stick, and standing sentry at the
stable door. Another propensity of Jack’s, which now discovered
itself, was an immoderate love of horses. The instant he was
introduced into the stable, he attached himself so strongly to these
animals, that you would have taken him for one of the same species, or
at least a near relation. Jack was never tired with rubbing them down
and currying them; the coachman had scarcely any business but to sit
on the box; all the operations of the stable were entrusted to Little
Jack, nor was it ever known that he neglected a single particular.
But what give him more pleasure than all the rest, was sometimes to
accompany his mistress upon a little horse, which he managed with
great dexterity.
Jack discovered too a great disposition for all the useful and
mechanic arts. He had served an apprenticeship already to the
manufacture of iron, and of this he was almost as vain as of being a
soldier. As he began to extend his knowledge of the world, he saw that
nothing could be done without iron. “How would you plough the ground,”
said Jack; “how would you dig your garden; how would you even light a
fire, dress a dinner, shoe a horse, or do the least thing in the
world, if we workman at the forge did not take the trouble of
preparing it for you?” Thus Jack would sometimes talk upon the dignity
and importance of his own profession, to the great admiration of all
the other servants.
These ideas naturally give Jack a great esteem for the profession of
a blacksmith, and in his occasional visits to the forge with the
horses, he learnt to make and fix a shoe as neatly as any artist in
the country.
Nor were Jack’s talents confined to the manufacture of iron; his love
of horses, and his interest in every thing that related to them, was
so great, that it was not long before he acquired a very competent
knowledge in the art of sadlery.
Jack would also sometimes observe the carpenters when they were met at
work, and sometimes by stealth attempt the management of their tools;
in which he succeeded as well as in every thing else; so that he was
looked upon by every body as a very active, ingenious boy.
There was in the family where he now lived, a young gentleman, the
nephew of his mistress, who had lost his parents, and was therefore
brought up by his aunt. As Master Willets was something younger than
Jack, and a very good-natured boy, he soon began to take notice of
him, and be much diverted with his company. Jack, indeed, was not
undeserving this attention; for although he could not boast any great
advantages of education, his conduct was entirely free from all the
vices to which some of the lower class of people are subject. Jack was
never heard to swear, or express himself with any indecency. He was
civil and respectful in his manners to all his superiors, and
uniformly good-natured to his equals. In respect to the animals
entrusted to his care, he not only refrained from using them ill, but
was never tired with doing them good offices. Added to this, he was
sober, temperate, hardy, active, and ingenious, and despised a lie as
much as any of his betters. Master Willets now began to be much
pleased with playing at cricket and trap-ball with Jack, who excelled
at both these games. Master Willets had a little horse which Jack
looked after; and, not contented with looking after him in the best
manner, he used to ride him at his leisure hours with so much care and
address, that in a short time he made him the most gentle and docile
little animal in the country. Jack had acquired this knowledge, partly
from his own experience, and partly from paying particular attention
to a traveling riding-master that had lately exhibited various feats
in that neighbourhood. Jack attended him so closely, and made so good
an use of his time, that he learned to imitate almost every thing he
saw, and used to divert the servants and his young master, with acting
the taylor’s riding to Brentford.
The young gentleman had a master who used to come three times a week
to teach him accounts, and writing, and geography. Jack used to be
sometimes in the room while the lessons were given, and listened
according to custom with so much attention to all that passed, that he
received very considerable advantage for his own improvement. He had
now a little money, and he laid some of it out to purchase pens, and
paper, and a slate, with which at night he used to imitate every thing
he had heard and seen in the day; and his little master, who began to
love him very sincerely, when he saw him so desirous of improvement,
contrived, under one pretence or another, to have him generally in the
room while he was receiving instruction himself.
In this manner, Jack went on for some years, leading a life very
agreeable to himself, and discharging his duty very much to the
satisfaction of his mistress. An unlucky accident at length happened
to interrupt his tranquillity. A young gentleman came down to visit
Master Willets, who, having been educated in France, and among genteel
people in London, had a very great taste for finery, and a supreme
contempt for all the vulgar. His dress too was a little particular,
as well as his manners, for he spent half his time in adjusting his
head; he wore a high, well stiffened cravat, which kept his head and
neck in one position, as if he were in the pillory. His pantaloons
were of the cossack fashion, wide enough to admit his body, and
puckered from top to bottom; while his hessian boots were in the
highest style, and polished in the most accurate manner. He usually
carried several snuff-boxes; some of which might indeed be called
snuff-chests, for they were too large to enter any but his coat
pockets; and he ornamented many of his fingers with ponderous gold
rings. Thus affectedly dressed out, he would sometimes strut about
before a looking-glass for an hour together. This young man had a
supreme contempt for all the vulgar, which he did not attempt to
conceal; and when he had heard the story of Jack’s birth and
education, he could scarcely bear to be in the same room with him.
Jack soon perceived the aversion which the stranger entertained for
him, and at first endeavoured to remove it, by every civility in his
power; but when he found that he gained nothing by all his humility,
his temper, naturally haughty, took fire, and as far as he dared, he
plainly showed the resentment which he felt.
It happened one day, after Jack had received some very mortifying
usage from this young gentleman, that as he was walking along the
road, he met with a show-man, who was returning from a neighbouring
fair with some wild beasts in a cart. Among the rest was a
middle-sized monkey, who was not under cover like the rest, and played
so many antic tricks, and made so many grimaces, as engaged all Jack’s
attention, and delighted him very much, for he always had a propensity
for every species of drollery. After a variety of questions and
conversation, the show-man, who probably wanted to get rid of his
monkey, proposed to Jack to purchase him for half-a-crown. Jack could
not resist the temptation of being master of such a droll diverting
animal, and therefore agreed to the bargain. But when he was left
alone with his purchase, which he led along by a chain, he soon began
to repent his haste, and knew not how to dispose of him. As there was,
however, no remedy, Jack brought him carefully home, and confined him
safe in an out-house, which was not applied to any use. In this
situation he kept him several days, without accident, and frequently
visited him at his leisure hours, with apples, nuts, and such other
presents as he could procure. Among the other tricks which the monkey
had been taught to perform, he would rise upon his hind legs at the
word of command, and bow with the greatest politeness to the company.
Jack, who had found out these accomplishments in his friend, could not
resist the impulse of making them serve the purposes of his
resentment. He, therefore, one day dressed out his monkey in the most
laughable manner: he tied a piece of stiff pasteboard about his neck;
put upon him a pair of loose canvas bags, as trowsers; and covered the
lower parts of his legs and his feet with oil and lampblack, in
imitation of boots. Jack then put into his hands a huge tobacco-box,
which he taught him to use as a snuff-box; and stuck upon his fingers
several curtain-rings; and, thus accoutred, led him about with
infinite satisfaction, calling him Sir, and jabbering such broken
French as he had picked up from the conversation of the visitor. It
happened very unluckily, at this very instant, that the young
gentleman himself passed by, and instantly saw at one glance the
intended copy of himself, and all the malice of little Jack, who was
leading him along, and calling to him to hold up his head, and look
like a person of fashion. Rage instantly took possession of his mind;
he seized a stone which lay near at hand, knocked the poor monkey upon
the head, and laid him dead upon the ground. What more he might have
done, is uncertain; for Jack, who was not of a temper to see calmly
such an outrage committed upon an animal which he considered as his
friend, flew upon him like a fury. The young gentleman received a fall
in the scuffle, which, though it did him no material damage, daubed
all his clothes, and totally spoiled the whole arrangement of his
dress. At this instant the lady herself, who had heard the noise, came
down, and the violence of poor Jack was too apparent to be excused.
Jack, indeed, was very submissive to his mistress whom he was very
sorry to have offended; but when he was ordered to make concessions to
the young gentleman, as the only conditions upon which he could be
kept in the family, he absolutely refused. He owned, indeed, that he
was much to blame for resenting the provocation he had received, and
endeavouring to make his mistress’s company ridiculous; but as to what
he had done in defence of his friend the monkey, there were no
possible arguments which could convince him he was in the least to
blame; nor would he have made submission to the king himself. This
unfortunate obstinacy of Jack’s was the occasion of his being
discharged, very much to the regret of the lady herself, and still
more to that of Master Willets. Jack therefore packed up his clothes
in a little bundle, shook all his fellow-servants by the hand, took an
affectionate leave of his kind master and mistress, and once more
sallied out upon his travels.
Thus Jack, by indulging the rashness of his temper, which he had
promised to correct, deprived himself of a valuable service. His
conduct in the whole of the affair was wrong; in the first place, he
had not any right to turn another person into ridicule; and, in the
next, when he had thus given the first insult, he ought not to have
been so violent in taking satisfaction for the death of his monkey.
But he was still farther to blame for the obstinate manner in which he
resisted the request of his mistress to make some apology: he ought to
have remembered that she had been for a long time his kind friend, and
that he was bound to do much more at her desire than make an apology
for an action in which he was wrong. Such is however the case with
rash hot-headed people; they allow their passions to blind their
understanding; but they almost always suffer, as Jack did in this
case, for their misconduct.
He had not walked far before he came to a town, where a party of
soldiers were beating up for volunteers. Jack mingled with the crowd
that surrounded the recruiting serjeant, and listened with great
pleasure to the sound of the fifes and drums; nor could he help
mechanically holding up his head, and stepping forward with an air
that shewed the trade was not entirely new to him. The serjeant soon
took notice of these gestures, and seeing him a strong likely lad,
came up to him, clapped him on the back, and asked him if he would
enlist. “You are a brave boy,” said he, “I can see that in your
looks--come along with us, and I don’t doubt but in a few weeks you’ll
be as complete a soldier as those who have been in the army for
years.” Jack made no answer to this, but by instantly poizing his
stick, cocking his hat fiercely, and going through the whole manual
exercise. “Prodigious, indeed!” cried the serjeant; “I see you have
been in the army already, and can eat fire as well as any of us. But
come with us, my brave lad, you shall live well, have little to do,
but now and then fight for your king and country, as every gentleman
ought; and in a short time, I don’t doubt but I shall see you a
captain, or some great man, rolling in wealth, which you have got out
of the spoils of your enemies.”--“Well,” said Jack, “as I am at
present out of employment, and have a great respect for the character
of a gentleman soldier, I will enlist directly in your regiment.”--“A
brave fellow, indeed,” said the serjeant; “here, my boy, here is your
money and your cockade;” both which he directly presented, and thus in
a moment Little Jack became a soldier.
He had scarcely time to feel himself easy in his new accoutrements,
before he was embarked for India in the character of a marine. This
kind of life was entirely new to Jack; however, his usual activity and
spirit of observation did not desert him here, and he had not been
embarked many weeks, before he was perfectly acquainted with all the
duty of a sailor, and in that respect equal to most on board. It
happened that the ship in which he sailed touched at the Cormo
Islands, in order to take in wood and water; these are some little
islands near the coasts of Africa, inhabited by blacks. Jack often
went on shore with the officers, attending them on their shooting
parties, to carry their powder and shot, and the game they killed. All
this country consists of very lofty hills, covered with trees and
shrubs of various kinds, which never lose their leaves, from the
perpetual warmth of the climate. Through these it is frequently
difficult to force a way, and the hills themselves abound in
precipices. It happened that one of the officers, whom Jack was
attending upon a shooting party, took aim at some great bird, and
brought it down; but as it fell into a deep valley, over some rocks
which it was impossible to descend, they despaired of gaining their
prey. Jack immediately, with officious haste, set off, and ran down
the more level side of the hill, thinking to make a circuit, and reach
the valley into which the bird had fallen. He set off, therefore; but
as he was totally ignorant of the country, he, in a short time, buried
himself so deep in the wood, which grew continually thicker, that he
knew not which way to proceed. He then thought it most prudent to
return; but this he found as difficult to effect as the other. He
therefore wandered about the woods with inconceivable difficulty all
day, but could never find his company, nor even reach the shore, nor
obtain the prospect of the sea. At length the night approached, and
Jack, who perceived it to be impossible to do that in the dark, which
he had not been able to effect in the light, lay down under a rock,
and composed himself to rest as well as he was able. The next day he
arose with the light, and once more attempted to regain the shore; but
unfortunately he had totally lost all idea of the direction he ought
to pursue, and saw nothing around him but the dismal prospect of
woods, and hills, and precipices, without a guide or path. Jack now
began to be very hungry; but as he had a fowling-piece with him, and
powder and shot, he soon procured himself a dinner; and kindling a
fire with some dry leaves and sticks, he roasted his game upon the
embers, and dined as comfortably as he could be expected to do in so
forlorn a situation. Finding himself much refreshed, he pursued his
journey, but with as little success as ever. On the third day he,
indeed, came in sight of the sea, but found that he was quite on a
different side of the island from that were he had left the ship, and
that neither ship nor boat was to be seen. Jack now lost all hopes of
rejoining his comrades, for he knew the ship was to sail at farthest
upon the third day, and would not wait for him. He, therefore, sat
down very pensively upon a rock, and cast his eyes upon the vast
extent of ocean which was stretched out before him. He found himself
now abandoned upon a strange country, without a single friend,
acquaintance, or even any one who spoke the same language. He at
first thought of seeking out the natives, and making known to them his
deplorable state; but he began to fear the reception he might meet
with among them. They might not be pleased, he thought, with his
company, and might take the liberty of treating him as the white men
generally treat the blacks when they get them into their possession;
that is, make him work hard with very little victuals, and knock him
on the head if he attempted to run away. “And therefore,” says Jack,
as he was meditating all alone, “it may, perhaps, be better for me to
stay quiet where I am. It is true, indeed, I shall not have much
company to talk to; but then I shall have nobody to quarrel with me,
or baa, or laugh at my poor daddy and mammy. Neither do I at present
see how I shall get a livelihood, when my powder and shot are all
expended; but, however, I shall hardly be starved, for I saw several
kinds of fruit in the woods, and some roots which look very much like
carrots. As to clothes, when mine wear out, I shall not much want new
ones, for the weather is charmingly warm; and therefore, all things
considered, I don’t see why I should not be as happy here as in any
other place.”--When Jack had finished his speech, he set himself to
find a lodging for the night. He had not examined far before he found
a dry cavern in a rock, which he thought would prove a very
comfortable residence. He therefore went to work with a hatchet he had
with him, and cut some boughs of trees, which he spread upon the
floor, and covered with a fine long silky kind of grass, to make
himself a bed. His next care was, how to secure himself in case of any
attack; for he did not know whether the island contained any wild
beasts or not. He therefore cut down several branches of trees, and
wove them into a kind of wicker-work, as he had seen the men do
hurdles when he lived with the farmer: with this contrivance he found
he could very securely barricade the entrance of his cave. And now, as
the evening was again approaching, he began to feel himself hungry,
and seeking along the sea shore, he found some shell-fish, which
supplied him with a plentiful meal. The next day Jack arose, a little
melancholy indeed, but with a resolution to struggle manfully with the
difficulties of his situation. He walked into the woods, and saw
several kinds of fruit and berries, some of which he began to eat and
found the taste agreeable. He also dug up several species of roots,
but feared to taste them, lest they should be poisonous. At length he
selected one that very much resembled a potatoe, and determined to
roast it in the embers, and taste a very small bit. “It can hardly,”
thought Jack, “do me much hurt, in so very small a quantity; and if
that agrees with me, I will increase the dose.” The root was
fortunately extremely wholesome and nutritive, so that Jack was in a
very short time tolerably secure against the danger of wanting food.
In this manner did Jack lead a kind of savage, but tolerably contented
life for several months; during which time he enjoyed perfect health,
and was never discovered by any of the natives. He used several times
a day to visit the shore, in hopes that some ship might pass that way,
and deliver him from his solitary imprisonment. This, at length
happened, by the boat of an English ship, that was sailing to India,
happening to touch upon the coast; Jack instantly hailed the crew, and
the officer, upon hearing the story, agreed to receive him; the
captain too, when he found that Jack was by no means a contemptible
sailor, very willingly gave him his passage, and promised him a
gratuity besides, if he behaved well.
Jack arrived in India without any accident, and relating his story,
was permitted to serve in another regiment, as his own was no longer
there. He soon distinguished himself by his courage and good behaviour
on several occasions, and, before long, was advanced to the rank of a
serjeant. In this capacity he was ordered out upon an expedition into
the remote parts of the country. The little army in which he served
now marched on for several weeks, through a burning climate, and in
want of all the necessaries of life. At length they entered upon some
extensive plains, which bordered upon the celebrated country of the
Tartars. Jack was perfectly well acquainted with the history of this
people, and their method of fighting. He knew them to be some of the
best horsemen in the world; indefatigable in their attacks; though
often repulsed, returning to the charge, and not to be invaded with
impunity. He therefore took the liberty of observing to some of the
officers, that nothing could be more dangerous than their rashly
engaging themselves in those extensive plains, where they were every
moment exposed to the attacks of cavalry, without any successful
method of defence, or place of retreat, in case of any misfortune.
These remonstrances were not much attended to; and after a few hours
farther march, they were alarmed by the approach of a considerable
body of Tartar horsemen. They, however, drew up with all the order
they were able, and firing several successive vollies, endeavoured to
keep the enemy at a distance. But the Tartars had no design of doing
that with a considerable loss, which they were sure of doing with ease
and safety. Instead therefore, of charging the Europeans, they
contented themselves with giving continual alarms, and menacing them
on every side, without exposing themselves to any considerable danger.
The army now attempted to retreat, hoping that they should be able to
arrive at the neighbouring mountains, where they would be safe from
the incursions of the horse. But in this attempt they were equally
disappointed; for another body of enemies appeared on that side, and
blocked their passage. The Europeans now found that they were
surrounded on all sides, and that resistance was vain. The commanding
officer, therefore, judged it expedient to try what could be effected
by negotiation, and sent one of his officers, who understood something
of the Tartar language, to treat with the general of the enemies. The
Tartar chief received the Europeans with great civility, and after
having gently reproached them with their ambition, in coming so far to
invade a people who had never injured them, he consented upon very
moderate conditions to their enlargement. But he insisted upon having
their arms delivered up, except a very few which he permitted them to
keep for defence in their return, and upon retaining a certain number
of Europeans as hostages for the performance of the stipulated
articles. Among those who were thus left with the Tartars, Jack
happened to be included; and while all the rest seemed inconsolable at
being thus made prisoners by a barbarous nation, he alone, accustomed
to all the vicissitudes of life, retained his cheerfulness, and
prepared to meet every reverse of fortune with his usual firmness.
Jack was enabled thus to support his spirits with fortitude by the
recollection of the old Soldier’s last advice, “to act on all
occasions as became a soldier and a Christian.” He felt a full
reliance upon the goodness of Providence; he knew that God was
infinitely wiser, and better acquainted with what was befitting each
individual, than he could be himself. He looked back to the manner in
which he had been supported in the solitary island, and remembered the
mercy of God in freeing him from thence. He, therefore, strengthened
his mind by prayer for the future, and by thanksgiving for the
protection he had hitherto enjoyed.
The Tartars, among whom Jack was now to reside, constitute several
different tribes or nations, which inhabit an immense extent of
country, both in Europe and Asia. Their country is in general open and
uncultivated, without cities or towns, such as we see in these
countries. The inhabitants themselves are a bold and hardy race of
men, that live in small tents, and change their place of abode with
the different seasons of the year. All their property consists in
herds of cattle, which they drive along with them from place to place,
and upon whose milk and flesh they subsist. They are particularly fond
of horses, of which they have a small but excellent breed, hardy and
indefatigable for the purposes of war; and they excel in the
management of them, beyond what it is easy to conceive. Immense herds
of these animals wander loose about the deserts, but marked with the
particular mark of the person or tribe to which they belong. When they
want any of these animals for use, a certain number of their young men
jump upon their horses with nothing but a halter to guide them, each
carrying in his hand a pole, with a noose of cord at the end. When
they come in sight of the herd they pursue the horse they wish to take
at full speed, come up with him in spite of his swiftness, and never
fail to throw the noose about his neck as he runs. They are frequently
known to jump upon young horses that have passed their whole life in
the desert, and, with only a girth around the animal’s body to hold
by, maintain their seat in spite of all his violent exertions, until
they have wearied him out, and reduced him to perfect obedience. Such
was the nation with whom it was the lot of Jack now to reside; nor was
it long before he had an opportunity of shewing his talents.
It happened that a favourite horse of the chief was taken with a
violent fever, and seemed to be in immediate danger of death. The
Khan, for so he is called among the Tartars, seeing his horse grow
hourly worse, at length applied to the Europeans to know if they could
suggest any thing for his recovery. All the officers were profoundly
ignorant of farriery; but when the application was made to Jack, he
desired to see the horse, and with great gravity began to feel his
pulse, by passing his hand within the animal’s fore-leg, which gave
the Tartars a very high idea of his ingenuity. Finding the animal in a
high fever, he proposed to the Khan to let him blood, which he had
learned to do very dexterously in England. He obtained permission to
do as he pleased, and having by great good luck a lancet with him, he
let him blood in the neck. After this operation, he covered him up,
and gave him a warm potion made out of such ingredients as he could
procure upon the spot, and left him quiet. In a few hours the horse
began to mend, and, to the great joy of the Khan, perfectly recovered
in a few days. This cure, so opportunely performed, raised the
reputation of Jack so high, that every body came to consult him about
their horses, and in a short time he was the universal farrier of the
tribe. The Khan himself conceived so great an affection for him, that
he gave him an excellent horse to ride upon, and attend him in his
hunting parties; and Jack, who excelled in the art of horsemanship,
managed him so well, as to gain the esteem of the whole nation.
The Tartars, though they are excellent horsemen, have no idea of
managing their horses, unless by violence; but Jack in a short time,
by continual care and attention, made his horse so docile and obedient
to every motion of his hand and leg, that the Tartars themselves
would gaze upon him with admiration, and allow themselves to be
outdone. Not contented with this, he procured some iron, and made his
horse shoes in the European taste; this also was matter of
astonishment to all the Tartars, who are accustomed to ride their
horses unshod. He next observed that the Tartar saddles were all
prodigiously large and heavy, raising the horseman up to a great
distance from the back of his horse. Jack set himself to work, and was
not long before he had completed something like an English hunting
saddle, on which he paraded before the Khan. All mankind seem to have
a passion for novelty; and the Khan was so delighted with this effort
of Jack’s ingenuity, that after paying him the highest compliments, he
intimated a desire of having such a saddle for himself. As Jack was
the most obliging creature in the world, and spared no labour to serve
his friends; he went to work again, and in a short time completed a
saddle still more elegant for the Khan. These exertions gained him the
favour and esteem both of the Khan and all the tribe; so that Jack was
an universal favourite, and loaded with presents; while all the rest
of the officers, who had never learned to make a saddle or a
horse-shoe, were treated with contempt and indifference. Jack, indeed,
behaved with the greatest generosity to his countrymen, and divided
with them all the mutton and venison which were given him; but he
could not help sometimes observing, that it was a great pity they had
not learned to make a horse-shoe, instead of dancing and dressing
hair.
And now an ambassador arrived from the English settlements, with an
account that all the conditions of the treaty had been performed, and
demanding the restitution of the prisoners. The Tartar chief was too
much a man of honour to delay an instant, and they were all restored;
but before they set out, Jack laboured with indefatigable zeal to
finish a couple of saddles, and a dozen horseshoes, which he presented
to the Khan, with many expressions of gratitude. The Khan was charmed
with this proof of his affection, and in return made him a present of
a couple of fine horses, and several valuable skins of beasts. Jack
arrived without any accident at the English settlements, and selling
his skins and horses, found himself in possession of a moderate sum of
money. He now began to have a desire to return to England; and one of
the officers, who had often been obliged to him during his captivity,
procured him a discharge. He embarked, therefore, with all his
property, on board a ship which was returning home, and in a few
months was safely landed at Plymouth.
But Jack was too active and too prudent to give himself up to
idleness. After considering various schemes of business, he determined
to take up his old trade of manufacturing iron; and for that purpose
made a journey into the North, and found his old master alive, and as
active as ever. His master, who had always entertained an esteem for
Jack, welcomed him with great affection, and being in want of a
foreman, he engaged him at very handsome wages for that place. Jack
was now indefatigable in filling his new office: inflexibly honest
where the interests of his master were concerned, and at the same time
humane and obliging to the men who were under him, he gained the
affection of all about him. In a few years his master was so
thoroughly convinced of his merit, that growing old himself, he took
Jack into partnership, and committed the management of the whole
business to his care. He continued to exert the same qualities now
which he had done before, by which means he improved the business so
much, as to gain a considerable fortune, and become one of the most
respectable manufacturers in the country. But with all his prosperity,
he never discovered the least pride or haughtiness; on the contrary,
he employed part of his fortune to purchase the moor where he had
formerly lived, and built himself a small but convenient house, upon
the very spot where his daddy’s hut had formerly stood. Hither he
would sometimes retire from business, and cultivate his garden with
his own hands, for he hated idleness. To all his poor neighbours he
was kind and liberal, relieving them in their distress, and often
entertaining them at his house, where he used to dine with them with
the greatest affability, and frequently relate his own story, in order
to prove that it is of very little consequence how a man comes into
the world provided he behaves well, and discharges his duty when he is
in it.
We have thus brought Jack to an end of his toils and misfortunes; and
there is every reason to suppose that his happiness was lasting, for
it was deserved. Throughout all his misfortunes, after he had reached
man’s estate, he manifested a cheerful trust and confidence in the
support and protection of Providence, and never gave way to murmurings
or useless complainings. It may be observed, that all his early
mishaps arose from an ungovernable temper: but that when time and
experience had moderated his temper, things went well with him, and
even matters, at first sight unfortunate, turned out advantageously.
It was with him, as it will be with every one; a violent disposition,
prone to anger, and unwilling to listen to reason, always brings a man
into misfortunes; for it is not only unreasonable but unchristian
|
, showing
something green at one end but overgrown with dead weeds at the
other. There was no house, but a great heap of charred timber and
ashes showed where a house had once stood and had been burned down.
“This must be the wrong place; it must be further on,” Tom muttered,
struggling against a horrible conviction. But he went up and
examined the wreck left from the fire.
Amid the pell-mell confusion of half-burned logs, joists, and planks
was a litter of tin cans, broken kitchenware, scraps of paper and
cloth. He could not make out any relics of any sort of furniture;
most of the household effects must have been salvaged. There was a
broken iron pot, half full of water and deep red with rust—an old ax
with the handle burned out. Everything showed signs of having been
exposed to the wet a long time. Plainly the fire had not taken place
this spring. It must have been during the winter, or, more likely,
last autumn.
But surely this wretched place, this tiny clearing, could not be the
prosperous homestead that he had imagined Uncle Phil to possess. He
groped over the rubbish in search of some evidence. He turned up a
scrap of planed board which might have been part of a door-casing.
Letters were cut on it with a jack-knife. They were partly charred
away, but what was left was plain enough, and he spelled the
confirmatory letters “ave Jackso.” It was Dave’s work, he could
hardly doubt; and a few moments later he unearthed a tattered book,
a copy of Scott’s “Ivanhoe,” water-soaked and scorched, but with his
cousin Ed’s name scribbled a dozen times on the fly-leaves.
Tom groaned. There could be no further doubt, nor hope. It was the
place, right enough; but the house had been burned and the family
had gone, abandoning the claim. Where they had gone he could not
even guess; probably it was far, since none of them had been seen at
Oakley all winter.
Tom sat down on a blackened log, and tears started into his eyes.
Bitterly now he regretted his rashness in coming on without an
answer to his letter. There was nothing for it now but to go back to
Oakley. He would have to walk. It was thirty miles; and how could he
carry his dunnage? And, once there, he would have to make the still
more humiliating retreat to Toronto.
He sat there for some time, too confused to be able to think
clearly. It was growing late in the afternoon. He could not possibly
start on the long tramp back that night. But he shrank from the
notion of staying in the neighborhood of that ruined dwelling, where
there was no shelter whatever; and he determined to go back to the
log barn, which would at any rate afford him cover.
Having a definite notion of his directions, he struck a bee-line
across the woods and succeeded in coming out within a hundred yards
of the old beaver marsh. It was not more than a mile in a direct
line from the burned house, and he investigated the barn with a view
to its possibilities for a camp.
It was rather better than he had expected. There were great chinks
in the walls, and the roof did not seem tight; but part of the place
had been floored with planks and was partitioned off with stalls for
two horses. The rest of the flooring was earth, damp and muddy, but
at the farthest end was a remnant of the old hay.
Pulling out scraps of boards from the building, he lighted a fire
just outside the door. Dusk was beginning to fall, and the snap and
glow of the flames lightened the dreariness a little. He went into
the woods and gathered up what dead and fallen timber he could drag
in. It is hard to collect fuel without an ax, but worse yet to have
the camp-fire fail in the night, and he labored until he thought he
had enough to last through the dark hours. He had blankets in his
dunnage pack, but he did not feel equal to the task of carrying it
up from the lake; and he dragged out a heap of hay to the barn-door
and threw himself down upon it. By good luck he had saved a portion
of his noonday lunch; there had been more than he wanted then, and
if it was not much now it was better than nothing, and he ate it
hungrily. What he would eat on the tramp back to Oakley he could not
imagine. He would have to trust to his rifle; but he did not have
the heart to grapple with any more difficulties just then.
Darkness fell. Through the woods, in the intense stillness, he could
hear the faint rush of the little river pouring over its rocks. Owls
hooted occasionally from the woods. Once he heard the discordant
squall of a hunting lynx; but he was tired out and heart-sick, and
he felt reckless of any wild animal.
The air grew frosty, and the stars glittered white in the
steely-blue sky. He piled on more wood, brought out all the rest of
the hay he could find, and burrowed under it, with his rifle beside
him; and despite his misery, he fell soundly asleep at last.
CHAPTER II
INDIAN CHARLIE
Tom awoke with a vague sense of impending disaster, and looked
about, unable for a moment to realize where he was. It was just
dawn. A gray light hung over the woods. The remains of his fire
barely smoked, and frost lay white as snow over everything. Then he
remembered—the journey, the wreck of the burned house, the ruin of
all his plans; and he got up from his nest of hay, unable to remain
quiet.
He built up the fire again, feeling empty and miserable. His supper
had been a poor one, and there was nothing for breakfast. Perhaps he
might shoot a partridge, he thought, but he felt too inert and
lifeless to go on the hunt. At this point he recollected the boxes
of dates and candy he had with him, and he got them out and devoured
them. It was a queer breakfast, but it comforted his stomach
considerably. The heat of the fire began to take the chill out of
his blood. Over the trees in the east the sun began to come up
gloriously, and with some renewed courage Tom began to think of the
journey back to Oakley.
He hated intensely to do it, yet there seemed no other course. It
would be a hard, long tramp besides, lasting more than one day, and
he would have to depend on what he could shoot. The best thing would
be to acquire some provisions before starting; and he filled the
magazine of his rifle from the box of cartridges in his pocket, and
started into the woods.
He was eager, besides, to explore a little farther before leaving
the place. It was just possible that Uncle Phil’s house was still in
the vicinity. The burned building might have been some unused
structure; the real place might be farther on. He skirted the old
beaver meadow and plunged into the woods—a jungle of small spruces
and jack-pine, much of it dead as if attacked by some disease. A
hare bobbed out from the thickets, incautiously sat up to look at
the intruder, and rolled over the next moment. Tom picked it up and
hung it at his belt, reflecting that here was meat for at least one
meal.
He listened intently for a possible answer to the echo of his shot,
but there was no human sound. Pushing on, he reached the deserted
clearing, glanced over the fire ruin again, and went on to examine
the roughly cut road he had stumbled into the evening before.
This trail led him out to the bank of the little river, and ended.
He followed the stream up some rods. Here and there a tree had been
cut at least a year ago, but there were no further signs of
settlement, not even a blazed trail. He made a wide circle with a
radius of a mile and came back to the clearing, unable to cherish
any more hope. This clearing was all the settlement there was.
He looked at it disconsolately. It was untidy and studded with
stumps. All around its edges great heaps of logs and brush had been
piled up. South of the former house these had burned, and the fire
had penetrated for some distance into the woods, probably catching
from the dwelling. At the farthest end of the clearing there were
about three acres of struggling green, the green of some
autumn-planted grain. Other green sprouts showed near the
ruin—perhaps the relics of a garden. It was not in the least the
sort of homestead he had pictured from his cousins’ descriptions,
and he thought rather indignantly of the exaggerated accounts they
had given him.
He poked over the rubbish again. The ashes were full of nails and
screws, bits of glass, and bits of iron. He picked up the old
ax-head, and thought of taking it with him. It would be better than
nothing, perhaps, in collecting firewood; but he decided that it was
too heavy to carry. He put the torn and stained copy of “Ivanhoe” in
his pocket; it would be something to read. Nothing else seemed to be
of the slightest value to him.
There was no use in lingering about the place any longer. He turned
back irresolutely through the woods, and headed toward the river.
Ricks of dead driftwood were piled along its rocky banks. A couple
of swimming muskrats dived in a circle of ripples as he came up. Tom
paused, and as he stood there a lithe black form popped up between
two logs within twenty yards.
It was a mink, and a large one. Almost instinctively he put up his
rifle and drew a bead on the little fur-bearer’s head. It was
broadside to him, but it was a small mark to hit at that distance,
and a bullet anywhere but in the head would ruin the pelt. He aimed
long, expecting it to dodge away, but it vanished only at the
report.
He hardly hoped to have hit, but he found it on the other side of
the log, almost decapitated. It was a nearly black pelt and in prime
condition. If it had been trapped it might have been worth twenty
dollars, but the mangled head would reduce its value. He carefully
wiped the fur, however, and skinned the animal, reflecting that this
would help pay the expenses of his ill-starred venture.
He rolled up the skin temporarily and put it in his pocket, till he
should have time to stretch it, and continued his way down the
stream. There were plenty of traces of fur everywhere. He saw
several more muskrats though no more of the shy minks. But the signs
showed that there were minks there in abundance, and there were
probably martins in the woods, foxes, skunks, and perhaps sables and
fishers. Dave had said that there was plenty of fur in the district,
and he had been right in this, at any rate.
It would be a splendid place for a winter’s trapping, Tom thought,
and he almost regretted that it was not November instead of April.
The trapping season was almost over now. It crossed his mind that he
might stop here for the remainder of it and make what he could. But
he had no traps, no grub, none of the necessary camping outfit.
He followed the stream down to the lake, and turned up the shore to
the spot where he had landed the day before. His dunnage sack was
still safe in the tree fork. He opened it and got out the camp
cooking outfit of nested aluminum that he had packed in Toronto.
There were salt and pepper boxes, both luckily full, and he put
these in his pocket, hesitated, and then walked back over the shore
to the old barn again.
Here he relighted the fire, skinned the rabbit, and set the quarters
to roast on forked sticks. He was voraciously hungry after the long
walk and his insufficient breakfast. While the meat was browning he
carefully cleaned the fat from the mink skin and stretched it on a
bent twig, and then devoured half the hare, gnawing the bones,
sitting back on his pile of hay.
Despite salt and pepper, it was rather dry and flavorless, but the
meat heartened him wonderfully. He felt equal now to starting on the
tramp to Oakley. He could make fully half the distance to-day, and
finish it to-morrow. He would, however, have to abandon his dunnage.
He might be able to send for it, but it was a poor chance.
He hesitated, reluctant to go. He crumbled the hay in his hands. It
was good hay—wild rich grass from the flats where the beavers of old
time had their pond. Dave must have made a good profit out of this
hay, he reflected, glancing over the brown meadow beyond him. There
were perhaps eight or ten acres of it, a long oval, with the remains
of the old beaver dam still visible at the lower end. Evidently it
had been mowed last summer, and this wild hay always brings a good
price at the winter lumber camps.
“This meadow would make ten tons easily,” he said to himself;
“likely more. It’ll bear over a hundred dollars’ worth of hay this
summer, and nobody to cut it. If I want some easy farming, here’s my
chance.”
The idea came to him carelessly, but it suddenly assumed weight. He
could make something more by trapping in the next few weeks—at least
another hundred dollars.
“It’ll be hard luck if I can’t get rabbits and birds enough to live
on,” he muttered. “There’ll be trout soon, too. It’s getting warm.
This old barn would be a good enough place to live in.”
The hay would have to be mowed in July. He would have to cut it,
turn it over, and stack it entirely by hand, but he knew he could
sell it in the stack as it stood. Living here would cost hardly
anything. At the end of the summer he could go back to Toronto with
a hundred dollars or so to show for his time.
Or why should he not stay up here till Christmas for the early
winter trapping? It would be more profitable than playing foot-ball;
and he could spare the time, for he was going to have to take his
last year’s collegiate work over again anyhow. For that matter, why
should he not keep control of this homestead? It was assuredly
abandoned. It had a clearing, at least one building, some grain
planted, a field of hay. He had wished for such a forest farm. Here
was one at least partly made to his hand. He would be eighteen years
old that summer, and eligible to take a government homestead grant.
If Uncle Phil had made no sign by that time he could apply to have
the rights transferred to himself, and he was perfectly certain that
his relatives had no intention of ever resuming possession.
He laughed to himself, but with a new thrill of hope. All sorts of
possibilities seemed suddenly to be opening out, just when things
had looked blackest. He got up and walked back toward the river,
thinking hard, more and more fascinated by his scheme. It was wild
enough, but almost anything was better than creeping back in
humiliation to Toronto. There was pulp-wood on the place too, which
he could cut in his spare time. As for the land itself, it did not
promise extraordinary fertility. Much of it was rocky, and the
stunted growth of the trees indicated poor soil. Just south of the
barn ran an immense ridge of gravel lightly overgrown with white
birches. But Tom did not at that moment dwell much on the actual
details of agriculture.
He went down to the lake shore and brought his dunnage sack up to
the old barn. It was a heavy load to carry on his shoulder, and he
had no tump-line; but he dropped it at the barn-door at last, aching
and played out, so that he had to drop on the hay and rest. He was
getting out of training, he told himself.
When he had recovered breath, he began to unpack his belongings.
Without having definitely pronounced a decision to stay here, he
went on acting as if the decision had been made. To stop a day or
two would do no harm anyway, he thought, if he could pick up food
enough; and he went into the log barn to see what could be done with
it.
It could be turned into a shack that would at least be good enough
for the summer, he thought. The chinks between the logs would not
matter much, and he could stop the worst of them with moss. Clearing
away all the loose hay at the farther end disclosed a pile of loose
boards, which would be useful for patching. He might build a
partition across one portion of the building. Under the hay were
also a long piece of very good rope, a bit of chain and a broken
pitchfork, and a number of loose nails. There were plenty of other
nails in the fire wreck.
Growing interested, Tom made a huge broom of spruce branches and
swept out the litter from the floored portion of the barn and
brushed down the walls. There was a hole in the roof just above. He
climbed up with a board or two and contrived to cover it in a
temporary fashion. In one corner of the old stalls he fitted a rude
bunk and filled it with hay. Unpacking his dunnage, he spread the
blankets he had used on camping trips before, and hung up his
clothing, his aluminum cooking utensils, the few odds and ends he
had brought with him.
After this, he tramped over to the burned cabin to look for nails.
There were plenty; he quickly filled his pocket, but they were
fire-killed and brittle. They would be of some use, however, and he
secured the old ax-head also. The broken iron pot struck him as
still having possibilities; the lower half at any rate could be
used. He came upon an old tin plate that had not been burned. It
might have been the dog’s dish, kept outdoors; but he was not too
proud to take it; and, laden with this junk, he returned to the barn
again.
The glow of the fire and the blowing smoke as he came up, and the
litter of his activities gave him a queer thrill of home. In a
couple of days more, he promised himself, it would look still more
homelike.
He scoured out the rusty pot with sand and water, and cleaned the
tin plate in the same way. The ax-head was in bad condition, but
with two of the hardest stones he could find he ground laboriously
at the edge until some sharpness was restored. The temper was
entirely out of the metal, and so he heated it dull-red in the fire
and then dropped it into cold water. After this hardening he again
ground the edge and reheated it, this time to a brighter red, and
again cooled it suddenly. This treatment produced a rough sort of
temper. The edge held at any rate, and Tom shaped a crude, straight
handle from an ironwood sapling.
Rough as it was, this ax was an immense and immediate help. He
chopped up a supply of firewood with very little difficulty and was
delighted to find that the edge did not blunt. If anything, he had
made the steel too hard; it had chipped a little.
His foraging about the ruin had been so successful that he
determined to go back on the morrow and turn over the ashes
thoroughly. There might be many more things that would be useful.
The most worthless rubbish took on astonishing value in his complete
destitution, and he found an extraordinary pleasure in thus
salvaging broken junk and making use of it.
His mind recurred to the fur trade. By lying in wait along the creek
he might shoot an odd mink, but this was a most uncertain and
wasteful method. He thought of figure-four traps, of deadfalls.
These are seldom very successful where fur animals are shy and much
trapped, but in this unfrequented spot he thought they might work.
He split up one of the pine boards and whittled out half a dozen
sets of figure-fours, which would fall to pieces at a touch of the
baited spindle.
Half a dozen whiskey-jacks had been squalling about the roof of the
barn for hours, and he shot one of them for bait. He set two of his
deadfalls beside the tiny creek in the beaver meadow, where there
were muskrat signs, building a little inclosure of stakes and logs
with a heavy timber supported over the entrance on the figure-four
spring. Going through the woods to the river, he set four more traps
along the shore, close to the driftwood where the minks were sure to
pass.
It was growing late in the afternoon, and he was hungry again.
Remembering that he had nothing eatable but half a rabbit, for which
he felt no appetite, he made a circuit through the woods in the hope
of picking up a grouse. He did start up several; three of them
perched on a tree and sat in full view, craning their necks stupidly
to look at him, but he managed to make a clean miss, and they went
off with a scared roar of wings. With a shot-gun he might have
bagged half a dozen; but no more sitting shots presented themselves,
and he came back to the barn empty-handed.
The sky had clouded over, and a raw April wind blew. Twilight fell
drearily over the bare woods and the black spruces. Tom cooked his
rabbit and ate it without any great relish. He was very tired, and
felt once more filled with indecision and distress. More than ever
it seemed madness to attempt to remain in this place indefinitely.
To make the discomfort worse, the wind changed so that it drove the
fire toward the barn. He had to put it out, lest the building should
catch fire. Vainly he longed for an interior hearth so that he could
heat the place, but he got into his bunk, piled all his blankets and
spare clothing over himself, and shivered for some time, but
eventually went to sleep.
He awoke about sunrise, feeling stiff and cold. Once more he felt
that he had been a fool to stay here even as long as this. Already
he might have been back in Oakley, headed for Toronto.
He built up the fire and warmed himself. There were some scraps of
rabbit left from last night, and he ate them morosely, feeling that
he had carried a diet of rabbit about as far as it would go. This
morning he would have to pick up something better; afterward he
would plan his retreat to Oakley, and when he had finished the
scanty meal he took up his rifle and started toward the river, where
he had set the deadfalls.
He had a stroke of luck at once. Coming quietly out by the stream he
espied four ducks on the water close to the shore. It was not more
than twenty yards, and he knocked over one, and missed with a second
bullet; then the birds went splashing and squawking away through the
air.
He retrieved the duck with a long stick, hung it on his belt and
walked up the shore. The first of his traps was untouched. The
second was sprung and the bait taken, but the animal had eluded the
falling log. Tom reset it, rebaiting it with the head of the duck.
He had not much faith in his deadfalls, but the next one was down
and had a muskrat in it—a dark, sleek pelt, quite flattened with the
weight of the heavy timber.
Tom was unreasonably elated over his prize. It showed that his traps
were good for something after all, and it ran through his mind that
he might set a whole string of them up and down the river. He
skinned the musquash and put the pelt in his pocket; then he walked
slowly up the shore, on the lookout for more ducks.
He saw no more, but, turning into the woods, he managed to pick a
partridge out of a tree. He followed his former trail toward the
burned cabin, for he wanted to look over the ruins again for
something useful. He laid down his rifle and game, and pulled the
burned timbers apart pretty thoroughly. He took out a number of good
boards that might some time be of service, and found a broken cup,
an unbroken saucer, and a useless table knife, but nothing else that
was worth taking away.
Walking about the clearing, however, he made a much more important
find. He observed a slight mound of earth, some scattered boards and
straw almost filling a depression in the ground, and he guessed that
it was a last year’s potato pit. It had been emptied, of course, but
Tom burrowed about among the earth and straw at the bottom and was
rewarded by finding, one by one, nearly a peck of rather small
scattered potatoes.
He yelled with delight. He had grown terribly nauseated with a meat
diet. His mouth watered at the sight of these grubby little spuds.
Taking off his coat, he wrapped them up sack wise in it, and started
back immediately for his barn, which already had come to be home.
He had a real dinner that day—wild duck roasted in fragments, and
potatoes baked in the ashes and eaten with salt and grease from the
duck. Nothing had ever seemed so delicious. There might be still
more potatoes in the pit—possibly some other vegetables. Stimulated
by the food, his courage revived again, and he definitely resolved
to stay here at least until the end of the spring trapping season.
If necessary he could tramp down to Oakley and exchange a pelt or
two for flour, pork, and sugar. As for a longer stay, there would be
time to decide upon that later.
He went back that afternoon to the burned cabin to look for more
potatoes, but, after turning the pit thoroughly out, he found only
three. He shot a rabbit, however, that had come out of the woods to
nibble at the sprouting grain in the clearing, and with the potatoes
in his pocket and the rabbit at his belt he walked across to the
river and down the shore.
A half a mile down, the stream broke into a series of rapids,
swirling among black boulders. The rocks and piled drift logs at the
foot of the rapids looked like a good place for mink, and he stopped
to examine the “sign.” Minks and musquashes dwelt there, surely;
their traces were abundant. He sat down on a log, looking the place
over, considering where he might construct a few deadfalls, when he
was startled by the sudden appearance of a canoe at the head of the
rapid above him.
It shot into sight like an arrow, steered by a single paddler, a
dark-faced young fellow, with a big pack piled amidships. The
canoeman had not seen him; his whole attention was fixed on running
the rapid; he was half-way down it, going like a flash, when Tom
foolishly sprang up and shouted from the shore.
The paddler cast a quick, startled glance aside, and it was his
undoing. The canoe swerved, and capsized with the suddenness of
winking. Tom caught a glimpse of the overturned keel darting past
him. The man had gone out of sight in the smother of spray and foam;
then Tom saw him come up in the swirl of the tail of the rapid,
struggling feebly.
The water was not waist-deep, and Tom rushed in and dragged him out.
It was a young Indian, half choked and perhaps partly stunned, but
not drowned by any means. He coughed and kicked when Tom deposited
him on the shore; and, seeing, that he was safe, Tom made another
plunge and rescued the big bale of goods that was drifting fast
down-stream. The capsized canoe had lodged against a big
half-submerged log lower down, and was secure for the time being.
[Illustration: Tom rushed in and dragged him out]
Returning to his Indian, he found him sitting up, looking dazed and
angry, and spitting out water. It was a young fellow of about Tom’s
own age, wearing a Mackinaw coat and trousers, and a battered felt
hat which had stuck to his head, and he looked at Tom with intensely
black and angry eyes.
“Hello! Feeling better?” Tom cried.
The Indian boy spluttered a rapid mixture of unintelligible French
and Ojibway.
“What you do that for?” he swerved into English. “You make me
upset—mos’ drown. I lose canoe—pelts—gun—everyt’ing.”
“Oh no. I got your stuff ashore, and there’s your canoe yonder,”
said Tom. “Sorry I scared you. I shouldn’t have called out, but
there’s nothing lost, anyway.”
The Indian got to his feet, went dripping to the rescued pack, and
turned it over carefully.
“All right, eh? Merci,” he said, his anger dying out. “All my winter
trapping here. Thought heem sure lost. Say, you live here? What your
name?”
“Tom Jackson. Yes, I guess I live here.”
“You good fellow, Tom. Me, I’m Charlie. Say, must make a fire,
quick.”
Both of them were drenched and shivering, and the breeze was cold.
“Come along over to my camp. Fire there,” said Tom. “We’ll put your
canoe safe first.”
They pulled the canoe high and dry, rescuing a shot-gun that was
tied in it, and then the two boys took up the heavy pack and started
across the ridge to the old barn.
The fire was still smoldering, and Tom built it up to a roaring
flame. He hastened to change his wet clothes for dry ones; but
Charlie, who had no other clothes, merely stood in the heat until he
steamed like a kettle, finally becoming passably dry. He said there
was tea in his pack, however, and Tom hastened to get it out. There
was a little sugar, too; and they hastened to boil the tea, and
drank great mugs of the hot, strong, sweet beverage, the first hot
drink Tom had had for several days.
As Charlie thawed out he explained that he belonged to an Ojibway
village north of Oakley, but he had been trapping far in the
northwest with two friends all winter. They had taken another route
home; he was returning this way alone with his fur pack, and after
selling the plunder he was going to spend the summer at his village.
The boy had been partly educated at a mission station. He spoke both
English and French in some fashion, frequently mixing them, and when
excited he combined them with his native tongue in a manner that
would have shattered the nerves of a philologist.
He presently opened up his pack of furs, and Tom was astonished at
the showing. There were nearly fifty minks, scores of muskrats,
besides skunks, sables, foxes, fishers, and weasels. Altogether
there must have been upward of a thousand dollars’ worth of peltry,
and all the skins were taken off, cured, and stretched with a
neatness that showed the boy an expert at his craft. There were
several deer hides also, and one bearskin. Charlie told a great tale
of how they had smoked the bear out of his winter nest.
“You trap, too,” he said, his eye lighting on Tom’s single mink
skin. “Good pelt, if it ain’t shot. Too bad. Ain’t stretched right
neither. You git mebbe seven dollar.”
“More than that,” said Tom. “Look here, you want to trade? I’ll swap
you that pelt for some of your traps and grub and—what else you
got?”
“Dunno,” said Charlie cunningly. “What you want?”
The boys plunged into a war of bargaining, in which the Indian
patience wore out the white nerve. In the end Tom secured four good
steel traps, a little tea and sugar and flour from the remains of
Charlie’s provisions, and a box of matches, in exchange for the mink
and the muskrat skin, an old pair of trousers, and a brilliant red
and green necktie which irresistibly took Charlie’s fancy.
When it was over Charlie thawed out still more, and his black eyes
twinkled as he looked over his acquisitions.
“Tom, you good fellow. Say, I show you how to trap. You git heap
mink here.”
Charlie kept his promise. He stayed three days, looked the field
over, and gave Tom quantities of concise expert advice where to set
his traps and what bait to use. He expounded deadfalls to him—how to
lay blood trails along a trap line, how to stretch and cure the
pelts properly. Altogether his instructions were worth almost as
much as his traps, and during his stay Tom caught another mink and
two muskrats. The boys grew to be great friends in those days, and
then Charlie collected his property again and launched his canoe.
“_Bo’ jour_, Tom!” he said. “You good fellow. I see you again some
time, mebbe.”
He went off down the stream, the red and green tie fluttering over
his shoulder. Tom hated to see him go. The old barn by the lake
seemed doubly lonesome now, but the visit had given him the dose of
fresh courage he needed to carry out his enterprise.
CHAPTER III
THE FISH SHARP
It rained all the next day—a cold, dismal rain that was enough to
depress anybody’s spirits. The fire sizzled and smoked, sending
choking clouds into the old barn, where Tom had to keep under cover.
He employed himself in putting a better edge on the broken ax, and
in trying to reharden some of the old nails he had gathered. Before
another rain could come, he decided, he would construct some sort of
shed over his fireplace, so that it would be water-tight.
Getting out the old boards from the rear of the barn, he put up a
partial, rough partition so as to make a room about fifteen feet
square near the door. Almost destitute of tools, he made a poor job
of it, but it helped to pass a dreary day. When the rain slackened
once or twice he made brief excursions into the wet woods with his
rifle, returning once with a partridge and once with a rabbit. In
the bad weather the game lay close and was not shy.
But the next morning the weather had turned mild and sunny and
seemed likely to stay so. Visiting his traps late in the afternoon,
he found two minks in the steel traps, and a muskrat under one of
the deadfalls. He was greatly encouraged and prepared the pelts with
the utmost pains, according to Indian Charlie’s directions.
Cold as the rain had seemed, yet it brought the spring. The birches
on the ridge began to be shrouded in a mist of pale green, the
maples showed crimson buds, and the patch of struggling grain in the
old clearing began to come on vigorously. Apparently it was autumn
rye, and Tom began to look at it with more interest. It would be yet
another small source of profit, if he stayed to harvest it.
Spring came on with the magical swiftness of the North. Leaves
sprang from the trees. The snow water left the river, trout began to
rise, and Tom got out his fishing-tackle and secured a welcome
variation of diet. He needed it, for the last of Charlie’s flour and
sugar went quickly, and at last he was absolutely driven to make the
long-projected trip to Oakley. It was a wearisome tramp and worse
still on the return; for he came back on the fourth day, carrying
thirty pounds on his shoulders—bacon, tea, salt, flour, sugar, a saw
and hammer. After his solitude, Oakley had seemed almost
metropolitan, and the village was indeed unusually astir, for a big
dam was to be built there for a paper-pulp factory, and the place
was full of imported laborers.
The old clearing looked almost like home when he got back. He found
four trapped muskrats and a mink. Nothing had disturbed his
possessions. The grass was beginning to sprout in the old beaver
meadow, and the determination grew in him that he would never give
the place up. He felt sure that nobody would claim it now, and in a
few months he could file homestead papers for it himself. In the
autumn he could return to Toronto and continue his collegiate work
during the winter. He would plant more
|
sunny Italy.”
“The padrone takes all my money.”
“You’ll get away from the old rascal some day. Keep up good courage,
Phil, and all will come right. But here we are. Follow me upstairs, and
I will introduce you to my mother and Giacomo,” said Paul, laughing at
the Italian name he had given his little brother.
Mrs. Hoffman and Jimmy looked with some surprise at the little fiddler
as he entered with Paul.
“Mother,” said Paul, “this is one of my friends, whom I have invited to
take supper with us.”
“He is welcome,” said Mrs. Hoffman, kindly. “Have you ever spoken to us
of him?”
“I am not sure. His name is Phil--Phil the fiddler, we call him.”
“Filippo,” said the young musician.
“We will call you Phil; it is easier to speak,” said Paul. “This is my
little brother Jimmy. He is a great artist.”
“Now you are laughing at me, Paul,” said the little boy.
“Well, he is going to be a great artist some day, if he isn’t one yet.
Do you think, Jimmy, you could draw Phil, here, with his fiddle?”
“I think I could,” said the little boy, slowly, looking carefully at
their young guest; “but it would take some time.”
“Perhaps Phil will come some day, and give you a sitting.”
“Will you come?” asked Jimmy.
“I will come some day.”
Meanwhile Mrs. Hoffman was preparing supper. Since Paul had become
proprietor of the necktie stand, as described in the last volume, they
were able to live with less regard to economy than before. So, when the
table was spread, it presented quite a tempting appearance. Beefsteak,
rolls, fried potatoes, coffee, and preserves graced the board.
“Supper is ready, Paul,” said his mother, when all was finished.
“Here, Phil, you may sit here at my right hand,” said Paul. “I will put
your violin where it will not be injured.”
Phil sat down as directed, not without feeling a little awkward, yet
with a sense of anticipated pleasure. Accustomed to bread and cheese
alone, the modest repast before him seemed like a royal feast. The meat
especially attracted him, for he had not tasted any for months, indeed
seldom in his life, for in Italy it is seldom eaten by the class to
which Phil’s parents belonged.
“Let me give you some meat, Phil,” said Paul. “Now, shall we drink the
health of the padrone in coffee?”
“I will not drink his health,” said Phil. “He is a bad man.”
“Who is the padrone?” asked Jimmy, curiously.
“He is my master. He sends me out to play for money.”
“And must you give all the money you make to him?”
“Yes; if I do not bring much money, he will beat me.”
“Then he must be a bad man. Why do you live with him?”
“He bought me from my father.”
“He bought you?” repeated Jimmy, puzzled.
“He hires him for so much money,” explained Paul.
“But why did your father let you go with a bad man?” asked Jimmy.
“He wanted the money,” said Phil. “He cared more for money than for me.”
What wonder that the boys sold into such cruel slavery should be
estranged from the fathers who for a few paltry ducats sell the liberty
and happiness of their children. Even where the contract is for a
limited terms of years, the boys in five cases out of ten are not
returned at the appointed time. A part, unable to bear the hardships and
privations of the life upon which they enter, are swept off by death,
while of those that survive, a part are weaned from their homes, or are
not permitted to go back.
“You must not ask too many questions, Jimmy.” said Mrs. Hoffman, fearing
that he might awaken sad thoughts in the little musician.
She was glad to see that Phil ate with a good appetite. In truth he
relished the supper, which was the best he remembered to have tasted for
many a long day.
“Is Italy like America?” asked Jimmy, whose curiosity was excited to
learn something of Phil’s birthplace.
“It is much nicer,” said Phil, with a natural love of country. “There
are olive trees and orange trees, and grapes--very many.”
“Are there really orange trees? Have you seen them grow?”
“I have picked them from the trees many times.”
“I should like that, but I don’t care for olives.”
“They are good, too.”
“I should like the grapes.”
“There are other things in Italy which you would like better, Jimmy,”
said Paul.
“What do you mean, Paul?”
“The galleries of fine paintings.”
“Yes, I should like to see them. Have you seen them?”
Phil shook his head. The picture galleries are in the cities, and not in
the country district where he was born.
“Sometime, when I am rich, we will all go to Italy, Jimmy; then, if Phil
is at home, we will go and see him.”
“I should like that, Paul.”
Though Jimmy was not yet eight years old, he had already exhibited
a remarkable taste for drawing, and without having received any
instruction, could copy any ordinary picture with great exactness. It
was the little boy’s ambition to become an artist, and in this ambition
he was encouraged by Paul, who intended, as soon as he could afford it,
to engage an instructor for Jimmy.
CHAPTER V
ON THE FERRY BOAT
When supper was over, Phil bethought himself that his day’s work was not
yet over. He had still a considerable sum to obtain before he dared go
home, if such a name can be given to the miserable tenement in Crosby
Street where he herded with his companions. But before going he wished
to show his gratitude to Paul for his protection and the supper which he
had so much and so unexpectedly enjoyed.
“Shall I play for you?” he asked, taking his violin from the top of the
bureau, where Paul had placed it.
“Will you?” asked Jimmy, his eyes lighting up with pleasure.
“We should be very glad to hear you,” said Mrs. Hoffman.
Phil played his best, for he felt that he was playing for friends. After
a short prelude, he struck into an Italian song. Though the words were
unintelligible, the little party enjoyed the song.
“Bravo, Phil!” said Paul. “You sing almost as well as I do.”
Jimmy laughed.
“You sing about as well as you draw,” said the little boy.
“There you go again with your envy and jealousy,” said Paul, in an
injured tone. “Others appreciate me better.”
“Sing something, and we will judge of your merits,” said his mother.
“Not now,” said Paul, shaking his head. “My feelings are too deeply
injured. But if he has time, Phil will favor us with another song.”
So the little fiddler once more touched the strings of his violin, and
sang the hymn of Garibaldi.
“He has a beautiful voice,” said Mrs. Hoffman to Paul.
“Yes, Phil sings much better than most of his class. Shall I bring him
up here again?”
“Any time, Paul. We shall always be glad to see him.”
Here Phil took his cap and prepared to depart.
“Good-by,” he said in English. “I thank you all for your kindness.”
“Will you come again?” said Mrs. Hoffman. “We shall be glad to have
you.”
“Do come,” pleaded Jimmy, who had taken a fancy to the dark-eyed Italian
boy, whose brilliant brown complexion contrasted strongly with his own
pale face and blue eyes.
These words gave Phil a strange pleasure. Since his arrival in America
he had become accustomed to harsh words and blows; but words of kindness
were strangers to his ears. For an hour he forgot the street and his
uninviting home, and felt himself surrounded by a true home atmosphere.
He almost fancied himself in his Calabrian home, with his mother and
sisters about him--in his home as it was before cupidity entered his
father’s heart and impelled him to sell his own flesh and blood into
slavery in a foreign land. Phil could not analyze his own emotions,
but these were the feelings which rose in his heart, and filed it with
transient sadness.
“I thank you much,” he said. “I will come again some day.”
“Come soon, Phil,” said Paul. “You know where my necktie stand is. Come
there any afternoon between four and five, and I will take you home to
supper. Do you know the way out, or shall I go with you?”
“I know the way,” said Phil.
He went downstairs and once more found himself on the sidewalk. It was
but six o’clock, and five or six hours were still before him before he
could feel at liberty to go home. Should he return too early, he would
be punished for losing the possible gains of the hour he had lost, even
if the sum he brought home were otherwise satisfactory. So, whatever may
be his fatigue, or however inclement the weather, the poor Italian boy
is compelled to stay out till near midnight, before he is permitted to
return to the hard pallet on which only he can sleep off his fatigues.
Again in the street, Phil felt that he must make up for lost time. Now
six o’clock is not a very favorable time for street music; citizens who
do business downtown have mostly gone home to dinner. Those who have
not started are in haste, and little disposed to heed the appeal of
the young minstrel. Later the saloons will be well frequented, and not
seldom the young fiddlers may pick up a few, sometimes a considerable
number of pennies, by playing at the doors of these places, or within,
if they should be invited to enter; but at six there is not much to be
done.
After a little reflection, Phil determined to go down to Fulton Ferry
and got on board the Brooklyn steamboat. He might get a chance to play
to the passengers, and some, no doubt, would give him something. At any
rate, the investment would be small, since for one fare, or two cents,
he might ride back and forward several times, as long as he did not step
off the boat. He, therefore, directed his steps toward the ferry, and
arrived just in time to go on board the boat.
The boat was very full. So large a number of the people in Brooklyn are
drawn to New York by business and pleasure, that the boats, particularly
in the morning from seven to nine, and in the afternoon, from five to
seven, go loaded down with foot passengers and carriages.
Phil entered the ladies’ cabin. Though ostensibly confined to ladies’
use, it was largely occupied also by gentlemen who did not enjoy the
smoke which usually affects disagreeably the atmosphere of the cabin
appropriated to their own sex. Our young musician knew that to children
the hearts and purses of ladies are more likely to open than those of
gentlemen, and this guided him.
Entering, he found every seat taken. He waited till the boat had
started, and then, taking his position in the center of the rear
cabin, he began to play and sing, fixing at once the attention of the
passengers upon himself.
“That boy’s a nuisance; he ought not to be allowed to play on the boat,”
muttered an old gentleman, looking up from the columns of the Evening
Post.
“Now, papa,” said a young lady at his side, “why need you object to the
poor boy? I am sure he sings very nicely. I like to hear him.”
“I don’t.”
“You know, papa, you have no taste for music. Why, you went to sleep at
the opera the other evening.”
“I tried to,” said her father, in whom musical taste had a very limited
development. “It was all nonsense to me.”
“He is singing the Hymn of Garibaldi. What a sweet voice he has! Such a
handsome little fellow, too!”
“He has a dirty face, and his clothes are quite ragged.”
“But he has beautiful eyes; see how brilliant they are. No wonder he is
dirty and ragged; it isn’t his fault, poor boy. I have no doubt he has a
miserable home. I’m going to give him something.”
“Just as you like, Florence; as I am not a romantic young damsel, I
shall not follow your example.”’
By this time the song was finished, and Phil, taking off his cap, went
the rounds. None of the contributions were larger than five cents,
until he came to the young lady of whom we have spoken above. She drew
a twenty-five-cent piece from her portemonnaie, and put it into Phil’s
hand, with a gracious smile, which pleased the young fiddler as much as
the gift, welcome though that undoubtedly was.
“Thank you, lady,” he said.
“You sing very nicely,” she replied.
Phil smiled, and dirty though his face was, the smile lighted it up with
rare beauty.
“Do you often come on these boats?” asked the young lady.
“Sometimes, but they do not always let me play,” said Phil.
“I hope I shall hear you again. You have a good voice.”
“Thank you, signorina.”
“You can speak English. I tried to speak with one of you the other day,
but he could only speak Italian.”
“I know a few words, signorina.”
“I hope I shall see you again,” and the young lady, prompted by a
natural impulse of kindness, held out her hand to the little musician.
He took it respectfully, and bending over, touched it with his lips.
The young lady, to whom this was quite unexpected, smiled and blushed,
by no means offended, but she glanced round her to see whether it was
observed by others.
“Upon my word, Florence,” said her father, as Phil moved away, “you have
got up quite a scene with this little ragged musician. I am rather
glad he is not ten or twelve years older, or there might be a romantic
elopement.”
“Now, papa, you are too bad,” said Florence. “Just because I choose to
be kind to a poor, neglected child, you fancy all sorts of improbable
things.”
“I don’t know where you get all your foolish romance from--not from me,
I am sure.”
“I should think not,” said Florence, laughing merrily. “Your worst enemy
won’t charge you with being romantic, papa.”
“I hope not,” said her father, shrugging his shoulders. “But the boat
has touched the pier. Shall we go on shore, or have you any further
business with your young Italian friend?”
“Not to-day, papa.”
The passengers vacated the boat, and were replaced by a smaller number,
on their way from Brooklyn to New York.
CHAPTER VI
THE BARROOM
Phil did not leave the boat. He lingered in the cabin until the
passengers were seated, and after the boat was again under way began to
play. This time, however, he was not as fortunate as before. While in
the midst of a tune one of the men employed on the boat entered the
cabin. At times he would not have interfered with him, but he happened
to be in ill humor, and this proved unfortunate for Phil.
“Stop your noise, boy,” he said.
Phil looked up.
“May I not play?”
“No; nobody wants to hear you.”
The young fiddler did not dare to disobey. He saw that for the present
his gains were at an end. However, he had enough to satisfy the rapacity
of the padrone, and could afford to stop. He took a seat, and waited
quietly till the boat landed. One of the lady passengers, as she passed
him on her way out of the cabin, placed ten cents in his hand. This
led him to count up his gains. He found they amounted to precisely two
dollars and fifty cents.
“I need not play any more,” he thought. “I shall not be beaten
to-night.”
He found his seat so comfortable, especially after wandering about the
streets all day, that he remained on the boat for two more trips. Then,
taking his violin under his arm, he went out on the pier.
It was half-past seven o’clock. He would like to have gone to his
lodging, but knew that it would not be permitted. In this respect the
Italian fiddler is not as well off as those who ply other street trades.
Newsboys and bootblacks are their own masters, and, whether their
earnings are little or great, reap the benefit of them themselves. They
can stop work at six if they like, or earlier; but the little Italian
musician must remain in the street till near midnight, and then, after
a long and fatiguing day, he is liable to be beaten and sent to bed
without his supper, unless he brings home a satisfactory sum of money.
Phil walked about here and there in the lower part of the city. As he
was passing a barroom he was called in by the barkeeper.
“Give us a tune, boy,” he said.
It was a low barroom, frequented by sailors and a rough set of customers
of similar character. The red face of the barkeeper showed that he drank
very liberally, and the atmosphere was filled with the fumes of bad
cigars and bad liquor. The men were ready for a good time, as they
called it, and it was at the suggestion of one of them that Phil had
been invited in.
“Play a tune on your fiddle, you little ragamuffin,” said one.
Phil cared little how he was addressed. He was at the service of the
public, and what he chiefly cared for was that he be paid for his
services.
“What shall I play?” he asked.
“Anything,” hiccoughed one. “It’s all the same to me. I don’t know one
tune from another.”
The young fiddler played one of the popular airs of the day. He did not
undertake to sing, for the atmosphere was so bad that he could hardly
avoid coughing. He was anxious to get out into the street, but he did
not wish to refuse playing. When he had finished his tune, one of
those present, a sailor, cried, “That’s good. Step up, boys, and have a
drink.”
The invitation was readily accepted by all except Phil. Noticing that
the boy kept his place, the sailor said, “Step up, boy, and wet your
whistle.”
Phil liked the weak wines of his native land, but he did not care for
the poisonous decoctions of be found in such places.
“I am not thirsty,” he said.
“Yes, you are; here, give this boy a glass of brandy.”
“I do not want it,” said Phil.
“You won’t drink with us,” exclaimed the sailor, who had then enough to
be quarrelsome. “Then I’ll make you;” and he brought down his fist so
heavily upon the counter as to make the glasses rattle. “Then I’ll make
you. Here, give me a glass, and I’ll pour it down his throat.”
The fiddler was frightened at his vehemence, and darted to the door. But
the sailor was too quick for him. Overtaking Phil, he dragged him
back with a rough grasp, and held out his hand for the glass. But an
unexpected friend now turned up.
“Oh, let the boy go, Jack,” said a fellow sailor. “If he don’t want to
drink, don’t force him.”
But his persecutor was made ugly by his potations, and swore that Phil
should drink before he left the barroom.
“That he shall not,” said his new friend.
“Who is to prevent it?” demanded Jack, fiercely.
“I will.”
“Then I’ll pour a glass down your throat, too,” returned Jack,
menacingly.
“No need of that. I am ready enough to drink. But the boy shan’t drink,
if he don’t want to.”
“He shall!” retorted the first sailor, with an oath.
Still holding Phil by the shoulder with one hand, with the other he took
a glass which had just been filled with brandy; he was about to pour it
down his throat, when the glass was suddenly dashed from his hand and
broke upon the floor.
With a fresh oath Jack released his hold on Phil, and, maddened with
rage, threw himself upon the other. Instantly there was a general melee.
Phil did not wait to see the result. He ran to the door, and, emerging
into the street, ran away till he had placed a considerable distance
between himself and the disorderly and drunken party in the barroom. The
fight there continued until the police, attracted by the noise, forced
an entrance and carried away the whole party to the station-house, where
they had a chance to sleep off their potations.
Freed from immediate danger, the young fiddler kept on his way. He had
witnessed such scenes before, as he had often been into barrooms to
play in the evening. He had not been paid for his trouble, but he cared
little for that, as the money would have done him no good. He would only
have been compelled to pass it over to the padrone. These boys, even
at a tender age, are necessarily made familiar with the darker side of
metropolitan life. Vice and crime are displayed before their young eyes,
and if they do not themselves become vicious, it is not for the want of
knowledge and example.
It would be tedious to follow Phil in his wanderings. We have already
had a glimpse of the manner in which the days passed with him; only
it is to be said that this was a favorable specimen. He had been more
fortunate in collecting money than usual. Besides, he had had a better
dinner than usual, thanks to the apple, and a supper such as he had not
tasted for months.
About ten o’clock, as he was walking on the Bowery, he met Giacomo, his
companion of the morning.
The little boy was dragging one foot after the other wearily. There was
a sad look on his young face, for he had not been successful, and he
knew too well how he would be received by the padrone. Yet his face
lighted up as he saw Phil. Often before Phil had encouraged him when he
was despondent. He looked upon our young hero as his only friend; for
there was no other of the boys who seemed to care for him or able to
help him.
“Is it you, Filippo?” he said.
“Yes, Giacomo. What luck have you had?”
“Not much. I have only a little more than a dollar. I am so tired; but I
don’t dare go back. The padrone will beat me.”
An idea came to Phil. He did not know how much money he had; but he was
sure it must be considerably more than two dollars, Why should he not
give some to his friend to make up his deficiencies, and so perhaps save
him from punishment?
“I have had better luck,” he said. “I have almost three dollars.”
“You are always luckier than I, Filippo.”
“I am stronger, Giacomo. It does not tire me so much to walk about.”
“You can sing, too. I cannot sing very much, and I do not get so much
money.”
“Tell me just how much money you have, Giacomo.”
“I have a dollar and thirty cents,” said Giacomo, after counting the
contents of his pockets.
Meanwhile Phil had been doing the same thing. The result of his count
was that he found he had two dollars and eighty cents.
“Listen, Giacomo,” he said. “I will give you enough to make two
dollars.”
“But then you will be beaten.”
“No; I shall have two dollars and five cents left. Then neither of us
will get beaten.”
“How kind you are, Filippo!”
“Oh, it is nothing. Besides, I do not want to carry too much, or the
padrone will expect me to bring as much every day, and that I cannot do.
So it will be better for us both.”
The transfer was quickly made, and the two boys kept together until they
heard the clock strike eleven. It was now so late that they determined
to return to their miserable lodging, for both were tired and longed for
sleep.
CHAPTER VII
THE HOME OF THE BOYS
It was a quarter-past eleven when Phil and Giacomo entered the shabby
brick house which they called home, for want of a better. From fifteen
to twenty of their companions had already arrived, and the padrone was
occupied in receiving their several contributions. The apartment was
a mean one, miserably furnished, but seemed befitting the principal
occupant, whose dark face was marked by an expression of greed, and
alternately showed satisfaction or disappointment as the contents of the
boys’ pockets were satisfactory or otherwise. Those who had done badly
were set apart for punishment.
He looked up as the two boys entered.
“Well, Filippo,” he said, harshly, “how much have you got?”
Phil handed over his earnings. They were up to the required limit, but
the padrone looked only half satisfied.
“Is that all you have?” he asked, suspiciously.
“It is all, signore.”
“You have not done well this afternoon, then. When I met you at twelve
o’clock you had more than a dollar.”
“It was because a good signora gave me fifty cents.”
The padrone, still suspicious, plunging his hands into Phil’s pockets,
but in vain. He could not find another penny.
“Take off your shoes and stockings,” he said, still unsatisfied.
Phil obediently removed his shoes and stockings, but no money was found
concealed, as the padrone half suspected. Sometimes these poor boys,
beset by a natural temptation, secrete a portion of their daily
earnings. Whenever they are detected, woe betide them. The padrone makes
an example of them, inflicting a cruel punishment, in order to deter
other boys from imitating them.
Having discovered nothing, he took Phil’s violin, and proceeded to
Giacomo.
“Now for you,” he said.
Giacomo handed over his money. The padrone was surprised in turn, but
his surprise was of a different nature. He had expected to find him
deficient, knowing that he was less enterprising than Phil. He was glad
to get more money than he expected, but a little disappointed that he
had no good excuse for beating him; for he had one of those hard, cruel
natures that delight in inflicting pain and anguish upon others.
“Take care that you do as well to-morrow,” he said. “Go and get your
supper.”
One of the larger boys was distributing bread and cheese to the hungry
boys. Nearly all ate as if famished, plain and uninviting as was the
supper, for they had been many hours without food. But Phil, who, as
we know, had eaten a good supper at Mrs. Hoffman’s, felt very little
appetite. He slyly gave his bread to one of the boys, who, on account of
the small sum he brought home, had been sentenced to go without. But the
sharp eyes of the padrone, which, despite his occupation, managed to see
all that was going on, detected this action, and he became suspicious
that Phil had bought supper out of his earnings.
“Why did you give your bread to Giuseppe?” he demanded.
“Because I was not hungry,” answered Phil.
“Why were you not hungry? Did you buy some supper?”
“No, signore.”
“Then you should be hungry.”
“A kind lady gave me some supper.”
“How did it happen?”
“I knew her son. His name is Paolo. He asked me to go home with him.
Then he gave me a good supper.”
“How long were you there? You might have been playing and brought me
some more money,” said the padrone, who, with characteristic meanness,
grudged the young fiddler time to eat the meal that cost him nothing.
“It was not long, signore.”
“You can eat what is given you, but you must not waste too much time.”
A boy entered next, who showed by his hesitating manner that he did
not anticipate a good reception. The padrone, accustomed to judge by
appearances, instantly divined this.
“Well, Ludovico,” he said, sharply, “what do you bring me?”
“Pardon, padrone,” said Ludovico, producing a small sum of money.
“I could not help it.”
“Seventy-five cents,” repeated the padrone, indignantly. “You have been
idle, you little wretch!”
“No, padrone. Indeed, I did my best. The people would not give me
money.”
“Where did you go?”
“I was in Brooklyn.”
“You have spent some of the money.”
“No, padrone.”
“You have been idle, then. No supper to-night. Pietro, my stick!”
Pietro was one of the older boys. He was ugly physically, and his
disposition corresponded with his appearance. He could have few good
traits, or he would not have possessed the confidence of the padrone.
He was an efficient assistant of the latter, and co-operated with him in
oppressing the other boys. Indeed, he was a nephew of the padrone’s,
and for this reason, as well as his similarity of disposition, he was
treated with unusual indulgence. Whenever the padrone felt suspicious
of any of the boys, he usually sent them out in company with Pietro, who
acted as a spy, faithfully reporting all that happened to his principal.
Pietro responded with alacrity to the command of the padrone, and
produced a stout stick, which he handed to his uncle.
“Now strip off your jacket,” said the padrone, harshly.
“Spare me, padrone! Do not beat me! It was not my fault,” said the
unhappy Ludovico, imploringly.
“Take off your jacket!” repeated the padrone, pitilessly.
One look of that hard face might have taught Ludovico, even if he had
not witnessed the punishment so often inflicted on other boys, that
there was no hope for him.
“Help him, Pietro,” said the padrone.
Pietro seized Ludovico’s jacket, and pulled it off roughly. Then he drew
off the ragged shirt which the boy wore underneath, and his bare back
was exposed to view.
“Hold him, Pietro!”
In Pietro’s firm grasp, the boy was unable to stir. The padrone whirled
the stick aloft, and brought it down upon the naked flesh, leaving
behind a fearful wheal.
Ludovico shrieked aloud, and again implored mercy, but in vain, for the
stick descended again and again.
Meanwhile the other boys looked on, helpless to interfere. The more
selfish were glad that they had escaped, though not at all sure but it
would be their turn next evening. There were others who felt a passive
sympathy for their unlucky comrade. Others were filled with indignation
at the padrone, knowing how cruel and unjust were his exactions. Among
these was Phil. Possessed of a warm and sympathetic heart, he never
witnessed these cruel punishments without feeling that he would like to
see the padrone suffering such pain as he inflicted upon others.
“If I were only a man,” he often thought, “I would wrench the stick from
his hand, and give him a chance to feel it.”
But he knew too well the danger of permitting his real sentiments to be
reflected in his face. It would only bring upon him a share of the same
punishment, without benefiting those who were unfortunate enough to
receive it.
When Ludovico’s punishment was ended, he was permitted to go to bed,
but without his supper. Nor was his the only case. Five other boys were
subjected to the same punishment. The stick had no want of exercise
on that evening. Here were nearly forty boys, subjected to excessive
fatigue, privation, and brutal treatment daily, on account of the greed
of one man. The hours that should been given in part to instruction, and
partly to such recreation as the youthful heart craves, were devoted to
a pursuit that did nothing to prepare them for the duties of life. And
this white slavery--for it merits no better name--is permitted by the
law of two great nations. Italy is in fault in suffering this traffic
in her children of tender years, and America is guilty as well in not
interfering, as she might, at all events, to abridge the long hours of
labor required of these boys, and forcing their cruel guardians to give
them some instruction.
One by one the boys straggled in. By midnight all had returned, and the
boys were permitted to retire to their beds, which were poor enough.
This, however, was the least of their troubles. Sound are the slumbers
of young however hard the couch on which it rests, especially when, as
with all the young Italian boys, the day has been one of fatigue.
CHAPTER VIII
A COLD DAY
The events thus far recorded in the life of our young hero took place
on a day toward the middle of October, when the temperature was
sufficiently mild to produce no particular discomfort in those exposed
to it. We advance our story two months, and behold Phil setting out for
his day’s wandering on a morning in December, when the keen blasts swept
through the streets, sending a shiver through the frames even of those
who were well protected. How much more, then, must it be felt by the
young street musician, who, with the exception of a woolen tippet, wore
nothing more or warmer than in the warmer months! Yet, Phil, with his
natural vigorous frame, was better able to bear the rigor of the winter
weather than some of his comrades, as Giacomo, to whom the long hours
spent in the streets were laden with suffering and misery.
The two boys went about together when they dared to do so, though the
padrone objected, but for what reason it did not seem manifest, unless
because he suspected that two would plan something prejudicial to his
interests. Phil, who was generally more successful than Giacomo, often
made up his smaller comrade’s deficiencies by giving him a portion of
his own gains.
It was a raw day. Only those who felt absolutely obliged to be out were
to be seen in the streets; but among these were our two little fiddlers.
Whatever might be the weather, they were compelled to expose themselves
to its severity. However the boys might suffer, they must bring home
the usual amount. But at eleven o’clock the prospects seemed rather
discouraging. They had but twenty-five cents between them, nor would
anyone stop to listen to their playing.
“I wish it were night, Filippo,” said Giacomo, shivering with cold.
“So do I, Giacomo. Are you very cold?”
“Yes,” said the little boy, his teeth chattering. “I wish I were back in
Italy. It is never so cold there.”
“No, Giacomo; you are right. But I would not mind the cold so much, if
I had a warm overcoat like that boy,” pointing out a boy clad in a thick
overcoat, and a fur cap drawn over his ears, while his hands were snugly
incased in warm gloves.
He, too, looked at the two fiddlers, and he could not help noticing how
cold they looked.
“Look here, you little chaps, are you cold? You look as if you had just
come from Greenland.”
“Yes,” said Phil. “We are cold.”
“Your hands look red enough. Here is an old pair of gloves for one of
you. I wish I had another pair. They are not very thick, but they are
better than none.”
He drew a pair of worsted gloves from his pocket, and handed them to
Phil.
“Thank you,” said Phil; but having received them, he gave them to
Giacomo.
“You are colder than I am, Giacomo,” he said. “Take them.”
“But you are cold, too, Filippo.”
“I will put my hands in my pockets. Don’t mind me.”
Of course this conversation took place in Italian; for, though Phil had
learned considerable English, Giacomo understood but a few words of it.
The gloves afforded some protection, but still both boys were very cold.
They were in Brooklyn, having crossed the ferry in the morning. They had
wandered to a part not closely built up, where they were less sheltered,
and experienced greater discomfort.
“Can’t we go in somewhere and get warm? pleaded Giacomo.
“Here is a grocery store. We will go in there.”
Phil opened the door and entered. The shopkeeper, a peevish-looking man,
with lightish hair, stood behind the counter weighing out a pound of tea
for a customer.
“What do you want here, you little vagabonds?” he exclaimed, harshly, as
he saw the two boys enter.
“We are cold,” said Phil. “May we stand by your stove and get warm?”
“Do you think I provide a fire for all the vagabonds in the city?” said
the grocer, with a brutal disregard of their evident suffering.
Phil hesitated, not knowing whether he was ordered out or not.
“Clear out of my store, I say!” said the grocer, harshly. “I don’t want
you in here.
|
Robert. In 1385 the Guild of St.
George at Norwich contained 377 names. Of these, John engrossed no less
than 128, William 47, Thomas 41. The Reformation and the Puritan
Commonwealth for a time darkened the fortunes of John and William, but the
Protestant accession befriended the latter, and now, as 800 years ago,
William is first and John second.
But when we come to realize that nearly one-third of Englishmen were known
either by the name of William or John about the year 1300, it will be seen
that the _pet name_ and _nick form_ were no freak, but a necessity. We
dare not attempt a category, but the surnames of to-day tell us much. Will
was quite a distinct youth from Willot, Willot from Wilmot, Wilmot from
Wilkin, and Wilkin from Wilcock. There might be half a dozen Johns about
the farmstead, but it mattered little so long as one was called Jack,
another Jenning, a third Jenkin, a fourth Jackcock (now Jacox as a
surname), a fifth Brownjohn, and a sixth Micklejohn, or Littlejohn, or
Properjohn (_i.e._ well built or handsome).
The _nick_ forms are still familiar in many instances, though almost
entirely confined to such names as have descended from that day to the
present. We still talk of Bob, and Tom, and Dick, and Jack. The
introduction of Bible names at the Reformation did them much harm. But the
Reformation, and the English Bible combined, utterly overwhelmed the _pet_
desinences, and they succumbed. Emmot and Hamlet lived till the close of
the seventeenth century, but only because they had ceased to be looked
upon as altered forms of old favourite names, and were entered in vestry
books on their own account as orthodox proper names.
II. PET FORMS.
These pet desinences were of four kinds.
(_a_) _Kin._
The primary sense of _kin_ seems to have been relationship: from thence
family, or offspring. The phrases "from generation to generation," or
"from father to son," in "Cursor Mundi" find a briefer expression:
"This writte was gett fra kin to kin,
That best it cuth to haf in min."
The next meaning acquired by _kin_ was child, or "young one." We still
speak in a diminutive sense of a manikin, kilderkin, pipkin, lambkin,
jerkin, minikin (little minion), or doitkin. Appended to baptismal names
it became very familiar. "A litul soth Sermun" says--
"Nor those prude yongemen
That loveth Malekyn,
And those prude maydenes
That loveth Janekyn:
* * *
Masses and matins
Ne kepeth they nouht,
For Wilekyn and Watekyn
Be in their thouht."
Unquestionably the incomers from Brabant and Flanders, whether as
troopers or artisans, gave a great impulse to the desinence. They tacked
it on to everything:
"_Rutterkin_ can speke no Englyssh,
His tongue runneth all on buttyred fyssh,
Besmeared with grece abowte his dysshe
Like a rutter hoyda."
They brought in Hankin, and Han-cock, from Johannes; not to say Baudkin,
or Bodkin, from Baldwin. _Baudechon le Bocher_ in the Hundred Rolls, and
_Simmerquin Waller_, lieutenant of the Castle of Harcourt in "Wars of the
English in France," look delightfully Flemish.
Hankin is found late:
"Thus for her love and loss poor Hankin dies,
His amorous soul down flies."
"Musarum Deliciæ," 1655.
To furnish a list of English names ending in _kin_ would be impossible.
The great favourites were Hopkin (Robert),[3] Lampkin and Lambkin
(Lambert), Larkin (Lawrence), Tonkin (Antony), Dickin, Stepkin
(Stephen),[4] Dawkin (David), Adkin,[5] now Atkin (Adam, not Arthur),
Jeffkin (Jeffrey), Pipkin and Potkin (Philip), Simkin, Tipkin (Theobald),
Tomkin, Wilkin, Watkin (Walter), Jenkin, Silkin (Sybil),[6] Malkin (Mary),
Perkin (Peter), Hankin (Hans), and Halkin or Hawkin (Henry). Pashkin or
Paskin reminds us of Pask or Pash, the old baptismal name for children
born at Easter. Judkin (now as a surname also Juckin) was the
representative of Judd, that is, Jordan. George afterwards usurped the
place. All these names would be entered in their orthodox baptismal style
in all formal records. But here and there we get free and easy entries, as
for instance:
"Agnes Hobkin-wyf, iiii{d}."--W. D. S.
"Henry, son of Halekyn, for 17-1/2 acres of land."--"De Lacy
Inquisition," 1311.
"Emma Watkyn-doghter, iiii{d}."--W. D. S.
"Thi beste cote, Hankyn,
Hath manye moles and spottes,
It moste ben y-wasshe."
"Piers Plowman."
_Malkin_ was one of the few English female names with this appendage. Some
relics of this form of Mary still remain. Malkin in Shakespeare is the
coarse scullery wench:
"The kitchen malkin pins
Her richest lockram 'bout her reechy neck,
Clambering the walls to eye him."
"Coriolanus," Act ii. sc. 1.
While the author of the "Anatomy of Melancholy" is still more unkind, for
he says--
"A filthy knave, a deformed quean, a crooked carcass, a maukin, a
witch, a rotten post, a hedge-stake may be so set out and tricked up,
that it shall make a fair show, as much enamour as the rest."--Part
iii. sect. 2, mem. 2, sub-sect. 3.
From a drab Malkin became a scarecrow. Hence Chaucer talks of
"malkin-trash." As if this were not enough, malkin became the baker's
clout to clean ovens with. Thus, as Jack took the name of the implements
Jack used, as in boot-jack, so by easy transitions Malkin. The last hit
was when Grimalkin (that is, grey-malkin) came to be the cant term for an
old worn-out quean cat. Hence the witch's name in "Macbeth."
It will be seen at a glance why Malkin is the only name of this class that
has no place among our surnames.[7] She had lost character. I have
suggested, in "English Surnames," that Makin, Meakin, and Makinson owe
their origin to either Mary or Maud. I would retract that supposition.
There can be little doubt these are patronymics of Matthew, just as is
Maycock or Meacock. Maykinus Lappyng occurs in "Materials for a History of
Henry VII.," and the Maykina Parmunter of the Hundred Rolls is probably
but a feminine form. The masculine name was often turned into a feminine,
but I have never seen an instance of the reverse order.
Terminations in _kin_ were slightly going down in popular estimation, when
the Hebrew invasion made a clean sweep of them. They found shelter in
Wales, however, and our directories preserve in their list of surnames
their memorial for ever.[8]
(_b_) _Cock._
The term "cock" implied _pertness_: especially the pertness of lusty and
swaggering youth. To cock up the eye, or the hat, or the tail, a haycock
in a field, a cock-robin in the wood, and a cock-horse in the nursery, all
had the same relationship of meaning--brisk action, pert
demonstrativeness. The barn-door cockerel was not more cockapert than the
boy in the scullery that opened upon the yard where both strutted. Hence
any lusty lad was "Cock," while such fuller titles as Jeff-cock, or
Sim-cock, or Bat-cock gave him a preciser individuality. The story of
"Cocke Lorelle" is a relic of this; while the prentice lad in "Gammer
Gurton's Needle," acted at Christ College, Cambridge, in 1566, goes by the
only name of "Cock." Tib the servant wench says to Hodge, after the needle
is gone--
"My Gammer is so out of course, and frantic all at once,
That Cock our boy, and I, poor wench, have felt it on our bones."
By-and-by Gammer calls the lad to search:
"Come hither, Cock: what, Cock, I say.
_Cock._ How, Gammer?
_Gammer._ Go, hie thee soon: and grope behind the old brass pan."
Such terms as nescock, meacock, dawcock, pillicock, or lobcock may be
compounds--unless they owe their origin to "cockeney," a spoiled,
home-cherished lad. In "Wit without Money" Valentine says--
"For then you are meacocks, fools, and miserable."
In "Appius and Virginia" (1563) Mausipula says (Act i. sc. 1)--
"My lady's great business belike is at end,
When you, goodman dawcock, lust for to wend."
In "King Lear"
"Pillicock sat on pillicock-hill"
seems an earlier rendering of the nursery rhyme--
"Pillicock, Pillicock sate on a hill,
If he's not gone, he sits there still."
In "Wily Beguiled" Will Cricket says to Churms--
"Why, since you were bumbasted that your lubberly legs would not carry
your lobcock body."
These words have their value in proving how familiarly the term _cock_ was
employed in forming nicknames. That it should similarly be appended to
baptismal names, especially the nick form of Sim, Will, or Jeff, can
therefore present no difficulty.
_Cock_ was almost as common as "_kin_" as a desinence. _Sim-cock_ was
_Simcock_ to the end of his days, of course, if his individuality had come
to be known by the name.
"Hamme, son of Adecock, held 29 acres of land.
"Mokock de la Lowe, for 10 acres.
"Mokock dal Moreclough, for six acres.
"Dik, son of Mocock, of Breercroft, for 20 acres."--"The De Lacy
Inquisition," 1311.
Adecock is Adam, and Mocock or Mokock is Matthew. In the same way
Sander-cock is a diminutive of Sander, Lay-cock of Lawrence, Luccock of
Luke, Pidcock and Peacock of Peter, Maycock and Mycock of Matthew,
Jeff-cock of Jeffrey, Johncock of John, Hitch-cock or Hiscock or Heacock
of Higg or Hick (Isaac), Elcock of Ellis, Hancock or Handcock of Han or
Hand (Dutch John), Drocock or Drewcock of Drew, Wilcock of William,
Badcock or Batcock of Bartholomew, and Bawcock of Baldwin, Adcock or
Atcock of Adam, Silcock of Silas, and Palcock of Paul:
"Johannes Palcock, et Beatrix uxor ejus, iiii{d}."--W. D. S.
"Ricardus Sylkok, et Matilda uxor ejus, iiii{d}."--W. D. S.
The difficulty of identification was manifestly lessened in a village or
town where _Bate_ could be distinguished from _Batkin_, and _Batkin_ from
_Batcock_. Hence, again, the common occurrence of such a component as
_cock_. This diminutive is never seen in the seventeenth century; and yet
we have many evidences of its use in the beginning of the sixteenth. The
English Bible, with its tendency to require the full name as a matter of
reverence, while it supplied new names in the place of the old ones that
were accustomed to the desinence, caused this. It may be, too, that the
new regulation of Cromwell in 1538, requiring the careful registration of
all baptized children, caused parents to lay greater stress on the name as
it was entered in the vestry-book.
Any way, the sixteenth century saw the end of names terminating in "cock."
(_c._) _On or In._
A dictionary instance is "violin," that is, a little viol, a fiddle of
four strings, instead of six. This diminutive, to judge from the Paris
Directory, must have been enormously popular with our neighbours. Our
connection with Normandy and France generally brought the fashion to the
English Court, and in habits of this kind the English folk quickly copied
their superiors. Terminations in _kin_ and _cock_ were confined to the
lower orders first and last. Terminations in _on_ or _in_, and _ot_ or
_et_, were the introduction of fashion, and being under patronage of the
highest families in the land, naturally obtained a much wider popularity.
Our formal registers, again, are of little assistance. Beton is coldly and
orthodoxly Beatrice or Beatrix in the Hundred Rolls. Only here and there
can we gather that Beatrice was never so called in work-a-day life. In
"Piers Plowman" it is said--
"_Beton_ the Brewestere
Bade him good morrow."
And again, later on:
"And bade Bette cut a bough,
And beat _Betoun_ therewith."
If Alice is Alice in the registrar's hands, not so in homely Chaucer:
"This _Alison_ answered: Who is there
That knocketh so? I warrant him a thefe."
Or take an old Yorkshire will:
"Item: to Symkyn, and Watkyn, and Alison Meek, servandes of John of
Bolton, to ilk one of yaim, 26{s}. 8{d}."--"Test. Ebor." iii. 21.
Surtees Society.
Hugh, too, gets his name familiarly entered occasionally:
"_Hugyn_ held of the said earl an oxgang of land, and paid yearly
iii{s}. vi{d}."--"The De Lacy Inquisition," 1311.
Huggins in our directories is the memorial of this. But in the north of
England Hutchin was a more popular form. In the "Wappentagium de
Strafford" occurs--
"Willelmus Huchon, & Matilda uxor ejus, iiii{d}."
Also--
"Elena Houchon-servant, iiii{d}."
that is, Ellen the servant of Houchon. Our Hutchinsons are all north of
Trent folk. Thus, too, Peter (Pier) became Perrin:
"The wife of Peryn."--"Manor of Ashton-under-Lyne," Chetham Society,
p. 87.
Marion, from Mary, is the only familiar instance that has descended to us,
and no doubt we owe this fact to Maid Marion, the May-lady. Many a Mary
Ann, in these days of double baptismal names, perpetuates the impression
that Marion or Marian was compounded of Mary and Ann.
Of familiar occurrence were such names as _Perrin_, from Pierre, Peter;
_Robin_ and _Dobbin_, from Rob and Dob, Robert; _Colin_, from Col,
Nicholas; _Diccon_, from Dick, Richard; _Huggin_, from Hugh; _Higgin_,
from Hick or Higg, Isaac; _Figgin_, from Figg, Fulke;[9] _Phippin_, from
Phip and Philip; and _Gibbin_, or _Gibbon_, or _Gilpin_, from Gilbert.
Every instance proves the debt our surnames have incurred by this
practice.
Several cases are obscured by time and bad pronunciation. Our Tippings
should more rightly be Tippins, originally Tibbins, from Tibbe (Theobald);
our Collinges and Collings, Collins; and our Gibbings, Gibbins. Our
Jennings should be Jennins; _Jennin_ Caervil was barber to the Earl of
Suffolk in the French wars ("Wars of England in France," Henry VI.).
Robing had early taken the place of Robin:
"Johanne Robyng-doghter, iiii{d}."--W. D. S.
Such entries as Raoulin Meriel and Raoul Partrer (this Raoul was private
secretary to Henry VI.) remind us of the former popularity of Ralph and of
the origin of our surnames Rawlins and Rawlinson:
"Dionisia Rawlyn-wyf, iiii{d}."--W. D. S.
Here again, however, the "_in_" has become "_ing_," for Rawlings is even
more common than Rawlins. Deccon and Dickin have got mixed, and both are
now Dickens, although Dicconson exists as distinct from Dickinson. Spenser
knew the name well:
"Diggon Davie, I bid her 'good-day;'
Or Diggon her is, or I missay."
"Matilda Dicon-wyf, webester, iiii{d}."--W. D. S.
The London Directory contains Lamming and Laming. Alongside are Lampin,
Lamin, and Lammin. These again are more correct, all being surnames formed
from Lambin, a pet form of Lambert:
"Willelmus Lambyn, et Alicia uxor ejus, iiii{d}."--W. D. S.
Lambyn Clay played before Edward at Westminster at the great festival in
1306 (Chappell's "Popular Music of ye Olden Time," i. 29). The French
forms are Lambin, Lamblin, and Lamberton, all to be met with in the Paris
Directory.
All these names are relics of a custom that is obsolete in England, though
not with our neighbours.
(_d._) _Ot and Et._
These are the terminations that ran first in favour for many generations.
This diminutive _ot_ or _et_ is found in our language in such words as
_poppet_, _jacket_, _lancet_, _ballot_, _gibbet_, _target_, _gigot_,
_chariot_, _latchet_, _pocket_, _ballet_. In the same way a little page
became a _paget_, and hence among our surnames Smallpage, Littlepage, and
Paget.
Coming to baptism, we find scarcely a single name of any pretensions to
popularity that did not take to itself this desinence. The two favourite
girl-names in Yorkshire previous to the Reformation were Matilda and Emma.
Two of the commonest surnames there to-day are Emmott and Tillot, with
such variations as Emmett and Tillett, Emmotson and Tillotson. The
archbishop came from Yorkshire. _Tyllot_ Thompson occurs under date 1414
in the "Fabric Rolls of York Minster" (Surtees Society).
"Rome, April 27, Eugenius IV. (1433). Dispensation from Selow for
Richard de Akerode and Emmotte de Greenwood to marry, they being
related in the fourth degree."--"Test. Ebor.," iii. 317.
"Licence to the Vicar of Bradford to marry Roger Prestwick and Emmote
Crossley. Bannes thrice in one day" (1466).--"Test. Ebor.," iii. 338.
Isabella was also popular in Yorkshire: hence our Ibbots and Ibbotsons,
our Ibbetts and Ibbetsons. Registrations such as "Ibbota filia Adam," or
"Robert filius Ibote," are of frequent occurrence in the county archives.
The "Wappentagium de Strafford" has:
"Johanna Ibot-doghter, iiii{d}.
"Willelmus Kene, et Ibota uxor ejus, iiii{d}.
"Thomas Gaylyour, et Ebbot sa femme, iiii{d}."
Cecilia became Sissot or Cissot:
"Willelmus Crake, & Cissot sa femme, iiii{d}."--W. D. S.
In the "Manor of Ashton-under-Lyne" (Chetham Society), penned fortunately
for our purpose in every-day style, we have such entries as--
"Syssot, wife of Patrick.
"Syssot, wife of Diccon Wilson.
"Syssot, wife of Thomas the Cook.
"Syssot, wife of Jak of Barsley."
Four wives named Cecilia in a community of some twenty-five families will
be evidence enough of the popularity of that name. All, however, were
known in every-day converse as Sissot.
Of other girl-names we may mention Mabel, which from Mab became Mabbott;
Douce became Dowcett and Dowsett; Gillian or Julian, from Gill or Jill
(whence Jack and Jill), became Gillot, Juliet, and Jowett; Margaret became
Margett and Margott, and in the north Magot. Hence such entries from the
Yorkshire parchments, already quoted, as--
"Thomas de Balme, et Magota uxor ejus, chapman, iiii{d}.
"Hugo Farrowe, et Magota uxor ejus, smyth, iiii{d}.
"Johannes Magotson, iiii{d}."
Custance became Cussot, from Cuss or Cust, the nick form. The Hundred
Rolls contain a "Cussot Colling"--a rare place to find one of these
diminutives, for they are set down with great clerkly formality.
From Lettice, Lesot was obtained:
"Johan Chapman, & Lesot sa femme, iiii{d}."--W. D. S.
And Dionisia was very popular as Diot:
"Johannes Chetel, & Diot uxor ejus, iiii{d}.
"Willelmus Wege, & Diot uxor ejus, iiii{d}."--W. D. S.
Of course, it became a surname:
"Robertus Diot, & Mariona uxor ejus, iiii{d}.
"Willelmus Diotson, iiii{d}."--W. D. S.
It is curious to observe that Annot, which now as Annette represents Anne,
in Richard II.'s day was extremely familiar as the diminutive of Annora or
Alianora. So common was Annot in North England that the common sea-gull
came to be so known. It is a mistake to suppose that Annot had any
connection with Anna. One out of every eight or ten girls was Annot in
Yorkshire at a time when Anna is never found to be in use at all:
"Stephanus Webester, & Anota uxor ejus, iiii{d}.
"Richard Annotson, wryght, iiii{d}."--W. D. S.
As Alianora and Eleanora are the same, so were Enot and Anot:
"Henricus filius Johannis Enotson, iiii{d}."--W. D. S.
Again, Eleanor became Elena, and this Lina and Linot. Hence in the Hundred
Rolls we find "Linota atte Field." In fact, the early forms of Eleanor are
innumerable. The favourite Sibilla became Sibot:
"Johannes de Estwode, et Sibota uxor ejus, iiii{d}.
"Willelmus Howeson, et Sibbota uxor ejus, iiii{d}."--W. D. S.
Mary not merely became Marion, but Mariot, and from our surnames it would
appear the latter was the favourite:
"Isabella serviens Mariota Gulle, iiii{d}."--W. D. S.
"Mariota in le Lane."--Hundred Rolls.
Eve became Evot, Adam and Eve being popular names. In the will of William
de Kirkby, dated 1391, are bequests to "Evæ uxori Johannes Parvying" and
"Willielmo de Rowlay," and later on he refers to them again as the
aforementioned "Evotam et dictum Willielmum Rowlay" ("Test. Ebor.," i.
145. Surtees Society).
But the girl-name that made most mark was originally a boy's name,
Theobald. Tibbe was the nick form, and Tibbot the pet name. Very speedily
it became the property of the female sex, such entries as Tibot Fitz-piers
ending in favour of Tibota Foliot. After the year 1300 Tib, or Tibet, is
invariably feminine. In "Gammer Gurton's Needle," Gammer says to her
maid--
"How now, Tib? quick! let's hear what news thou hast brought
hither."--Act. i. sc. 5.
In "Ralph Roister Doister," the pet name is used in the song, evidently
older than the play:
"Pipe, merry Annot, etc.,
Trilla, Trilla, Trillary.
Work, Tibet; work, Annot; work, Margery;
Sew, Tibet; knit, Annot; spin, Margery;
Let us see who will win the victory."
Gib, from Gilbert, and Tib became the common name for a male and female
cat. Scarcely any other terms were employed from 1350 to 1550:
"For right no more than Gibbe, our cat,
That awaiteth mice and rattes to killen,
Ne entend I but to beguilen."
Hence both Tibet and Gibbet were also used for the same; as in the old
phrase "flitter-gibbett," for one of wanton character. Tom in tom-cat came
into ordinary parlance later. All our modern Tibbots, Tibbetts, Tibbitts,
Tippitts, Tebbutts, and their endless other forms, are descended from
Tibbe.
Coming to boys' names, all our Wyatts in the Directory hail from
Guiot,[10] the diminutive of Guy, just as Wilmot from William:
"Adam, son of Wyot, held an oxgang of land."--"De Lacy Inquisition."
"Ibbote Wylymot, iiii{d}."--W. D. S.
_Payn_ is met in the form of Paynot and Paynet, _Warin_ as Warinot, _Drew_
as Drewet, _Philip_ as Philpot, though this is feminine sometimes:
"Johannes Schikyn, et Philipot uxor ejus, iiii{d}."--W. D. S.
_Thomas_ is found as Thomaset, _Higg_ (Isaac) as Higgot, _Jack_ as
Jackett, _Hal_ (Henry) as Hallet (Harriot or Harriet is now feminine), and
Hugh or Hew as Hewet:
"Dionisia Howet-doghter, iiii{d}."--W. D. S.
The most interesting, perhaps, of these examples is Hamnet, or Hamlet.
Hamon, or Hamond, was introduced from Normandy:
"Hamme, son of Adcock, held 29 acres of land."--"De Lacy Inquisition,"
1311.
It became a favourite among high and low, and took to itself the forms of
Hamonet and Hamelot:
"The wife of Richard, son of Hamelot."--"De Lacy Inquisition," 1311.
These were quickly abbreviated into Hamnet and Hamlet. They ran side by
side for several centuries, and at last, like Emmot, defied the English
Bible, the Reformation, and even the Puritan period, and lived unto the
eighteenth century. Hamlet Winstanley, the painter, was born in 1700, at
Warrington, and died in 1756. In Kent's London Directory for 1736 several
Hamnets occur as baptismal names. Shakespeare's little son was Hamnet, or
Hamlet, after his godfather Hamnet Sadler. I find several instances where
both forms are entered as the name of the same boy:
"Nov. 13, 1502. Item: the same day to Hamlet Clegge, for money by him
layed out... to the keper of Dachet Ferrey in rewarde for conveying
the Quenes grace over Thamys there, iii{s}. iiii{d}."
Compare this with--
"June 13, 1502. Item: the same day to Hampnet Clegge, for mone by him
delivered to the Quene for hir offring to Saint Edward at Westm.,
vi{s}. viii{d}."--"Privy Purse Expenses, Eliz. of York," pp. 21 and
62.
Speaking of Hamelot, we must not forget that _ot_ and _et_ sometimes
became _elot_ or _elet_. As a diminutive it is found in such dictionary
words as bracelet, tartlet, gimblet, poplet (for poppet). The old ruff or
high collar worn alike by men and women was styled a _partlet_:
"Jan. 1544. Item: from Mr. Braye ii. high collar partletts, iii{s}.
ix{d}."--"Privy Purse Expenses, Princess Mary."
Hence partlet, a hen, on account of the ruffled feathers, a term used
alike by Chaucer and Shakespeare.
In our nomenclature we have but few traces of it. In France it was very
commonly used. But Hughelot or Huelot, from Hugh, was popular, as our
Hewletts can testify. Richelot for Richard, Hobelot and Robelot for
Robert, Crestolot for Christopher, Cesselot for Cecilia, and Barbelot for
Barbara, are found also, and prove that the desinence had made its mark.
Returning, however, to _ot_ and _et_: Eliot or Elliot, from Ellis (Elias),
had a great run. In the north it is sometimes found as Aliot:
"Alyott de Symondeston held half an oxgang of land, xix{d}."--"De Lacy
Inquisition," 1311.
The feminine form was Elisot or Elicot, although this was used also for
boys. The will of William de Aldeburgh, written in 1319, runs--
"Item: do et lego Elisotæ domicellæ meæ 40{s}."--"Test. Ebor.," i.
151.
The will of Patrick de Barton, administered in the same year, says--
"Item: lego Elisotæ, uxori Ricardi Bustard unam vaccam, et
10{s}."--"Test. Ebor.," i. 155.
"Eliseus Carpenter, cartwyth, et Elesot uxor ejus, vi{d}."--W. D. S.
As Ellis became Ellisot, so Ellice became Ellicot, whence the present
surname. Bartholomew became Bartelot, now Bartlett, and from the pet form
Toll, or Tolly, came Tollett and Tollitt.
It is curious to notice why Emmot and Hamlet, or Hamnet, survived the
crises that overwhelmed the others. Both became baptismal names in their
own right. People forgot in course of time that they were diminutives of
Emma and Hamond, and separated them from their parents. This did not come
about till the close of Elizabeth's reign, so they have still the credit
of having won a victory against terrible odds, the Hebrew army. Hamnet
Shakespeare was so baptized. Hamon or Hamond would have been the regular
form.
Looking back, it is hard to realize that a custom equally affected by
prince and peasant, as popular in country as town, as familiar in
Yorkshire and Lancashire as in London and Winchester, should have been so
completely uprooted, that ninety-nine out of the hundred are now unaware
that it ever existed. This was unmistakably the result of some disturbing
element of English social life. At the commencement of the sixteenth
century there was no appearance of this confusion. In France the practice
went on without let or hindrance. We can again but attribute it to the
Reformation, and the English Bible, which swept away a large batch of the
old names, and pronounced the new without addition or diminution. When
some of the old names were restored, it was too late to fall back upon the
familiarities that had been taken with them in the earlier period.
(_e._) _Double Terminatives._
In spite of the enormous popularity in England of _ot_ and _et_, they bear
no proportion to the number in France. In England our _local_ surnames are
two-fifths of the whole. In France _patronymic_ surnames are almost
two-fifths of the whole. Terminatives in _on_ or _in_, and _ot_ and _et_,
have done this. We in England only adopted double diminutives in two
cases, those of _Colinet_ and _Robinet_, or _Dobinet_, and both were
rarely used. Robinet has come down to us as a surname; and Dobinet so
existed till the middle of the fifteenth century, for one John Dobynette
is mentioned in an inventory of goods, 1463 (Mun. Acad. Oxon.). This
Dobinet seems to have been somewhat familiarly used, for Dobinet Doughty
is Ralph's servant in "Ralph Roister Doister." Matthew Merrygreek says--
"I know where she is: Dobinet hath wrought some wile.
_Tibet Talkapace._ He brought a ring and token, which he said was
sent
From our dame's husband."--Act. iii. sc. 2.
Colin is turned into Colinet in Spenser's "Shepherd's Calendar," where
Colin beseeches Pan:
"Hearken awhile from thy green cabinet,
The laurel song of careful Colinet?"
Jannet is found as Janniting (Jannetin) once on English soil, for in the
"London Chanticleers," a comedy written about 1636, Janniting is the
apple-wench. _Welcome_ says--
"Who are they which they're enamoured so with?
_Bung._ The one's Nancy Curds, and the other Hanna Jenniting: Ditty
and Jenniting are agreed already... the wedding will be kept at our
house."--Scene xiii.
But the use of double diminutives was of every-day practice in Normandy
and France, and increased their total greatly. I take at random the
following _surnames_ (originally, of course, christian names) from the
Paris Directory:--Margotin, Marioton, Lambinet (Lambert), Perrinot,
Perrotin, Philiponet, Jannotin, Hugonet, Huguenin, Jacquinot, and
Fauconnet (English Fulke). Huguenin (little wee Hugh) repeats the same
diminutive; Perrinot and Perrotin (little wee Peter) simply reverse the
order of the two diminutives. The "marionettes" in the puppet-show take
the same liberty
|
the
stethoscope to the chest of the exquisite; we may feel his weak pulse,
or examine his silly tongue. So may we make our diagnosis, and though we
cannot “minister to a mind diseased,” we may, at least, “hold the mirror
up to nature,” for the benefit of all gazers. Therefore, in pursuance of
the task, come we to our first great inquiry:
HOW ARE DANDIES MADE?
This is a grave question, for fops are like veal pies—in the opinion of
the waggish Weller—the crust may be rather respectable, but the making
up of the interior is “werry duberous.” Exquisites at this present
writing, are a conglomeration of lanky legs, hairy heads and creamy
countenances. Such are their natural peculiarities. But it is evident
that in considering this subject, the great topic of inquiry is, What is
a dandy sartorially? Here description will proclaim him to be a being
stuck into tight trowsers, ditto coat and vest, ditto boots, not so much
ditto overcoat, and crowned with a cylindrical structure of felt, which
is called a hat. Mentally the subject of dandyism offers little field
for remark, because the weakness which distinguishes the unfortunate
class of our fellow citizens now under consideration, is caused by
natural imbecility and want of common sense.
It is a topic of inquiry worthy of the most acute philosophical research
whether buckishness is a natural or acquired folly. Some who have argued
upon the matter have taken the ground, that all such vanities are the
consequence of the great fall, and that as the expulsion from Eden was
followed by the assumption of apparel, good Mother Eve was tempted and
overcome by the fascinations of dress. For support of this view of the
subject it may be urged, that with the fall came dress, with dress came
fashion, and with fashion came the Dandy. Others suggest that such an
argument as this, going back beyond the flood, is far-fetched, and they
profess to be able to assign a much better cause for dandyism. According
to these philosophers every fop has “a soft place in his head,” which
has been very beautifully described by the poet as
“The greenest spot
In Memory’s waste.”
They affirm that this weak portion of a skull otherwise thick, is the
chosen place of the “organ of dandyism,” and controls the habits of its
possessors. If this were so, we might pardon a failing which cannot be
remedied, but, with Combe in our hands, we in vain run over the head to
find this organ, which is certainly not a hand-organ. None of the
phrenological authorities—it is a striking fact—give the locality of
this bump.
No; “the milk of human kindness” which was “poured into Gall,” forbade
him from making known the situation of the protuberance, and Fowler
unfairly dodges the question.
Nothing is to be made out of this inquiry, and after considering the
matter with great gravity, we are driven to the conclusion that Dandyism
is like a bad cold, caught nobody knows how, or when, or where, or why.
Some may be afflicted because they have the pores of vanity open—others
who sit in the draught of affectation, may suddenly be seized by a
fashionable influenza—going suddenly from the warm room of common sense
into the cold air of ostentation, may give the “_grippe_” to some—but
with many it is chronic, having been acquired in childhood when their
dear mammas tricked them out in fantastic velvets and fine caps, with
feathers, making them juvenile dandies among the little boys of their
neighborhood.
But all this may be tiresome to the reader who desires to plunge at once
in the middle of the subject. We must really get on with this important
theme, and responding categorically to the inquiry, “how dandies are
made?” respond: by eight honest mechanics, to wit, the tailor, hatter,
boot-maker, linen-draper, haberdasher, glover, hosier and jeweler. Take
away the articles fabricated by these men, what is he but a helpless
mortal, a mere man and terribly unfashionable? We might once have added
to the list of dandy manufacturers the barber—but our modern exquisites
have so little to do with that artist that the claims of Figaro to the
distinction would be strongly controverted.
An inspection of a buck in this month of February, anno domini eighteen
hundred and fifty-two, will convey to the mind of the spectator ideas of
a pair of very thin legs, surmounted by a very short specimen of an
overcoat, with monstrous buttons and wide sleeves—a cravat with a bow
about six inches wide and three inches broad, with fringes at the
ends—a standing shirt collar, running up to a very sharp
point—something like a face, covered with hair over what, in
Christians, are the chin, cheek and upper-lip—and a hat thereon. Simile
fails in ability to convey any adequate notion of this figure. Two
pipes, bowl downward and stems upward, might give an idea of the lower
extremity of the dandy. We will carry out the nicotian metaphor by
placing on the upper portions of the stems a paper of “Mrs. Miller’s
best”—the short-cut, oozing from the top of the torn paper, will do
very well for the hair on the face—a tobacco-box placed on the whole,
will give some idea of a figure, which, if greatly magnified, would in
the outline much resemble a modern fop.
The clothing of an exquisite is a work of time and science. We can
imagine how much of the labor is done. But there are two subjects, in
the making of a fop, that have long been considered puzzles. One of
these questions is—how does he manage to tie those huge bows in his
cravat, which stand out just below his chin, giving him thereabout the
appearance of a cherubim, all head and wings? What a work of fixing must
there be before he gets the knot exactly right! What gazing into the
mirror—what pulling of ends—what twisting of folds—what tying and
untying! Every thing must be just so. There must be no wrinkles—all
must be smooth and “ship-shape,” or the dandy so remiss upon this
subject would be avoided forever by his associates. It has been asserted
that a smart exquisite is able to tie his cravat in half an hour, but
the general average of time is believed to be an hour and a half. There
is a melancholy instance on record, of a fop who once took three hours
to fix the bow of his cravat. The sad occurrence took place on what
should have been his wedding-day. He commenced the work at seven o’clock
in the morning and had “a nice knot” at ten. Unfortunately, the hour of
the wedding was fixed at nine. The anxious intended wailed impatiently
at the altar for her expected lord, for half an hour, and then
concluding that he meant to insult her, went away in a huff, so that the
unfortunate dandy, by being too particular as to tying a nice knot, lost
the opportunity of fastening a nicer knot, and worse still, a bride
“worth a hundred thousand.”
This inquiry into the time occupied at the cravat, though very
interesting, must yield in importance to another, to wit:—How do
dandies get into their boots?
In former years this puzzling topic could not have arisen. Loose
trowsers gave plenty of room to boots which were wide in the legs. There
was no difficulty in getting heels into them, and though there might
have been some screwing and stamping, it was certain that eventually the
articles would be drawn on the feet. Then, too, the tightness was only
in the foot part of the boot. It required considerable muscular exertion
to coax the five toes into the close prison designed for them, but by
pulling one moment, working the foot the next, and then screwing the
face into ugly contortions, considerable progress was usually effected.
The power of the human countenance over upper leather is one of those
extraordinary psychological facts which dabblers in animal magnetism
have failed in accounting for satisfactorily. Yet that it does exist, is
vouched for by all experience. Tight boots have always been susceptible
to this influence. History herself cannot point to an instance where a
new leathern foot-envelope was drawn on the walker with a countenance
“calm as a summer’s morning.” It is notorious that no boot of character
ever yielded until it saw, from the knitting of the eyebrows, the
puckering of lips, and the distortion of muscles, that the putter-on was
in absolute earnest. And how stubbornly the leather yields when it comes
under the influence—how it relaxes with stiff dissatisfaction, and at
last creeps over the part assigned, with an air of unwrinkled disgust.
The philosophy of this subject is strange, and should be investigated by
some modern Mesmer of sole and upper leather.
But really this is a digression, which the importance of the correlative
subject has drawn us into. “Let us return to our—mutton.” (We might
have said our _veal_, were it not that the idea of dandies’ legs and
calves are incongruous and unnatural.) It is an inflexible rule in the
making up of an exquisite, that there shall be no calves to his legs.
The mere osteological peculiarities of that part of the frame are to be
preserved, and the epidermis must clasp the attenuated limb, without
embracing a superfluity of muscle similar to that which we see in the
lower limbs of the statues of Hercules. Hence it follows that the heel
of a true dandy is expected to protrude an inch at least beyond what,
under happier circumstances, would be the calf of his leg. There is
really no difference between the formation of the lower pedalities of a
pure dandy, and those of a pure Ethiopian. In this anatomical fact lies
the great difficulty in the way of modern “squirts.” The heel
unfortunately requires a greater opening at the top of the boot than can
be filled up by the upper part of the leg when the article is upon the
foot. This is a very distressing difficulty. The pantaloons are expected
to hug the leg as tightly as possible, so that the thinness of the
“trotters” may be revealed in all their natural beauty. But an obstacle
exists in the shape of an inch or two of superfluous leather at the top
of the boot, which will have a tendency to give the limb an appearance
of greater circumference than nature or fashion permits. This trouble is
really of disgusting importance. How do the dandies manage, then, to
produce those thin legs, the slightness of which is so strikingly
graceful? The world has long wondered over this subject, and it was not
until lately that a true philosopher revealed the mystery. He asserts
that after fops get into boots and unmentionables, they turn up the
latter until they get a fair purchase on the leather inconveniencies.
Then, with broad bandages they swathe their legs and the upper part of
their boots quite carefully, until the superfluous leather is bound
tightly down, and there is a comparatively smooth surface all the way
down the limb. After having got his trowsers pulled down, the fop is
ready for a promenade upon Chestnut street, or a conquest in a
drawing-room. In the former exercise he gets along as well as can be
expected, being very careful in his mincing steps lest an unlucky rip
should damage the integrity of his apparel. In the latter situation he
is often put to great inconvenience. When sitting down, the
unwhisperables are, by the disposition of his body, drawn a considerable
distance above the ankle. To get them down again is a matter which no
thorough dandy can accomplish. If he were to bend to do it, the
consequence would be disastrous. He therefore takes his leave of the
ladies with pantaloons half-way up to the knee, and, stopping in the
entry, exclaims—“Wait-ah! wait-ah! hea-ah, fell-ah, assist me! Come
hea-ah and pull down my pants! Really, ah, they-ah have risen until they
are quite uncomfortable.”
Thus much for the present division of our task, from which we draw the
deduction that every exquisite has his troubles like plainer people. One
day he may be in agonies because his cravat is not decently tied. On
another he may be in torture because, notwithstanding all his efforts,
his legs seem thick. These and other ills are occasional misfortunes. It
is not considered by him that although these griefs come once in a
while, he is at all times in manners a puppy, and in mental strength
only a ninny.
* * * * *
A FILIAL TRIBUTE.
BY CORNELIA B. BROWNE.
We thank thee, Father, for thy kindly teaching;
It makes our “desert blossom as the rose,”
When a fond parent, exile over-reaching,
His arm of counsel round as gently throws.
Daily we’ll ponder, as a sacred pleasure,
These calm outpourings of a tender love:
Nightly our prayer shall be, this precious treasure
So to receive, as to be thine above.
Thou heedest, then, that three swift lustres, wending
O’er Time’s winged course, have made me soberer now;
That maidenhood with infancy is blending,
To cast a shade of thought upon my brow?
As the meek virgin merges in the woman,
Aid me to drink of waters more divine;
To purify the needful, earnest, human,
And lay soul-offerings on a holy shrine.
Upon this day, that sealed her blissful union,
Our mother bids us offer thanks to thee:
Permitted foretaste of that high communion,
Where all earth’s exiles are supremely free.
* * * * *
[Illustration: THE DEATH OF THE STAG.]
* * * * *
THE DEATH OF THE STAG;
OR THE TALBOTS IN TEVIOTDALE.
BY FRANK FORESTER.
[SEE ENGRAVING.]
The stag at eve had drunk his fill,
Where danced the moon on Monan’s rill,
And deep his midnight lair had made
In lone Glenartney’s hazel shade;
But when the sun his beacon red
Had kindled on Benvoirlich’s head,
The blood-hound’s deep resounding bay
Came swelling up the rocky way.
Lady of the Lake.
“Tayho! Tayho!”[1]
And straightway to the cry responded the long-drawn, mellow notes of the
huge French-horns which were in those days used by every yeoman pricker,
as the peculiar and time-honored instrument of the stag-hunt, the _mots_
of which were as familiar to every hunter’s ear, as so many spoken words
of his vernacular.
It was the gray dawn of a lovely summer morning in the latter part of
July, and although the moor-cocks were crowing sharp and shrill from
every rocky knoll or purple eminence of the wild moors, now waving far
and wide with the redolent luxuriance of their amethyst garniture, for
the heather was in its full flush of bloom, although the thrush and
black-bird were caroling in emulous joy, at the very top of their
voices, from every brake and thicket which feathered the wild banks of
the hill-burns, the sun had not lifted a portion of his disc above the
huge, round-topped fells which formed the horizon to the north and
westward of my scene. That scene was the slope of a long hill—
“A gentle hill,
Green and of mild declivity—the last,
As ’twere the cape of a long ridge of such,
Save that there was no sea to lave its base
But a most living landscape and the wave
Of woods and corn-fields, and the abodes of men
Scattered at intervals, and wreathing smoke
Arising from such rustic roofs.”
The hills above and somewhat farther off to the southward and eastward,
are clothed and crowned with oak woods of magnificence and size so
unusual, and kept with such marked evidences of care and culture that no
one could doubt, even if it were not proved by the gray turrets of an
old baronial manor and the spire of a tall clock-house shooting up high
over the tops of the forest giants, that they were the appendages and
ornaments of some one of those ancient homes of England, which, full of
the elegancies and graces of the present, remind us so pleasantly of the
ruder, though not less homely, hospitalities of the past.
The immediate summit of the slope I have mentioned is bare, yet
conspicuous for a single tree, the only one of its kind existing for
many miles in that district—a single white pine, tall enough for the
mast of some huge admiral, and as such visible, it is said, from points
in the four northern provinces of England, and the two southernmost of
Scotland—whence it is known far and wide, in many a border lay and
legend, as the one-tree hill on Reedswood.[2] Below the bare brow of
this inland promontory, for such indeed it is, which is covered with
beautiful, short, mossy grass, as firm and soft as the greensward of a
modern race-course, and used as one vast pasture of two hundred acres,
lies a vast tract of coppice, principally of oak and birch, but
interspersed with expanses of waving heather, where the soil is too
shallow to support a larger growth, and dotted here and there with bold,
gray crags which have cropped out above the surface, and amongst these,
few and far between, some glorious old, gnarled hawthorns, which may
well have furnished May-wreaths to the yellow-haired daughters of the
Saxon before the mailed-foot of the imperious Norman had dinted the
green turf of England. This coppice overspread the whole declivity and
base of the hill, until it melted into the broad, rich meadows, which,
with a few scattered woods of small size, and here and there a patch of
yellow wheat, or a fragrant bean-field, filled all the bottom of the
great strath or valley, down to the banks of a large stream, beyond
which the land rose steeply, first in rough moorland pastures, divided
by dry stone walls, then in round heathery swells, then in great,
broad-backed purple fells, and beyond all, faintly traceable in the blue
haze of distance, in the vast ridges of the Cheviots and the hills of
Tevydale. Along the base of the hill-side, parting it from the meadows,
ran a tall, oak park-paling, made of rudely split planks, not any where
less than five feet in height, through which access was given to the
valley by heavy gates of the same material, from two or three winding
wood-roads into the shadowy lanes of the lovely lower country.
Such was the scene, o’er which there arose before the sun, startling the
hill echoes far and near, and silencing the grouse-cocks on the moors,
and the song-birds in the brake and thicket by their tumultuous din, the
shouts and fanfares that told the hunt was up.
“Tayho! Tayho!”
Tarà-tarà-tara-tantara-râ-taratantara-tantara-rà-rà-râh. Which being
interpreted into verbal dog-talk is conceived to say—“Gone-away!
gone-away! gone-away! away! away! away!” and is immediately understood
as such not by the well-mounted sportsmen only, but by what Scott calls,
himself no unskilled woodsman, “the dauntless trackers of the deer,” who
rush full-mouthed to the cheery clangor, filling all earth and ether
with the musical discords of their sweet chidings.
The spot whence the first loud, manly shout “Tayho” resounded, was
almost within the shadow of the one tree, where, as from a station
commanding the whole view of the covert, which a powerful pack of the
famous Talbot blood-hounds, numbering not less than forty couple, were
in the act of drawing, a gay group was collected, gallantly appareled,
gallantly mounted, and all intent, like the noble steeds they bestrode,
eyes, ears and souls erect on the gallant sport of the day.
Those were the days of broad-leaved hats and floating plumes, of velvet
justaucorps, rich on the seams with embroideries of gold and silver, of
the martial jack-boot and the knightly spur on the heel, and the
knightly sword on the thigh, and thus were our bold foresters accoutred
for such a chase as is never heard tell of in these times of racing
hounds and flying thoroughbreds, when the life of a fox is counted by
the minutes he can live with a breast-high scent before the flyers, and
the value of a hunter by the seconds he can go in the first flight with
a dozen horseman’s stone upon its back.
Things then were otherwise, the fox was unkenneled, or the stag
unharbored at daybreak, and killed if the scent lay well, sooner or
later, before sunset—runs were reckoned by hours, hounds picked for
their staunchness not their fleetness, horses bought not for their speed
but for their stoutness, and the longest, steadiest last rider, not the
most daring or the foremost won the palm of the chase, were it brush or
antler, when the game fox was run into, or the gallant stag turned to
bay.
The gentlemen, who were gathered on the broad, bare brow of the one-tree
hill, were in all, twelve or thirteen in number, all at first sight men
of gentle blood and generous education, although as there ever is, ever
must be in every company, whether of men or of inferior animals, there
was one to whom every eye, even of the unknown stranger or the ignorant
peasant, would have naturally turned as evidently and undoubtedly the
superior of the party, both in birth and breeding; he mingled
nevertheless with the rest on the most perfect terms not of equality
only, but of intimate familiar intercourse and friendship. No terms of
ceremonial, no titles of rank or territorial influence, but simple
Christian names passed between those gay and joyous youths; nor was
there any thing in the habit of the wearers, or the mounting of the
riders, to indicate the slightest difference in their positions of
social well-being and well-doing. One youth, however, who answered to
the name of Gerald, and sometimes to the patrimonial Howard, was so far
the handsomer both in form and feature, the statelier in stature, the
gracefuller in gesture, the manlier in bearing, the firmer and easier of
seat and hand on his hunter, that any one would have been prompt to say
almost at a glance, there is the man of all this gentle and generous
group, whom, if war wakes its clangor in the land, if external perils
threaten its coasts, or internal troubles shake its state, foreign war
or domestic strife will alike find the foremost, whether in his seat
with the senate, or in his saddle on the field, wielding with equal
force and skill the stateman’s, scholar’s, soldier’s eye, tongue,
sword—all honored him, indeed, and he deserved that all should honor
him.
I have omitted, not forgotten or neglected, to mention as first and
fairest of that fair company, a bevy of half a dozen fair and graceful
girls—not like the gentlemen, all of one caste, but as was evident, not
so much from the difference of their grace and beauty—though in these
also there was a difference—as from the relative difference of position
which they maintained, four remaining somewhat in the rear of the other
two, and not mingling unless first addressed in the conversation, and
from some distinction in the costliness and material of their attire.
A mounted chamberlain, with four or five grooms, who stood still farther
aloof, in the rear of the ladies in waiting, and two or three glittering
pages standing a-foot among the latter, in full tide of gallantry and
flirtation, their coursers held by the grooms in attendance, made up the
party. From which must always be excepted the huntsman, the verdurer,
and eight or ten yeomen prickers, in laced green jerkins, with round
velvet caps, like those worn by the whippers-in of the present day, and
huge French-horns over their left shoulders, who were seen from time to
time appearing, disappearing, and reappearing in the glades and dingles
of the hill-side covert, and heard now rating the untimely and
fallacious challenge of some wayward and willful puppy, now cheering the
earnest and trusty whimper of some redoubted veteran of the pack, as he
half-opened on a scent of yester-even.
The hounds had been in the coppice above an hour, and two-thirds of its
length had already been drawn blank—the gentlemen were beginning to
exchange anxious and wistful glances, and two or three had already
consulted more than once or twice their ponderous, old-fashioned
repeaters—and now the elder, shorter and fairer of the two damsels,
giving the whip lightly to her chestnut palfry, cantered up to the side
of Gerald Howard, followed by her companion, whose dark redundance of
half-disheveled nut-brown tresses fell down from beneath a velvet cap,
with a long drooping plume, on each side of a face of the most exquisite
oval, with a high brow, long, jet-black eyelashes, showing in cold
relief against her pure, colorless cheeks, for her eyes were downcast,
and an expression of the highest intellect, which is ever found in woman
mingled with all a woman’s tenderness and softness. She was something
above the middle height, with a figure of rare slenderness and symmetry,
exquisitely rounded, and sat her horse at once most femininely and most
firmly, without the least indication of manliness in her seat or
demeanor, yet with a certain of-at-homeness in her position and posture,
that showed she could ride as well, perhaps as boldly, as the best man
among them.
“Ah! Gerald, Gerald,” said the elder girl, laughingly, as she tapped him
on the arm with the silver-butt of her riding-whip, “is this your faith
to fair ladies, and especially to this fairest Kate, that you deluded us
from our soft beds at this untimely hour, with promise to unharbor us a
stag of ten within so many minutes, all for the pleasure of our eyes,
and the delectation of our hearts, and here have we been sitting on this
lone hill-side two hours and upward, to the great craving of our
appetites and the faintness of our hearts, yearning—as the queen’s good
Puritans would have it—after creature comforts—out on you! out on you,
for a false knight, as I believe not, for my part, that there is one
horn or hoof from the east to the west on the hill-side—no, not from
the ‘throstle’s nest’ to the ‘thorny brae.’”
“Ah! sister mine, art so incredulous—but I will wager you or ere the
Talbots reach that great gray stone, with the birch boughs waving over
it like the plumes, as our bright Kate would say, of a dead warrior’s
helmet over his cold brow, we _will_ have a stag a-foot—ay, and a stag
of ten.” And instantly raising his voice to a quicker and clearer
note—“See now!” he cried, “see now!” as a superb, dark-colored animal,
not lower than a yearling colt at the forehand, leaped with a bound as
agile as if he was aided by wings, on the cope-stone of the dry stone
wall which bounded the hither side of the hill coppice, with vast,
branching antlers tossed as if in defiance, and a swan-like neck swollen
with pride and anger. He stood there an instant, self-poised,
self-balanced, “like the herald Mercury new lighted on a heaven-kissing
hill”—uttered a hoarse, belling cry, peculiar to the animal in his
season, and then sailing forth in a long, easy curve, alighted on the
springy turf, whose enameled surface he scarce dinted, and then swept up
the gentle slope almost toward the admiring group on the brow, but in a
diagonally curved line that would carry him in the long run to the
south-west of them, at the distance of perhaps a hundred yards.
“Tayho! Tayho!” burst in a clear and cheery shout from the excited lips
of Gerald Howard.
And instantly from every part of the hill-side from east to west, from
the throstle’s nest to the “thorny brae,” from ten well-blown
French-horns burst the wild call
Tarà-tarà—tara-tantara-ra—tara-tantara-tantara—ra—ra—rah—“Gone
away—gone away—gone away—away—away!” and the fierce rally of the
mighty Talbots broke into tongue at once through the whole breadth and
length of the oak coppice, as they came pouring up the hills, making the
heather bend and the coppice crash before them like those famed Spartan
hounds of Hercules and Cadmus,
“When in the woods of Crete they bayed the bear—
So flewed, so randed, and their heads were hung
With ears that sweep away the morning dew;
Crook-kneed and dew-lapped like Thessalian bulls;
Slow in pursuit, but matched in mouth like bells
Each under each”
As fifty separate spots they leaped the wall nearly abreast, but four
were it may be a spear’s length the leaders, and they laying their head
right at the noble quarry, which was still full in view, came straining
up the hill, making all ring around them with their deep-mouthed
thunder. The rest topped the wall one by one, in view too, and on a
breast-high scent at once came streaming up the rich grass slope on
converging lines, so that as they passed the attentive group to the
westward within a hundred yards, the pack had got all together within,
perhaps, another hundred yards of his haunches, running so that a large
carpet might have covered the whole forty couple, and raving with such a
din of harmonious discords, such shrill and savage trebles of the fierce
fleet bitch hounds, such a deep diapason of the old veteran dogs, such
sweet and attuned chidings of the whole, that not an ear but must have
listened with delight, not a heart but must have bounded with rapture at
the exulting sounds.
And ever and anon there rang up from the wildwood, the deep, mellow
blasts of the French-horns, blent with the jangled cries of the Talbots
into a strange and indescribable clangor and crepitation, at once most
peculiar and most entrancing.
At the same moment the sun burst into full view above the eastern hills,
and pouring down a great flood of golden lustre over the whole glowing
scene, kindled up every thing into light and life—tinging with ruddy
light the dappled sides of the noble beast as he swept by them now
within fifty yards—for he had circled round them wantoning and bounding
to and fro, perfectly unconcerned by the nearer presence of his
pursuers, and seemingly desirous to display the miracles of his speed
and beauty to the fair eyes that admired him—enlivening the dappled
hides of the many-colored glossy pack—burnishing the sleek and satin
coats of the noble coursers, till they glowed with almost metallic
splendor—flashing upon the rich laces, the bright buckles, and the
polished sword-hilts of the hunters, and gilding the bridle-bits and
brazen horns of the verdurers and yeomen prickers, until the whole
hill-side was glittering with a thousand gay hues and salient lights,
filling the mind with memories of faëry land and magic marvels.
Hitherto the little group on the brow of the one-tree hill had stood
motionless, while the gay, animated scene revolved around them, a
glittering circle wheeling around the stationary centre; but now, when
the servants of the chase, huntsman and verdurer, prickers, all streamed
up the long hill at their best pace, all wheeled around the tree and its
gay company, swelling the din with the flare and braying of their horns,
the gallant stag appeared to comprehend that a fresh band of enemies
were added to his first pursuers—for he half turned his head to gaze on
them, half paused for a moment to snuff the air, with nostrils
pridefully dilated, and flanks heaving, not with weariness as yet, but
with contempt and scorn, then with a toss of his antlers, and a loud
snort of indignation, set his head fair to the north-west, full for the
hills of Scotland, and went away at long sweeping bounds that seemed to
divide the green slope by leaps of eight yards each, soared back again
over the rough stone wall, and went crashing through the thickets
straight for the tall oak palings and the river, as if he were bound for
some distant well-known point, on a right line as the crow flies it.
And now for the gentlemen the chase was begun, and Gerald Howard led it,
like their leader as he was in all things, and the rest followed him
like men as they were, and brave ones—but to the ladies it was ended so
soon as they had breathed their palfries down the slope to the stone
wall and the wood-side at an easy canter; and they returned to the
hill-top, where they found viands and refreshments spread on the grass;
and long they lingered there watching the hunt recede, and the sounds of
the chase die away in the far distance. But it was long ere the sights
and sounds were lost all and wholly to their eyes and ears—for the
quarry still drove on, as straight as the crow flies, due northward—due
northward the chase followed.
They saw the gallant stag swoop over the oak-pales as if they were no
obstacle—they saw the yelping pack crash and climb after him; then they
saw Gerald Howard on his tall coal-black barb soar over it
unhindered—but all the rest turned right and left to gate or gap, or
ere they might follow him. The valley was crossed as by a whirlwind—the
river swam by hart, hound, and hunters, unhesitating and unheeding—and
far beyond up the green moorland pastures, over the stone walls, now
disappearing over the hill-tops into the misty hollows, now glinting up
again into light over some yet more distant stretch of purple heath, and
still the chiding of the hounds, and still the wild bursts of the
French-horns fell faintly on the ears, as the wind freshened from the
westward—but at length sound and sight failed them, and when silence
had sunk still and solitude reigned almost perfect over the late peopled
slope of thorny brae and the one-tree hill, the gay bevy of dames and
damsels returned homeward, something the more serious if not the sadder
for the parting, to await the gathering of their partners to the gay
evening meal.
Long they awaited—late it grew—the evening meal was over—the close of
night had come—the lights in bower and hall were kindled—the gates
were locked and barred—long ere the first of the belated foresters,
returned soiled and splashed, way-worn and weary, with the jaded and
harassed hounds, and horses almost dead from the exertion and exhaustion
of the day. At midnight, of the field all the men save one were
col
|
of this country is playing its dominant part
in the fight against German ruthlessness.
When the Emergency Fleet Corporation announced its programme of building
ships the Navy Department at once began its preparations for providing
armed guards for these vessels as soon as they were commissioned for
transatlantic service. Thousands of men were placed in training for this
purpose and detailed instructions were prepared and issued to the
Shipping Board and to all ship-building companies to enable them to
prepare their vessels while building with gun-emplacements, armed-guard
quarters, and the like, so that when the vessels were completed there
would be as little delay as possible in furnishing them. In all details
relating to the protection of these merchant vessels the navy has played
a most vital part and not least of the laurels accruing to this
department of the government war service for work in the present
struggle have been those won by naval gun crews on cargo-laden ships.
The administrative work in connecting many vessels of this class is a
not inconsiderable of itself. The romance of the armed merchantmen
affords material for many a vivid page, and when in its proper place in
this volume it is set forth somewhat in detail the reader will grasp--if
he has not already done so through perusal of the daily press--the fact
that all the glory of naval service in this war has not resided within
the turrets of the dreadnought nor on the deck of destroyer or
patrol-vessel.
The navy organized and has operated the large transport service required
to take our soldiers overseas. At this writing not a single transport
has been lost on the way to France, and but three have been sunk
returning. Transports bound for France have been attacked by submarines
time and again, and, in fact, our first transport convoy was
unsuccessfully assailed, as has been the case with other convoys
throughout the past twelve months. In the case of the _Tuscania_, sunk
by a torpedo while eastbound with American soldiers, that vessel was
under British convoy, a fact which implies no discredit upon the British
Navy, since it is beyond the powers of human ingenuity so to protect the
ocean lanes as to warrant assurance that a vessel, however well
convoyed, shall be totally immune from the lurking submarine. Again, it
should be remembered, that the British have taken about sixty per cent
of our expeditionary forces across the ocean.
In the line of expanding ship-building facilities the Navy Department
has in the past year carried on vigorously a stupendous policy of
increased shipyard capacity, which upon completion will see this country
able to have in course of construction on the ways at one time sixteen
war-vessels of which seven will be battleships.
In January, 1917, three months before we went to war, the Navy
Department's facilities for ship-building were: Boston, one auxiliary
vessel; New York, one battleship; Philadelphia, one auxiliary; Norfolk,
one destroyer; Charleston, one gunboat; Mare Island, one battleship and
one destroyer. At the present time the Brooklyn Navy Yard has a way for
the building of dreadnoughts, and one for the building of battleships.
At Philadelphia two ways are being built for large battleships and
battle-cruisers. Norfolk, in addition to her one way for destroyers,
will soon have a way for battleships. Charleston will have five ways for
destroyers. The navy-yard at Puget Sound will soon have a way for one
battleship.
The building plans include not only the construction of ways, but also
machine, electrical, structural, forge, and pattern shops in addition to
foundries, storehouses, railroad-tracks, and power-plants. This increase
in building capacity will enable the government through enhanced repair
facilities to handle all repair and building work for the fleet as well
as such for the new merchant marine. Three naval docks which will be
capable of handling the largest ships in the world are approaching
completion while private companies are building similar docks under
encouragement of the government in the shape of annual guarantees of
dockage.
An idea of what has been accomplished with respect to ship-building is
gained through the statement of Secretary Daniels, June 2, that his
department had established a new world's record for rapid ship
construction by the launching of the torpedo-boat destroyer _Ward_, at
the Mare Island Navy Yard, California, seventeen and a half days after
the keel was laid. The previous record was established shortly before
that date at Camden, New Jersey, where the freighter _Tuckahoe_ was
launched twenty-seven days and three hours after the laying of the keel.
In 1898, twenty years ago, the first sixteen destroyers were authorized
for the United States Navy. These were less than half the size of our
present destroyers, and yet their average time from the laying of the
keels to launching was almost exactly two years. During the ten years
prior to our entrance into the present war Congress authorized an
average of five or six destroyers a year. The records show that in the
construction of these the average time on the ways was almost exactly
eleven months, the total time of construction being about two years.
[Illustration: REAR-ADMIRAL LEIGH C. PALMER.]
[Illustration: VICE-ADMIRAL WILLIAM S. SIMS.]
[Illustration: JOSEPHUS DANIELS, SECRETARY OF THE NAVY.]
[Illustration: ADMIRAL HENRY T. MAYO.]
[Illustration: ADMIRAL WILLIAM S. BENSON.]
[Illustration: REAR-ADMIRAL ALBERT GLEAVES.]
The average time on the ways of the numerous destroyers launched in
1917-18, is but little over five months, this being somewhat less than
half the average time under peace conditions. As many as 400 men were
employed in work on the _Ward_, and in preparing to establish the record
as much structural work as possible was prepared in advance, ready for
erection and assembling before the keel was laid. While this achievement
will no doubt remain unmatched for some time, it will none the less
stand significant as marking a condition that is general in naval
construction throughout the country, this applying to battleships and
other craft as well as to destroyers.
In short, under the constructive leadership of Josephus Daniels, the
navy is doing its enormous bit in a convincing manner. It took the
personnel of the navy--that is, the commissioned personnel--a long time
to discover the real character and personality of Mr. Daniels. It is not
too much to say that many of them were hostile to his administration.
But the war proved him for what he was. With administrative capacity of
his own, sound judgment, and a clear brain, he was big enough to know
that there were many things that had better be left to the highly
trained technicians under his command.
And so in large measure he delegated many actual tasks of administration
to the most competent officers in the navy, officers selected for
special tasks without fear or favor. Mr. Daniels will receive, as he is
now receiving, credit for their work; but he in turn is earnest in his
desire so to speak and act, that this credit will be duly and properly
shared by those entitled thereto. He has disregarded seniority and other
departmental, not to say political factors, in choosing the right men to
head the various bureaus of the Navy Department and the various units of
the fleet.
He has favored the young officer, and to-day it is not too much to say
that youth holds the power in the navy; but, on the other hand, he has
been quick to recognize and to employ in high places the qualities that
reside in officers who with years of experience, combine enduring zest
and broad points of view,
In all, Secretary Daniels exemplifies the spirit of the American
Navy--and the spirit of our navy is altogether consonant with our
national tradition--to get into the fight and keep fighting. He has been
the sponsor for a naval increase which sees our active roster increased
from 56,000 men in April, 1917, to more than 400,000 at the present
time, and our fighting ships increased, as already pointed out,
fourfold.
And while our vessels and our fighting men are playing their part on the
high seas the counsel of our trained technical experts is eagerly sought
and constantly employed by the admiralties of the Allied nations. When
the naval history of this war is given to the world in freest detail we
shall know just how much our officers have had to do with the strategy
of operations adopted by all the Entente navies. It is not violating
either ethics or confidence, however, to say that our influence in this
respect has been very potent and that the names of Admiral William S.
Benson, chief of operations, Vice-Admiral William S. Sims, Admiral Henry
T. Mayo, and Rear-Admiral Albert Gleaves are already names that are to
be reckoned with abroad as at home.
As for incidents reflecting gloriously upon the morale of our officers
and men, the navy has already its growing share. There is the destroyer
_Cassin_ struck by a torpedo and seriously crippled, but refusing to
return to port as long as there appeared to be a chance of engaging the
submarine that had attacked her. There is Lieutenant Clarence C. Thomas,
commander of the gun crew on the oil-ship _Vacuum_. When the ship was
sunk he cheered his freezing men tossing on an icy sea in an open boat
far from land, until he at length perished, his last words those of
encouragement. There is Lieutenant S.F. Kalk, who swam from raft to raft
encouraging and directing the survivors of the destroyer _Jacob Jones_
after a torpedo had sent that vessel to the bottom. There are those two
gunners on the transport _Antilles_ who stood serving their gun until
the ship sank and carried them down. There is the freighter
_Silver-Shell_ whose gun crew fought and sank the submarine that
attacked the ship, and the gun crews of the _Moreni_, the _Campana_, and
the _J.L. Luckenback_--indomitable heroes all. There is Osmond Kelly
Ingram, who saved the _Cassin_ and lost his life. There is the glorious
page contributed to our naval annals, by the officers and crew of the
_San Diego_. History indeed is in the making--history that Americans are
proud to read.
In all that has been written in this foreword the design has been merely
to sketch, to outline some of the larger achievements of the United
States Navy in this war. In chapters to come our navy's course from
peace into war will be followed as closely as the restrictions of a wise
censorship will permit.
CHAPTER I
First Experience of Our Navy with the German U-Boat--Arrival of Captain
Hans Rose and the U-53 at Newport--Experiences of the German Sailors in
an American Port--Destruction of Merchantman by U-53 off Nantucket--Our
Destroyers to the Rescue--Scenes in Newport--German Rejoicing--The Navy
Prepares for War
How many of us who love the sea and have followed it to greater or less
extent in the way of business or pleasure have in the past echoed those
famous lines of Rudyard Kipling:
"'Good-bye Romance!' the skipper said.
He vanished with the coal we burn."
And how often since the setting in of the grim years beginning with
August of 1914 have we had occasion to appreciate the fact that of all
the romance of the past ages the like to that which has been spread upon
the pages of history in the past four years was never written nor
imagined. Week after week there has come to us from out the veil of the
maritime spaces incidents dramatic, mysterious, romantic, tragic,
hideous.
Great transatlantic greyhounds whose names evoke so many memories of
holiday jaunts across the great ocean slip out of port and are seen no
more of men. Vessels arrive at the ports of the seven seas with tales of
wanton murder, of hairbreadth escapes. Boat crews drift for days at the
mercy of the seas and are finally rescued or perish man by man. The
square-rigged ship once more rears its towering masts and yards above
the funnels of merchant shipping; schooners brave the deep seas which
never before dared leave the coastwise zones; and the sands of the West
Indies have been robbed of abandoned hulks to the end that the
diminishing craft of the seas be replaced. And with all there are
stories of gallantry, of sea rescues, of moving incidents wherein there
is nothing but good to tell of the human animal. Would that it were all
so. But it is not. The ruthlessness of the German rears itself like a
sordid shadow against the background of Anglo-Saxon and Latin gallantry
and heroism--a diminishing shadow, thank God, and thank, also, the navy
of Great Britain and of the United States.
For more than two years and a half of sea tragedy the men of our navy
played the part of lookers-on. Closely following the sequence of events
with the interest of men of science, there was a variety of opinion as
to the desirability of our playing a part in the epic struggle on the
salt water. There were officers who considered that we were well out of
it; there were more who felt that our part in the struggle which the
Allied nations were waging should be borne without delay. But whatever
existed in the way of opinion there was no lack of unanimity in the
minute study which our commissioned officers gave to the problems in
naval warfare and related interests which were constantly arising in
European waters.
It was not, however, until October of 1916 that the American Navy came
into very close relationship with the submarine activities of the German
Admiralty. The morning of October 7 of that year was one of those days
for which Newport is famous--a tangy breeze sweeping over the gorse-clad
cliffs and dunes that mark the environment of Bateman's Point the old
yellow light-ship which keeps watch and ward over the Brenton reefs
rising and falling on a cobalt sea. From out of the seaward mists there
came shortly before ten o'clock a low-lying craft which was instantly
picked out by the men of the light-ship as a submarine, an American
submarine. There is a station for them in Newport Harbor, and
submersible boats of our navy are to be found there at all times.
But as the men watched they picked up on the staff at the stern of the
incoming craft the Royal German ensign. A German submarine! Be assured
that enough interest in German craft of the sort had been aroused in the
two years and eight months of war to insure the visitor that welcome
which is born of intense interest. The submarine, the U-53, held over
toward Beaver Tail and then swung into the narrow harbor entrance,
finally coming to anchor off Goat Island. The commander, Captain Hans
Rose, went ashore in a skiff and paid an official visit first to
Rear-Admiral Austin M. Knight, commander of the Newport Naval District,
and then to Rear-Admiral Albert Gleaves, chief of our destroyer
flotilla.
Subsequent testimony of that German commander was that the American
naval officers appeared somewhat embarrassed at the visit, suggesting
men who were confronted by a situation which they were not certain how
to handle. The statement of the German officer had a humorous sound and
may have been humorously intended. In any event. Admiral Knight and
Admiral Gleaves were very polite, and in due course paid the Germans the
courtesy of a return visit, And while the submarine lay in the harbor
the crew came ashore and were treated to beer by the American sailors,
while crowds of curious were admitted aboard the submersible and shown
about with the most open courtesy.
Captain Rose said he had come to deliver a letter to Count von
Bernstorff, the German Ambassador, but such a mission seemed so trivial
that rumor as to the real intentions of the craft was rife throughout
the entire country. There were suspicions that she had put in for fuel,
or ammunition, or supplies. But nothing to justify these thoughts
occurred. The U-53 hung around through the daylight hours, and at
sunset, with a farewell salute, put to sea.
Did our naval officers think this was the last of her? Possibly, but
probably not. They knew enough of the Germans to realize, or to suspect,
that their minds held little thought those days of social amenities and
that such calls as were made upon neutrals contained motives which,
while hidden, were none the less definite.
The night brought forth nothing, however, and the Navy Department was
beginning to feel that perhaps after all the U-53 was well on her way to
Germany, when early the following morning there came to the
radio-station at Newport an indignant message from Captain Smith of the
Hawaiian-American liner _Kansan_. He asked to know why he had been
stopped and questioned by a German submarine which had halted him in the
vicinity of the Nantucket light-ship at 5.30 o'clock that morning. He
added that after he had convinced the submarine commander as to the
nationality of his ship, he was permitted to proceed.
This looked like business, and Newport became certain of this when
shortly after noon came a radio containing advices as to the sinking of
the steamship _West Point_ off Nantucket. Then at intervals up to
midnight came other messages telling of the sinking of other vessels
until the victims of the undersea craft numbered four British, a Dutch,
and a Scandinavian vessel, one of them, the Halifax liner _Stephana_, a
passenger-vessel, with Americans on board. Reports of vessels torpedoed,
of open boats containing survivors afloat on the sea, followed one
another swiftly until not only Newport but the entire country was
aroused.
Admiral Knight and Admiral Gleaves, who had been keeping the Navy
Department at Washington in touch with every phase of the situation,
beginning with the arrival of the U-53 the preceding day, lost no time
in sending destroyers forth to the rescue, while already there was the
cheering word that the destroyer _Batch_ was on the scene and engaged in
rescue work.
The departure of the destroyers was a spectacle that brought thousands
of men, women, and children of Newport to the points of vantage along
the shore or to small craft of all sorts in which they kept as close to
the destroyers, preparing for their seaward flight, as they could. It
was Sunday, a day when crowds were at leisure, but it was also a day
when many of the officers and crew of the flotilla were on shore-leave.
They were summoned from all points, however, and within a short time
after the first call for help had been received the _Jarvis_, with
Lieutenant L. P. Davis in command, was speeding to sea at the rate
ordered by Admiral Gleaves, thirty-one knots an hour.
Inside half an hour the other destroyers shot out to sea at the same
speed as the _Jarvis_ while the spectators cheered them, and such as
were in small boats followed until the speeding craft had disappeared.
There was the _Drayton_--Lieutenant Bagley, who later was to know the
venom of the German submarine--the _Ericson_, Lieutenant-Commander W. S.
Miller; the _O'Brien_, Lieutenant-Commander C. E. Courtney; the
_Benham_, Lieutenant-Commander J. B. Gay; the _Cassin_,
Lieutenant-Commander Vernon; the _McCall_, Lieutenant Stewart; the
_Porter_, Lieutenant-Commander W. K. Wortman; the _Fanning_, Lieutenant
Austin; the _Paulding_, Lieutenant Douglas Howard; the _Winslow_,
Lieutenant-Commander Nichols; the _Alwyn_, Lieutenant-Commander John C.
Fremont; the _Cushing_, Lieutenant Kettinger; the _Cummings_,
Lieutenant-Commander G. F. Neal; the _Conyngham_, Lieutenant-Commander
A. W. Johnson, and the-mother ship, _Melville_, Commander H. B. Price.
Soon after the destroyers had passed into the Atlantic there came a
wireless message saying that twenty of the crew of the British steamship
_Strathdean_ had been taken on board the Nantucket light-ship. Admiral
Gleaves directed the movement of his destroyers from the radio-room on
the flag-ship. He figured that the run was about a hundred miles. There
was a heavy sea running and a strong southwest wind. There was a mist on
the ocean. It was explained by the naval authorities that the destroyers
were sent out purely on a mission of rescue, and nothing was said as to
any instructions regarding the enforcement of international law. None
the less it was assumed, and may now be assumed, that something was said
to the destroyer commanders with regard to the three-mile limit. But as
to that we know no more to-day than at the time.
Suffice to say that the destroyers arrived in time not only to wander
about the ocean seeking survivors in the light of a beautiful hunter's
moon, but in time to witness the torpedoing of at least two merchantmen;
the submarine commander, it is said, advising our war-ship commanders to
move to certain locations so as not to be hit by his shells and
torpedoes.
Eventually the destroyer flotilla returned with their loads of survivors
and with complete details of the operations of the U-53 and, according
to belief, of another submarine not designated. It appeared that the
Germans were scrupulous in observing our neutrality, that their
operations were conducted without the three-mile limit, and that
opportunities were given crews and passengers to leave the doomed ships.
There was nothing our destroyer commanders could do. Even the most
hot-headed commander must have felt the steel withes of neutral
obligation which held him inactive while the submarine plied its deadly
work. There was, of course, nothing else to do--except to carry on the
humanitarian work of rescuing victims of the U boat or boats, as the
case might have been.
Later, it was given to many of the craft which set forth that October
afternoon to engage in their service to humanity, to cross the seas and
to meet the submarine where it lurked in the Irish Sea, the North Sea,
the English Channel, and the Mediterranean. One of them, the _Cassin_
was later to be struck--but not sunk--by a torpedo off the coast of
England, while the _Fanning_, in company with the _Nicholson_, had full
opportunity of paying off the score which most naval officers felt had
been incurred when the U-53 and her alleged companion invaded American
waters and sullied them with the foul deeds that had so long stained the
clean seas of Europe.
German diplomats were enthusiastic over the exploits of their craft.
"The U-53 and other German submarines, if there are others," said a
member of the German Embassy at Washington, "is engaged in doing to the
commerce of the Allies just what the British tried to do to the
_Deutschland_ when she left America. (The submarine _Deutschland_,
engaged in commercial enterprise, had visited the United States some
time previously.) It is a plain case of what is sometimes known as
commerce-raiding. It is being done by submarines, that is all. Warfare,
such as that which has been conducted in the Mediterranean, has been
brought across the Atlantic. It should be easy to destroy more of the
overseas commerce of the Allies, which is principally with America, near
where it originates."
Here was a veiled threat--not so veiled either--which was no doubt
marked in Washington. President Wilson received the news of the sinkings
in silence, but plainly government authorities were worried over the
situation. New problems were erected and the future was filled with
possibilities of a multifarious nature.
Thus, within twenty-four hours it was demonstrated that the war was not
3,000 miles away from us, but close to our shores. The implied threat
that it would be a simple matter for submarines to cross the Atlantic
and deal with us as they were dealing with France and England and other
Entente nations--not to say harmless neutrals such as Holland and
Scandinavia--was not lost upon the citizens of this country. But, as
usual, German judgment in the matter of psychology was astray. The
threat had no effect in the way of _Schrecklichkeit_, but rather it
steeled us to a future which began to appear inevitable. And deep under
the surface affairs began to move in the Navy Department.
No doubt, too, the conviction began to grow upon the government that the
policy of dealing fairly by Germany was not appreciated, and that when
the exigencies of the war situation seemed to require it, our ships
would be sent to the bottom as cheerfully as those of other neutrals
such as Holland, Norway, and Sweden, as well as other countries who
unfortunately were not in the position to guard their neutrality with
some show of dignity that we were in.
Subsequent events proved how true this feeling was. For not six months
later the German policy of sea aggression had brought us to the point
where it was not possible for us to remain out of the conflict against
the pirate nation. It was in the following April that we went to war,
and our first act was to send forth a destroyer flotilla to engage the
U-boat in its hunting-ground, Among that flotilla, as said, were many of
the craft which had rescued survivors of the Nantucket affair. They were
ready and their officers were ready, nay, eager. They swept across a
stormy Atlantic like unleashed hounds, and when the British commander
received them at Queenstown, and asked the American commanders when they
would be ready to take their places with the British destroyers, the
answer came quickly:
"We are ready now."
And they were--allowing for the cleaning of a few hulls and the
effecting of minor repairs to one or two of the vessels. Other
destroyers remained here, of course, while a fringe of submarine-chasers
and swift, armed yachts converted into government patrol-vessels were
guarding our coast the day after the President signed the war
resolution. But more than a year and a half was to elapse before our
waters were again to know the submarine menace. Just why the Germans
waited may not be known. Probably they had all they could attend to in
foreign waters. In any event it was not until June, 1918, that a
coastwise schooner captain was both surprised and indignant when a shot
from a craft which he took to be an American submarine went across his
bows. It was not an American submarine; it was a German submersible and
that schooner was sent to the bottom, followed by other wind-jammers and
the Porto Rico liner _Carolina_.
Thus, what in the original instance was a test journey in the interests
of German submarine activity--the visit of the U-53 in October, 1916--as
well as a threat to this country bore its fruit in the development of
that test trip, and in the fulfilment of that threat. At this writing
the coastwise marauder, or marauders, are still off our shores, and
clouds of navy craft are seeking to destroy them. We are far better
equipped for such service than we were when Captain Hans Rose came here
in his submarine, and it is divulging no secret information to say that
this and further invasions of our home waters will be dealt with bravely
and rigorously without the necessity of subtracting from the number of
war-vessels that are engaged with Allied fighters in maintaining
commerce upon the waters of Europe.
But this is getting a bit further ahead than I intended to go at this
juncture. The primary point is that with the visit of Captain Hans Rose
in his undersea boat, with her depredations off our coast, the Navy
Department, saying nothing to outsiders, came to accept the idea of war
as something more than a possible contingency.
Debates in Congress were characterized by an increasing pointedness, and
stories of sea murders increased rather than diminished. And not
infrequently there were Americans on board those ships. At length came
the sinking of American merchantmen and the final decision by our
government to place armed guards on all merchant vessels carrying our
flag. It was then that the Navy Department was called upon to take the
first open steps against the German sea menace--steps rife with grim
possibilities, since it operated to bring our seamen gunners into actual
conflict with the German naval forces. There could be little doubt,
therefore, that war would follow in inevitable course.
CHAPTER II
Our Navy Arms American Merchant Vessels--Death of our First Bluejacket
on Service in the War Zone--Vice-Admiral Sims--We Take Over Patrol of
Waters of Western Hemisphere--The Naval Advisory Board of
Inventions--Work of this Body--Our Battleships the Largest in the
World--Widespread Operations
Announcement was made on March 12, 1917, that American merchantmen would
be armed for protection against submarine attacks, and hundreds of guns
of proper calibers were required for the purpose. These were taken from
the vessels of the fleet and, of course, had to be replaced as soon as
possible. Work was expeditiously carried forward, and hardly had the
order for armed guards been issued than the American freighter _Campana_
was sent to Europe well-laden with cargo and prepared to make matters
interesting for any submarine that saw fit to attack by the then
prevailing method of shell-fire. Other vessels soon followed, and the
country witnessed the anomalous condition of the navy in war service in
the European war zone before war was declared.
The navy, in fact, had its first death in service before we went to war,
when on April 1, John Espolucci, of Washington, D.C., one of the armed
guard of the steamship _Aztec_, was killed in the course of events
attending the destruction of that vessel by a submarine. By this time
active hostilities had seemed inevitable and before the sinking of the
_Aztec_ the Navy Department had sent Admiral William S. Sims abroad to
get in touch with the British and French Admiralties for the purpose of
discussing the most effective participation of our war-ships in the
conflict. Later, when war was actually declared, Sims was promoted to
vice-admiral, and made commander of the United States naval forces
operating in European waters.
No better man for this post could have been selected. A graduate of the
Naval Academy in the class of 1880, his career in the navy had been one
sequence of brilliant achievement. As naval attaché at Paris and
Petrograd, in the course of his distinguished service he had ample
opportunities for the study of European naval conditions, and later he
was intrusted with the important duty of developing gunnery practice and
marksmanship in our battle-fleet. The immense value of his work in this
respect is an open book. His instincts were wholly scientific, and with
neither fear nor favor he carried forward our record for marksmanship
until it was second to that of no navy in the world. The one mark upon
his record is an indiscreet speech made in London, before the European
War occurred, in which he stated that blood was thicker than water, and
that at the necessary moment the navies of the United States and of
Great Britain would be found joined in brotherly co-operation. England
liked that speech a lot, but Germany did not, and Washington was rather
embarrassed. Beginning, however, with April of 1917, that speech
delivered several years previously was recalled as perfectly proper,
pat, and apropos. There can be no doubt that his constructive advice,
suggestion, and criticism were of enormous benefit to the British and
the French, and by the same token exceedingly harmful to the murderous
submarine campaign of Germany, As evidence of the regard in which the
admiralty of Great Britain held this American officer, witness the fact
that upon one occasion when the British commander-in-chief of naval
operations on the Irish coast was compelled to leave his command for a
period, Admiral Sims was nominated by the admiralty to serve as chief of
the combined forces until the British commander returned.
But this mission of Admiral Sims, and the eventual despatch of submarine
flotillas to the war zone, were but two phases of the enormous problem
which confronted the Navy Department upon the outbreak of hostilities.
There was first of all the task of organizing and operating the large
transport system required to carry our share of troops overseas for
foreign service. Within a month after the President had announced that
troops would be sent to Europe the first contingent had been organized,
and all its units were safely landed in France before the 4th of July.
These included a force of marines under Colonel (now Brigadier-General)
Charles A. Doyen, which is serving in the army under Major-General
Pershing. Since that time a constant stream of troops and supplies has
poured across the Atlantic under naval control and supervision, the
presiding officer in charge of transport being Rear-Admiral Albert
Gleaves.
Then, again, the United States took over control of most of the patrol
of the western Atlantic. Our thousands of miles of coast had to be
guarded against enemy attack and protected against German raiders. A
squadron under command of Admiral William B. Caperton was sent to South
America and received with the utmost enthusiasm at Rio de Janeiro, at
Montevideo and Buenos Aires, which cities were visited on invitation
from the governments of Brazil, Uruguay, and Argentina. After Brazil's
entrance into the war the Brazilian Navy co-operated with our vessels in
the patrol of South American waters.
The taking over of some 800 craft of various kinds, and their conversion
into types needed, provided the navy with the large number of vessels
required for transports, patrol service, submarine-chasers,
mine-sweepers, mine-layers, tugs, and other auxiliaries. The repair of
the 109 German ships whose machinery had been damaged by their
crews--details of which will be treated in a subsequent chapter--added
more than 700,000 tons to our available naval and merchant tonnage, and
provided for the navy a number of huge transports which have been in
service for nearly a year. Hundreds of submarine-chasers have now been
built, and a number of destroyers and other craft completed and placed
in service. The first merchant ship to be armed was the oil-tanker
_Campana_; guns manned by navy men were on board when she sailed for
Europe, March 12, 1917. The big American passenger-liners _St. Paul_ and
_New York_ were armed on March 16 of that year, and the Red Star liner
_Kroonland_ and the _Mongolia_ on March 19. And continuously up to the
present writing merchant ships as they have become available have been
armed and provided with navy gun crews. Since the arming of the
_Campana_ more than 1,300 vessels have been furnished with batteries,
ammunition, spare parts, and auxiliaries.
But of equal importance, greater importance history may decree it, was
Secretary Daniels's action in 1915 of appointing the Naval Advisory
Board of Inventions. That was looking ahead with a vengeance. The idea
was to make available the latent inventive genius of the country to
improve the navy. The plan adopted by Secretary Daniels for selecting
this extraordinary board included a request to the eleven great
engineering and scientific societies of the country to select by popular
election two members to represent their society on the board. Results
were immediately gratifying. Nominations were forthcoming at once, and
in September of 1915 the board, which came popularly to be known as the
Inventions Board, met in Washington for organization. Thomas A. Edison
was selected by the Secretary of the Navy as chairman of the board, and
the other members were elected as follows:
From the American Chemical Society: W. R. Whitney, director of Research
Laboratory, General Electric Company, where he has been the moving
spirit in the perfection of metallic electric-lamp filaments and the
development of wrought tungsten. L. H. Baekeland, founder of the Nepera
Chemical Company and inventor of photographic paper.
From the American Institute of Electrical Engineers: Frank Julian
Sprague, consulting engineer for Sprague, Otis, and General Electric
Companies and concerned in the establishment of the first electrical
trolley systems in this country. B. G. Lamme, chief engineer of the
Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing Company and a prolific inventor.
From the American Mathematical Society: Robert Simpson Woodward,
president of the Carnegie Institution and an authority on astronomy,
geography, and mathematical physics. Arthur Gordon Webster, professor of
physics at Clark University and an authority on sound, its production
and measurement.
From the American Society of Civil Engineers: Andrew Murray Hunt,
consulting engineer, experienced in the development of hydro-electric,
steam, and gas plants. Alfred Craven, chief engineer of Public Service
Commission, New York, and formerly division engineer in charge of
construction work on Cro
|
that family
for the house to stay quiet. Besides, I saw Tioba had been dropping
rocks in the night, and there were new boulders around. One had ploughed
through Jim's yard, and the road was cut up frightful. The boulder in
Jim's yard looked as if it might be eight feet high. I told my wife the
Hawkses ought to get out of there, and she said she didn't care, she
being down on Jim on account of his mixed drinks, which had a way of
getting under a man, I'm free to say, and heaving him up.
About four o'clock in the afternoon it come off misty, and I started
over to tell Jim he'd better get out; and sudden I stops and looks,
for there was a crowd coming from Canada Center--the Storrses and the
Petersons and the Merimys, and the extra woman in a buggy with Henry
Hall, who was county sheriff then. “Well, 'Mighty!” says I.
They pulled up in front of Jim's place, and I took it they were going to
walk in and settle things prompt. But you see, when I got there, it was
Jim a-standing by his door with his rifle, and the sheriff and Canada
Center was squeezing themselves through the gate and Jim shooting off
sideways at the pickets on his fence. And the sheriff ups and yelled:
“Here, you Jim Hawks! That ain't any way to do.”
Then Jim walks down the road with his rifle over his arm, and Jeaney
Merimy comes to the door. She looked some mad and some crying, a little
of both.
“Hall,” says he, “you turn your horse and go back where you come from.
Maybe I'll see you by and by. The rest of you go back to Canada Center,
and if Jeaney wants anything of you she'll come and say so. You go,
now!”
And they went. The extra woman drove off with the sheriff, hanging her
head, and the sheriff saying, “You'll have to come to time, Jim Hawks,
soon or late.” Jeaney Merimy sat in the door with her head hung down,
too; and the only one as ought to have been ashamed, he was walking
around uppish, like he meant to call down Tioba for throwing rocks into
his yard. Then Jeaney sees me, and she says:
“You're all down on Jim. There's no one but me to stand up for Jim.”
She began to cry, while Jim cocked his head and looked at her curious.
And she kept saying, “There's no one but me to stand up for Jim.”
That was a queer way for her to look at it.
Now, that night set in, like the one before, with a drizzling rain. It
was the longest wet weather I ever knew. I kept going to the window to
look at the light over at the Hawkses' and wonder what would come of
it, till it made my wife nervous, and she's apt to be sharp when she's
nervous, so I quit. And the way Tioba talked double that night was
terrible--_um-hiss, toot-toot_, hour after hour; and no sleep for me and
my wife, being nervous.
I do' know what time it was, or what we heard. All I know is, my wife
jumps up with a yell, and I jumps up too, and I know we were terrible
afraid and stood listening maybe a minute. It seemed like there was
almost dead silence in the night, only the um-m went on, but no hissing
and no tooting, and if there was any sound of the rain or wind I
don't recollect it. And then, “Um!” says Tioba, louder and louder and
_louder!_ till there was no top nor bottom to it, and the whole infernal
world went to pieces, and pitched me and my wife flat on the floor.
The first I knew, there was dead silence again; or maybe my hearing was
upset, for soon after I began to hear the rain buzzing away quietly.
Then I got up and took a lantern, and my wife grabs me.
“You ain't going a step!” says she, and the upshot was we both went, two
old folks that was badly scared and bound to find out why. We went along
the road, looking about us cautious; and of a sudden, where the road
ought to be, we ran into a bank of mud that went up out of seeing in the
night. Then my wife sat down square in the road and began a-crying, and
I knew Tioba had fallen down.
Now, there's Tioba, and that's how she looked next morning, only
worse--more mushy and generally clawed up, with the rain still falling
dismal, and running little gullies in the mud like a million snakes.
According to my guess, Jim and Jeaney and the cemetery were about ten
rods in, or maybe not more than eight. Anyway, I says to Peterson, and
he agreed with me, that there wasn't any use for a funeral. I says: “God
A'mighty buried 'em to suit himself.” It looked like he didn't think
much of the way Canada Center did its burying, seeing the cemetery was
took in and buried over again. Peterson and me thought the same on that
point. And we put up the white stone, sort of on top of things, that
maybe you've noticed, and lumped the folk in the cemetery together, and
put their names on it, and a general epitaph; but not being strong
on the dates, we left them out mostly. We put Jeaney Merimy with her
family, but Canada Center was singularly united against letting Jim in.
“You puts his name on no stone with me or mine,” says Merimy, and
I'm not saying but what he was right. Yes, sir; Merimy had feelings,
naturally. But it seemed to me when a man was a hundred and fifty feet
underground, more or less, there ought to be some charity; and maybe I
had a weakness for Jim, though my wife wouldn't hear of him, on account
of his drinks, which were slippery things. Anyway, I takes a chisel
and a mallet, and I picks out a boulder on the slide a decent ways from
Canada Center's monument, and I cuts in it, “Jim Hawks”; and then I cuts
in it an epitaph that I made myself, and it's there yet:
HERE LIES JIM HAWKS, KILLED BY ROCKS.
HE DIDN'T ACT THE WAY HE OUGHT.
THAT'S ALL I'll SAY OF JIM.
HERE HE LIES, WHAT'S LEFT OF HIM.
And I thought that stated the facts, though the second line didn't
rhyme really even. Speaking generally, Tioba appeared to have dropped
on things about the right time, and that being so, why not let it pass,
granting Merimy had a right to his feelings?
Now, neither Sheriff Hall nor the extra woman showed up in the valley
any more, so it seemed likely they had heard of Tioba falling, and
agreed Jim wouldn't be any good, if they could find him. It was two
weeks more before I saw the sheriff, him driving through, going over to
Helder's. I saw him get out of his buggy to see the monument, and I went
up after, and led him over to show Jim's epitaph, which I took to be a
good epitaph, except the second line.
Now, what do you think he did? Why, he busted out a-haw-hawing
ridiculous, and it made me mad.
“Shut up!” says I. “What's ailing you?”
“Haw-haw!” says he. “Jim ain't there! He's gone down the road.”
“I believe you're a blamed liar,” says I; and the sheriff sobered up,
being mad himself, and he told me this.
“Jim Hawks,” says he, “came into East-port that night, meaning business.
He routed me out near twelve o'clock, and the lady staying at my house
she came into it, too, and there we had it in the kitchen at twelve
o'clock, the lady uncommon hot, and Jim steaming wet in his clothes and
rather cool. He says: 'I'm backing Jeaney now, and she tells me to come
in and settle it to let us alone, and she says we'll hand over all we've
got and leave. That appears to be her idea, and being hers, I'll put it
as my own.' Now, the lady, if you'd believe it, she took on fearful, and
wouldn't hear to reason unless he'd go with her, though what her idea
was of a happy time with Jim Hawks, the way he was likely to act, I give
it up. But she cried and talked foolish, till I see Jim was awful bored,
but I didn't see there was much for me to do. Then Jim got up at last,
and laughed very unpleasant, and he says: 'It's too much bother. I'll go
with you, Annie, but I think you're a fool.' And they left next morning,
going south by train.”
That's what Sheriff Hall said to me then and there. Well, now, I'm an
old man, and I don't know as I'm particular clever, but it looks to me
as if God A'mighty and Tioba had made a mistake between 'em. Else how
come they hit at Jim Hawks so close as that and missed him? And what was
the use of burying Jeaney Merimy eight rods deep, who was a good girl
all her life, and was for standing up for Jim, and him leaving her
because the extra woman got him disgusted? Maybe she'd rather Tioba
would light on her, that being the case--maybe she would have; but she
never knew what the case was.
That epitaph is there yet, as you might say, waiting for him to come
and get under it; but it don't seem to have the right point now, and it
don't state the facts any more, except the second line, which is more
facts than rhyme. And Tioba is the messiest-look-ing mountain in these
parts. And now, I say, Jim Hawks was in this valley little more than a
year, and he blazed his trail through the Merimy family, and the Storrs
family, and the Peterson family, and there's Tioba Mountain, and that's
his trail.
No, sir; I don't get on to it. I hear Tioba talking double some nights,
sort of uneasy, and it seems to me she isn't on to it either, and has
her doubts maybe she throwed herself away. And there's the cemetery six
to ten rods underground, with a monument to forty-five people on top,
and an epitaph to Jim Hawks that ain't so, except the second line, there
being no corpse to fit it.
Canada Center thinks they'd fit Jim to it if he came round again; but
they wouldn't: for he was a wicked one, but sudden to act, and he was
reckless, and he kept his luck. For Tioba drawed off and hit at him,
slap! and he dodged her.
A MAN FOR A' THAT
COMPANY A was cut up at Antietam, so that there was not enough of it
left for useful purposes, and Deacon Andrew Terrell became a member
of Company G, which nicknamed him “'is huliness.” Company A came from
Dutchess County. There was a little white church in the village of
Brewster, and a little white house with a meagre porch where that good
woman, Mrs. Terrell, had stood and shed several tears as the deacon
walked away down the street, looking extraordinary in his regimentals.
She dried her eyes, settled down to her sewing in that quiet south
window, and hoped he would remember to keep his feet dry and not lose
the cough drops. That part of Dutchess County was a bit of New England
spilled over. New England has been spilling over these many years.
The deacon took the cough drops regularly; he kept his gray chin beard
trimmed with a pair of domestic scissors, and drilling never persuaded
him to move his large frame with other than the same self-conscious
restraint; his sallow face had the same set lines. There is something in
the Saxon's blood that will not let him alter with circumstances, and it
is by virtue of it that he conquers in the end.
But no doorkeeper in the house of God--the deacon's service in the
meeting-house at Brewster--who should come perforce to dwell in the
tents of wickedness would pretend to like it. Besides, Company G had no
tents. It came from the lower wards of the great city. Dinkey Cott, that
thin-legged, stunted, imp-faced, hardened little Bowery sprout, put his
left fist in the deacon's eye the first day of their acquaintance, and
swore in the pleasantest manner possible.
The deacon cuffed him, because he had been a schoolmaster in his day,
and did not understand how he would be despised for knocking Dinkey down
in that amateur fashion, and the lieutenant gave them both guard duty
for fighting in the ranks.
The deacon declared “that young man Cott hadn't no moral ideas,” and did
his guard duty in bitterness and strict conscience to the last minute of
it. Dinkey put his thumb to his nose and offered to show the lieutenant
how the thing should have been done, and that big man laughed, and both
forgot about the guard duty.
Dinkey had no sense whatever of personal dignity, which was partly what
the deacon meant by “moral ideas,” nor reverence for anything above or
beneath. He did not harbor any special anger, either, and only enough
malice to point his finger at the elder man, whenever he saw him, and
snicker loudly to the entertainment of Company G.
Dinkey's early recollections had to do with the cobblestones of Mulberry
Bend and bootblacking on Pearl Street. Deacon Terrell's began with a
lonely farm where there were too many potato hills to hoe, a little
schoolhouse where arithmetic was taught with a ferrule, a white
meeting-house where the wrath of God was preached with enthusiasm; both
seemed far enough away from the weary tramp, tramp, the picket duty, and
the camp at last one misty night in thick woods on the Stafford hills,
looking over the Rappahannock to the town of Fredericksburg.
What happened there was not clear to Company G. There seemed to be a
deal of noise and hurrying about, cannon smoke in the valley and cannon
smoke on the terraces across the valley. Somebody was building pontoon
bridges, therefore it seemed likely somebody wanted to get across. They
were having hard luck with the bridges. That was probably the enemy on
the ridge beyond.
There seemed to be no end to him, anyway; up and down the valley, mile
beyond mile, the same line of wooded heights and drifting smoke.
And the regiment found itself crossing a shaky pontoon bridge on a
Saturday morning in the mist and climbing the bank into a most battered
and tired-looking little town, which was smoldering sulkily with burned
buildings and thrilling with enormous noise. There they waited for
something else to happen. The deacon felt a lump in his throat, stopping
his breath.
“Git out o' me tracks!” snickered Dinkey Cott behind him. “I'll step on
yer.”
Dinkey had never seemed more impish, unholy and incongruous. They seemed
to stand there a long time. The shells kept howling and whizzing around;
they howled till they burst, and then they whizzed. And now and then
some one would cry out and fall. It was bad for the nerves. The men were
growling.
“Aw, cap, give us a chance!”
“It ain't my fault, boys. I got to wait for orders, same as you.”
Dinkey poked the deacon's legs with the butt of his rifle.
“Say, it's rotten, ain't it? Say, cully, my ma don't like me full o'
holes. How's yours?”
The other gripped his rifle tight and thought of nothing in particular.
Was it five hours that passed, or twenty, or one? Then they started, and
the town was gone behind their hurrying feet. Over a stretch of broken
level, rush and tramp and gasping for breath; fences and rocks ahead,
clumps of trees and gorges; ground growing rougher and steeper, but that
was nothing. If there was anything in the way you went at it and left
it behind. You plunged up a hill, and didn't notice it. You dove into a
gully, and it wasn't there. Time was a liar, obstacles were scared and
ran away. But half-way up the last pitch ran a turnpike, with a stone
wall in front that spit fire and came nearer and nearer. It seemed
creeping down viciously to meet you. Up, up, till the powder of the guns
almost burned the deacon's face, and the smoke was so thick he could
only see the red flashes.
And then suddenly he was alone. At least there was no one in sight, for
the smoke was very thick. Company G all dead, or fallen, or gone back.
There was a clump of brambles to his left. He dropped to the ground,
crept behind it and lay still. The roar went on, the smoke rolled down
over him and sometimes a bullet would clip through the brambles, but
after a time the small fire dropped off little by little, though the
cannon still boomed on.
His legs were numb and his heart beating his sides like a drum. The
smoke was blowing away down the slope. He lifted his head and peered
through the brambles; there was the stone wall not five rods away, all
lined along the top with grimy faces. A thousand rifles within as
many yards, wanting nothing better than to dig a round hole in him. He
dropped his head and closed his eyes.
His thoughts were so stunned that the slowly lessening cannonade seemed
like a dream, and he hardly noticed when it had ceased, and he began
to hear voices, cries of wounded men and other men talking. There was
a clump of trees to the right, and two or three crows in the treetops
cawing familiarly. An hour or two must have passed, for the sun was down
and the river mist creeping up. He lay on his back, staring blankly at
the pale sky and shivering a little with the chill.
A group of men came down and stood on the rocks above. They could
probably see him, but a man on his back with his toes up was nothing
particular there. They talked with a soft drawl. “Doggonedest clean-up I
ever saw.”
“They hadn't no business to come up heah, yuh know. They come some
distance, now.”
“Shuah! We ain't huntin' rabbits. What'd yuh suppose?”
Then they went on.
The mist came up white and cold and covered it all over. He could not
see the wall any longer, though he could hear the voices. He turned on
his face and crawled along below the brambles and rocks to where the
clump of trees stood with a deep hollow below them. They were chestnut
trees. Some one was sitting in the hollow with his back against the
roots.
During the rush Dinkey Cott fairly enjoyed himself. The sporting blood
in him sang in his ears, an old song that the leopard knows, it may be,
waiting in the mottled shadow, that the rider knows on the race course,
the hunter in the snow--the song of a craving that only excitement
satisfies. The smoke blew in his face. He went down a hollow and up the
other side. Then something hot and sudden came into the middle of him
and he rolled back against the roots of a great tree.
“Hully gee! I'm plunked!” he grumbled disgustedly.
For the time he felt no pain, but his blood ceased to sing in his ears.
Everything seemed to settle down around him, blank and dull and angry.
He felt as if either the army of the North or the army of the South had
not treated him rightly. If they had given him a minute more he might
have clubbed something worth while. He sat up against a tree, wondered
what his chance was to pull through, thought it poor, and thought he
would sell it for a drink.
The firing dropped off little by little, and the mist was coming up.
Dinkey began to see sights. His face and hands were hot, and things
seemed to be riproaring inside him generally. The mist was full of
flickering lights, which presently seemed to be street lamps down the
Bowery. The front windows of Reilly's saloon were glaring, and opposite
was Gottstein's jewelry store, where he had happened to hit one Halligan
in the eye for saying that Babby Reilly was his girl and not Dinkey's;
and he bought Babby a 90-cent gold ring of Gottstein, which proved
Halligan to be a liar. The cop saw him hit Halligan, too, and said
nothing, being his friend. And Halligan enlisted in Company G with the
rest of the boys, and was keeled over in the dark one night on picket
duty, somewhere up country. All the gang went into Company G. The
captain was one of the boys, and so was Pete Murphy, the big lieutenant.
He was a sort of ward sub-boss, was Pete.
“Reilly, he's soured on me, Pete. I dun-no wot's got the ol' man.”
The lights seemed to grow thick, till everything was ablaze.
“Aw, come off! Dis ain't de Bowery,” he muttered, and started and rubbed
his eyes.
The mist was cold and white all around him, ghostly and still, except
that there was a low, continual mutter of voices above, and now and then
a soft moan rose up from somewhere. And it seemed natural enough that a
ghost should come creeping out of the ghostly mist, even that it should
creep near to him and peer into his face, a ghost with a gray chin beard
and haggard eyes.
“I'm going down,” it whispered. “Come on. Don't make any noise.”
“Hully gee!” thought Dinkey. “It's the Pope!”
A number of things occurred to him in confusion. The deacon did not see
he was hit. He said to himself:
“I ain't no call to spoil 'is luck, if he is country.”
He blinked a moment, then nodded and whispered hoarsely: “Go on.”
The deacon crept away into the mist. Dinkey leaned back feebly and
closed his eyes.
“Wished I'd die quick. It's rotten luck. Wished I could see Pete.”
The deacon crept down about two hundred yards, then stopped and waited
for the young man Cott. The night was closing in fast A cry in the
darkness made him shiver. He had never imagined anything could be so
desolate and sad. He thought he had better see what was the matter with
Dinkey. He never could make out afterward why it had seemed necessary
to look after Dinkey. There were hundreds of better men on the slopes.
Dinkey might have passed him. It did not seem very sensible business
to go back after that worthless little limb of Satan. The deacon never
thought the adventure a credit to his judgment.
But he went back, guiding himself by the darker gloom of the trees
against the sky, and groped his way down the hollow, and heard Dinkey
muttering and babbling things without sense. It made the deacon mad
to have to do with irresponsible people, such as go to sleep under the
enemy's rifles and talk aloud in dreams. He pulled him roughly by the
boots, and he fell over, babbling and muttering. Then it came upon the
deacon that it was not sleep, but fever. He guessed the young man was
hit somewhere. They had better be going, anyway. The Johnnies must have
out a picket line somewhere. He slipped his hands under Dinkey and got
up. He tried to climb out quietly, but fell against the bank. Some one
took a shot at the noise, spattering the dirt under his nose. He lifted
Dinkey higher and went on. Dinkey's mutterings ceased. He made no sound
at all for a while, and at last said huskily:
“Wot's up?”
“It's me.”
“Hully gee! Wot yer doin'?”
His voice was weak and thin now. He felt as if he were being pulled in
two in the middle.
“Say, ol' man, I won't jolly yer. Les' find Pete. There's a minie ball
messed up in me stomick awful.”
“'Tain't far, Dinkey,” said the deacon, gently.
And he thought of Pete Murphy's red, fleshy face and black, oily
mustache. It occurred to him that he had noticed most men in Company
G, if they fell into trouble, wanted to find Pete. He thought he should
want to himself, though he could not tell why. If he happened to be
killed anywhere he thought he should like Pete Murphy to tell his wife
about it.
Dinkey lay limp and heavy in his arms. The wet blackness seemed like
something pressed against his face. He could not realize that he was
walking, though in the night, down the same slope to a river called the
Rappahannock and a town called Fredericksburg. It was strange business
for him, Deacon Terrell of Brewster, to be in, stumbling down the
battlefield in the pit darkness, with a godless little brat like Dinkey
Cott in his arms.
And why godless, if the same darkness were around us all, and the same
light, while we lived, would come to all in the morning? It was borne
upon the deacon that no man was elected to the salvation of the sun or
condemned to the night apart from other men.
The deacon never could recall the details of his night's journey, except
that he fell down more than once, and ran against stone walls in the
dark. It seemed to him that he had gone through an unknown, supernatural
country. Dinkey lay so quiet that he thought he might be dead, but he
could not make up his mind to leave him. He wished he could find Pete
Murphy. Pete would tell him if Dinkey was dead.
He walked not one mile, but several, in the blind night Dinkey had long
been a limp weight. The last thing he said was, “Les' find Pete,” and
that was long before.
At last the deacon saw a little glow in the darkness, and, coming near,
found a dying campfire with a few flames only flickering, and beside it
two men asleep. He might have heard the ripple of the Rappahannock, but,
being so worn and dull in his mind, he laid Dinkey down by the fire and
fell heavily to sleep himself before he knew it.
When he woke Pete Murphy stood near him with a corporal and a guard.
They were looking for the pieces of Company G. “Dead, ain't he?” said
Pete.
The deacon got up and brushed his clothes. The two men who were sleeping
woke up also, and they all stood around looking at Dinkey in awkward
silence.
“Who's his folks?”
“Him!” said the big lieutenant. “He ain't got any folks. Tell you what,
ol' man, I see a regiment drummer somewhere a minute ago. He'll do a
roll over Dinkey, for luck, sure!”
They put Dinkey's coat over his face and buried him on the bank of the
Rappahannock, and the drummer beat a roll over him.
Then they sat down on the bank and waited for the next thing.
The troops were moving back now across the bridge hurriedly. Company G
had to take its turn. The deacon felt in his pockets and found the cough
drops and Mrs. Terrell's scissors. He took a cough drop and fell to
trimming his beard.
THE GREEN GRASSHOPPER
ANY one would have called Bobby Bell a comfortable boy--that is, any
one who did not mind bugs; and I am sure I do not see why any one should
mind bugs, except the kind that taste badly in raspberries and some
other kinds. It was among the things that are entertaining to see Bobby
Bell bobbing around among the buttercups looking for grasshoppers.
Grasshoppers are interesting when you consider that they have heads
like door knobs or green cheeses and legs with crooks to them. “Bobbing”
means to go like Bobby Bell--that is, to go up and down, to talk to
one's self, and not to hear any one shout, unless it is some one whom
not to hear is to get into difficulties.
Across the Salem Road from Mr. Atherton Bell's house there were many
level meadows of a pleasant greenness, as far as Cum-ming's alder swamp;
and these meadows were called the Bow Meadows. If you take the alder
swamp and the Bow Meadows together, they were like this: the swamp was
mysterious and unvisited, except by those who went to fish in the Muck
Hole for turtles and eels. Frogs with solemn voices lived in the swamp.
Herons flew over it slowly, and herons also are uncanny affairs. We
believed that the people of the swamp knew things it was not good to
know, like witchcraft and the insides of the earth. In the meadows, on
the other hand, there were any number of cheerful and busy creatures,
some along the level of the buttercups, but most of them about the roots
of the grasses. The people in the swamp were wet, cold, sluggish, and
not a great many of them. The people of the meadows were dry, warm,
continually doing something, and in number not to be calculated by any
rule in Wentworth's Arithmetic.
So you see how different were the two, and how it comes about that the
meadows were nearly the best places in the world to be in, both
because of the society there, and because of the swamp near at hand and
interesting to think about. So, too, you see why it was that Bobby Bell
could be found almost any summer day “bobbing” for grasshoppers in the
Bow Meadows--“bobbing” meaning to go up and down like Bobby Bell, to
talk to one's self and not to hear any one shout; and “grasshoppers”
being interesting because of their heads resembling door knobs or green
cheeses, because of the crooks in their legs, and because of their
extraordinary habit of jumping.
There were in Hagar at this time four ladies who lived at a little
distance from the Salem Road and Mr. Atherton Bell's house, on a road
which goes over a hill and off to a district called Scrabble Up and
Down, where huckleberries and sweet fern mostly grow. They were known as
the Tuttle Four Women, being old Mrs. Tuttle and the three Miss Tuttles,
of whom Miss Rachel was the eldest.
It is easy to understand why Miss Rachel and the children of the village
of Hagar did not get along well together, when you consider how clean
she was, how she walked so as never to fall over anything, nor took
any interest in squat tag, nor resembled the children of the village of
Hagar in any respect. And so you can understand how it was that, when
she came down the hill that Saturday afternoon and saw Bobby Bell
through the bars in the Bow Meadows, she did not understand his actions,
and disapproved of them, whatever they were.
The facts were these: In the first place a green grasshopper, who was
reckless or had not been brought up rightly, had gone down Bobby's back
next the skin, where he had no business to be; and naturally Bobby stood
on his head to induce him to come out. That seems plain enough, for, if
you are a grasshopper and down a boy's back, and the boy stands on his
head, you almost always come out to see what he is about; because it
makes you curious, if not ill, to be down a boy's back and have him
stand on his head. Any one can see that. And this is the reason I had
to explain about Miss Rachel, in order to show you why she did not
understand it, nor understand what followed after.
In the next place, Bobby knew that when you go where you have no
business to, you are sometimes spanked, but usually you are talked to
unpleasantly, and tied up to something by the leg, and said to be in
disgrace. Usually you are tied to the sewing machine, and “disgrace”
means the corner of the sewing-room between the machine and the sofa. It
never occurred to him but that this was the right and natural order of
things. Very likely it is. It seemed so to Bobby.
Now it is difficult to spank a grasshopper properly. And so there was
nothing to do but to tie him up and talk to him unpleasantly. That seems
quite simple and plain. But the trouble was that it was a long time
since Miss Rachel had stood on her head, or been spanked, or tied up to
anything. This was unfortunate, of course. And when she saw Bobby
stand violently on his head and then tie a string to a grasshopper, she
thought it was extraordinary business, and probably bad, and she came up
to the bars in haste.
“Bobby!” she said, “you naughty boy, are you pulling off that
grasshopper's leg?”
Bobby thought this absurd. “Gasshoppers,” he said calmly, “ithn't any
good 'ith their legth off.”
This was plain enough, too, because grasshoppers are intended to jump,
and cannot jump without their legs; consequently it would be quite
absurd to pull them off. Miss Rachel thought one could not know this
without trying it, and especially know it in such a calm, matter-of-fact
way as Bobby seemed to do, without trying it a vast number of times;
therefore she became very much excited. “You wicked, wicked boy!” she
cried. “I shall tell your father!” Then she went off.
Bobby wondered awhile what his father would say when Miss Rachel told
him that grasshoppers were no good with their legs off. When Bobby told
him that kind of thing, he generally chuckled to himself and called
Bobby “a queer little chicken.” If his father called Miss Rachel “a
queer little chicken,” Bobby felt that it would seem strange. But he had
to look after the discipline of the grasshopper, and it is no use trying
to think of two things at once. He tied the grasshopper to a mullein
stalk and talked to him unpleasantly, and the grasshopper behaved very
badly all the time; so that Bobby was disgusted and went away to leave
him for a time--went down to the western end of the meadows, which is a
drowsy place. And there it came about that he fell asleep, because his
legs were tired, because the bees hummed continually, and because the
sun was warm and the grass deep around him.
Miss Rachel went into the village and saw Mr. Atherton Bell on the steps
of the post-office. He was much astonished at being attacked in such
a disorderly manner by such an orderly person as Miss Rachel; but
he admitted, when it was put to him, that pulling off the legs of
grasshoppers was interfering with the rights of grasshoppers. Then Miss
Rachel went on her way, thinking that a good seed had been sown and the
morality of the community distinctly advanced.
The parents of other boys stood on the post-office steps in great
number, for it was near mail-time; and here you might have seen what
varieties of human nature there are. For some were taken with the
conviction that the attraction of the Bow Meadows to their children was
all connected with the legs of grasshoppers; some suspected it only, and
were uneasy; some refused to imagine such a thing, and were indignant.
But they nearly all started for the Bow Meadows with a vague idea of
doing something, Mr. Atherton Bell and Father Durfey leading. It was not
a well-planned expedition, nor did any one know what was intended to be
done. They halted at the bars, but no Bobby Bell was in sight, nor
did the Bow Meadows seem to have anything to say about the matter. The
grasshoppers in sight had all the legs that rightly belonged to them.
Mr. Atherton Bell got up on the wall and shouted for Bobby. Father
Durfey climbed over the bars.
It happened that there was no one in the Bow Meadows at this time,
except Bobby, Moses Durf
|
to enjoy objectionable plays because we dare not be seen enjoying
them by other people who are also enjoying them. Ah! if you could go to
the play masked it would be different.
What is wrong with the drama is that it does not hold an idea to the
square act; is it worth saving? For it may truly be said that the
only fault the public finds in a stupid play is that it is not stupid
enough. You do not believe me. Let us look at the list of plays in
to-day’s paper. To-day there are open thirty-six metropolitan theatres,
including some we can leave out, Maskelyne’s, Drury Lane (Opera), the
Philharmonic. Of the remaining thirty-three, musical comedy occupies
six stages. Say no more about that. If it were not for the lips that
sing, our attention would be concentrated on English music. Revue rages
at five theatres. This leaves twenty-two plays running. Among them are
two spy plays, two comic war plays, a mystical melodrama, four farces;
the rest consists in plays made by hands unassisted by heads, plays
that the next generation may make by machinery. The groans of old age
are heard as Sir Arthur Pinero rigs _The Freaks_ upon their legs, as Mr
Somerset Maugham presents _Love in a Cottage_. And _Dear Brutus_ is the
twinkling star that makes darker the Thalian night.
In hardly one of these plays is there a single moment of intellectual
distinction. I do not mean that I ask those twenty-two stages to make
up the night’s programme of _King Lear_, _Ghosts_, _Les Trois Filles
de Monsieur Dupont_, the _Sunken Bell_, _The Knight of the Burning
Pestle_, but I do think that their coalition might give us more than
_Dear Brutus_. There should be plenty of room for true comedy of the
type of _The Admirable Crichton_, _Mrs Gorringe’s Necklace_, _John
Bull’s Other Island_, _The Cassilis Engagement_, _Chains_, comedy with
ideas. There should be room for _The Shewing-up of Blanco Posnett_,
_The Playboy of the Western World_ and other solid plays. But one
condition is that we should pay for plays, not players. We do not. If
you want evidence consider the following advertisement of _When Knights
were Bold_ (a really amusing play):--
WHEN KNIGHTS WERE BOLD.
BROMLEY ‘Bromley Challenor has a personality and fun of his
CHALLENOR own.’--_Times._
‘An individual style of his own.’--_Daily Telegraph._
‘A manner quite his own.’--_The Queen._
‘Nothing funnier than the second act.’--_Daily Telegraph._
‘His fun is infectious.’--_Daily Graphic._
‘Keeps his audience in convulsions.’--_Star._
‘Had a triumphant reception.’--_Daily Chronicle._
‘Bromley Challenor extracts every spark of fun.’--J. T.
GREIN, _Sunday Times_.
‘The play went more gloriously than ever.’--_Referee._
MARJORIE ‘Miss Marjorie Bellairs is a charming actress with a
BELLAIRS singularly sweet voice.’--_Era._
Ten press quotations. Two refer to the play; one may refer to play
or to actor; seven refer to the actor only. (The playwright is not
mentioned, but never mind). This does not mean that the newspapers
confined their notices to Mr Bromley Challenor, but it does mean that
the management selected for quotation only the phrases which refer to
the actor, because that is what the public wants, and what it gets for
the hastening of its mental decay.
What is wrong with the theatre is, to a certain extent, right with the
music-hall, and this for two reasons: we have to deal with a different
kind of playgoer, and the excessive valuation of the actor is sharply
limited by the worth of his songs. I have seen Ernie Mayne, Ella
Shields, and others rouse the house with one song and half-fail with
another. The theatre-goer, who, on the whole, is not a music-hall-goer,
is usually either in a smug condition, or over-conscious of his
digestive process. Nearly all the pit and upper circle, and the bulk of
the dress circle, feel that they are indulging in a respectable spree.
Leaving aside the one who, in the newspapers, signs his letters as ‘Old
Playgoer’ (generally an old fool), or ‘Old Firstnighter,’ probably an
old lunatic (because the first night is the worst night), the cheaper
seats in a theatre are tenanted mainly by people in a stupefied state
of admiration. They have escaped for a few hours from the dug-outs of
respectability; their families have not long emerged from the tradition
that the theatre is a place of evil repute; some even believe that they
are improving their minds, which is touching, whatever the condition
of their minds. They file their programmes. They loudly proclaim to
their friends that they ‘ought’ to go and see such and such a play.
Perhaps they go because they ought to. Perhaps they go to dream dreams;
no doubt nightmares do not disappoint them. The stalls are not in
search of virtue tempered with a little vice; most of their patrons
are confessedly in search of vice neat. They never get it. And if this
vice, invisible to anybody who is not a bishop or the editor of a
Sunday paper, is necessary to their health, it is because they visit
the theatre in a state of advanced repletion, because they are people
who manage to be replete in the middle of a European war; such is their
nature. No wonder, then, that the cold suet of the drama should have so
securely become wrapped in the wet dish-cloth of the playgoer. Thus, it
may be true to say that the playgoer gets the plays he deserves. The
music-hall-goer is different.
If it is true that many go to the theatre when they have eaten too
much, it is, to a certain extent, true that many go to the music-hall
when they have drunk too much, which, if I must choose, is less
repulsive. They are frankly out for a rag; they want to laugh,
and I had rather they guffawed than drowsed. You can’t drowse in a
music-hall: from the moment when the conductor, in his elaborately
luxurious and irremediably faulty dress suit, addresses his first and
infinitely disabused bow to the audience, to the time when he calls
upon the band to produce the smallest possible scrap of ‘God Save
the King,’ and hurries out loyalty on the wings of ragtime, there is
no flagging. It is not only that red-nosed comedian and eccentric
comedienne, American dancer, or sketch got up regardless, tread upon
each other’s heels; the main thing is the band, the harsh, rapid band,
that never stops, that plays anything, providing it is the thing of the
day, with all the regularity and indifference of the typewriter. From
it gush patriotism, comedy or sentiment, and all three burst forth with
their full headline value. There is no tickling of big drums; when the
drum is banged you know it; nor is there measure in the sigh of the
oboe, for the music-hall paints not in wash-greens and grays; scarlet,
black, white, and electric-blue are its gamut.
Nothing else would satisfy the audience that every music-hall comedian
must encounter every night. It is a mixed audience. There are old
stagers who sit in the same seat every Saturday night, without looking
at the programme, and this differentiates them from the playgoer: they
are bound for a playground. There are the discriminating who follow the
star, so long as the star’s songs refrain from appealing to what is
described as their better feelings; there are the very young in search
of excitement, and determined to get it; there are the slightly older,
who come in pairs, and do nothing to conceal the fact. (Of late years,
many of these have been lost to the music-halls and have taken to the
cinemas because they are darker.) But one thing unites them all: they
have come here to be amused, amused at once, amused all the time; they
are not ready to make allowances; if an old song is a good song, it is
a good song, but if it is not a good song the seasoned music-hall-goer
will know it at once. I have heard him turn to his neighbour and say:
‘It’s all up. She won’t get across.’ Getting across the footlights is
not, in a music-hall, the same thing as getting across in a theatre.
The music-hall performer has no scenery to help him, in this sense,
that the properties are well known to the audience. I have seen
at least twenty turns at the Shepherd’s Bush Empire in front of a
drop-curtain which I swear is Croydon High Street. The words of the
song are, as a rule, difficult to sing. Often, as in the case of George
Robey, the costume is stereotyped and never varies. Thus the music-hall
performer, having not the scenery of Harry Hope, or the knee-breeches
of Malvolio, can rely on nothing but himself. He comes naked into an
entirely cold world. His situation is ideally expressed by the old
cartoon of the impresario, his foot bound up to show that he has gout.
Before him stands the dingy figure of a little performer. This is their
dialogue:--
_Impresario_: ‘What’s your line?’
_Performer_: ‘Comedian.’
_Impresario_: ‘Well! get on with it! Make me laugh.’
If within one minute of his appearance the performer has not got his
laugh he will probably not get it at all. If he is famous, and if his
turn is not too bad, nothing worse will happen than the administration
of the frozen lemon. It is rather tragic, feeling the lemon come. You
feel the audience leap up towards the performer, for it is always ready
to give him his chance, even if he is unknown; then, in a minute or
so, you feel the audience drop away from him; you are aware that he
is not being listened to, for people begin to talk, to flutter with
their programmes, and perhaps some one may hum an irrelevant air. The
wretched performer knows it. If you are sitting in the first row of the
stalls you see anxiety come over his face. He begins to shout or to
dance rather wildly; he knows that he is not getting across; he tries
to attract attention as a cockatoo if he cannot do so as an eagle. Then
some one laughs derisively, and there is something hideous in that
laughter; it makes one think of the thumb-down attitude in the Roman
circus. The curtain drops in the middle of something that is half hum
and half silence. That is the lemon.
It is only in extreme cases that the audience manifests disapproval.
Indeed, it is an audience full of good-natured contempt, and if the
lemon is taken it willingly passes on to the next turn; as a rule,
the lemon is taken by the management, who ring down the curtain on
the first song and do not let the performer come on again. But if the
performer does come on again, and strives to recapture lost ground,
the audience will give him thirty seconds to do it; if he fails, the
hum grows angry as that of a swarm of bees. There is more derisive
laughter; a few yells come from the gallery; a general uproar develops
from the hum. You discern cries: ‘I want to go ’ome’.... ‘Take me back
to mother.’... Opponents reply as loudly: ‘Shut up! chuck him out!’
But the voices resume in more and more sepulchral tones: ‘I want to go
’ome,’ while others join the rag for the rag’s sake, and some stentor
high above roars: ‘Shut yer face, dear, I see yer Christmas dinner.’
And then everybody cries: ‘Chuck him out!’ while the performer sings
louder and louder, and the band makes still more desperate efforts to
drown his song. Then a large portion of the audience rise to their feet
and bellow enmity until the curtain goes down. That is the scarlet
bird, and I have not often seen it on the wing.
No, there is no mercy in the music-hall audience. For it is an honest
audience, and is, therefore, capable of every brutality. Also,
everybody has paid for his seat. Nobody there can afford to waste
that small payment. They must get their money’s worth. They know
exactly what they want; they have been wanting it ever since the
Middle Ages, and, on the whole, have been getting it. They want rough
and obvious jokes told in a subtle and intelligent way; they want to
see the performer break plates or sit on the butter, but he must do
it in a debonair style; they want songs of which they know the tune
by the time the second couplet is reached, favourite songs of which
they can bellow the choruses while the triumphant performer whispers
it; above all, they want their traditional jokes. Cheese, lodgers,
mothers-in-law, twins, meeting the missus at 3 a.m., alcoholic excess,
one or more of these must be introduced to make a successful song. It
does not matter who you are, whether the great McDermott, Dan Leno, or
R. G. Knowles, you must tie your little bark to the great ship of the
English music-hall tradition. No famous song has become famous unless
a portion of it at least dealt with one of these subjects: ‘Champagne
Charlie,’ ‘I’m following in father’s footsteps,’ ‘The Girl, the Woman,
and the Widow,’ are clear evidences of this. Perhaps that is why some
delicate artists, such as Maidie Scott and Wish Wynne, have never
quite ‘got there.’ Maidie Scott is the most finished product on the
music-halls of to-day. As soon as she comes on, her quick, schoolgirl
walk, her red hair, her _distrait_ eyes, and the voice which she knows
so amazingly how to keep down to a minor key, cut her right out of
the stage. When Maidie Scott sings ‘Amen,’ or ‘Father’s got the sack
from the water-works’ (all along of his cherry briar pipe, because
they were afraid he’d set the water-works on fire), and still more
when she sings, ‘I’m glad I took my mother’s advice,’ one has a sense
of extraordinary detachment. She is aloof, alone. She is so entirely
under restraint; knows so well how, at last, to let her voice swell and
underline her point; she knows so well how not to waste during a song
the power of her splendid blue eyes, but to reserve them for that final
point. Thus she should wield astonishing power, yet does not quite; she
lacks grossness; like Wish Wynne, her art is a little too delicate to
get across. The audience like her, they like Wish Wynne singing ‘Oo!
er!’ and miserably dragging her little tin trunk, but never for either
do they rise and roar as they do for Marie Lloyd.
It is true that Marie Lloyd takes us into another world, that of the
comfortable public-house, with plenty of lights and red plush; to the
publican’s dog-cart off to the Derby; to the large birthday party,
enlivened by plenty of sherry wine. In Marie Lloyd’s world everything
is fat, healthy, round, jolly, bouncing; when she keeps the old man’s
trousers to remember him by after he’s gone, she defines the human
quality of her sentiment: she can do nothing false and artificial, such
as pressing his nuptial buttonhole. Marie Lloyd is a woman before she
is an actress, and in this lies her strength. When she advises the
audience to ‘’Ave a little bit of what yer fancy (if you fancy it, if
you fancy it), ’Ave a little bit of what yer fancy, I say it does yer
good,’ Marie Lloyd is expressing the eternal claim of the flesh against
the spirit, which has been rediscovered a great many times since
Epicurus. She survives a great generation; there is nobody to-day fit
to wear her pleasantly-little shoes.
There is nobody, because the spirit of the music-hall is changing,
and women, who are more adaptable than men, are feeling it first. An
awful thing is happening to most of the young women on the halls; they
are becoming refined. Louie and Toots Pounds, Ella Retford, Clarice
Mayne, Ella Shields, have nothing of the Marie Lloyd tradition; they
are almost creatures of the drawing-room. Even Beattie and Babs, though
Babs does what she can with stockings that nothing will ever keep up,
never seem to experience the thick joy of being alive that Marie Lloyd
conveys in one slow, sidelong raising of her immortal eyelid. There is,
perhaps, a white hope, Daisy Wood, but one cannot be sure. They sing
well, these young women, they dance well; they do it too well; women
of the older tradition, such as Victoria Monks and Nellie Wallace are
still themselves: they do not do it so well, but they do it. These
are not trained, like the young women, but they have grown up and
discovered themselves; they do not _act_ joy or distress: they cut joy
or distress out of common life and lay it down on the bare planks. All
that is going, for the music-hall is growing refined.
Let me dispel a possible misunderstanding. When I say music-hall I do
not mean those sinks of virtue, the Coliseum, or the Palladium, the
Palace, and the Hippodrome. Those are royal theatres of varieties,
eminently suited for long skirts and acrobats, and large enough for
elephants. Two of them can safely be handed over to revue, and the
rest is silence. I have seen Mr George Robey, I forget whether it was
at the Palladium or the Coliseum, and the place was so broad, and so
deep, and so high, that his eyebrows looked normal: can I add anything
to the horror of this picture? The only comedian who ever seemed to me
a success in those barns was Little Tich, as little Miss Turpentine,
because they made him still smaller, which heightened his effect. But
those halls pay large salaries, and I suppose they will go on. Indeed,
I fear that they are gaining ground because we are daily sinking deeper
in the Joseph Lyons civilisation, where everything must be cheap,
gilt, and enormous. The old halls, the Holborn, the Metropolitan, the
Bedford, Collins’s, will not last long; already many halls have been
seized, the Tivoli and the Canterbury by cinemas, the Shepherd’s Bush,
I think the Paragon, Mile End, and certainly the Shoreditch Empire by
Sir Oswald Stoll. We have to count with Sir Oswald Stoll. Together with
Sir Joseph Lyons, he has done more to drive out Merrie England than
the dourest champion of methodism. You can go to his music-halls, or
to the Palladium, which is not a Stoll hall, but a stollomorphe, and
nothing will offend your good taste. During the last dozen years Sir
Oswald Stoll has been engaged in a continuous and painfully successful
campaign to raise the English music-hall; he has almost succeeded in
elevating it. True, in his halls appear all those men who carry on the
old tradition and glorify the flesh: George Robey, Sam Stern, Ernie
Mayne, Sam Mayo, who sing the crude joy of poor life, which is found in
drunken sprees and conjugal misunderstandings, but which yet is true
life. Little by little their songs grow less broad. Sam Mayo would
not, at a Stoll hall, sing the ditty which used to delight the old
Middlesex: ‘Ching Chang, wing wang, bing, bang, boo,’ nor would Dutch
Daly sing about the larks in May. Our old comedians are limiting their
humours, discolouring their noses, rolling their umbrellas. The young
ladies in the audience, and their young gentlemen, modern forms of the
donah and her bloke, would feel uncomfortable if too crudely reminded
that love is something more than kisses on Brighton Pier under a pale
pink sunshade. The old comedians are not yet dead, and Ernie Mayne can
still sing:--
‘Last night I wandered thro’ the park,
I met a female after dark;
And, feeling faint for want of food,
I fell into her arms--how rude!
Just then she murmured “Kiss me,
George!” her face I chanced to see,
The girl was black, with nigger lips;
I shouted, “Not for me!”
It’s my meatless day, my meatless day,
I’m not going to eat any sort of meat.
Meat, meat, meat, meat,
I’m thin and pale, all I’ve put away
Is two roly-polies, never left a crumb,
Three currant puddings and a little bit of plum,
And five apple-dumplings are rolling round my tum,
’Cos it’s my meatless day.’
Yes, Ernie Mayne may still sing his songs of Araby, but little by
little he is being borne down by the American raconteur, whose
impropriety is always in the best of taste, by the ragtime dancer, by
the wandering Italian fiddler, by the respectable eccentric at the
piano, by the juggler, by the refined soprano, who sings ‘God send you
back to me, over the mighty sea,’ or, ‘There’s a little mother always
yearning for the ones that long to roam.’ It’s all getting so clean, so
precious pure. The old comedian will not last long. He that was once a
bull in a china-shop will soon become a Stolled ox.
But the worst may yet have to come. A new demon is arising in the
shape of the cinema. It is as if Merrie England, that once lived at
the Surrey Theatre and the Globe, and was driven out when the middle
class began to frequent the theatre about 1870 and took refuge in the
caves of harmony, then doubled back into the Tivoli and the Oxford
(fortunately to provide what the late W. T. Stead called ‘drivel
for the dregs’), were being pursued. Wherever Merrie England goes,
it seems that, as Mark Sheridan used to put it, ‘the villain thtill
purthued her, purthued her, purthued her.’ When the music-hall has been
completely improved I wonder whether he will be glad to have ‘purthued
her’ to such good purpose. Certainly, in the cinemas, little is left of
the old spirit that arose as one drank one’s beer in the stalls at the
old Mogul, for the cinema, let police magistrates say what they like,
bears deep upon its brow the brand of Abel.
The cinema, like most new and virile things, has split opinion, and has
collected round itself more unwise friends and unthinking enemies than
any other form of entertainment. Few people like cinemas; they either
love them or loathe them, while a few, I suppose, fall into my section
of feeling and hate them for not being better than they are. For I
believe in the cinema; I do not think that the cinema will do away with
the theatre and the novel, but I do believe that it is destined to play
a still larger part in the amusement of the people. Also, I believe
that it is destined to play a cleaner, that is, a more artistic part.
How far it can be brought, I do not know, because I do not suppose that
I am the one chosen by nature to raise it high; but if we consider
films such as _The Birth of a Nation_, or _Intolerance_, where Mr
D. W. Griffith, a man of some slight culture, is not entirely devoid
of taste, and certainly bold in his conceptions, audacious in his
execution, we cannot wave the cinema away with a sneer at cowboy drama.
The cinema began with cowboy drama, with silly pursuits on horseback,
by motor-car and by train, but that was only because, for the first
time, movement could be reproduced. The reproduction of movement was
a new pleasure, and so the mob clamoured for it. Carry yourself back
to your first film and, be you as highbrowed as you like, you will
not deny that you enjoyed those febrile races, those people falling
out of windows, crashing through ceilings, the violent opening and
shutting of doors, the rush of flying crockery. Then you grew tired of
it and began to think it silly. Well, it was silly, and it is silly,
but we should remember that the pioneers of the cinema were Americans
of the travelling-showman type, men whose fathers had exhibited
the _camera obscura_ loved of our fathers; they had passed through
dissolving views, and that type of man could not be expected to like,
and therefore to put forward, a dramatic version of _Paradise Lost_.
Briefly, the cinema was put forward by the vulgar, for the vulgar,
but by degrees, as the mob grew weary of movement for movement’s sake,
as the profits increased, new men such as Pathé, Urban, Gaumont, came
in. They were commercial men, but not vulgar men, men who realised
that if there was a public for the novels of Mr E. F. Benson and the
plays of Mr Alfred Sutro, there must be a cinema public for something
less lurid than the early films. By degrees, the cinema improved; it
improved in conceptions when subjects such as _Quo Vadis?_, _The Walls
of Jericho_, _Bella Donna_, appeared on the film; yet more ambitious
things were done in the shape of _Hamlet_, _Julius Cæsar_, _Justice_,
_Intolerance_, and many more.
The film improved, too, in its actual execution. The earliest type of
film actor was scraped up from the East Side gutters of New York and
the graving-docks of Naples. For that early cinema you needed creatures
immensely unrestrained, yelling, dancing, dirty creatures, not at
all the people who could have impersonated what the old lady in the
pit called the ‘married life of the dear Queen.’ And as the subjects
changed the actors changed; many were taken from the stage; some,
to this day, preserve certain characteristics of the ordinary human
being. It is not quite their fault if they do not preserve them all;
the cinema has had time to make a tradition of its own, which is still
represented by the American posters we see upon the walls, where the
heroines have enormous eyes and more teeth than Lulu Dentifrice; where
the young men have straight backs to their heads, half a pound of white
meat on each cheek, a rugged brow, or an emetic grin, briefly, the
most brutal type of Chicago commercial rigged out in the dress clothes
of a suicide; where ladies whose clothing is too low for blouses and
too high for evening frocks, whose jewels flash beyond the dreams of
Gophir, quaff the sparkling champagne wine. Where the illustrator
manages to make Miss Irene Vanbrugh look vulgar. Where American
policemen (or admirals, you never know) arrest crooks in mid-air;
where all is six-shooters, bowie-knives, cinches, and snarks. Like
poster like player, is, to a certain extent, true, for the producer is
still a cross between Pimple and the sort of stockbroker whose silk
hat glitters in eight places. (Observe the band on his cigar.) But
that producer, like that poster, is the old tradition, and is giving
way before the ordinary business man who does not see the world in
terms of banana falls. That new man is not pressing his actors as the
old producer did. He still makes them register, but less intensely.
Register means to mark the emotions. When the hero is being filmed, and
the heroine enters, he smiles; if he does not smile beatifically enough
the producer will cry to him: ‘Register delight!’ You have all seen the
result. In the old days they were registering all the time; you could
see the heroine registering terror, while the hero registered nobility,
and the villain registered hate; meanwhile, the old mother dropped a
stitch and registered benevolence with extreme pertinacity, and, all
the time, servants in the background were registering national pride
and rectitude. One still has to do these things on the cinema because,
after all, the cinema picture has to be photographable. It has to be
seen rather plainly, but the cinema producer has begun to understand
that, to be effective, facial expression need not be recognisable a
mile away.
It is the excessive vigour of the cinema has endeared it to Londoners;
most of them are a rather lymphatic crowd, because they live in too
large a city, surrounded by too many interesting things, because they
eat rather bad food and not enough of it, and also because most of them
work in stuffy offices and factories. Thus they need strong stimuli
if they are to react, and no doubt that is why cinemas are being
established one by the side of the other, and run for ten hours a day.
Like the sensational stories in the magazines, like the newspapers
which consist in much headline and little text, they spur this tired
creature. The more he is spurred, the more tired he grows. The more
tired he grows, the more he needs spurring. So the cinema must prosper.
But I think it will prosper in a more moderate way; it will continue
to grow, to absorb theatres and music-halls; it has already absorbed
the Coronet, the Canterbury, Sadler’s Wells, the Tivoli, the Scala,
the London Opera House, and others; but I think it will more and more
tend to produce the historical film, films based on novels and plays
of some slight merit; that it will increasingly provide bearable music.
For a while it may not originate much, and therefore it will not easily
become a form of art. I am not sure that it can become a form of art,
though I do not know why: the ballet is a form of art, and people like
Nijinsky, Pavlova, Madame Rambert (let alone Taglioni and Genée) have
made a great deal of it. I do not say that it is impossible for the
cinema to produce a work of art, but this must be within the limits
of pantomime, which are close and narrow limits. Subtle emotions it
cannot express, for pantomime cannot figure that ‘she thought this,
because she thought that he thought that.’ (If a cinema company will
film _The Golden Bowl_, I will burn seven candles as an offering to the
Albert Memorial.) All that, the cinema must leave to the play and the
novel. It cannot risk wearying the audience by leaving it for half an
hour before the same scene; the theatre can do that because the voices
of the actors afford relief; the cinema, being unable to reproduce
footsteps, is compelled to reproduce flying feet. Because it cannot
speak, it must move, and so it is a different kind of thing.
That does not mean that it need always be the rather crude thing it is
to-day. As people of better taste come into the business, we are likely
to do away with a few of the continual changes of scene; we shall
reduce repetitions, such as the woman who endlessly rocks the baby’s
cradle between every tragic scene in _Intolerance_. Repetition is the
way in which a crude taste rams its point home; a fine taste will
select its points better, need to make them less obvious, know how to
vary them. The selective art of the novelist can thus be applied. Also,
the finer taste will not corrupt the actor as hitherto he has been
corrupted, by leading him into a wilderness of monkeys. The cinema will
learn restraint, that first need of all art. Some of the actors, such
as Norma Talmadge, Pauline Frederick, Mary Pickford, and especially
Charlie Chaplin, have already evolved a new form of acting, and not
a mean one. When Charlie Chaplin runs along a road, in that queer,
lolloping way which starts from the shoulders and animates his fingers
and his elbows, chasing a Rolls-Royce that is obviously travelling
at a hundred and twenty miles an hour, when thereupon he falls into
a ditch, and extricates himself with an air of incredulity, when he
then appears to realise, with a detachment that none but Plato could
have equalled, that he is not likely to catch that car, and decides to
go home, Charlie Chaplin does a wonderful thing: he turns his back on
the audience, and you know, from a little ripple in his back that he
is considering the situation. Then the head gives a jerk, one of the
shoulders goes up, the fingers give a twist, and long before Charlie
Chaplin turns round to face the audience, with his soft eyes laughing,
his animate body has told you what he meant: ‘It’s gone. Oh, well, I
don’t care.’ The popularity of others may wane, but Charlie Chaplin is
a monument. As in the case of the music-halls, a merciless audience has
formed, and its love has readily been given to the best.
III
THE FRIENDLY BOWL
CHAPTER III
THE FRIENDLY BOWL
Hard things are said of the London public-house. It is dirty; it
is dingy; there is nothing to sit on; there is nothing to read; it
possesses neither intellect nor domino set; it is not a place where a
man can take his wife and family; it should be improved, it should be
suppressed (subtle distinction), and so on. The curious side of these
assaults is that the people who rave at the public-house are not the
people one sees in it, and one wonders whether they passionately desire
public-houses after their own heart, and, presumably, for their own
use. I have visions of the public-house of their dreams, æsthetic and
antiseptic, furnished, according to persuasion, with Fabian tracts, or
tracts of greater orthodoxy. I imagine a staid crowd in that reformed
public-house, let us say, the Reverend Dr Horton and party, quaffing
the foaming cider-cup and discussing the principles of reconstruction;
Mr Sidney Webb and Mr Bernard Shaw passionately engaged at spillikins
... and the working man in the modest background.
The idea has little attraction, because, frankly, I like the London
public-house, just as I like the Paris café and the German beer-hall.
I do not see why we should make our public-houses into Parisian cafés,
for our needs differ from those of Parisians, and we do not, among
other things, visit public-houses to play dominoes or to read _The
Spectator_. Men go to public-houses to drink, either because they are
thirsty, or because they like drink. Notably, the working man goes
there to be rid of that wife and family of which he sees quite enough.
I know it is difficult for the well-to-do man, whose house contains ten
rooms, who has a private room at his office, and a sulking chair at
his club, to understand that the working man, who generally lives in
two rooms with several children and the scented memory of many meals,
should want to escape this felicitous atmosphere. It may also strike
him as strange that the working man should not, after a ten-hour day,
relish ‘a good, brisk walk.’ Also, he does not realise that ours is not
yet a kid-glove civilisation, and that most of our working people like
the sensual life. Being Anglo-Saxons, they are largely impervious to
art, and rather crude in love; so their sensuality finds an outlet in
drink. You may deplore this sensuality, but it is no use trying to stem
it by making distasteful the conditions under which it is indulged; the
way to stem it is to make a change in the creature, by treating it as a
man, by paying it as a citizen, and by granting it justice instead of
favour, education instead of teaching.
A new English people will make a new public-house; to-day, they have
the public-house they
|
Nineveh he established a botanical
garden, which he filled with the strange trees he had brought back with
him from his campaigns. In B.C. 1130 he marched into Babylonia, and,
after a momentary repulse at the hands of the Babylonian king, defeated
his antagonists on the banks of the Lower Zab. Babylonia was ravaged,
and Babylon itself was captured.
With the death of Tiglath-Pileser I, Assyrian history becomes for awhile
obscure. The sceptre fell into feeble hands, and the distant conquests
of the empire were lost. It was during this period of abeyance that the
kingdom of David and Solomon arose in the west. The Assyrian power did
not revive until the reign of Assur-dân II, whose son, Rimmon-nirari II
(B.C. 911-889), and great-grandson, Assur-natsir-pal (B.C. 883-858), led
their desolating armies through Western Asia, and made the name of
Assyria once more terrible to the nations around them. Assur-natsir-pal
was at once one of the most ferocious and most energetic of the
Assyrian kings. His track was marked by impalements, by pyramids of
human heads, and by other barbarities too horrible to be described. But
his campaigns reached further than those of Tiglath-Pileser had done.
Armenia, Mesopotamia, and Kurdistan, were overrun again and again; the
Babylonians were forced to sue for peace; Sangara, the Hittite king of
Carchemish, paid tribute, and the rich cities of Phœnicia poured their
offerings into the treasury of Nineveh. The armies of Assyria penetrated
even to Nizir, where the ark of the Chaldæan Noah was believed to have
rested on the peak of Rowandiz. In Assyria itself the cities were
embellished with the spoils of foreign conquest; splendid palaces were
erected, and Calah, which had fallen into decay, was restored. A library
was erected there, and it became the favourite residence of
Assur-natsir-pal.
He was succeeded by his son Shalmaneser II, so named, perhaps, after the
original founder of Calah. Shalmaneser's military successes exceeded
even those of his father, and his long reign of thirty-five years marks
the climax of the first Assyrian Empire. His annals are chiefly to be
found engraved on three monuments now in the British Museum. One of
these is a monolith from Kurkh, a place about twenty miles from
Diarbekr. The full-length figure of Shalmaneser is sculptured upon it,
and the surface of the stone is covered with the inscription. Another
monument is a small 'obelisk' of polished black stone, the upper part of
which is shaped like three ascending steps. Inscriptions run round its
four sides, as well as small bas-reliefs representing the tribute
offered to 'the great king' by foreign states. Among the tribute-bearers
are the Israelitish subjects of 'Jehu, son of Omri.' The third monument
is one which was discovered in 1878 at Balawât, about nine miles from
Nimrûd or Calah. It consists of the bronze framework of two colossal
doors, of rectangular shape, twenty-two feet high and twenty-six feet
broad. The doors opened into a temple, and were made of wood, to which
the bronze was fastened by means of nails. The bronze was cut into
bands, which ran in a horizontal direction across the doors, and were
each divided into two lines of embossed reliefs. These reliefs were
hammered out, and not cast, and the rudeness of their execution proves
that they were the work of native artists, and not of the Phœnician
settlers in Nineveh, of whose skill in such work we have several
specimens. Short texts are added to explain the reliefs, so that the
various campaigns and cities represented in them can all be identified.
Among the cities is the Hittite capital Carchemish, and the warriors of
Armenia are depicted in a costume strikingly similar to that of the
ancient Greeks.
Shalmaneser's first campaign was against the restless tribes of
Kurdistan. He then turned northward, and fell upon the Armenian king of
Van and the Mannâ or Minni (see Jer. li. 27), who inhabited the country
between the mountains of Kotûr and Lake Urumiyeh. The Hittites of
Carchemish, with their allies from Cilicia and other neighbouring
districts, were next compelled to sue for peace, and the acquisition of
Pethor, which had been lost after Tiglath-Pileser's death, again gave
the Assyrians the command of the ford over the Euphrates. The result of
this was, that in B.C. 854 Shalmaneser came into conflict with the
kingdom of Hamath. The common danger had roused Hadadezer of Damascus,
called Benhaded II in the Bible, to make common cause with Hamath, and a
confederacy was formed to resist the Assyrian advance. Among the
confederates 'Ahab of Israel' is mentioned as furnishing the allies with
2,000 chariots and 10,000 infantry. But the confederacy was shattered at
Karkar or Aroer, although Shalmaneser had himself suffered too severely
to be able to follow up his victory. For a time, therefore, Syria
remained unmolested, and the Assyrian king turned his attention to
Babylonia, which he reduced to a state of vassalage, under the pretext
of assisting the Babylonian sovereign against his rebel brother.
Twelve years, however, after the battle of Karkar, Shalmaneser was once
more in the west. Hadadezer had been succeeded by Hazael on the throne
of Damascus, and it was against him that the full flood of Assyrian
power was turned. For some time he managed to stem it, but in B.C. 841
he suffered a crushing defeat on the heights of Shenir (see Deut. iii.
9), and his camp, along with 1,121 chariots and 470 carriages, fell into
the hands of the Assyrians, who proceeded to besiege him in his capital,
Damascus. The siege, however, was soon raised, and Shalmaneser
contented himself with ravaging the Hauran and marching to Beyrout,
where his image was carved on the rocky promontory of Baal-rosh, at the
mouth of the Nahr el-Kelb. It was while he was in this neighbourhood
that the ambassadors of Jehu arrived with offers of tribute and
submission. The tribute, we are told, consisted of'silver, gold, a
golden bowl, vessels of gold, goblets of gold, pitchers of gold, a
sceptre for the king's hand and spear-handles,' and Jehu is erroneously
entitled 'the son of Omri.'
After the defeat of Hazael Shalmaneser's expeditions were only to
distant regions like Phœnicia, Kappadokia, and Armenia, for the sake of
exacting tribute. No further attempt was made at permanent conquest, and
after B.C. 834 the old king ceased to lead his armies in person, the
tartan or commander-in-chief taking his place. Not long afterwards a
revolt broke out headed by his eldest son, who seems to have thought
that he would have little difficulty in wresting the sceptre from the
hands of the enfeebled king. Twenty-seven cities, including Nineveh and
Assur, joined the revolt, which was, however, finally put down by the
energy and military capacity of Shalmaneser's second son Samas-Rimmon,
who succeeded him soon afterwards (B.C. 823-810). On his death he was
followed by his son Rimmon-nirari III (810-781), who compelled Mariha of
Damascus to pay him tribute, as well as the Phœnicians, Israelites,
Edomites, and Philistines. But the vigour of the dynasty was beginning
to fail. A few short reigns followed that of Rimmon-nirari, during
which the first Assyrian Empire melted away. A formidable power arose in
Armenia, the Assyrian armies were driven to the frontiers of their own
country, and disaffection began to prevail in Assyria itself. At length,
on the 15th of June, B.C. 763, an eclipse of the sun took place, and the
city of Assur rose in revolt. The revolt lasted three years, and before
it could be crushed the outlying provinces were lost. When Assur-nirari,
the last of his line, ascended the throne in B.C. 753, the empire was
already gone, and the Assyrian cities themselves were surging with
discontent. Ten years later the final blow was struck; the army declared
itself against their monarch, and he and his dynasty fell together. On
the 30th of Iyyar of the year B.C. 745, a military adventurer, Pul,
seized the vacant crown, and assumed the venerable name of
Tiglath-Pileser.
If we may believe Greek tradition, Tiglath-Pileser II began life as a
gardener. Whatever might have been his origin, however, he proved to be
a capable ruler, a good general, and a far-sighted administrator. He was
the founder of the second Assyrian Empire, which differed essentially
from the first. The first empire was at best a loosely-connected
military organization; campaigns were made into distant countries for
the sake of plunder and tribute, but little effort was made to retain
the districts that had been conquered. Almost as soon as the Assyrian
armies were out of sight, the conquered nations shook off the Assyrian
yoke, and it was only in regions bordering on Assyria that garrisons
were left by the Assyrian king. And whenever the Assyrian throne was
occupied by a weak or unwarlike prince, even these were soon destroyed
or forced to retreat homewards. Tiglath-Pileser II, however,
consolidated and organised the conquests he made; turbulent populations
were deported from their old homes, and the empire was divided into
satrapies or provinces, each of which paid a fixed annual tribute to the
imperial exchequer. For the first time in history the principle of
centralisation was carried out on a large scale, and a bureaucracy began
to take the place of the old feudal nobility of Assyria. But the second
Assyrian Empire was not only an organised and bureaucratic one, it was
also commercial. In carrying out his schemes of conquest Tiglath-Pileser
II was influenced by considerations of trade. His chief object was to
divert the commerce of Western Asia into Assyrian hands. For this
purpose every effort was made to unite Babylonia with Assyria, to
overthrow the Hittites of Carchemish, who held the trade of Asia Minor,
as well as the high road to the west, and to render Syria and the
Phœnician cities tributary. The policy inaugurated by Tiglath-Pileser
was successfully followed up by his successors.
Babylonia was the first to feel the results of the change of dynasty at
Nineveh. The northern part of it was annexed to Assyria, and secured by
a chain of fortresses. Tiglath-Pileser now attacked the Kurdish tribes,
who were constantly harassing the eastern frontier of the kingdom, and
chastised them severely, the Assyrian army forcing its way through the
fastnesses of the Kurdish mountains into the very heart of Media. But
Ararat, or Armenia, was still a dangerous neighbour, and accordingly
Tiglath-Pileser's next campaign was against a confederacy of the nations
of the north headed by Sarduris of Van. The confederacy was utterly
defeated in Kommagênê, 72,950 prisoners falling into the hands of the
Assyrians, and the way was opened into Syria. In B.C. 742 the siege of
Arpad (now Tel Erfâd) began, and lasted two years. Its fall brought with
it the submission of Northern Syria, and it was next the turn of Hamath
to be attacked. Hamath was in alliance with Uzziah of Judah, and its
king Eniel may have been of Jewish extraction. But the alliance availed
nothing. Hamath was taken by storm, part of its population transported
to Armenia, and their places taken by colonists from distant provinces
of the empire, while nineteen of the districts belonging to it were
annexed to Assyria. The kings of Syria now flocked to render homage and
offer tribute to the Assyrian conqueror. Among them we read the names of
Menahem of Samaria, Rezon of Syria, Hiram of Tyre, and Pisiris of
Carchemish. This was the occasion when, as we learn from 2 Kings xv. 19,
Menahem gave a thousand talents of silver to the Assyrian king Pul, the
name under which Tiglath-Pileser continued to be known in Babylonia,
and, as the Old Testament informs us, in Palestine also.
Three years later Ararat was again invaded. Van, the capital, was
blockaded, and though it successfully resisted the Assyrians, the
country was devastated far and near for a space of 450 miles. It was
long before the Armenians recovered from the blow, and for the next
century they ceased to be formidable to Assyria. Tiglath-Pileser's
northern frontier was now secure, and he therefore gladly seized the
opportunity of interfering in the affairs of the west which was offered
him by Ahaz, the Jewish king. Ahaz, whom the Assyrian inscriptions call
Jehoahaz, had been hard pressed by Rezon of Damascus and Pekah of
Israel, who had combined to overthrow the Davidic dynasty and place a
vassal prince, 'the son of Tabeal,' on the throne of Jerusalem. Ahaz in
his extremity called in the aid of Tiglath-Pileser, offering him a heavy
bribe and acknowledging his supremacy. Tiglath-Pileser accordingly
marched into Syria; Rezon was utterly defeated in battle and then
besieged in Damascus, to which he had escaped. Damascus was closely
invested; the trees in its neighbourhood were cut down; the districts
dependent on it were ravaged, and forces were despatched to punish the
Israelites, Ammonites, Moabites, and Philistines, who had been the
allies of Rezon, Gilead and Abel-beth-maachah being burnt, and the
tribes beyond the Jordan carried into captivity. The Philistine cities
were compelled to open their gates; the king of Ashkelon committed
suicide in order not to fall into the hands of the enemy, and Khanun of
Gaza fled to Egypt. At last in B.C. 732, after a siege of two years,
Damascus was forced by famine to surrender. Rezon was slain, Damascus
given over to plunder and ruin, and its inhabitants transported to Kir.
Syria became an Assyrian province, and all its princes were summoned to
do homage to the conqueror, while Tyre was fined 150 talents of gold, or
about £400,000. Among the princes who attended the levée or 'durbar' was
Ahaz, and it was while he was attending it that he saw the altar of
which he sent a pattern to Urijah the priest (2 Kings xvi. 10).
All that now remained for Tiglath-Pileser to do was to reduce Babylonia
as he had reduced Syria. In B.C. 731, accordingly, he marched again into
Chaldæa. Ukin-ziru, the Babylonian king, was slain, Babylon and other
great cities were taken, and in B.C. 729, under his original name of
Pul, Tiglath-Pileser assumed the title of 'king of Sumer (Shinar) and
Accad.'
He lived only two years after this, and died in B.C. 727, when the crown
was seized by Elulæos of Tinu, who took the name of Shalmaneser IV.
Shalmaneser's short reign was signalised by an unsuccessful attempt to
capture Tyre, and by the beginning of a war against the kingdom of
Israel. But the siege of Samaria was hardly commenced when Shalmaneser
died, or was murdered, in B.C. 722, and was succeeded by another usurper
who assumed the name of Sargon, one of the most famous of the early
Babylonian kings. Sargon in his inscriptions claims royal descent, but
the claim was probably without foundation. He proved to be an able
general, though his inscriptions show that he continued to the last to
be a rough but energetic soldier who had perhaps risen from the ranks.
Two years after his accession (B.C. 720) Samaria was taken and placed
under an Assyrian governor, 27,280 of its leading inhabitants being
carried captive to Gozan and Media. But Sargon soon found that the task
of cementing and completing the empire founded by Tiglath-Pileser was by
no means an easy one. Babylonia had broken away from Assyria on the news
of Shalmaneser's death, and had submitted itself to Merodach-Baladan the
hereditary chieftain of Beth-Yagina in the marshes on the coast of the
Persian Gulf. The southern portion of Sargon's dominions was threatened
by the ancient and powerful kingdom of Elam; the Kurdish tribes on the
east renewed their depredations; while the Hittite kingdom of Carchemish
still remained unsubdued, and the Syrian conquests could with difficulty
be retained. In fact, a new enemy appeared in this part of the empire in
the shape of Egypt.
Sargon's first act, therefore, was to drive the Elamites back to their
own country with considerable loss. He was then recalled to the west by
the revolt of Hamath, where Yahu-bihdi, or Ilu-bihdi, whose name perhaps
indicates his Jewish parentage, had proclaimed himself king, and
persuaded Arpad, Damascus, Samaria, and other cities to follow his
standard. But the revolt was of short duration. Hamath was burnt, 4,300
Assyrians being sent to occupy its ruins, and Yahu-bihdi was flayed
alive. Sargon next marched along the sea-coast to the cities of the
Philistines. There the Egyptian army was routed at Raphia, and its ally,
Khanun of Gaza, taken captive.
In B.C. 717 all was ready for dealing the final blow at the Hittite
power in Northern Syria. The rich trading city of Carchemish was
stormed, its last king, Pisiris, fell into the hands of the Assyrians,
and his Moschian allies were forced to retreat to the north. The plunder
of Carchemish brought eleven talents and thirty manehs of gold and 2,100
talents of silver into the treasury of Calah. It was henceforth placed
under an Assyrian satrap, who thus held in his hands the key of the high
road and the caravan trade between Eastern and Western Asia.
But Sargon was not allowed to retain possession of Carchemish without a
struggle. Its Hittite inhabitants found avengers in the allied
populations of the north, in Meshech and Tubal, in Ararat and Minni. The
struggle lasted for six years, but in the end Sargon prevailed. Van
submitted, its king Ursa, the leader of the coalition against Assyria,
committed suicide, Cilicia and the Tibareni or Tubal were placed under
an Assyrian governor, and the city of Malatiyeh was razed to the ground.
In B.C. 711, Sargon was at length free to turn his attention to the
west. Here affairs wore a threatening aspect. Merodach-Baladan,
foreseeing that his own turn would come as soon as Sargon had firmly
established his power in Northern Syria, had despatched ambassadors to
the Mediterranean states, urging them to combine with him against the
common foe. We read in the Bible of the arrival of the Babylonian
embassy in Jerusalem, and of the rebuke received by Hezekiah for his
vainglory in displaying to the strangers the resources of his kingdom.
In spite of Isaiah's warning, Hezekiah listened to the persuasions of
the Babylonian envoys, and encouraged by the promise of Egyptian support
along with Phœnicia, Moab, Edom, and the Philistines, determined to defy
the Assyrian king.
But before the confederates were ready to act in concert Sargon
descended upon Palestine. Phœnicia and Judah were overrun, Jerusalem was
captured, and Ashdod burnt, while the Egyptians made no attempt to help
their friends. This siege of Ashdod is the only occasion on which the
name of Sargon occurs in the Bible (Isaiah xx. 1). As soon as all source
of danger was removed in the west Sargon hurled his forces against
Babylonia. Merodach-Baladan had made every preparation to meet the
coming attack, and the Elamite king had engaged to help him. But the
Elamites were again compelled to fly before the warriors of Assyria, and
Sargon entered Babylon in triumph (B.C. 710). The following year he
pursued Merodach-Baladan to his ancestral stronghold in the marshes;
Beth-Yagina was taken by storm, and its unfortunate defenders were sent
in chains to Nineveh. Sargon was now at the height of his power. His
empire was a compact and consolidated whole, reaching from the
Mediterranean on the west to the mountains of Elam on the east, and his
solemn coronation at Babylon gave a title to his claim to be the
legitimate successor of the ancient Sargon of Accad. The old kingdoms of
Elam and Egypt alone remained to threaten the newly-founded empire,
which received the voluntary homage of the smaller states that lay
immediately beyond it. Thus the sacred island of Dilvun in the Persian
Gulf submitted itself to the terrible conqueror, and the Phœnicians of
Kition or Chittim in Cyprus erected a monumental record of his
supremacy.
Sargon's end was consonant with his whole career. He was murdered by his
soldiers in his new city of Dur-Sargon or Khorsabad, on the 12th of Ab
or July, B.C. 705, and was succeeded by his son Sennacherib. If we may
judge from Sennacherib's name, which means 'the Moon-god has increased
the brothers,' he would not have been Sargon's eldest son. In any case
he had been brought up in the purple, and displayed none of the rugged
virtues of his father. He was weak, boastful, and cruel, and preserved
his empire only by the help of the veterans and generals whom Sargon had
trained.
Merodach-Baladan had escaped from captivity, and two years after the
death of Sargon had once more possessed himself of Babylon. But a battle
at Kis drove him from the country nine months subsequently, and
Sennacherib was able to turn his attention to affairs in the west. In
B.C. 701, he marched into Phœnicia and Palestine, where Hezekiah of
Judah and some of the neighbouring kings had refused their tribute.
Tirhakah, the Ethiopian king of Egypt, had promised support to the
rebellious states, and Padi, the king of Ekron, who remained faithful to
the Assyrians, was carried in chains to Jerusalem. The Assyrian army
fell first upon Phœnicia. Great and Little Sidon, Sarepta, Acre, and
other towns, surrendered, Elulæos, the Sidonian monarch, fled to Cyprus,
and the kings of Arvad and Gebal offered homage. Metinti of Ashdod,
Pedael of Ammon, Chemosh-nadab of Moab, and Melech-ram of Edom, also
submitted. Then, says Sennacherib: 'Zedekiah, king of Ashkelon, who had
not submitted to my yoke, himself, the gods of the house of his fathers,
his wife, his sons, his daughters, and his brothers, the seed of the
house of his fathers, I removed, and I sent him to Syria. I set over the
men of Ashkelon Sarludari, the son of Rukipti, their former king, and I
imposed upon him the payment of tribute, and the homage due to my
majesty, and he became a vassal. In the course of my campaign I
approached and captured Beth-Dagon, Joppa, Bene-berak, and Azur, the
cities of Zedekiah, which did not submit at once to my yoke, and I
carried away their spoil. The priests, the chief men, and the common
people of Ekron who had thrown into chains their king Padi because he
was faithful to his oaths to Assyria, and had given him up to Hezekiah,
the Jew, who imprisoned him like an enemy in a dark dungeon, feared in
their hearts. The king of Egypt, the bowmen, the chariots, and the
horses of the king of Ethiopia, had gathered together innumerable
forces, and gone to their assistance. In sight of the town of Eltekeh
was their order of battle drawn up; they called their troops (to the
battle). Trusting in Assur, my lord, I fought with them and overthrew
them. My hands took the captains of the chariots, and the sons of the
king of Egypt, as well as the captains of the chariots of the king of
Ethiopia, alive in the midst of the battle. I approached and captured
the towns of Eltekeh and Timnath, and I carried away their spoil. I
marched against the city of Ekron, and put to death the priests and the
chief men who had committed the sin (of rebellion), and I hung up their
bodies on stakes all round the city. The citizens who had done wrong and
wickedness I counted as a spoil; as for the rest of them who had done no
sin or crime, in whom no fault was found, I proclaimed a free pardon. I
had Padi, their king, brought out from the midst of Jerusalem, and I
seated him on the throne of royalty over them, and I laid upon him the
tribute due to my majesty. But as for Hezekiah of Judah, who had not
submitted to my yoke, forty-six of his strong cities, together with
innumerable fortresses and small towns which depended on them, by
overthrowing the walls and open attack, by battle engines and
battering-rams, I besieged, I captured, I brought out from the midst of
them and counted as a spoil 200,150 persons, great and small, male and
female, horses, mules, asses, camels, oxen and sheep without number.
Hezekiah himself I shut up like a bird in a cage in Jerusalem, his royal
city. I built a line of forts against him, and I kept back his heel from
going forth out of the great gate of his city. I cut off his cities that
I had spoiled from the midst of his land, and gave them to Metinti, king
of Ashdod, Padi, king of Ekron, and Zil-baal, king of Gaza, and I made
his country small. In addition to their former tribute and yearly gifts,
I added other tribute, and the homage due to my majesty, and I laid it
upon them. The fear of the greatness of my majesty overwhelmed him, even
Hezekiah, and he sent after me to Nineveh, my royal city, by way of gift
and tribute, the Arabs and his body-guard whom he had brought for the
defence of Jerusalem, his royal city, and had furnished with pay, along
with thirty talents of gold, 800 talents of pure silver, carbuncles and
other precious stones, a couch of ivory, thrones of ivory, an elephant's
hide, an elephant's tusk, rare woods of various names, a vast treasure,
as well as the eunuchs of his palace, dancing-men and dancing-women; and
he sent his ambassador to offer homage.'
In this account of his campaign Sennacherib discreetly says nothing
about the disaster which befell his army in front of Jerusalem, and
which obliged him to return ignominiously to Assyria without attempting
to capture Jerusalem, and to deal with Hezekiah as it was his custom to
deal with other rebellious kings. The tribute offered by Hezekiah at
Lachish, when he vainly tried to buy off the threatened Assyrian attack,
is represented as having been the final result of a successful campaign.
There is, however, no exaggeration in the amount of silver Sennacherib
claims to have received, since 800 talents of silver are equivalent to
the 500 talents stated by the Bible to have been given, when reckoned
according to the standard of value in use at the time in Nineveh.
Sennacherib never recovered from the blow he had suffered in Judah. He
made no more expeditions against Palestine, and during the rest of his
reign Judah remained unmolested. Babylonia, moreover, gave him constant
trouble. In the year after his campaign in the west (B.C. 700) a
Chaldean, named Nergal-yusezib, stirred up a revolt which Sennacherib
had some difficulty in suppressing. Two years later he appointed his
eldest son, Assur-nadin-sumi, viceroy of Babylon. In B.C. 694, he
determined to attack the followers of Merodach-Baladan in their last
retreat at the mouth of the Eulæus, where land had been given to them by
the Elamite king after their expulsion from Babylonia. Ships were built
and manned by Phœnicians in the Persian Gulf, by means of which the
settlements of the Chaldean refugees were burnt and destroyed.
Meanwhile, however, Babylonia itself was invaded by the Elamites; the
Assyrian viceroy was carried into captivity, and Nergal-yusezib placed
on the throne of the country. He defeated the Assyrian forces in a
battle near Nipur, but died soon afterwards, and was followed by
Musezib-Merodach, who like his predecessor is called Suzub in
Sennacherib's inscriptions. He defied the Assyrian power for nearly four
years. But in B.C. 690 the combined Babylonian and Elamite army was
overthrown in the decisive battle of Khalule, and before another year
was past Sennacherib had captured Babylon, and given it up to fire and
sword. Its inhabitants were sold into slavery, and the waters of the
Araxes canal allowed to flow over its ruins. Sennacherib now assumed the
title of king of Babylonia, but with the exception of a campaign into
the Cilician mountains he seems to have undertaken no more military
expeditions. The latter years of his life were passed in constructing
canals and aqueducts, in embanking the Tigris, and in rebuilding the
palace of Nineveh on a new and sumptuous scale. On the 20th of Tebet, or
December, B.C. 681, he was murdered by his two elder sons, Adrammelech
and Nergal-sharezer, who were jealous of the favour shown to their
younger brother, Esar-haddon.
Esar-haddon was at the time conducting a campaign against Erimenas, king
of Armenia, to whom his insurgent brothers naturally fled. Between seven
and eight weeks after the murder of the old king, a battle was fought
near Malatiyeh, in Kappadokia, between the veterans of Esar-haddon and
the forces under his brothers and Erimenas, which ended in the complete
defeat of the latter. Esar-haddon was proclaimed king, and the event
proved that a wiser choice could not have been made.
His military genius was of the first order, but it was equalled by his
political tact. He was the only king of Assyria who endeavoured to
conciliate the nations he had conquered. Under him the fabric of the
Second Empire was completed by the conquest of Egypt. In the first year
of his reign he rebuilt Babylon, giving it back its captured deities,
its plunder, and its people. Henceforth Babylon became the second
capital of the empire, the court residing alternately there and at
Nineveh. It was while Esar-haddon was holding his winter court at
Babylon that Manasseh, of Judah, was brought to him as prisoner.[1]
[1] 2 Chr. xxxiii. 11.
The trade of Phœnicia was diverted into Assyrian hands by the
destruction of Sidon. The caravan-road from east to west was at the same
time rendered secure by an expedition into the heart of Northern Arabia.
Here Esar-haddon penetrated as far as the lands of Huz and Buz, 280
miles of the march being through a waterless desert. The feat has never
been excelled, and the terror it inspired among the Bedouin tribes was
not forgotten for many years. The northern frontiers of the kingdom were
also made safe by the defeat of Teispes, the Kimmerian, who was driven
westward with his hordes into Asia Minor. In the east the Assyrian
monarch was bold enough to occupy and work the copper-mines on the
distant borders of Media, the very name of which had scarcely been
heard of before. Westward, the kings of Cyprus paid homage to the great
conqueror, and among the princes who sent materials for his palace at
Nineveh were Cyprian rulers with Greek names.
But the principal achievement of Esar-haddon's reign was his conquest of
the ancient monarchy of Egypt. In B.C. 675 the Assyrian army started for
the banks of the Nile. Four years later Memphis was taken on the 22nd of
Tammuz, or June, and Tirhakah, the Egyptian king, compelled to fly first
to Thebes, and then into Ethiopia. Egypt was divided into twenty
satrapies, governed partly by Assyrians, partly by native princes, whose
conduct was watched by Assyrian garrisons. On his return to Assyria
Esar-haddon associated Assur-bani-pal, the eldest of his four sons, in
the government on the 12th of Iyyar, or April, B.C. 669, and died two
years afterwards (on the 12th of Marchesvan, or October), when again on
his way to Egypt. Assur-bani-pal, the Sardanapalos of the Greeks,
succeeded to the empire, his brother, Samas-sum-yukin, being entrusted
with the government of Babylonia.
Assur-bani-pal is probably the 'great and noble' Asnapper of Ezra iv.
10. He was luxurious, ambitious, and cruel, but a munificent patron of
literature. The libraries of Babylonia were ransacked for ancient texts,
and scribes were kept busily employed at Nineveh in inscribing new
editions of older works. But unlike his fathers, Assur-bani-pal refused
to face the hardships of a campaign. His armies were led by generals,
who were required to send despatches from time to time to the king. It
was evident that a purely military empire, like that of Assyria, could
not last long, when its ruler had himself ceased to take an active part
in military affairs. At first the veterans of his father preserved and
even extended the empire of Assur-bani-pal; but before his death it was
shattered irretrievably. It is characteristic of Assur-bani-pal that his
lion-hunts were mere _battues_, in which tame animals were released from
cages and lashed to make them run; in curious contrast to the lion-hunts
in the open field in which his warlike predecessors had delighted.
[Illustration: ASSUR-BANI-PAL AND HIS QUEEN.
(_From the original in the British Museum._)]
His first occupation was to crush a revolt in Egypt. Tirhakah was once
more driven out of the country, and Thebes, called Ni in the Assyrian
texts, and No-Amon, or 'No of the god Amun' in Scripture
|
the face, while the eyes are
directed to the statue. Behind Leontes stands a tall figure, costumed
in a black coat and knee breeches, white hose, knee and shoe buckles,
low shoes, waist encircled with a belt, a short cloak thrown over the
right shoulder. The other figures are costumed in a similar manner,
and stand between Leontes and the side of the stage, and are looking
intently at the statue.
Three more gentlemen, costumed in a similar style, occupy positions on
the opposite side of the stage, close to the wings. A profile view is
had of their figures, while their faces are turned towards the statue.
In front of this group stands a young man, with his arm placed around
the waist of a young lady who stands at his side, and in such a
position that we have almost a back view of them. The lady is costumed
in a white dress, cut low at the top, sleeves very short, skirt long,
so as to trail ten inches, ornamented with buff ribbon, which should
be placed on the bottom of the skirt, around the waist, on the top of
the waist, and on the sleeves. Her hair should hang loosely over the
shoulders, the head encircled with a string of feldspar or pearl
beads. The hands are clasped in front of her bosom, the body inclined
forward slightly, the eyes directed towards the statue. The gentleman
at her side stands erect. His costume consists of a dark coat,
ornamented around the bottom with silver paper, covered with black
lace, the sleeves and collar trimmed in the same mode, with an
addition of wide white lace cuffs and collar; the breeches are of
black cloth, with a band of silver, and buckle at the knee; white
hose, low shoes, with buckles, a wide belt around the waist, from
which is suspended a long, slim sword. The lights on each side of the
background, where the statue is placed, should be quite brilliant.
The foreground should receive the rays of light, which should be of
medium quantity, from the side of the stage where Leontes stands.
Music soft and plaintive.
VENUS RISING FROM THE SEA.
Then spoke the sovereign lady of the deep--
Spoke, and the waves and whispering leaves were still:
"Ever I rise before the eyes that weep,
When, born from sorrow, wisdom makes the will;
But few behold the shadow through the dark,
And few will dare the venture of the bark."
BULWER.
One Female Figure.
This tableau is represented by one beautiful lady, whose costume
consists of a flesh-colored dress, fitting tightly to the body, so as
to show the form of the person. The hair hangs loosely on the
shoulders and breast, and is ornamented with coral necklaces, while
the neck is adorned with pearls. To represent the sea, it will be
necessary to place, at intervals of two feet, (from wing to wing,)
strips of wood, beginning at the floor of the stage, near the front,
and rising gradually as they recede in the background, the last strip
being two feet from the floor of the stage. After these have been
arranged, lay strips of blue cambric across them; cover them entirely,
and between the bars of wood let the cambric festoon so as to
represent the appearance of waves. It will be necessary to fasten the
cambric with small tacks, to keep it in position, while the ridges of
the miniature waves should be painted white, to imitate foam. A trap
door should be cut in the centre of the stage, and a circle cut in the
centre of the cambric, to admit the body of Venus. The waves should
come up three inches above the hips, fitting closely around the body.
The water about the centre should be made white with foam. A platform
can be arranged below the stage for the performer to stand on, and
this can be made high or low, according to the height of the lady, by
the use of blocks of wood. The right hand of the figure is held above
the head. The left hand rests on the water. The countenance is lighted
up with smiles. Small particles of isinglass scattered on the waves
will make them glisten and sparkle, which will add to the effect,
while a green fire, burned for twenty seconds, and then changed to red
or bluish white, will give a fine shade to the scene. If the colored
fires are not used, the light should come from the front. Music, soft
and brilliant.
RECEPTION OF QUEEN VICTORIA AT CHERBOURG.
Sing, gladly sing!
Let voice and string
Our nation's guest proclaim.
She comes in peace,
Let discord cease,
And blow the trump of Fame!
ANON.
Ten Female and Twenty Male Figures.
It was in the fall of the year 1858, when the great naval arsenals,
magazines, and docks, at Cherbourg, were to be inaugurated; and
notwithstanding the admonition of the English press, which represented
the establishment of these works as a direct menace against Great
Britain, and, taken in connection with the constant increase of the
French navy, a proof of ultimate hostile designs on the part of the
emperor, Queen Victoria had accepted an invitation to be present on
this occasion. The day appropriated for the reception of the queen had
arrived. The weather was superb; the skies were blue, and the waters
of the channel were calm and placid. The shores and buildings, as far
as the eye could reach, were covered with cavalry, infantry,
artillery, and citizens. Every bosom in this mighty throng was glowing
with enthusiasm. The glittering eagles, the waving banners, the gleam
of polished helmets and cuirasses, the clash of arms, the
soul-stirring music from the martial bands, and the incessant bustle
and activity, presented a spectacle of military splendor which has
seldom been equalled. It was war's most brilliant pageant, without any
aspect of horror. The frigate La Bretagne, on which the banquet was to
take place, was decorated with signals and flags, and most prominent
were the national ensigns of France and England. A triumphal throne
was erected on the deck of the vessel, on which sat Louis Napoleon,
the empress, the officers and great dignitaries of the country,
interspersed with the ladies of honor. Salutes from the surrounding
forts and ships of war announced the arrival of the barge containing
the Queen of England, Prince Albert, and suite. They were received on
board the frigate by Napoleon, amid the salvos of artillery and
strains of martial music. "God save the Queen," and French national
airs, were played by the bands, and the nation's guest was addressed
by Napoleon, who, in proposing Victoria's health, said,--
"Facts prove that hostile passions, aided by a few unfortunate
incidents, did not succeed in altering either the friendship existing
between the two crowns, or the desire of the two nations to remain at
peace. He entertained the sincere hope that if attempts were made to
stir up the resentments and passions of another epoch, they would
break to pieces on common sense. Prince Albert responded, and
expressed the most friendly sentiments on behalf of the queen. He said
she was happy at having an opportunity, by her presence at Cherbourg,
of joining and endeavoring to strengthen as much as possible the bonds
of friendship between the nations--a friendship based on mutual
prosperity; and the blessing of Heaven would not be denied. He
concluded by proposing a toast--The emperor and empress."
The above scene is the one we propose to represent in tableau; and to
give a good effect to the piece, it will be necessary to have thirty
persons. The number can be increased if there is sufficient room. The
four principal characters are Queen Victoria, Prince Albert, Louis
Napoleon, and the Empress. In selecting the persons for these parts,
it will be well to choose those who are as near like the original as
possible. They should be persons of good figure, and of graceful and
easy manners. The sailors and military should be composed of young
lads; the rest of the performers consist of young ladies and
gentlemen. The stage should be arranged in the following manner: Two
tiers of seats should be arranged in a curved line from the right of
the stage, at the front, to the left of the stage, in the background.
The front seat is two feet, the second and back tier should be three
feet, in height, with a wide platform behind, of the same height,
capable of holding twenty persons. These seats should be covered with
a crimson cloth, and are intended to be occupied by Napoleon's suite.
In the centre of these seats should be placed a platform four feet
square and two feet high; on this place the throne chairs, and build a
flight of broad steps in front, covered with crimson, and decorated
with gold. The throne chairs should be made as showy as possible.
Common office chairs can be easily made to answer the purpose by
fastening to the backs pieces of boards one foot wide and four feet
high, and covering the fronts and top of the arms with pieces of board
four inches wide, decorating them with red turkey cloth, and bands of
gold paper. Place them close together, and insert a board decorated in
the same manner between the two, and ornament the top with a canopy of
Turkey cloth, trimmed with gold; on the top place a pointed gilt
crown. This kind of throne can be easily put together, and will be
easier to handle than one made in a more workmanlike manner. The
emperor and empress should be seated in the chairs. The platform is
intended for the military, while the seats should be filled with
dignitaries, officers, and ladies. The empress's costume consists of a
rich brocade, heavily ornamented with jewelry, gold or silver lace,
and any other decoration that will be appropriate, and will add to the
richness of the costume. A small crown should adorn the head, which
can be made showy by using paste pins of various sizes. The emperor's
costume consists of a blue velvet coat, ornamented with gold epaulets,
and trimmed with gold fringe, while the right breast is adorned with
the cross of the legion of honor. The breeches are of blue velvet,
trimmed with silver lace and knee buckles; the remainder of the
costume consists of military top boots, silk scarf of blue and red,
side arms and crown. At each side of the throne there should be one
body guard, fine-looking gentlemen, dressed in court costume, each
holding a long halberd. The rest of the gentlemen are costumed in
court dress and military suits; the ladies in as showy and rich
appearing costume as can be procured. The hair should be arranged to
suit the taste of the performers; the head should be adorned with a
band of gold, with a colored plume in front. The seats are to be
filled entirely with the ladies and gentlemen, and a few should stand
at the side and on the platform; careless and graceful attitudes
should be taken, and all eyes should be directed to the left of the
stage, where the barge is expected to arrive. The soldiers in the
background should be formed in platoon, and in such a manner that all
will be visible. The muskets should be held at the shoulder. Each
should be furnished with a large moustache, and should look directly
forward. The performers having all taken their positions, the cannon
will commence firing behind the scenes, and the curtain will rise on
the first part of the tableau; after exhibiting this part twice, a
piece of canvas, painted to represent water, should be spread in front
of the throne, while the rest of the scenery and performers should be
all ready, so that in five minutes after the first scene, the second
should appear. The barge should be made five feet in length, or,
rather, five feet of the barge should be seen; the remaining portion
of it is presumed to extend behind the scenes. It should be built in
the form of the Venetian boats, with the prow running up a foot above
the gunwale, and turning over in the form of a scroll. The barge can
be framed out of light strips of wood, and covered with canvas; the
exterior should be painted in showy colors; the scroll can be covered
with gold paper; a wreath of flowers should be painted around the edge
of the gunwale; cloth, painted to represent water, should be fastened
about the boat near the water line. The barge contains four sailors,
Prince Albert, and Queen Victoria. The remainder of the company is
imagined to be in the stern of the boat, which is invisible. The boat
should be placed sideways to the audience, very near to the side wing,
with the bow inclined slightly towards the throne. When the curtain
rises on the scene, the emperor should be standing at the foot of the
throne, about to assist the queen from the bows of the barge. The
queen is standing with hands extended to receive the proffered
assistance of Napoleon. Prince Albert is seated directly behind the
queen, holding his chapeau in his hand. The sailors hold their oars up
in the air, and look towards the audience. The queen's costume
consists of a showy brocade dress, ornamented with a mantle in
imitation of ermine, and showy jewelry; a crown, of English design,
adorns the head. Prince Albert is costumed in a scarlet military coat,
with heavy and rich decorations, gold epaulets, crimson sash, buff
vest and breeches, side arms and chapeau. Sailors' costume consists of
a white shirt, with blue collar and cuffs, black handkerchief about
the neck, and black tarpaulin. While the curtain is up, the band
should play "God save the Queen." This piece requires great quantity
of light, which should come from the side where the barge is placed,
and from the front.
SCENE FROM THE OPERA OF "SAPPHO."
The very spot where Sappho sung
Her swan-like music, ere she sprung
(Still holding, in that fearful leap,
By her loved lyre) into the deep,
And dying, quenched the fatal fire,
At once, of both her heart and lyre.
OPERA OF SAPPHO.
Eleven Female and Ten Male Figures.
This thrilling tableau is a representation of a scene from the popular
opera of Sappho. The design is taken at the moment when Sappho has
finished her first song, "Morning has never dawned," and the
attendants join in the chorus. The number of figures in the piece is
twenty-one, eleven ladies and ten gentlemen. The scenery in the
background and at the sides represent pillars of marble; these can be
cheaply made of strips of marble paper, with a cornice running around
the top; in the centre of the background is placed a platform two feet
high by four feet square; on each side of this are pedestals three
feet high by one and a half feet square, the fronts panelled with red
Turkey cloth, and bordered with gold paper; on the top of these should
be placed large earthen vases, painted to represent bronze, from the
mouth of which there should issue colored flames. From the right and
left sides of the platform to the front corners of the stage place the
chorus singers. The ladies stand on the left side; three are placed on
a platform one foot high, and standing in front of them, at equal
distances, are seven more. The gentlemen on the other side are
arranged in the same manner. Sappho, the heroine of the tableau,
stands on the platform between the two pedestals; the left hand rests
on the top of one of the pedestals, and the other is raised up at
arm's length. The head is thrown back slightly, and the eyes are
raised upward. The right foot is placed twenty inches in advance of
the left, the body facing the audience.
Sappho's costume is a long, white robe, cut low at the top, over which
is worn a short half skirt of white tarleton muslin, reaching to the
knee; sleeves five inches long, trimmed with Grecian border; the
lower portion of both of the skirts trimmed with black velvet two
inches wide, ornamented with gold paper and spangles; a wide band of
gold is placed around the top of the dress, and covered with wide
white lace. A band of wide black velvet ribbon, ornamented with showy
paste pins, encircles the waist, and a wreath of silver leaves adorns
the head. These can be cut from silver paper, lined with cloth, and
fastened to a small wire. The hair is arranged in wide braids at the
side of the head, clasped by a silver band at the back, and allowed to
hang in short curls in the neck.
The chorus ladies are costumed in white dresses, low-necked; sleeves
five inches long, trimmed with narrow pink ribbon, a bow of the same
at the top of the sleeves, fastened to the dress by a brilliant glass
pin; over the skirt of the dress should be worn a half skirt of white
tarleton muslin, which should be two feet long in front, and three
behind; this is belted about the waist with a pink ribbon, and trimmed
around the bottom with oak leaves. The hair of most of the ladies
should be arranged in curls, which should be confined together with a
band of silver, while three of the ladies must allow their hair to
fall loosely over the shoulders; wreaths of artificial flowers should
adorn the heads of all. The lady who stands near the corner of the
stage at the front should have in her left hand a torch, from which
issues colored flame, while the right hand is raised above the head,
the right foot placed twenty inches before the left, the body and head
thrown back, the eyes cast upward, and excitement should be expressed
in the countenance. (The torch can be made of wood, and covered with
silver paper.) Every other lady in the row of seven should hold a
torch, and take similar positions. Those standing near the
torch-bearers are costumed in the same manner, and hold small harps in
the left hand, while the right touches the strings. The body and head
are thrown back slightly, and the eyes cast upward. Those performers
standing near the platform should be elevated on small platforms of
various heights, so as to be distinctly seen. On the platform behind
the seven stand three other ladies, at equal distances from the front
corner of the stage to the pedestals. Their costume should be similar
to the others; position the same, while the hands are clasped in front
of the bosom, and the eyes are directed to the form of Sappho.
The ten gentlemen are costumed in white coats trimmed around the
bottom, the sleeves and collar with black cambric two inches in width,
and ornamented with gold; a black belt of the same material encircles
the waist; black pants or breeches; white hose reaching to the knee,
and fastened with a silver band and buckle; low shoes, with a blue
rosette on the front. A wide white mantle trimmed with oak leaves
should be worn across the breast, the ends ornamented with wide yellow
cambric fringe, which should be fastened at the side with a blue
rosette, and trail made nearly long enough to reach the floor. The
head is adorned with a wide band of velvet, ornamented with gold. The
performers should be furnished with long, full beards, which can be
made of hemp or horse-hair. The arrangement of the gentlemen is the
same as that of the ladies--seven placed on a line from the pedestal
to the corner of the stage, and three on the platform behind. The
front rank have the golden harps and the torches. The gentlemen on the
platform clasp their hands in the same manner as the ladies opposite.
The position of all the chorus singers is such that a profile view is
had of their features.
The front lights should be turned down quite low; the lights at the
side where the gentlemen stand should be very brilliant. A red fire
should be thrown on the platform and the figure of Sappho. Music
should be quite brilliant.
FLORA AND THE FAIRIES.
She haunts the spring beneath a fairy's guise,
With unbound golden hair and azure eyes;
A wreath of violets in each dainty hand,
And round her sunny brow an emerald band;
While all day long she strays o'er hill and glen,
Through leafy bowers, amid the homes of men;
And when night falls, from out the echoing dells,
The lilies ring for her their crystal bells,
And in the forest's depths she dreams till morn,
Waked by the music of the wild bee's horn.
LAIGHTON.
Eight Female Figures.
This elegant tableau represents Flora seated in a beautiful car drawn
by six fairies. The car is easily made of wood covered with paper or
cloth, and decorated with flowers. It should be five feet long, and
made in the form of a scroll, the largest part of which should be at
the back of the car. Cover the centre of the scroll which forms the
sides with crimson paper or cloth, ornamented with a border of gold
paper three inches wide, and a second border of artificial flowers.
Make the wheels of solid pieces of wood; the front ones, one foot in
diameter; the back ones, double the size; cover them with crimson
cloth, and ornament them with large gold stars; build a small seat at
the back end, and extend the floor of the car one foot out from the
back part, for the footman to stand on. The front of the car should be
built in the form of a scroll, and should sustain a small vase of
flowers on the top. Vases of similar shape, containing flowers, should
be placed on each side of the seat; a long rope, covered with crimson
cloth, should be attached to the front axletree. As only one side of
the car is visible, it will be necessary to decorate only one side. A
platform one foot high should be built on the front of the stage; a
second one, three feet from the first, which should be two feet high;
a third, in the rear of the second, should be three feet in height.
These must be covered with green bocking, to represent turf. Place the
car near the front of the stage, at the right corner; attach six
pieces of green ribbon to the crimson rope, for the fairies to take
hold of; six pink ribbons must be fastened to the waist of the
fairies, and held by Flora, who is seated in the car.
The young lady who personates Flora should be of good figure and
features, and rather small form. Her costume consists of a white robe,
cut low at the neck; sleeves five inches long, trimmed with flowers; a
belt of green cloth, adorned with artificial flowers, around the
waist; a crown, made in like manner, encircling the head; a small
bouquet of flowers fastened to the front of the waist. The hair is
arranged in short curls about the head; a side view is had of the
body, while the head is turned around to face the audience. The hands
are employed in holding the pink ribbons and whip, which is made of a
long, slender branch of the willow, with a few leaves on the extreme
end. The countenance expresses pleasure and animation.
Seven small misses personate the fairies, and their costume consists
of a short white dress, decorated with silver spangles. Strips of blue
ribbon, one inch wide, should be placed around the skirt, running from
the waist to the bottom of the skirt; these must be three inches
apart. The waist is made of blue silk, and trimmed with silver paper
and spangles. The hose are flesh color; shoes, white satin; the head
is encircled with a wreath of flowers; the hair should be arranged in
short curls, and small wings formed out of wire, covered with gauze,
and ornamented with silver spangles, are fastened to the back of the
waist. The fairies should stand in double files, one couple standing
on the first platform, one on the second, and one on the third; they
should be three feet apart, standing in the form of a half circle, so
that each will be seen. One hand should grasp the pink ribbon, while
the other is raised, holding a small bunch of flowers. The fairy
footman's costume is like the others, and the position is on the back
of the car, both hands upon the back of the seat, and at the same time
holding the ends of a long wreath, which arches over the head of
Flora.
The light should come from the side of the stage where the fairies
stand, where should be burned a small quantity of the whitish-blue
fire. Music lively.
THE SPECTRE BRIDE.
But, soft; behold! lo, where it comes again!
I'll cross it, though it blast me.--Stay, illusion!
If thou hast any sound, or use of voice,
Speak to me:
If there be any good thing to be done,
That may to thee do ease, and grace to me,
Speak to me;
If thou art privy to thy country's fate,
Which, happily foreknowing, may avoid,
O, speak!
Or, if thou hast uphoarded in thy life
Extorted treasures in the womb of earth,
For which, they say, you spirits oft walk in death,
Speak of it. Stay and speak!
SHAKSPEARE.
Twelve Female and Twelve Male Figures.
This interesting and imposing tableau is taken from a legend, which
has been handed down from generation to generation among the villagers
living in the neighborhood of Glenburne Castle, England. The story,
probably as authentic as many which are often heard of in those
districts, is as follows:--
Many years ago, that portion of the country where Glenburne Castle now
stands was owned and governed by an intriguing and overbearing lord.
He had a beautiful companion for a wife, who loved him too well; but
his affections wandered from her. He looked into a brighter eye, and
on a fairer brow. His wife pined away, lived miserably for years, and
died at last broken-hearted. Six months had passed, and great
preparations were being made in the old castle for a magnificent
wedding. The lords and nobles, within a circuit of five hundred miles,
were invited to participate in the festivities of the day. The halls
were hung with beautiful tapestry and garlands of flowers, and the
castle resounded with strains of sweet music, "and all went merry as a
marriage bell." But this finely-arranged entertainment did not end in
so pleasant a manner as was intended. The hour had arrived when the
lord of the castle was about to lead to the hymeneal altar the
bright-eyed lady he so long loved. The spacious and magnificent
drawing rooms were thronged with the wealthy and the beautiful; all
were attired in robes of silk and satin, and costumes of velvet, which
glistened with pearls and precious stones. A temporary platform was
placed at one end of the hall, on which was raised a crimson and gold
canopy. On the platform were to be seated the bride and bridegroom,
and the grand cardinal who was to perform the service. It was seven
o'clock in the evening; the guests had all arrived, and were seated
around the room awaiting the entrance of the lord and his intended
bride. Soon the castle resounded with the sound of trumpets. The
massive doors opened wide, and the grand cardinal, followed by the
bride and bridegroom, entered the apartment, and took their position
beneath the canopy. The marriage ceremony had been partly completed,
when all were suddenly petrified with horror. A bluish flame is seen
rising from the centre of the floor, and within this cloud of flame
the spirit form of the bridegroom's first wife slowly rises up through
the floor, and points her bony fingers to the horror-stricken husband.
The guests and attendants rush from the castle, and hasten to their
homes. The intended bride remained insensible for many hours, and when
she revived she was no more herself. The fearful scene had crushed out
forever the last spark of reason. She was a maniac. The lord of the
castle was left alone with his spectre bride, but not long. Forsaken
by every one, he cared not for life, and when death came, which was
not long after this occurrence, he welcomed him as his best friend.
Years have passed, but the mysterious story still hangs over the spot;
and at certain times of the year, it is said the apparition,
surrounded by a cloud of fire, keeps its midnight vigils among the
time-worn ruins.
The number of figures required to represent this tableau is
twenty-four. The stage scenery is arranged in the following manner: In
one corner of the background erect a platform two feet high by four
feet square; over this place a canopy of crimson cloth, ornamented
with gold paper. The platform should be decorated in the same manner.
Red shawls or table covers will answer all purposes. Extending from
each side of the stage to the platform, there should be two rows of
seats and a platform behind; the first row of seats is to be eighteen
inches high; the second three feet high, with a platform behind two
feet wide; the platform can be left out at the sides, which will give
more space in the centre of the stage. The seats and platforms can be
formed of boxes and boards and covered with white cloth. Ten ladies,
and the same number of gentlemen are to occupy the seats, while the
platform is reserved for the bridal party. A trap door, two and a half
feet square, should be cut out of the floor four feet from the front,
and at equal distances from each side of the stage. This must be made
secure, when not in use, by the means of bolts. The machinery for
raising the spectre is arranged in the following manner: Strong
blocks, such as are used on board of ships, should be securely
fastened beneath the stage, at the four corners of the square; ropes,
three quarters of an inch in diameter, should be passed through them,
and one end of each fastened to fifty-six pound weights; the other
ends of the ropes are to be fastened to rings attached to a platform
two and a half feet square. A piece of four inch joist should be
fastened near the centre of the platform, which should be three and a
half feet high; small handles, two feet long, should also be fastened
securely at the sides of the platform, on which the person who
personates the spectre will stand. When the time has arrived for the
spectre to appear in the tableau, two persons can easily guide the
platform from the floor to the stage above. All the gentlemen are
required to do, is to guide the platform; the heavy weights attached
to the ropes will draw it up. The post fastened in the centre is
intended for the lady to take hold of to keep her position; it should
be covered with white cloth, and hid from view by the drapery of the
costume of the spectre. The lady personating the spectre should take
her position on the platform in the same manner that she will appear
on the stage, which is such that a side view can be had of the figure,
the right hand pointing to the platform where the bridal party are
standing. The costume consists of a long white dress, worn without
many skirts, over which is draped a robe of white muslin; a long,
white gauze veil should be loosely tied around the head; the hair is
allowed to hang loosely over the shoulders. The face, and arms, and
neck must be made as white as possible by the use of pearl-powder. The
features should express sternness.
The bridegroom should be dressed in a velvet coat trimmed with gold
lace, velvet breeches, white vest, white hose, low shoes, knee and
shoe buckles, ruffled bosom, white lace collar. The bride should be
adorned in a showy dress of rich brocade or satin, decorated with
jewels; mantle of ermine worn over the shoulders; the hair arranged to
suit the taste of the performer, and encircled with a wreath of
silver leaves, while a heavy white veil is fastened to the back of the
head. The cardinal should have on a long black silk surplice, white
cravat, and a mitre hat on the head. The couple face the audience, the
cardinal standing directly behind them in the same position, with his
hands raised over their heads. The ladies, who occupy seats at each
side of the platform, should be costumed in as great a variety and as
richly appearing dresses as can be procured; bands of gold, ornamented
with colored plumes, are worn on the head.
Jewelry of all kinds should be worn in profusion. The gentlemen may be
costumed in embroidered and military suits of various colors; white
hose, knee and shoe buckles, breeches and side arms; each being
disguised with wigs and false beards. The ladies and gentlemen should
be intermingled, those in the foreground seated, while a portion of
the others are in a standing position. At each side of the platform
there should be a page, holding the chapeau and side arms of the
bridegroom. Their costume consists of short velvet coat trimmed with
gold, pink breeches, white hose, white shoes, silver shoe and knee
buckles, white silk scarf, lace collar and cuffs. The attention of the
guests and attendants should be directed to the group on the platform,
the expression of their countenances denoting pleasure and interest.
This constitutes the first scene, and ought to be exhibited three
times; after which, the performers will take positions for the second
scene.
The bride should be reclining insensible on the arm of the bridegroom;
the cardinal is about seeking safety in flight; the lord looks with
horror on the spectre, and throws out his arm as if he thought the
spectre was about to grasp him; portions of the guests have risen, and
are about to take flight; others are stupefied with affright; hands
and arms are thrown up in fear; consternation is depicted on every
face. When all is ready for representation, the stage manager must
give the signal to those in charge of the curtain, machinery below the
stage, and colored fires at the same moment, so that all will work in
unison. The whitish-blue fire should be burned in small quantities
near the trap door and larger quantities of the same in the
ante-rooms, which will reflect on the forms of the performers. The
curtain should be drawn up quite fast, while the spectre, starting at
the same time, should rise very slowly.
The lights for this piece should be opposite the platform, where the
bridal party stand; they must be very brilliant, and as many as can be
procured. The music in the first scene should be of a lively nature;
in the second scene, of a mournful style.
MUSIC, PAINTING, AND SCULPTURE.
O, there is nought so sweet
As lying and listening music from the hands,
And singing from the lips, of one we love--
Lips that all others should be turned to. Then
The world would all be love and song; heaven's harps
And orbs join in; the whole be harmony--
Distinct, yet blended--blending all in one
Long, delicious tremble, like a chord.
FESTUS.
The finger of God is the stamp upon them all, but each has its
separate variety.
Beauty, theme of innocence, how may guilt discourse thee?
Let holy angels sing thy praise, for man hath marred thy visage;
Still, the maimed torso of a Theseus can gladden taste with its
proportions.
Though sin hath shattered every limb, how comely are the fragments!
TUPPER.
Three Female Figures.
This artistic group is represented by three beautiful females, seated
on a mossy bank, each one holding the emblems of her profession. The
goddess of music holds a harp, on which she is playing; the goddess of
painting has a partially painted picture in the left hand, and a brush
and pallet in the right; the goddess of sculpture has a small bust in
her right hand--in her left she holds a small mallet and chisel. Their
costumes consist of a loose white robe, cut quite low at the top, and
without sleeves; a heavy mantle of white muslin is draped across the
breast; the hair should hang in ringlets, or be left
|
One difference is that it uses the same materials as nature herself.
In what is called "natural" gardening it uses them to produce effects
which under fortunate conditions nature might produce without
man's aid. Then, the better the result, the less likely it is to be
recognized as an artificial--artistic--result. The more perfectly the
artist attains his aim, the more likely we are to forget that he
has been at work. In "formal" gardening, on the other hand, nature's
materials are disposed and treated in frankly unnatural ways; and
then--as a more or less intelligent love for natural beauty is very
common to-day, and an intelligent eye for art is rare--the artist's
work is apt to be resented as an impertinence, denied its right to its
name, called a mere contorting and disfiguring of his materials.
Again, the landscape-gardener's art differs from all others in the
unstable character of its productions. When surfaces are modeled and
plants arranged, nature and the artist must work a long time together
before the true result appears; and when once it has revealed itself,
day to day attention will be forever needed to preserve it from the
deforming effects of time. It is easy to see how often neglect or
interference must work havoc with the best intentions, how often the
passage of years must travesty or destroy the best results, how rare
must be the cases in which a work of landscape art really does justice
to its creator.
Still another thing which affects popular recognition of the art as
such is our lack of clearly understood terms by which to speak of it
and of those who practice it. "Gardens" once meant pleasure-grounds of
every kind and "gardener" then had an adequately artistic sound. But
as the significance of the one term has been gradually specialized,
so the other has gradually come to denote a mere grower of plants.
"Landscape gardener" was a title first used by the artists of
the eighteenth century to mark the new tendency which they
represented--the search for "natural" as opposed to "formal" beauty;
and it seemed to them to need an apology as savoring, perhaps, of
grandiloquence or conceit. But as taste declined in England it was
assumed by men who had not the slightest right, judged either by their
aims or by their results, to be considered artists; and to-day it is
fallen into such disesteem that it is often replaced by "landscape
architect." This title has French usage to support it and is in many
respects a good one. But its correlative--"landscape architecture"--is
unsatisfactory; and so, on the other hand, is "landscape artist,"
though "landscape art" is an excellent generic term. Perhaps the best
we can do is to keep to "landscape gardener," and try to remember that
it ought always to mean an artist and an artist only.
_M. G. van Rensselaer._
Floriculture in the United States.
At the beginning of the present century, it is not probable that there
were 100 florists in the United States, and their combined green-house
structures could not have exceeded 50,000 square feet of glass. There
are now more than 10,000 florists distributed through every State and
Territory in the Union and estimating 5,000 square feet of glass to
each, the total area would be 50,000,000 feet, or about 1,000 acres
of green-houses. The value of the bare structures, with heating
apparatus, at 60 cents per square foot would be $30,000,000, while the
stock of plants grown in them would not be less than twice that sum.
The present rate of growth in the business is about 25% per annum,
which proves that it is keeping well abreast of our most flourishing
industries.
The business, too, is conducted by a better class of men. No longer
than thirty years ago it was rare to find any other than a foreigner
engaged in commercial floriculture. These men had usually been private
gardeners, who were mostly uneducated, and without business habits.
But to-day, the men of this calling compare favorably in intelligence
and business capacity with any mercantile class.
Floriculture has attained such importance that it has taken its place
as a regular branch of study in some of our agricultural colleges. Of
late years, too, scores of young men in all parts of the country have
been apprenticing themselves to the large establishments near the
cities, and already some of these have achieved a high standing; for
the training so received by a lad from sixteen to twenty, better
fits him for the business here than ten years of European experience,
because much of what is learned there would prove worse than
useless here. The English or German florist has here to contend with
unfamiliar conditions of climate and a manner of doing business that
is novel to him. Again he has been trained to more deliberate methods
of working, and when I told the story a few years ago of a workman who
had potted 10,000 cuttings in two inch pots in ten consecutive hours,
it was stigmatized in nearly every horticultural magazine in Europe
as a piece of American bragging. As a matter of fact this same workman
two years later, potted 11,500 plants in ten hours, and since then
several other workmen have potted plants at the rate of a thousand per
hour all day long.
Old world conservatism is slow to adopt improvements. The practice
of heating by low pressure steam will save in labor, coal and
construction one-fifth of the expense by old methods, and nearly all
the large green-house establishments in this country, whether private
or commercial, have been for some years furnished with the best
apparatus. But when visiting London, Edinburgh and Paris in 1885, I
neither saw nor heard of a single case where steam had been used for
green-house heating. The stress of competition here has developed
enterprise, encouraged invention and driven us to rapid and prudent
practice, so that while labor costs at least twice as much as it does
in Europe, our prices both at wholesale and retail, are lower. And
yet I am not aware that American florists complain that their profits
compare unfavorably with those of their brethren over the sea.
Commercial floriculture includes two distinct branches, one for the
production of flowers and the other for the production of plants.
During the past twenty years the growth in the flower department of
the business has outstripped the growth of the plant department. The
increase in the sale of Rosebuds in winter is especially noteworthy.
At the present time it is safe to say that one-third of the entire
glass structures in the United States are used for this purpose; many
large growers having from two to three acres in houses devoted to
Roses alone, such erections costing from $50,000 to $100,000 each,
according to the style in which they are built.
More cut flowers are used for decoration in the United States than in
any other country, and it is probable that there are more flowers sold
in New York than in London with a population four times as great. In
London and Paris, however, nearly every door-yard and window of city
and suburb show the householder's love for plants, while with us,
particularly in the vicinity of New York (Philadelphia and Boston
are better), the use of living plants for home decoration is far less
general.
There are fashions in flowers, and they continually change. Thirty
years ago thousands of Camellia flowers were retailed in the holiday
season for $1 each, while Rosebuds would not bring a dime. Now, many
of the fancy Roses sell at $1 each, while Camellia flowers go begging
at ten cents. The Chrysanthemum is now rivaling the Rose, as well
it may, and no doubt every decade will see the rise and fall of some
floral favorite. But beneath these flitting fancies is the substantial
and unchanging love of flowers that seems to be an original instinct
in man, and one that grows in strength with growing refinement.
Fashion may now and again condemn one flower or another, but the
fashion of neglecting flowers altogether will never prevail, and
we may safely look forward in the expectation of an ever increasing
interest and demand, steady improvement in methods of cultivation, and
to new and attractive developments in form, color and fragrance.
_Peter Henderson._
How to Make a Lawn.
"A smooth, closely shaven surface of grass is by far the most
essential element of beauty on the grounds of a suburban home." This
is the language of Mr. F. J. Scott, and it is equally true of other
than suburban grounds. A good lawn then is worth working for, and if
it have a substantial foundation, it will endure for generations, and
improve with age.
We take it for granted that the drainage is thorough, for no one would
build a dwelling on water soaked land. No labor should be spared in
making the soil deep, rich and fine in the full import of the
words, as this is the stock from which future dividends of joy and
satisfaction are to be drawn. Before grading, one should read that
chapter of Downing's on "The Beauty in Ground." This will warn against
terracing or leveling the whole surface, and insure a contour with
"gentle curves and undulations," which is essential to the best
effects.
If the novice has read much of the conflicting advice in books and
catalogues, he is probably in a state of bewilderment as to the
kind of seed to sow. And when that point is settled it is really a
difficult task to secure pure and living seeds of just such species as
one orders. Rarely does either seller or buyer know the grasses called
for, especially the finer and rarer sorts; and more rarely still does
either know their seeds. The only safe way is to have the seeds tested
by an expert. Mr. J. B. Olcott, in a racy article in the "Report of
the Connecticut Board of Agriculture for 1886," says, "Fifteen years
ago nice people were often sowing timothy, red top and clover for
door-yards, and failing wretchedly with lawn-making, while seedsmen
and gardeners even disputed the identity of our June grass and
Kentucky blue-grass."
We have passed beyond that stage of ignorance, however; and to the
question what shall we sow, Mr. Olcott replies: "Rhode Island bent and
Kentucky blue-grass are their foolish trade names, for they belong no
more to Kentucky or Rhode Island than to other Northern States. Two
sorts of fine _Agrostis_ are honestly sold under the trade name of
Rhode Island bent, and, as trade goes, we may consider ourselves
lucky if we get even the coarser one. The finest--a little the
finest--_Agrostis canina_--is a rather rare, valuable, and elegant
grass, which should be much better known by grass farmers, as well
as gardeners, than it is. These are both good lawn as well as pasture
grasses." The grass usually sold as Rhode Island bent is _Agrostis
vulgaris_, the smaller red top of the East and of Europe. This makes
an excellent lawn. _Agrostis canina_ has a short, slender, projecting
awn from one of the glumes; _Agrostis vulgaris_ lacks this projecting
awn. In neither case have we in mind what Michigan and New York people
call red top. This is a tall, coarse native grass often quite abundant
on low lands, botanically _Agrostis alba_.
Sow small red top or Rhode Island bent, and June grass (Kentucky blue
grass, if you prefer that name), _Poa pratensis_. If in the chaff, sow
in any proportion you fancy, and in any quantity up to four bushels
per acre. If evenly sown, less will answer, but the thicker it is sown
the sooner the ground will be covered with fine green grass. We can
add nothing else that will improve this mixture, and either alone is
about as good as both. A little white clover or sweet vernal grass
or sheep's fescue may be added, if you fancy them, but they will not
improve the appearance of the lawn. Roll the ground after seeding. Sow
the seeds in September or in March or April, and under no circumstance
yield to the advice to sow a little oats or rye to "protect the young
grass." Instead of protecting, they will rob the slender grasses of
what they most need.
Now wait a little. Do not be discouraged if some ugly weeds get the
start of the numerous green hairs which slowly follow. As soon as
there is any thing to be cut, of weeds or grass, mow closely, and mow
often, so that nothing need be raked from the ground. As Olcott puts
it, "Leave one crop where it belongs for home consumption. The rains
will wash the soluble substance of the wilted grass into the earth to
feed the growing roots." During succeeding summers as the years roll
on, the lawn should be perpetually enriched by the leaching of the
short leaves as they are often mown. Neither leave a very short growth
nor a very heavy growth for winter. Experience alone must guide the
owner. If cut too closely, some of it may be killed or start too late
in spring; if left too high during winter, the dead long grass will be
hard to cut in spring and leave the stubble unsightly. After passing
through one winter the annual weeds will have perished and leave the
grass to take the lead. Perennial weeds should be faithfully dug out
or destroyed in some way.
Every year, add a top dressing of some commercial fertilizer or a
little finely pulverized compost which may be brushed in. No one
will disfigure his front yard with coarse manure spread on the lawn
for five months of the year.
If well made, a lawn will be a perpetual delight as long as the
proprietor lives, but if the soil is thin and poor, or if the coarser
grasses and clovers are sown instead of those named, he will be much
perplexed, and will very likely try some expensive experiments, and
at last plow up, properly fit the land and begin over again. This will
make the cost and annoyance much greater than at first, because the
trees and shrubs have already filled many portions of the soil. A
small piece, well made and well kept, will give more satisfaction than
a larger plot of inferior turf.
_W. J. Beal._
Horticultural Exhibitions in London.
At a late meeting of the floral committee of the Royal Horticultural
Society at South Kensington among many novelties was a group of
seedling bulbous Calanthes from the garden of Sir Trevor Lawrence,
who has devoted much attention to these plants and has raised some
interesting hybrids. About twenty kinds were shown, ranging in
color from pure white to deep crimson. The only one selected for a
first-class certificate was _C. sanguinaria_, with flowers similar
in size and shape to those of _C. Veitchii_, but of an intensely deep
crimson. It is the finest yet raised, surpassing _C. Sedeni_, hitherto
unequaled for richness of color. The pick of all these seedlings would
be _C. sanguinaria_, _C. Veitchii splendens_, _C. lactea_, _C. nivea_,
and _C. porphyrea_. The adjectives well describe the different tints
of each, and they will be universally popular when once they find
their way into commerce.
CYPRIPEDIUM LEEANUM MACULATUM, also shown by Sir Trevor Lawrence, is a
novelty of sterling merit. The original _C. Leeanum_, which is a cross
between _C. Spicerianum_ and _C. insigne Maulei_, is very handsome,
but this variety eclipses it, the dorsal sepal of the flower being
quite two and one-half inches broad, almost entirely white, heavily
and copiously spotted with purple. It surpasses also _C. Leeanum
superbum_, which commands such high prices. I saw a small plant sold
at auction lately for fifteen guineas and the nursery price is much
higher.
LÆLIA ANCEPS SCHR[OE]DERÆ, is the latest addition to the now very
numerous list of varieties of the popular _L. anceps_. This new form,
to which the committee with one accord gave a first class certificate,
surpasses in my opinion all the colored varieties, with the possible
exception of the true old Barkeri. The flowers are of the average size
and ordinary form. The sepals are rose pink, the broad sepals very
light, almost white in fact, while the labellum is of the deepest
and richest velvety crimson imaginable. The golden tipped crest is a
veritable beauty spot, and the pale petals act like a foil to show off
the splendor of the lip.
TWO NEW FERNS of much promise received first class certificates. One
named _Pteris Claphamensis_ is a chance seedling and was found growing
among a lot of other sporelings in the garden of a London amateur. As
it partakes of the characters of both _P. tremula_ and _P. serrulata_,
old and well known ferns, it is supposed to be a natural cross between
these. The new plant is of tufted growth, with a dense mass of fronds
about six inches long, elegantly cut and gracefully recurved on all
sides of the pot. It is looked upon by specialists as just the sort
of plant that will take in the market. The other certificated fern,
_Adiantum Reginæ_, is a good deal like _A. Victoriæ_ and is supposed
to be a sport from it. But _A. Reginæ_, while it has broad pinnæ of a
rich emerald green like _A. Victoriæ_, has fronds from nine to twelve
inches long, giving it a lighter and more elegant appearance. I don't
know that the Victoria Maidenhair is grown in America yet, but I am
sure those who do floral decorating will welcome it as well as the
newer _A. Reginæ_. A third Maidenhair of a similar character is _A.
rhodophyllum_ and these form a trio that will become the standard
kinds for decorating. The young fronds of all three are of a beautiful
coppery red tint, the contrast of which with the emerald green of the
mature fronds is quite charming. They are warm green-house ferns and
of easy culture, and are supposed to be hybrid forms of the old _A.
scutum_.
_Nerine Mansellii_, a new variety of the Guernsey Lily, was one of
the loveliest flowers at the show. From the common Guernsey Lily it
differs only in color of the flowers. These have crimpled-edged petals
of clear rose tints; and the umbel of flowers is fully six inches
across, borne on a stalk eighteen inches high. These Guernsey Lilies
have of recent years come into prominence in English gardens since
so many beautiful varieties have been raised, and as they flower from
September onward to Christmas they are found to be indispensable
for the green-house, and indoor decoration. The old _N. Fothergillii
major_, with vivid scarlet-crimson flowers and crystalline cells in
the petals which sparkle in the sunlight like myriads of tiny rubies,
remains a favorite among amateurs. Baron Schroeder, who has the finest
collection in Europe, grows this one only in quantity. An entire house
is filled with them, and when hundreds of spikes are in bloom at once,
the display is singularly brilliant.
A NEW VEGETABLE, a Japanese plant called Choro-Gi, belonging to the
Sage family, was exhibited. Its botanical name is _Stachys tuberifera_
and it was introduced first to Europe by the Vilmorins of Paris under
the name of _Crosnes du Japon_. The edible part of the plant is
the tubers, which are produced in abundance on the tips of the wiry
fibrous roots. These are one and a half inches long, pointed at both
ends, and have prominent raised rings. When washed they are as white
as celery and when eaten raw taste somewhat like Jerusalem artichokes,
but when cooked are quite soft and possess the distinct flavor of
boiled chestnuts. A dish of these tubers when cooked look like a mass
of large caterpillars, but the Committee pronounced them excellent,
and no doubt this vegetable will now receive attention from some
of our enterprising seedsmen and may become a fashionable vegetable
because new and unlike any common kind. The tubers were shown now
for the first time in this country by Sir Henry Thompson, the eminent
surgeon. The plant is herbaceous, dying down annually leaving the
tubers, which multiply very rapidly. They can be dug at any time of
the year, which is an advantage. The plant is perfectly hardy here and
would no doubt be so in the United States, as it remains underground
in winter. [A figure of this plant with the tubers appeared in the
_Gardener's Chronicle_, January 7th, 1888.--ED.]
PHALÆNOPSIS F. L. AMES, a hybrid moth orchid, the result of
intercrossing _P. grandiflora_ of Lindley with _P. intermedia Portei_
(itself a natural hybrid between the little _P. rosea_ and _P.
amabilis_), was shown at a later exhibition. The new hybrid is very
beautiful. It has the same purplish green leaves as _P. amabalis_, but
much narrower. The flower spikes are produced in the same way as those
of _P. grandiflora_, and the flowers in form and size resemble those
of that species, but the coloring of the labellum is more like that
of its other parent. The sepals and petals are pure white, the
latter being broadest at the lips. The labellum resembles that of _P.
intermedia_, being three-lobed, the lateral lobes are erect, magenta
purple in color and freckled. The middle or triangular lobe is of the
same color as the lateral lobes, but pencilled with longitudinal lines
of crimson, flushed with orange, and with the terminal cirrhi of a
clear magenta. The column is pink, and the crest is adorned with
rosy speckles. The Floral Committee unanimously awarded a first-class
certificate of merit to the plant.
A NEW LÆLIA named _L. Gouldiana_ has had an eventful history. The
representative of Messrs. Sander, of St. Albans, the great orchid
importers, while traveling in America saw it blooming in New York,
in the collection of Messrs. Siebrecht & Wadley, and noting its
distinctness and beauty bought the stock of it. The same week another
new Lælia flowered in England and was sent up to one of the London
auction rooms for sale. As it so answered the description of the
American novelty which Messrs. Sander had just secured it was bought
for the St. Albans collection, and now it turns out that the English
novelty and the American novelty are one and the same thing, and a
comparison of dates shows that they flowered on the same day, although
in different hemispheres. As, however, it was first discovered in the
United States, it is intended to call it an American orchid, and that
is why Mr. Jay Gould has his name attached to it, In bulb and leaf the
novelty closely resembles _L. albida_, and in flower both _L. anceps_
and _L. autumnalis_. The flowers are as large as those of an average
form of _L. anceps_, the sepals are rather narrow, the petals as broad
as those of _L._ _anceps Dawsoni_, and both petals and sepals are of a
deep rose pink, intensified at the tips as if the color had collected
there and was dripping out. The tip is in form between that of _L.
anceps_ and _L. autumnalis_ and has the prominent ridges of the
latter, while the color is a rich purple crimson. The black viscid
pubescence, always seen on the ovary of _L. autumnalis_, is present on
that of _L. Gouldiana_. The plants I saw in the orchid nursery at St.
Albans lately, bore several spikes, some having three or four flowers.
Those who have seen it are puzzled about its origin, some considering
it a hybrid between _L. anceps_ and _L. autumnalis_, others consider
it a distinct species and to the latter opinion I am inclined.
Whatever its origin may be, it is certain we have a charming addition
to midwinter flowering orchids.
_W. Goldring._
London, February 1st.
[Illustration: Fig. 1.--Chrysanthemum--Mrs. Alpheus Hardy.]
A New Departure in Chrysanthemums.
The Chrysanthemum of which the figure gives a good representation is
one of a collection of some thirty varieties lately sent from Japan to
the lady for whom it has been named, Mrs. Alpheus Hardy of Boston, by
a young Japanese once a protégé of hers, but now returned as a teacher
to his native country. As may be seen, it is quite distinct from any
variety known in this country or Europe, and the Japanese botanist
Miyabe, who saw it at Cambridge, pronounces it a radical departure
from any with which he is acquainted.
The photograph from which the engraving was made was taken just as
the petals had begun to fall back from the centre, showing to good
advantage the peculiarities of the variety.
The flower is of pure white, with the firm, long and broad petals
strongly incurved at the extremities. Upon the back or outer surface
of this incurved portion will be found, in the form of quite prominent
hairs, the peculiarity which makes this variety unique.
[Illustration: Fig. 2.--Hair from Petal of Chrysanthemum, much
enlarged. _a_--resin drop. _b_--epidermis of petal with wavy cells.]
These hairs upon close examination are found to be a glandular
outgrowth of the epidermis of the petals, multi-cellular in structure
and with a minute drop of a yellow resinous substance at the tip.
The cells at first conform to the wavy character of those of the
epidermis, but gradually become prismatic with straight walls, as
shown in the engraving of one of the hairs, which was made from a
drawing furnished by Miss Grace Cooley, of the Department of Botany at
Wellesley College, who made a microscopic investigation of them.
This is one of those surprises that occasionally make their appearance
from Japan. Possibly it is a chance seedling; but since one or two
other specimens in the collection are striking in form, and others are
distinguished for depth and purity of color, it is more probable that
the best of them have been developed by careful selection.
This Chrysanthemum was exhibited at the Boston Chrysanthemum Show last
December by Edwin Fewkes & Son of Newton Highlands, Mass.
_A. H. Fewkes._
New Plants from Afghanistan.
ARNEBIA CORNUTA.--This is a charming novelty, an annual, native of
Afghanistan. The little seedling with lancet-like hairy, dark green
leaves, becomes presently a widely branching plant two feet in
diameter and one and one-half feet high. Each branch and branchlet
is terminated by a lengthening raceme of flowers. These are in form
somewhat like those of an autumnal Phlox, of a beautiful deep
golden yellow color, adorned and brightened up by five velvety black
blotches. These blotches soon become coffee brown and lose more
and more their color, until after three days they have entirely
disappeared. During several months the plant is very showy, the fading
flowers being constantly replaced by fresh expanding ones. Sown in
April in the open border, it needs no care but to be thinned out and
kept free from weeds. It must, however, have some soil which does not
contain fresh manure.
DELPHINIUM ZALIL.--This, also, is a native of Afghanistan, but its
character, whether a biennial or perennial, is not yet ascertained.
The Afghans call it Zalil and the plant or root is used for dyeing
purposes. Some years ago we only knew blue, white and purple
larkspurs, and then California added two species with scarlet flowers.
The above is of a beautiful sulphur yellow, and, all in all, it is a
plant of remarkable beauty. From a rosette of much and deeply divided
leaves, rises a branched flower stem to about two feet; each branch
and branchlet ending in a beautiful spike of flowers each of about an
inch across and the whole spike showing all its flowers open at once.
It is likely to become a first rate standard plant of our gardens. To
have it in flower the very first year it must be sown very early, say
in January, in seed pans, and transplanted later, when it will flower
from the end of May until the end of July. Moreover, it can be sown
during spring and summer in the open air to flower the following year.
It is quite hardy here.
_Max Leichtlin._
Baden-Baden.
Iris tenuis.[1]
This pretty delicate species of Iris, Fig. 3, is a native of the
Cascade Mountains of Northern Oregon. Its long branching rootstocks
are scarcely more than a line in thickness, sending up sterile leafy
shoots and slender stems about a foot high. The leaves are thin and
pale green, rather taller than the stems, sword-shaped and half an
inch broad or more. The leaves of the stem are bract-like and distant,
the upper one or two subtending slender peduncles. The spathes are
short, very thin and scarious, and enclose the bases of their rather
small solitary flowers, which are "white, lightly striped and blotched
with yellow and purple." The sepals and petals are oblong-spatulate,
from a short tube, the sepals spreading, the shorter petals erect and
notched.
The peculiar habitat of this species doubtless accounts in good
measure for its slender habit and mode of growth. Mr. L. F. Henderson,
of Portland, Oregon, who discovered it in 1881, near a branch of the
Clackamas River called Eagle Creek, about thirty miles from Portland,
reports it as growing in the fir forests in broad mats, its very long
rootstocks running along near the surface of the ground, just covered
by moss or partly decayed fir-needles, with a light addition of soil.
This also would indicate the need of special care and treatment in its
cultivation. In May, 1884, Mr. Henderson took great pains to procure
roots for the Botanic Garden at Cambridge, which were received in
good order, but which did not survive the next winter. If taken
up, however, later in the season or very early in the spring, it is
probable that with due attention to soil and shade there would be
little trouble in cultivating it successfully. The accompanying figure
is from a drawing by Mr. C. E. Faxon.
_Sereno Watson._
[Footnote 1: TENUIS. Watson, _Proc. Amer. Acad._, xvii, 380.
Rootstock elongated, very slender (a line thick); leaves thin,
ensiform, about equaling the stems, four to eight lines broad;
stems scarcely a foot high, 2 or 3-flowered, with two or three
bract-like leaves two or three inches long; lateral peduncles
very slender, as long as the bracts; spathes scarious, an
inch long; pedicels solitary, very short; flowers small, white
marked with yellow and purple; tube two or three lines long;
segments oblong-spatulate, the sepals spreading, one and
one-half inches long, the petals shorter and emarginate;
anthers as long as the filaments; styles with narrow entire
crests; capsule oblong-ovate, obtuse, nine lines long.]
Hardy Shrubs for Forcing.
Shrubs for forcing should consist of early blooming kinds only.
The plants should be stocky, young and healthy, well-budded and
well-ripened, and in order to have first-class stock they should be
grown expressly for forcing. For cut flower purposes only, we can lift
large plants of Lilacs, Snowballs, Deutzias, Mock oranges and the like
with all the ball of roots we can get to them and plant at once in
forcing-houses. But this should not be done before New Year's. We
should prepare for smaller plants some months ahead of forcing time.
say in the preceding April or August, by lifting them and planting in
small pots, tubs or boxes as can conveniently contain their roots, and
we should encourage them to root well before winter sets in. Keep them
out of doors and plunged till after the leaves drop off; then either
mulch them where they are or bring them into a pit, shed or cool
cellar, where there shall be no fear of their getting dry, or of
having the roots fastened in by frost. Introduce them into the
green-house in succession; into a cool green-house at first for a few
weeks, then as they begin to start, into a warmer one. From the time
they are brought into the green-house till the flowers begin to open
give a sprinkling overhead twice a day with tepid water. When they
have done blooming, if worth keeping over for another time, remove
them to a cool house and thus gradually harden them off, then plant
them out in the garden in May, and give them two years' rest.
Shrubs to be forced for their cut flowers only should consist of such
kinds as have flowers that look well and keep well after being cut.
Among these are _Deutzia gracilis_, common Lilacs of various colors,
_Staphyllea Colchica_, _Spiræa Cantonensis_ (_Reevesii_) single and
double, the Guelder Rose, the Japanese Snowball and _Azalea mollis_.
To these may be added some of the lovely double-flowering and Chinese
apples, whose snowy or crimson-tinted buds and leafy twigs are very
pretty. The several double-flowered forms of _Prunus triloba_ are also
desirable, but a healthy stock is hard to get. _Andromeda floribunda_
and _A. Japonica_ set their flower buds the previous summer for the
next year's flowers, and are, therefore, like the Laurestinus, easily
forced into bloom after New Year's. Hardy and half-hardy Rhododendrons
with very little forcing may be had in bloom from March.
In addition to the above, for conservatory decoration we may introduce
all manner of hardy shrubs. Double flowering peach and cherry
trees are easily forced and showy while they last. Clumps of _Pyrus
arbutifolia_ can easily be had in bloom in March, when their abundance
of deep green leaves is an additional charm to their profusion of
hawthorn-like flowers. The Chinese _Xanthoceras_ is extremely copious
and showy, but of brief duration and ill-fitted for cutting. Bushes of
yellow Broom and double-flowering golden Furze can easily be had after
January. _Jasminum nudiflorum_ may be had in bloom from November till
April, and Forsythia from January. They look well when trained up
to pillars. The early-flowering Clematises may be used to capital
advantage in the same way, from February onward. Although the Mahonias
flower well, their foliage at blooming time is not always comely.
Out-of-doors the American Red-bud makes a handsomer tree than does the
Japanese one; but the latter is preferable for green-house work, as
the flowers are bright and the smallest plants bloom. The Chinese
Wistaria blooms as well in the green-house as it does outside;
indeed, if we introduce some branches of an out-door plant into the
green-house, we can have it in bloom two months ahead of the balance
of the vine still left out-of-doors. Hereabout we grow Wistarias as
standards, and they bloom magnificently. What a sight a big standard
wistaria in the green-house in February would be! Among other shrubs
may be mentioned Shadbush, African Tamarix, Daphne of sorts and
Exochorda. We have also a good many barely hardy plants that may be
wintered well in a cellar or cold pit, and forced into
|
libel consisted of
two paragraphs in a petition to the Prince Regent, drafted by Mr.
Gourlay, approved of, printed and published by sixteen residents of
Niagara District, six of whom were magistrates. These paragraphs
contained a vivid but faithful picture of the abuses existing in the
Crown Lands Department, and it would probably have been difficult to
find a jury anywhere in Upper Canada, some members whereof had not had
personal experience of those abuses. Having failed in two attempts to
convict him of libel, Mr. Gourlay's foes hit on another and more
effectual method of accomplishing his destruction.
By a Provincial statute known as the Alien Act, passed in 1804,
authority was given to certain officials to issue a warrant for the
arrest of any person not having been an inhabitant of the Province for
the preceding six months, who had not taken the oath of allegiance, and
who had given reason for suspicion that he was "about to endeavour to
alienate the minds of His Majesty's subjects of this Province from his
person or government, or in anywise with a seditious intent to disturb
the tranquillity thereof." In case the person so arrested failed to
prove his innocence, he might be notified to depart this Province within
a specified time, and if he failed so to depart he was liable to be
imprisoned until he could be formally tried at the general jail
delivery. If found guilty, upon trial, he was to be adjudged by the
court to quit the Province, and if he still proved contumacious he was
to be deemed guilty of felony, and to suffer death as a felon, without
benefit of clergy. This statute, be it observed, was not passed at
Westminster during the supremacy of the Plantagenets or the Tudors, but
at York, Upper Canada, during the forty-fourth year of the reign of
George the Third. More than one eminent authority has pronounced it an
unconstitutional measure. There was, however, some show of justification
for it at the time of its enactment, for the Province was then overrun
by disloyal immigrants from Ireland and by republican immigrants from
across the borders, many of whom tried to stir up discontent among the
people, and were notoriously in favour of annexation to the United
States.[8] It was against such persons that the Act had been levelled,
and there had never been any question of attempting to apply it to
anyone else. Now, however, it was pressed into requisition in order to
compass the ruin of as loyal a subject as could have been found
throughout the wide expanse of the British Empire; who had resided in
Upper Canada for a continuous period of nearly eighteen months; who was
no more an alien than the King upon the throne; and whose only real
offence was that he would not stand calmly by while rapacious and
dishonest placemen carried on their nefarious practices without protest.
Among the various dignitaries authorized to put the law in motion, by
the issue of a warrant under the Act, were the members of the
Legislative and Executive Councils. William Dickson and William Claus,
as has been seen, were members of the former body; and as such they had
power over the liberty of anyone whose loyalty they thought fit to call
in question. Dickson was a connection by marriage of Mr. Gourlay, and
for some months after that gentleman's arrival in this Province had gone
heart and hand with him in his schemes of reform. For Mr. Dickson then
had a grievance of his own, arising out of the partial interdict of
immigration from the United States which had been adopted after the War
of 1812-15. He was the owner of an immense quantity of uncultivated
land in the Province, including the township of Dumfries already
mentioned, which he was desirous of selling to incoming settlers. The
shutting out of United States immigrants tended to retard the progress
of settlement and the sale of his property. His anger against the
Administration had been hot and bitter, and he had even gone so far as
to state publicly that he would rather live under the American than
under the British Government. But he had managed to induce the Assembly
to pass certain resolutions, recognizing the right of subjects of the
United States to settle in Upper Canada. The restrictions being relaxed,
his only cause of hostility to the Administration vanished, and he
ceased to clamour against it. His sympathy with Mr. Gourlay's projects
vanished into thin air. Those projects contemplated enquiry and reform.
Dickson, having accomplished his own ends, desired no further reform;
and as for enquiry, he had excellent reasons for burking it, as it would
probably lead to the disclosure of certain reprehensible transactions on
the part of himself and Claus, the Indian agent. He therefore presented
a sudden change of front, and, so far from continuing to act with Mr.
Gourlay, he became that unfortunate man's bitterest foe.
How far Dickson's enmity was stimulated by coöperation with the leaders
of the Compact party at York will probably never be known. That there
was something more than a merely tacit understanding that Mr. Gourlay
was to be got rid of is beyond question. But before any arrest could be
effected under the Act of 1804 it was necessary that perjured testimony
should be forthcoming. It was easily provided. On the 18th of December,
1818, a secret consultation took place between Dickson and one Isaac
Swayze, at the former's private abode. Swayze was a resident of the
Niagara District, and the representative of the Fourth Riding of Lincoln
in the Legislative Assembly, but was nevertheless a man of indifferent
character, and so illiterate as to be barely able to write his name.
During the Revolutionary War he had been a spy and "horse-provider" to
the loyalist troops. More recently he had been chiefly known as one of
the most bigoted and unprincipled of the Compact's minor satellites; a
hanger-on who was ever ready to undertake any disreputable work which
the Executive might have for him to do. He was a smooth-tongued
hypocrite, who made extravagant professions of zeal for religion when he
was in the society of religious people, but afterwards laughed at their
credulity for believing him. "When electioneering," said he, "I pray
with the Methodists." At other times he gained votes by threatening to
bring down upon the electors the vengeance of the Executive, who, he
averred, were specially desirous of having his services in the Assembly.
Corruption can always find apt tools to do its bidding.
"Where'er down Tiber garbage floats, the greedy pike ye see;
And wheresoe'er such lord is found, such client still will be."
Isaac Swayze was a veritable modern counterpart of the client Marcus,
and when he gained votes by holding his patrons _in terrorem_ over the
heads of the electors, he was merely echoing his ancient prototype:--
"I wait on Appius Claudius, I waited on his sire;
Let him who works the client wrong beware the patron's ire."
His employers knew their man, and that he would not stick at a trifle to
keep their favour. On the day after his secret interview with Dickson he
proved his subordination to authority by committing wilful and
deliberate perjury. He swore that Mr. Gourlay was an evil-minded and
seditious person, who was endeavouring to raise a rebellion against the
government of Upper Canada; that he, deponent, verily believed that said
Gourlay had not been an inhabitant of the Province for six months, and
had not taken the oath of allegiance.[9]
On the strength of this sworn statement, Mr. Gourlay was arrested under
the Alien Act of 1804, and carried before Dickson and Claus, both of
whom were specially and personally interested in putting him to silence.
The examination and hearing before them, which took place on the 21st of
December, was a transparent mockery of justice. Dickson, Claus and
Swayze, in common with nearly every one in Upper Canada, well knew that
their victim had been resident in the Province for nearly three times
the period specified in the Act. Dickson had been in constant and
familiar intercourse with him for sixteen months. Claus had known him
nearly as long. Swayze had conversed with him at York more than a year
before, and had been acquainted with his proceedings from month to
month--almost from week to week--during the entire interval. The charge
of being an evil-minded and seditious person was too absurd to be
seriously entertained for a moment by any one who knew Mr. Gourlay as
intimately as Dickson had done for more than eight years.[10] As for his
not having taken the oath of allegiance, it had never been required of
him, and he was both able and willing to take it with a clear and honest
conscience. But as matter of fact no one suspected his loyalty, and the
charge against him was the veriest pretext that malice could invent.
When he appeared before his judges, however, Messieurs Dickson and Claus
professed to be dissatisfied with his defence, and alleged that his
"words, actions, conduct and behaviour" had been such as to promote
disaffection. They accordingly adjudged that he should leave the
Province within ten days. A written order, signed by them, enjoining his
departure, was delivered to him. "To have obeyed this order," writes Mr.
Gourlay,[11] "would have proved ruinous to the business for which, at
great expense, and with much trouble, I had qualified myself. It would
have been a tacit acknowledgment of guilt, whereof I was unconscious. It
would have been a surrender of the noblest British right; it would have
been holding light my natural allegiance; it would have been a
declaration that the Bill of Rights was a Bill of Wrongs. I resolved to
endure any hardship rather than to submit voluntarily."
He paid a heavy penalty for his disobedience. On the 4th of January,
1819--the third day after the expiration of the period allowed him for
departure--Dickson and Claus issued an order of commitment, under which
he was arrested and lodged in Niagara jail, there to remain until the
next sitting of the Court of Oyer and Terminer. His pugnacity was by
this time fully aroused, and he determined to fight his ground inch by
inch. After some delay, he caused himself to be taken before Chief
Justice Powell, at York, under a writ of _habeas corpus_, for the
purpose of being either discharged from custody or admitted to bail. The
argument was heard on the 8th of February, when several persons of
wealth and good social position presented themselves, and offered to
become responsible to any amount for his appearance whenever called upon
to stand his trial. The attorney who argued the cause on behalf of the
prisoner presented three affidavits, made respectively by the Honourable
Robert Hamilton, Peter Hamilton, and the prisoner himself, who, in order
to render his position doubly unassailable, had meanwhile taken the oath
of allegiance. In the first affidavit it was deposed that Mr. Gourlay
had been domiciliated at Queenston for more than nine months, and that
the deponent verily believed him to be a natural-born subject of Great
Britain. By the second it appeared that deponent had known Mr. Gourlay
in Britain, where he was respected, esteemed, and taken to be a British
subject; "and that he is so"--thus ran the affidavit--"this deponent
verily believes is notoriously true in this district." The prisoner's
own affidavit set forth that he was a British subject; that he had taken
the oath of allegiance, and that he had been an inhabitant of Upper
Canada for more than a year prior to the date of the warrant first
issued against him. There could hardly have been a clearer case. But the
prisoner's enlargement at this time would have been a triumph for him,
and would have made him a popular idol, which would not have comported
with the policy of the Unholy Inquisition at the capital. He was
remanded to jail, the Chief Justice indorsing judgment on the writ to
the effect that the warrant of commitment appeared to be regular, and
that the Act under which it was issued made no provision for bail or
main-prize.
When Mr. Gourlay was first placed in durance at Niagara he was possessed
of robust health, a vigorous frame, a seemingly unconquerable will, and
a perfervid enthusiasm for the cause of truth and justice. But his
sufferings during the ensuing six months were of a nature well
calculated to sap the health of the most robust, to rack the frame of an
athlete, to tame the wildest enthusiasm, and to subjugate the strongest
will. When we read of what the gentle and erudite John Fisher or the
eloquent and upright Sir John Eliot underwent in the Tower for
conscience sake, the heart's blood within us is stirred with righteous
indignation. But we are calmed by the reflection that these things took
place centuries ago, and in a far-distant country. In the case of Robert
Gourlay we can lay no such flattering unction to our souls. His slow
crucifixion was accomplished in our own land, and at a time well
remembered by many persons now living among us. Some idea of what he
passed through may be derived from his own words already quoted. Further
light on the subject may be obtained from noting his demeanour when
placed on trial, as the reader will presently have an opportunity of
doing.
For some months after his incarceration his fine state of health and
exuberant animal spirits kept him from utterly breaking down. His whole
nature was up in arms at the wrongs he had sustained, and his pugnacity
asserted itself as far as his circumstances would admit of. He obtained
the opinions of eminent English lawyers as to the legal aspect of his
case. The unanimous opinion of counsel was that his imprisonment was
wholly unjustifiable. Sir Arthur Piggott was clear that Chief Justice
Powell should have discharged the prisoner when brought before him under
the writ of _habeas corpus_, and that Dickson and Claus were liable to
actions for false imprisonment. This opinion was acted upon, and
proceedings were instituted against the two last-named personages. But
the contest was too unequal. Each of the defendants obtained an order
for security for costs, which security the plaintiff, being in
confinement, and subject to various disabilities, was unable to furnish.
The actions accordingly lapsed, and Dickson and Claus thus escaped all
civil liability for their most reprehensible deeds.
The thread of the narrative may now be resumed pretty nearly where it
was dropped a few pages back. It was, as has been said, the 20th of
August--nearly a year subsequent to the Kingston trial[12]--when the
prisoner was finally placed in the dock to undergo the semblance,
without the reality, of a judicial investigation into his conduct. He
was himself firmly persuaded that the jury empanelled in his case was a
packed one. We have no means of knowing all the circumstances whereby he
was led to this conclusion, but the idea is not in itself inherently
improbable. In those days, and for long after, no man tried in Upper
Canada for anything savouring of radicalism in politics could hope to
receive fair play. In Gourlay's case there were one or two suspicious
features which, to say the least, require explanation. The custom
ordinarily adopted by the sheriff, in selecting jurymen, was to draw
them in rotation from the various townships in the district. "In my
case," says Mr. Gourlay, "it was said that he had varied his course; and
not this only, but, instead of drawing from a square space of country,
he chose a line of nearly twenty miles, along which it was well known
that there were the greatest number of people prejudiced and influenced
against me."[13] Mr. Gourlay further declares that it was observed by
people in court that in the glass containing the folded transcripts from
the jury-list some of the folded papers were distinctly set apart, so as
to admit of their being drawn, apparently with fairness, in the ordinary
manner. These papers so set apart from the rest, as Mr. Gourlay informs
his readers, were "caught hold of" as the twelve which should decide his
fate. The names of the jurors, which, so far as I am aware, have not
hitherto appeared in print, are worthy of preservation. They were
William Pew, John Grier, William Servos, James B. Jones, Ralfe M. Long,
David Bastedo, John C. Ball, John Milton, James Lundy, William Powers,
Peter M. Ball and John Holmes.
The personal appearance of the prisoner had undergone a woful change
during his confinement. Had his own wife seen him at that moment it is
doubtful whether she would have recognized her lord. Could it be
possible that that frail, tottering, wasted form, and that blanched,
sunken-eyed, imbecile-looking countenance were all that were left of the
once formidable Robert Gourlay? The sight was one which might have moved
his bitterest enemy to tears. His clothing, a world too wide for so
shrunken a tenant, hung sloppy and slovenly about him, and it was
remarked by a spectator that he had aged fully ten years during the six
months that had elapsed since his journey to York in the previous
February. His limbs seemed too weak to support him where he stood, and
as he leaned with his hands upon the rail in front of him his fingers
twitched nervously, while his whole frame visibly trembled. The saddest
change of all had been wrought in his once fine eyes. They were of light
grey, and their ordinary expression had been more sharp and piercing
than is commonly found in eyes of that colour. They had been clear and
keen, and expressive of an active, vigorous brain behind them. At
present they were wandering, weak and watery, altogether lacking in
lustre or expression. They told their sad tale with piteous brevity. The
brain was active and vigorous no longer, or, if still active, was so to
no definite purpose. The spark of reason was for the time quenched
within him. His oratory and his writings were no longer to be dreaded.
The man whose large presence had once carried about with it unmistakable
evidences of physical and mental power had been reduced to a physical
and mental wreck. No man in that closely-packed court-room was now more
harmless than he. The Compact had indeed set an indelible mark upon
him--a mark which he was to carry to his grave, for during the
forty-four years of life that remained to him he was never again the
Robert Gourlay of old, and was subject to periodical seasons of mental
aberration.
And yet, as he stood there trembling and distraught, with that sea of
faces turned upon him, he was not altogether without some glimmering of
reason. He was at least passively conscious, like one in a troubled
dream, of what was going on around him. He realized, in a misty, dazed
sort of fashion that he was on his trial; but, cudgel his memory how he
would, he could not recall the nature of his alleged offence. The fact
is that, though no stimulant had passed his lips, he was in a state that
can only be characterized as one of intoxication. We know, on undoubted
authority, that very emotional persons are sometimes intoxicated by a
plate of soup, and that invalids have become tipsy upon eating their
first beefsteak after convalescence. Mr. Gourlay was endowed with an
enthusiastic, exuberant nature, which required to be kept in subjection
by abundant exercise. Up to the time of his imprisonment he had led an
active out-of-door life, whereby the demon of nervousness within him had
been kept at bay. But long-continued confinement in a close cell,
deprivation of fresh air and suitable exercise, had hindered his
exuberance from finding vent. His mind had been thrown back upon
itself. He had not been permitted to confer with his friends, except
under such restrictions as made converse intolerable. He had been kept
in such a state of nervous tension that he had had no appetite, and had
eaten scarcely any food. His sleep had been broken by mental discomfort,
and he had sometimes lain the whole night through without a minute's
unconsciousness. What wonder that his flesh had sunk away from his
bones, and that his frame had lost its elasticity! For some hours every
day he had lain prostrate on the bed in his cell, in a state of
feebleness pitiful to behold, unable to speak or move, and hardly able
to breathe. "One morning," he writes, "while gasping for breath, I
besought the gaoler to let me have more air, by throwing up the window.
'You are no gentleman,' said he; 'you gave that letter[14] out of the
window, and I will come presently to nail it down.' Happily a friend
soon after called upon me, and through his interference the window was
put up. The brutal gaoler had never before been uncivil to me... but
there is a spirit throughout animal nature, brute and human, to oppress
in proportion as opportunity is safe, and the object defenceless. The
wounded stag, and the close prisoner of a Provincial Government,
experience similar treatment."[15]
The summer heat, as before mentioned, had been excessive. No rain had
fallen for weeks until just before the opening of the assizes, when
there had been three days of damp, cool weather. During these three days
the prisoner's strength had rallied wonderfully, and he had been able to
prepare a written defence, as well as a written protest against the
legality of his trial, in case of a hostile verdict. But the exertion
had been too much for him in his enfeebled condition, and, as though to
add to his miseries, the heat had become more intolerable than before.
He had not known how utterly his nerves were shattered until his case
had been called for trial, and he had been placed in the prisoners'
dock. Hot and stifling as was the air of the court-room, it was balm
itself when compared with the vitiated element which he had long been
forced to breathe. The stimulus was too great, and he was no longer
master of himself. To quote his own words, he became rampant with the
fresh air, and was reduced to imbecility at the very moment when he
specially needed strength, patience and recollection. Such was his
condition when Mr. Attorney-General rose from his seat and proceeded to
lay bare the prisoner's unspeakable enormities. It had been determined
that no attempt should be made to convict him of sedition, and that the
only charge to be pressed against him should be his refusal to leave the
Province. The indictment, however, was read and commented upon,
doubtless for the purpose of influencing the minds of the audience. It
charged, with wearisome iteration and reiteration, that he, the said
Robert Gourlay, being a seditious and ill-disposed person, and
contriving and maliciously intending the peace and tranquillity of our
lord the King within the Province of Upper Canada to disquiet and
disturb, and to excite discontent and sedition among his Majesty's liege
subjects of this Province--and so forth, and so forth, to the end of the
tedious and tautological chapter. The patriotic and disinterested
conduct of Dickson and Claus, in performing the imperative but
unpleasant duty of committing their personal friend to jail, lest he
should undermine the loyalty of the people, was commented upon with
periphrastic eloquence. When the official inquiry was put to the
prisoner: "How say you, Robert Gourlay, are you guilty or not guilty?"
he instinctively replied "Not guilty." Then came the next query: "Are
you ready for your trial?" Ready for his trial, indeed! when his
helpless condition was apparent to everybody who could catch a glimpse
of his tottering frame and his vacant, expressionless face. The
unmeaning sound which issued from his lips was taken for an affirmative,
and the farce of an impartial investigation proceeded with.
During the whole of these proceedings the prisoner stood like one amazed
and confounded; as one who gropes blindly in the dark for what he cannot
find. From the various hints scattered here and there throughout his
numerous writings, we are able to form some idea of what he underwent
during that trying ordeal. His imagination had been rendered more lively
by weakness and prostration of body, and he was so stimulated by the
change of air from his cell to the court-room that his sensations were
chiefly those of a vague and unreasoning delight--delight at the
prospect of freedom; delight at the prospect of once more enjoying the
luxury of heaven's sunlight unimpeded by the bars of a prison cell; of
running rampant through the land, and feeling upon his sunken cheeks the
deliciously invigorating air of the open fields. His high spirit had
been effectually tamed by that rigid, excruciating torture of close
confinement during the dog days, with no other companion than despair.
By this time personal liberty and fresh air seemed to him the only
things greatly to be desired. He was cognizant of a sensation of
thankfulness that his trial had come on at last, even though it should
result in his banishment. He rejoiced that he should even thus be set at
liberty from his horrible situation.[16] He longed to feel the tide of
human life ebbing and flowing around him, and to feel that he himself
was not a mere drone in the hive. During the progress of the trial,
though he was oblivious of most that was going on in the court-room,
memory and fancy were keenly alert, and he rapidly lived over again many
episodes of his past life. The dead and gone years rose up before him
like the scenes of a rapidly-shifting panorama, even as the past is said
to arise before the mental vision of those lying on beds of pain, just
before the great mystery of the grave is unfolded to their view.
Subjects and scenes long forgotten or seldom remembered presented
themselves. There was the little Fifeshire school, with its umbrageous
playground, where he had been a merry laughing lad, and where Dominie
Angus had given him his first taste of ferule and Fotherup. There was
the patched portrait of Cardinal Beaton, in St. Mary's College, at which
he and his friend John Dean had been wont to gaze with rapt admiration
in the old days left so far behind. There was that odd adventure among
the Mendip Hills, during his professional peregrination through
Somersetshire more than a dozen years before, and upon which he could
not remember that he had bestowed a single thought since his arrival in
Canada. There, too, was the drunken type-setter from Bristol, who had
taught him the technical marks to be used in making corrections for the
press, and whom he had neither seen nor thought of since the publication
of his pamphlet in which be had portrayed the sufferings of Bet Bennam
and Mary Bacon. Who shall say what other scenes, sad or mirthful,
presented themselves among his "thick-coming fancies"? Possibly he
recalled the high hopes of his boyhood, when he thirsted to better the
condition of the poor, and was almost persuaded that he had been sent
into the world expressly to guard their interests against the exactions
of grasping landlords. Visions, too, may have arisen before him of his
beautiful Wiltshire farm, where the modest daisies peeped above the
grass, and the joyous lark sang from the meadow; where he had once been
so happy in the companionship of his fond wife and little ones, who at
this moment waited in longing expectation for tidings from the absent
husband and father. Perchance also he called to mind, at that crisis,
his little dead daughter, who had blossomed and faded among the green
glades of Wily, and over whose grave the parson of the parish had
refused to read the services of the Church.[17] The poor babe had died
unchristened, and under such circumstances the rubric forbade the
solemnization of funeral rites.
From all such musings he was recalled by the voice of Chief Justice
Powell, demanding if he had aught to say ere the sentence of the court
should be pronounced upon him. The sentence of the court! For the best
part of two hours he had been wool-gathering, and the words beat upon
his brain without arousing any just appreciation of their significance.
He now once more awoke to the fact that he was on his trial, but he
could not grasp the potentialities of his situation, nor could he for
the life of him recall the precise nature of the offence with which he
had been charged. He did, however, realize that the jury had returned a
verdict to the effect that he had been guilty of refusing to leave the
Province, pursuant to the order served upon him. By a desperate effort
he managed to rally his senses sufficiently to remember that he had been
accused of being a seditious person, though whether the accusation had
been made yesterday, or the day before, or half a century ago, he was
wholly unaware. Turning towards the jury-box, he enquired of the nearest
occupant whether he had been found guilty of sedition. Suddenly it
flashed across him that he had prepared a defence, together with a
written protest against the anticipated verdict. But by no mental
exertion of which he was capable could he remember what he had done
with the defence, nor could he call to mind the word "protest," although
at that moment he had the written one in his pocket. After a moment's
struggle to remember what he wished to say, he found himself hopelessly
befogged, and abandoned the attempt. Then, to the amazement of all who
heard him, he burst out into a loud, strident peal of unmeaning,
maniacal laughter--laughter which had no spice of merriment in it, and
which was a mere spontaneous effort of nature to relieve the strain upon
the shattered nerves. Bench, bar, jury and spectators stared aghast. Such
laughter sounded not only incongruous, but sinister, ominous. It was
suggestive of the expiring wail of a lost soul. It was more eloquent
than any mere words could have been, and spoke with most miraculous
organ. Over more than one heart there crept a sort of premonition that a
dread reckoning must sometime arrive for that day's work: that Eternal
Justice would sooner or later exact a fit penalty for the cruel
perversion of right which was then and there being consummated. It would
be interesting to know what, at that particular moment, were the
innermost sensations of William Dickson and William Claus, both of whom
sat within a few feet of their victim, and both of whom had repeatedly
received offices of kindness at his hands.
Strange to say, the miserable man's memory was merely suspended, and he
afterwards recalled with much clearness the thoughts and reflections
which passed through his mind during that delirium of more than two
hours. He even remembered the senseless bray of laughter which, to the
sympathetic mind, is not the least impressive feature of that iniquitous
trial. His overwrought nerves being temporarily relieved by the
cachinnation, he regained for a few minutes some measure of composure
and sanity. With the return of reason came a returning sense of
injustice and oppression. He made a brief but ineffectual attempt to
argue the matter with the Chief Justice, who informed him that the facts
had been dealt with by the jury, and that he could be permitted to speak
only on questions of law. The sentence of the Court was then pronounced.
It was to the effect that the prisoner must quit the Province within
twenty-four hours. He was reminded of the risk he would run in the event
of his presuming to disobey, or to return to Upper Canada after his
departure therefrom. He would be liable, according to the words of the
Act of 1804, to suffer death as a felon, without benefit of clergy. The
Chief Justice finally proceeded to read him a severe lecture upon his
past course since his arrival in Canada, and furthermore to give him
some excellent advice. He informed him that in this country the law is
supreme; that no man can be permitted to run counter to it with
impunity; that those who administer the law should be no respecters of
persons; that justice is even-handed, and metes out impartially to the
poor man and the rich. He advised him to turn his great abilities to
practical account, whereby he would no doubt win happiness and
distinction. "Perhaps," says George Eliot, "some of the most terrible
irony of the human lot is to hear a deep truth uttered by lips that have
no right to it." Poor Gourlay was conscious of some feeling of this sort
when he heard such truths proclaimed from such lips. To his
morbidly-sensitive nature, such irony seemed an aggravation of all he
had endured. To think that, after such experiences as had fallen to his
share, a Family Compact judge should gravely inform him that in Upper
Canada the administrators of the law should be no respecters of persons!
that justice is even-handed! To think that such an one should presume to
advise him to become practical, with a view to wealth and happiness! It
was like the adulterous woman who, on eloping with her paramour, wrote
to her husband enjoining him to be virtuous if he would be happy. The
incongruity struck the prisoner so forcibly that for a moment he was on
the verge of another explosion of sardonic laughter. Before leaving the
dock he made one last attempt to draw attention to the treatment he had
sustained while in prison. By way of heightening the effect of his
narration, he informed the Court that his letters had been suppressed by
the sheriff:[18] that while his enemies had been allowed to fill the
newspapers with lying diatribes against him, and to prejudice the public
mind in view of his impending trial, his own letters to the Niagara
_Spectator_ had been rigidly withheld from the light of day, and this
by official interference. Chief Justice Powell put the cap-sheaf upon
the pinnacle of absurdity by informing him that if he chose he might
prosecute the sheriff. Prosecute the sheriff! when he had just been
sentenced by the Chief Justice himself to leave the Province within
twenty-four hours, and when he was liable to the last penalty of the law
in case of his return to prosecute!
The trial was ended, and--blissful thought!--for the ensuing twenty-four
hours he was free to come and go whithersoever he would. He was taken in
charge by his friends the Hamiltons, and spent the night in their house
at Queenston. Next day--Saturday, the 21st of August--he obeyed the
mandate of the law, and shook from his feet the parched dust of Upper
Canadian soil. His mental condition was far from satisfactory, but he
would brook no interference with his actions, even from his best
friends. The feeling uppermost in his bosom was a delicious sense of
being at large, with no one to shut the cell door upon him, or otherwise
to control his actions. He felt like one recalled to life. The unhappy
man was well aware that his brain was weak, but he also knew that he was
not what is ordinarily understood as insane. Like Baldassarre, he
carried within him that piteous stamp of sanity, the clear consciousness
of shattered faculties. His feebleness was as patent to himself as to
others. He knew that he was the mere wreck of what he had once been, and
he knew further that his mental and bodily ruin was due to the triumph
of tyranny and injustice. Still, he was, for the moment, happy. There
was sunshine in his heart, and gladness in his eye. Having crossed the
Niagara river, he knew that he was beyond the material grasp of those
whose baneful shadow was nevertheless destined to darken the rest of his
life. "I thanked God," he writes, several years afterwards, "as I set my
first foot on the American shore, that I trod on a land of freedom. The
flow of animal spirits carried me along for more than two miles in
triumphant disgust. It carried me beyond my strength, till, staggering
by the side of the road, I sunk down, almost lifeless, among the bushes,
and awoke from my dream to a state of sensibility and horror past all
power of description. If at my trial, and so long after it, I was
callous to feeling; if
|
I conceived
the idea that the time when the banns were read and when the clergyman
said, “Ye are now to declare it!” would be the time for me to rise and
propose a private conference in the vestry. I am far from being sure
that I might not have astonished our small congregation by resorting to
this extreme measure, but for its being Christmas Day and no Sunday.
Mr. Wopsle, the clerk at church, was to dine with us; and Mr. Hubble
the wheelwright and Mrs. Hubble; and Uncle Pumblechook (Joe’s uncle,
but Mrs. Joe appropriated him), who was a well-to-do cornchandler in
the nearest town, and drove his own chaise-cart. The dinner hour was
half-past one. When Joe and I got home, we found the table laid, and
Mrs. Joe dressed, and the dinner dressing, and the front door unlocked
(it never was at any other time) for the company to enter by, and
everything most splendid. And still, not a word of the robbery.
The time came, without bringing with it any relief to my feelings, and
the company came. Mr. Wopsle, united to a Roman nose and a large
shining bald forehead, had a deep voice which he was uncommonly proud
of; indeed it was understood among his acquaintance that if you could
only give him his head, he would read the clergyman into fits; he
himself confessed that if the Church was “thrown open,” meaning to
competition, he would not despair of making his mark in it. The Church
not being “thrown open,” he was, as I have said, our clerk. But he
punished the Amens tremendously; and when he gave out the psalm,—always
giving the whole verse,—he looked all round the congregation first, as
much as to say, “You have heard my friend overhead; oblige me with your
opinion of this style!”
I opened the door to the company,—making believe that it was a habit of
ours to open that door,—and I opened it first to Mr. Wopsle, next to
Mr. and Mrs. Hubble, and last of all to Uncle Pumblechook. N.B. _I_ was
not allowed to call him uncle, under the severest penalties.
“Mrs. Joe,” said Uncle Pumblechook, a large hard-breathing middle-aged
slow man, with a mouth like a fish, dull staring eyes, and sandy hair
standing upright on his head, so that he looked as if he had just been
all but choked, and had that moment come to, “I have brought you as the
compliments of the season—I have brought you, Mum, a bottle of sherry
wine—and I have brought you, Mum, a bottle of port wine.”
Every Christmas Day he presented himself, as a profound novelty, with
exactly the same words, and carrying the two bottles like dumb-bells.
Every Christmas Day, Mrs. Joe replied, as she now replied, “O, Un—cle
Pum-ble—chook! This _is_ kind!” Every Christmas Day, he retorted, as he
now retorted, “It’s no more than your merits. And now are you all
bobbish, and how’s Sixpennorth of halfpence?” meaning me.
We dined on these occasions in the kitchen, and adjourned, for the nuts
and oranges and apples to the parlour; which was a change very like
Joe’s change from his working-clothes to his Sunday dress. My sister
was uncommonly lively on the present occasion, and indeed was generally
more gracious in the society of Mrs. Hubble than in other company. I
remember Mrs. Hubble as a little curly sharp-edged person in sky-blue,
who held a conventionally juvenile position, because she had married
Mr. Hubble,—I don’t know at what remote period,—when she was much
younger than he. I remember Mr Hubble as a tough, high-shouldered,
stooping old man, of a sawdusty fragrance, with his legs
extraordinarily wide apart: so that in my short days I always saw some
miles of open country between them when I met him coming up the lane.
Among this good company I should have felt myself, even if I hadn’t
robbed the pantry, in a false position. Not because I was squeezed in
at an acute angle of the tablecloth, with the table in my chest, and
the Pumblechookian elbow in my eye, nor because I was not allowed to
speak (I didn’t want to speak), nor because I was regaled with the
scaly tips of the drumsticks of the fowls, and with those obscure
corners of pork of which the pig, when living, had had the least reason
to be vain. No; I should not have minded that, if they would only have
left me alone. But they wouldn’t leave me alone. They seemed to think
the opportunity lost, if they failed to point the conversation at me,
every now and then, and stick the point into me. I might have been an
unfortunate little bull in a Spanish arena, I got so smartingly touched
up by these moral goads.
It began the moment we sat down to dinner. Mr. Wopsle said grace with
theatrical declamation,—as it now appears to me, something like a
religious cross of the Ghost in Hamlet with Richard the Third,—and
ended with the very proper aspiration that we might be truly grateful.
Upon which my sister fixed me with her eye, and said, in a low
reproachful voice, “Do you hear that? Be grateful.”
“Especially,” said Mr. Pumblechook, “be grateful, boy, to them which
brought you up by hand.”
Mrs. Hubble shook her head, and contemplating me with a mournful
presentiment that I should come to no good, asked, “Why is it that the
young are never grateful?” This moral mystery seemed too much for the
company until Mr. Hubble tersely solved it by saying, “Naterally
wicious.” Everybody then murmured “True!” and looked at me in a
particularly unpleasant and personal manner.
Joe’s station and influence were something feebler (if possible) when
there was company than when there was none. But he always aided and
comforted me when he could, in some way of his own, and he always did
so at dinner-time by giving me gravy, if there were any. There being
plenty of gravy to-day, Joe spooned into my plate, at this point, about
half a pint.
A little later on in the dinner, Mr. Wopsle reviewed the sermon with
some severity, and intimated—in the usual hypothetical case of the
Church being “thrown open”—what kind of sermon _he_ would have given
them. After favouring them with some heads of that discourse, he
remarked that he considered the subject of the day’s homily, ill
chosen; which was the less excusable, he added, when there were so many
subjects “going about.”
“True again,” said Uncle Pumblechook. “You’ve hit it, sir! Plenty of
subjects going about, for them that know how to put salt upon their
tails. That’s what’s wanted. A man needn’t go far to find a subject, if
he’s ready with his salt-box.” Mr. Pumblechook added, after a short
interval of reflection, “Look at Pork alone. There’s a subject! If you
want a subject, look at Pork!”
“True, sir. Many a moral for the young,” returned Mr. Wopsle,—and I
knew he was going to lug me in, before he said it; “might be deduced
from that text.”
(“You listen to this,” said my sister to me, in a severe parenthesis.)
Joe gave me some more gravy.
“Swine,” pursued Mr. Wopsle, in his deepest voice, and pointing his
fork at my blushes, as if he were mentioning my Christian name,—“swine
were the companions of the prodigal. The gluttony of Swine is put
before us, as an example to the young.” (I thought this pretty well in
him who had been praising up the pork for being so plump and juicy.)
“What is detestable in a pig is more detestable in a boy.”
“Or girl,” suggested Mr. Hubble.
“Of course, or girl, Mr. Hubble,” assented Mr. Wopsle, rather
irritably, “but there is no girl present.”
“Besides,” said Mr. Pumblechook, turning sharp on me, “think what
you’ve got to be grateful for. If you’d been born a Squeaker—”
“He _was_, if ever a child was,” said my sister, most emphatically.
Joe gave me some more gravy.
“Well, but I mean a four-footed Squeaker,” said Mr. Pumblechook. “If
you had been born such, would you have been here now? Not you—”
“Unless in that form,” said Mr. Wopsle, nodding towards the dish.
“But I don’t mean in that form, sir,” returned Mr. Pumblechook, who had
an objection to being interrupted; “I mean, enjoying himself with his
elders and betters, and improving himself with their conversation, and
rolling in the lap of luxury. Would he have been doing that? No, he
wouldn’t. And what would have been your destination?” turning on me
again. “You would have been disposed of for so many shillings according
to the market price of the article, and Dunstable the butcher would
have come up to you as you lay in your straw, and he would have whipped
you under his left arm, and with his right he would have tucked up his
frock to get a penknife from out of his waistcoat-pocket, and he would
have shed your blood and had your life. No bringing up by hand then.
Not a bit of it!”
Joe offered me more gravy, which I was afraid to take.
“He was a world of trouble to you, ma’am,” said Mrs. Hubble,
commiserating my sister.
“Trouble?” echoed my sister; “trouble?” and then entered on a fearful
catalogue of all the illnesses I had been guilty of, and all the acts
of sleeplessness I had committed, and all the high places I had tumbled
from, and all the low places I had tumbled into, and all the injuries I
had done myself, and all the times she had wished me in my grave, and I
had contumaciously refused to go there.
I think the Romans must have aggravated one another very much, with
their noses. Perhaps, they became the restless people they were, in
consequence. Anyhow, Mr. Wopsle’s Roman nose so aggravated me, during
the recital of my misdemeanours, that I should have liked to pull it
until he howled. But, all I had endured up to this time was nothing in
comparison with the awful feelings that took possession of me when the
pause was broken which ensued upon my sister’s recital, and in which
pause everybody had looked at me (as I felt painfully conscious) with
indignation and abhorrence.
“Yet,” said Mr. Pumblechook, leading the company gently back to the
theme from which they had strayed, “Pork—regarded as biled—is rich,
too; ain’t it?”
“Have a little brandy, uncle,” said my sister.
O Heavens, it had come at last! He would find it was weak, he would say
it was weak, and I was lost! I held tight to the leg of the table under
the cloth, with both hands, and awaited my fate.
My sister went for the stone bottle, came back with the stone bottle,
and poured his brandy out: no one else taking any. The wretched man
trifled with his glass,—took it up, looked at it through the light, put
it down,—prolonged my misery. All this time Mrs. Joe and Joe were
briskly clearing the table for the pie and pudding.
I couldn’t keep my eyes off him. Always holding tight by the leg of the
table with my hands and feet, I saw the miserable creature finger his
glass playfully, take it up, smile, throw his head back, and drink the
brandy off. Instantly afterwards, the company were seized with
unspeakable consternation, owing to his springing to his feet, turning
round several times in an appalling spasmodic whooping-cough dance, and
rushing out at the door; he then became visible through the window,
violently plunging and expectorating, making the most hideous faces,
and apparently out of his mind.
I held on tight, while Mrs. Joe and Joe ran to him. I didn’t know how I
had done it, but I had no doubt I had murdered him somehow. In my
dreadful situation, it was a relief when he was brought back, and
surveying the company all round as if _they_ had disagreed with him,
sank down into his chair with the one significant gasp, “Tar!”
I had filled up the bottle from the tar-water jug. I knew he would be
worse by and by. I moved the table, like a Medium of the present day,
by the vigor of my unseen hold upon it.
“Tar!” cried my sister, in amazement. “Why, how ever could Tar come
there?”
But, Uncle Pumblechook, who was omnipotent in that kitchen, wouldn’t
hear the word, wouldn’t hear of the subject, imperiously waved it all
away with his hand, and asked for hot gin and water. My sister, who had
begun to be alarmingly meditative, had to employ herself actively in
getting the gin, the hot water, the sugar, and the lemon-peel, and
mixing them. For the time being at least, I was saved. I still held on
to the leg of the table, but clutched it now with the fervor of
gratitude.
By degrees, I became calm enough to release my grasp and partake of
pudding. Mr. Pumblechook partook of pudding. All partook of pudding.
The course terminated, and Mr. Pumblechook had begun to beam under the
genial influence of gin and water. I began to think I should get over
the day, when my sister said to Joe, “Clean plates,—cold.”
I clutched the leg of the table again immediately, and pressed it to my
bosom as if it had been the companion of my youth and friend of my
soul. I foresaw what was coming, and I felt that this time I really was
gone.
“You must taste,” said my sister, addressing the guests with her best
grace—“you must taste, to finish with, such a delightful and delicious
present of Uncle Pumblechook’s!”
Must they! Let them not hope to taste it!
“You must know,” said my sister, rising, “it’s a pie; a savory pork
pie.”
The company murmured their compliments. Uncle Pumblechook, sensible of
having deserved well of his fellow-creatures, said,—quite vivaciously,
all things considered,—“Well, Mrs. Joe, we’ll do our best endeavours;
let us have a cut at this same pie.”
My sister went out to get it. I heard her steps proceed to the pantry.
I saw Mr. Pumblechook balance his knife. I saw reawakening appetite in
the Roman nostrils of Mr. Wopsle. I heard Mr. Hubble remark that “a bit
of savory pork pie would lay atop of anything you could mention, and do
no harm,” and I heard Joe say, “You shall have some, Pip.” I have never
been absolutely certain whether I uttered a shrill yell of terror,
merely in spirit, or in the bodily hearing of the company. I felt that
I could bear no more, and that I must run away. I released the leg of
the table, and ran for my life.
But I ran no farther than the house door, for there I ran head-foremost
into a party of soldiers with their muskets, one of whom held out a
pair of handcuffs to me, saying, “Here you are, look sharp, come on!”
Chapter V.
The apparition of a file of soldiers ringing down the but-ends of their
loaded muskets on our door-step, caused the dinner-party to rise from
table in confusion, and caused Mrs. Joe re-entering the kitchen
empty-handed, to stop short and stare, in her wondering lament of
“Gracious goodness gracious me, what’s gone—with the—pie!”
The sergeant and I were in the kitchen when Mrs. Joe stood staring; at
which crisis I partially recovered the use of my senses. It was the
sergeant who had spoken to me, and he was now looking round at the
company, with his handcuffs invitingly extended towards them in his
right hand, and his left on my shoulder.
“Excuse me, ladies and gentleman,” said the sergeant, “but as I have
mentioned at the door to this smart young shaver,” (which he hadn’t),
“I am on a chase in the name of the king, and I want the blacksmith.”
“And pray what might you want with _him_?” retorted my sister, quick to
resent his being wanted at all.
“Missis,” returned the gallant sergeant, “speaking for myself, I should
reply, the honour and pleasure of his fine wife’s acquaintance;
speaking for the king, I answer, a little job done.”
This was received as rather neat in the sergeant; insomuch that Mr.
Pumblechook cried audibly, “Good again!”
“You see, blacksmith,” said the sergeant, who had by this time picked
out Joe with his eye, “we have had an accident with these, and I find
the lock of one of ’em goes wrong, and the coupling don’t act pretty.
As they are wanted for immediate service, will you throw your eye over
them?”
Joe threw his eye over them, and pronounced that the job would
necessitate the lighting of his forge fire, and would take nearer two
hours than one. “Will it? Then will you set about it at once,
blacksmith?” said the off-hand sergeant, “as it’s on his Majesty’s
service. And if my men can bear a hand anywhere, they’ll make
themselves useful.” With that, he called to his men, who came trooping
into the kitchen one after another, and piled their arms in a corner.
And then they stood about, as soldiers do; now, with their hands
loosely clasped before them; now, resting a knee or a shoulder; now,
easing a belt or a pouch; now, opening the door to spit stiffly over
their high stocks, out into the yard.
All these things I saw without then knowing that I saw them, for I was
in an agony of apprehension. But beginning to perceive that the
handcuffs were not for me, and that the military had so far got the
better of the pie as to put it in the background, I collected a little
more of my scattered wits.
“Would you give me the time?” said the sergeant, addressing himself to
Mr. Pumblechook, as to a man whose appreciative powers justified the
inference that he was equal to the time.
“It’s just gone half past two.”
“That’s not so bad,” said the sergeant, reflecting; “even if I was
forced to halt here nigh two hours, that’ll do. How far might you call
yourselves from the marshes, hereabouts? Not above a mile, I reckon?”
“Just a mile,” said Mrs. Joe.
“That’ll do. We begin to close in upon ’em about dusk. A little before
dusk, my orders are. That’ll do.”
“Convicts, sergeant?” asked Mr. Wopsle, in a matter-of-course way.
“Ay!” returned the sergeant, “two. They’re pretty well known to be out
on the marshes still, and they won’t try to get clear of ’em before
dusk. Anybody here seen anything of any such game?”
Everybody, myself excepted, said no, with confidence. Nobody thought of
me.
“Well!” said the sergeant, “they’ll find themselves trapped in a
circle, I expect, sooner than they count on. Now, blacksmith! If you’re
ready, his Majesty the King is.”
Joe had got his coat and waistcoat and cravat off, and his leather
apron on, and passed into the forge. One of the soldiers opened its
wooden windows, another lighted the fire, another turned to at the
bellows, the rest stood round the blaze, which was soon roaring. Then
Joe began to hammer and clink, hammer and clink, and we all looked on.
The interest of the impending pursuit not only absorbed the general
attention, but even made my sister liberal. She drew a pitcher of beer
from the cask for the soldiers, and invited the sergeant to take a
glass of brandy. But Mr. Pumblechook said, sharply, “Give him wine,
Mum. I’ll engage there’s no tar in that:” so, the sergeant thanked him
and said that as he preferred his drink without tar, he would take
wine, if it was equally convenient. When it was given him, he drank his
Majesty’s health and compliments of the season, and took it all at a
mouthful and smacked his lips.
“Good stuff, eh, sergeant?” said Mr. Pumblechook.
“I’ll tell you something,” returned the sergeant; “I suspect that
stuff’s of _your_ providing.”
Mr. Pumblechook, with a fat sort of laugh, said, “Ay, ay? Why?”
“Because,” returned the sergeant, clapping him on the shoulder, “you’re
a man that knows what’s what.”
“D’ye think so?” said Mr. Pumblechook, with his former laugh. “Have
another glass!”
“With you. Hob and nob,” returned the sergeant. “The top of mine to the
foot of yours,—the foot of yours to the top of mine,—Ring once, ring
twice,—the best tune on the Musical Glasses! Your health. May you live
a thousand years, and never be a worse judge of the right sort than you
are at the present moment of your life!”
The sergeant tossed off his glass again and seemed quite ready for
another glass. I noticed that Mr. Pumblechook in his hospitality
appeared to forget that he had made a present of the wine, but took the
bottle from Mrs. Joe and had all the credit of handing it about in a
gush of joviality. Even I got some. And he was so very free of the wine
that he even called for the other bottle, and handed that about with
the same liberality, when the first was gone.
As I watched them while they all stood clustering about the forge,
enjoying themselves so much, I thought what terrible good sauce for a
dinner my fugitive friend on the marshes was. They had not enjoyed
themselves a quarter so much, before the entertainment was brightened
with the excitement he furnished. And now, when they were all in lively
anticipation of “the two villains” being taken, and when the bellows
seemed to roar for the fugitives, the fire to flare for them, the smoke
to hurry away in pursuit of them, Joe to hammer and clink for them, and
all the murky shadows on the wall to shake at them in menace as the
blaze rose and sank, and the red-hot sparks dropped and died, the pale
afternoon outside almost seemed in my pitying young fancy to have
turned pale on their account, poor wretches.
At last, Joe’s job was done, and the ringing and roaring stopped. As
Joe got on his coat, he mustered courage to propose that some of us
should go down with the soldiers and see what came of the hunt. Mr.
Pumblechook and Mr. Hubble declined, on the plea of a pipe and ladies’
society; but Mr. Wopsle said he would go, if Joe would. Joe said he was
agreeable, and would take me, if Mrs. Joe approved. We never should
have got leave to go, I am sure, but for Mrs. Joe’s curiosity to know
all about it and how it ended. As it was, she merely stipulated, “If
you bring the boy back with his head blown to bits by a musket, don’t
look to me to put it together again.”
The sergeant took a polite leave of the ladies, and parted from Mr.
Pumblechook as from a comrade; though I doubt if he were quite as fully
sensible of that gentleman’s merits under arid conditions, as when
something moist was going. His men resumed their muskets and fell in.
Mr. Wopsle, Joe, and I, received strict charge to keep in the rear, and
to speak no word after we reached the marshes. When we were all out in
the raw air and were steadily moving towards our business, I
treasonably whispered to Joe, “I hope, Joe, we shan’t find them.” and
Joe whispered to me, “I’d give a shilling if they had cut and run,
Pip.”
We were joined by no stragglers from the village, for the weather was
cold and threatening, the way dreary, the footing bad, darkness coming
on, and the people had good fires in-doors and were keeping the day. A
few faces hurried to glowing windows and looked after us, but none came
out. We passed the finger-post, and held straight on to the churchyard.
There we were stopped a few minutes by a signal from the sergeant’s
hand, while two or three of his men dispersed themselves among the
graves, and also examined the porch. They came in again without finding
anything, and then we struck out on the open marshes, through the gate
at the side of the churchyard. A bitter sleet came rattling against us
here on the east wind, and Joe took me on his back.
Now that we were out upon the dismal wilderness where they little
thought I had been within eight or nine hours and had seen both men
hiding, I considered for the first time, with great dread, if we should
come upon them, would my particular convict suppose that it was I who
had brought the soldiers there? He had asked me if I was a deceiving
imp, and he had said I should be a fierce young hound if I joined the
hunt against him. Would he believe that I was both imp and hound in
treacherous earnest, and had betrayed him?
It was of no use asking myself this question now. There I was, on Joe’s
back, and there was Joe beneath me, charging at the ditches like a
hunter, and stimulating Mr. Wopsle not to tumble on his Roman nose, and
to keep up with us. The soldiers were in front of us, extending into a
pretty wide line with an interval between man and man. We were taking
the course I had begun with, and from which I had diverged in the mist.
Either the mist was not out again yet, or the wind had dispelled it.
Under the low red glare of sunset, the beacon, and the gibbet, and the
mound of the Battery, and the opposite shore of the river, were plain,
though all of a watery lead colour.
With my heart thumping like a blacksmith at Joe’s broad shoulder, I
looked all about for any sign of the convicts. I could see none, I
could hear none. Mr. Wopsle had greatly alarmed me more than once, by
his blowing and hard breathing; but I knew the sounds by this time, and
could dissociate them from the object of pursuit. I got a dreadful
start, when I thought I heard the file still going; but it was only a
sheep-bell. The sheep stopped in their eating and looked timidly at us;
and the cattle, their heads turned from the wind and sleet, stared
angrily as if they held us responsible for both annoyances; but, except
these things, and the shudder of the dying day in every blade of grass,
there was no break in the bleak stillness of the marshes.
The soldiers were moving on in the direction of the old Battery, and we
were moving on a little way behind them, when, all of a sudden, we all
stopped. For there had reached us on the wings of the wind and rain, a
long shout. It was repeated. It was at a distance towards the east, but
it was long and loud. Nay, there seemed to be two or more shouts raised
together,—if one might judge from a confusion in the sound.
To this effect the sergeant and the nearest men were speaking under
their breath, when Joe and I came up. After another moment’s listening,
Joe (who was a good judge) agreed, and Mr. Wopsle (who was a bad judge)
agreed. The sergeant, a decisive man, ordered that the sound should not
be answered, but that the course should be changed, and that his men
should make towards it “at the double.” So we slanted to the right
(where the East was), and Joe pounded away so wonderfully, that I had
to hold on tight to keep my seat.
It was a run indeed now, and what Joe called, in the only two words he
spoke all the time, “a Winder.” Down banks and up banks, and over
gates, and splashing into dikes, and breaking among coarse rushes: no
man cared where he went. As we came nearer to the shouting, it became
more and more apparent that it was made by more than one voice.
Sometimes, it seemed to stop altogether, and then the soldiers stopped.
When it broke out again, the soldiers made for it at a greater rate
than ever, and we after them. After a while, we had so run it down,
that we could hear one voice calling “Murder!” and another voice,
“Convicts! Runaways! Guard! This way for the runaway convicts!” Then
both voices would seem to be stifled in a struggle, and then would
break out again. And when it had come to this, the soldiers ran like
deer, and Joe too.
The sergeant ran in first, when we had run the noise quite down, and
two of his men ran in close upon him. Their pieces were cocked and
levelled when we all ran in.
“Here are both men!” panted the sergeant, struggling at the bottom of a
ditch. “Surrender, you two! and confound you for two wild beasts! Come
asunder!”
Water was splashing, and mud was flying, and oaths were being sworn,
and blows were being struck, when some more men went down into the
ditch to help the sergeant, and dragged out, separately, my convict and
the other one. Both were bleeding and panting and execrating and
struggling; but of course I knew them both directly.
“Mind!” said my convict, wiping blood from his face with his ragged
sleeves, and shaking torn hair from his fingers: “_I_ took him! _I_
give him up to you! Mind that!”
“It’s not much to be particular about,” said the sergeant; “it’ll do
you small good, my man, being in the same plight yourself. Handcuffs
there!”
“I don’t expect it to do me any good. I don’t want it to do me more
good than it does now,” said my convict, with a greedy laugh. “I took
him. He knows it. That’s enough for me.”
The other convict was livid to look at, and, in addition to the old
bruised left side of his face, seemed to be bruised and torn all over.
He could not so much as get his breath to speak, until they were both
separately handcuffed, but leaned upon a soldier to keep himself from
falling.
“Take notice, guard,—he tried to murder me,” were his first words.
“Tried to murder him?” said my convict, disdainfully. “Try, and not do
it? I took him, and giv’ him up; that’s what I done. I not only
prevented him getting off the marshes, but I dragged him here,—dragged
him this far on his way back. He’s a gentleman, if you please, this
villain. Now, the Hulks has got its gentleman again, through me. Murder
him? Worth my while, too, to murder him, when I could do worse and drag
him back!”
The other one still gasped, “He tried—he tried-to—murder me. Bear—bear
witness.”
“Lookee here!” said my convict to the sergeant. “Single-handed I got
clear of the prison-ship; I made a dash and I done it. I could ha’ got
clear of these death-cold flats likewise—look at my leg: you won’t find
much iron on it—if I hadn’t made the discovery that _he_ was here. Let
_him_ go free? Let _him_ profit by the means as I found out? Let _him_
make a tool of me afresh and again? Once more? No, no, no. If I had
died at the bottom there,” and he made an emphatic swing at the ditch
with his manacled hands, “I’d have held to him with that grip, that you
should have been safe to find him in my hold.”
The other fugitive, who was evidently in extreme horror of his
companion, repeated, “He tried to murder me. I should have been a dead
man if you had not come up.”
“He lies!” said my convict, with fierce energy. “He’s a liar born, and
he’ll die a liar. Look at his face; ain’t it written there? Let him
turn those eyes of his on me. I defy him to do it.”
The other, with an effort at a scornful smile, which could not,
however, collect the nervous working of his mouth into any set
expression, looked at the soldiers, and looked about at the marshes and
at the sky, but certainly did not look at the speaker.
“Do you see him?” pursued my convict. “Do you see what a villain he is?
Do you see those grovelling and wandering eyes? That’s how he looked
when we were tried together. He never looked at me.”
The other, always working and working his dry lips and turning his eyes
restlessly about him far and near, did at last turn them for a moment
on the speaker, with the words, “You are not much to look at,” and with
a half-taunting glance at the bound hands. At that point, my convict
became so frantically exasperated, that he would have rushed upon him
but for the interposition of the soldiers. “Didn’t I tell you,” said
the other convict then, “that he would murder me, if he could?” And any
one could see that he shook with fear, and that there broke out upon
his lips curious white flakes, like thin snow.
“Enough of this parley,” said the sergeant. “Light those torches.”
As one of the soldiers, who carried a basket in lieu of a gun, went
down on his knee to open it, my convict looked round him for the first
time, and saw me. I had alighted from Joe’s back on the brink of the
ditch when we came up, and had not moved since. I looked at him eagerly
when he looked at me, and slightly moved my hands and shook my head. I
had been waiting for him to see me that I might try to assure him of my
innocence. It was not at all expressed to me that he even comprehended
my intention, for he gave me a look that I did not understand, and it
all passed in a moment. But if he had looked at me for an hour or for a
day, I could not have remembered his face ever afterwards, as having
been more attentive.
The soldier with the basket soon got a light, and lighted three or four
torches, and took one himself and distributed the others. It had been
almost dark before, but now it seemed quite dark, and soon afterwards
very dark. Before we departed from that spot, four soldiers standing in
a ring, fired twice into the air. Presently we saw other torches
kindled at some distance behind us, and others on the marshes on the
opposite bank of the river. “All right,” said the sergeant. “March.”
We had not gone far when three cannon were fired ahead of us with a
sound that seemed to burst something inside my ear. “You are expected
on board,” said the sergeant to my convict; “they know you are coming.
Don’t straggle, my man. Close up here.”
The two were kept apart, and each walked surrounded by a separate
guard. I had hold of Joe’s hand now, and Joe carried one of the
torches. Mr. Wopsle had been for going back, but Joe was resolved to
see it out, so we went on with the party. There was
|
Hebrews commonly interred their deceased, but incineration was
likewise practiced. The Mosaic code prescribed that those who
transgressed the laws of wedlock and chastity should be put to death by
fire. In I. Moses xxxviii. 24, we find the first evidence of this. The
third book of Moses, xx. 14 and xxi. 9, also bears testimony to this
fact. Thus we see that cineration was looked upon by this people of
antiquity in the early period of its history as a punishment for
offenders against the married state and chastity. It is barely possible
(deductions one may draw from certain passages in the books of Moses)
that the ancient Jews first stoned these disobedients, then burned their
bodies publicly, and finally erected a so-called mound of infamy over
their remains.
But as we follow Hebrew history, we soon find that cremation was
transformed from a humiliating act of punition to the highest honor, to
a distinction that was only accorded to royalty. The first king of
Israel was cremated after the battle with the Philistines in Mount
Gilboa, where he and his three sons fell. The Holy Bible relates how,
when the inhabitants of Jabesh-Gilead heard of that which the
Philistines had done to Saul (I. Samuel xxxi. 12): “All the valiant men
arose, and went all night, and took the bodies of Saul and the bodies of
his sons from the wall of Beth-shan, and came to Jabesh and burnt them
there.”
And verse 13 of the same chapter informs us: “And they took their bones
(_ossilegio_) and buried them under a tree at Jabesh and fasted seven
days.”
Asa, king of Judah, was also consigned to the funeral pyre, as we glean
from II. Chronicles xvi. 14: “And they buried him in his own sepulchres,
which he had made for himself in the city of David, and laid him in the
bed which was filled with sweet odors and divers kinds of spices
prepared by the apothecaries’ art; _and they made a very great burning
of him_.” Of Asa’s grandson, King Jehoram, it is said that his people
cremated him not like his fathers, because he had furthered idolatry.
On the other hand, Isaiah xxx. 33 refers to a large pyre that was kept
alight to consume the bodies of the deceased: “For Tophet is ordained of
old; yea, for the king it is prepared; he hath made it deep and large;
the pile thereof is fire and much wood; the breath of the Lord like a
stream of brimstone doth kindle it.”
Jeremiah (xxxiv. 5) prophesied of Zedekiah, another king of Judah, that
he would be burned with the same honors that attended the cremation of
his predecessors. And in Amos vi. 10, we find the following, which also
points to incineration: “And a man’s uncle shall take him up, and he
that burneth him, to bring out the bones out of the house,” etc.
The last passage cited and the one mentioning the Vale of Tophet, are
construed by some writers as meaning that the ancient Jews had recourse
to cremation in great plagues; _id est_, for hygienic reasons.
Now, although these quotations plainly show that the Israelites of old
did execute incineration, we also learn from them that the practice was
never general; at first confined to criminals, at last to kings.
It is impossible to determine when the custom of burning the dead
originated among the Hindoos. It was always connected with religious
observances, and known to the people of India since the earliest times.
It was restricted to certain classes or castes: mainly to Brahmins and
warriors. The merchants, mechanics, and the tillers of the soil were
interred. Children under two years of age were barred from cremation,
and had to be buried in the earth. Some religious sects, however, were
an exception from this rule and executed cineration indiscriminately—for
instance the believers in Vishnu. When a Hindoo died away from home, or
when his body was lost and could not be found, his relatives instituted
a symbolical ceremony. They gathered 360 leaves of a certain shrub and
as many woolen threads. They were under the impression that the human
body consisted of 360 parts. Of the threads and leaves they formed a
figure, somewhat resembling the human form, which was wound round with a
strip of the hide of a black antelope, which had also been previously
wrapped closely round with woolen thread. This figure was then besmeared
with barley-meal and water and burnt as an effigy of the missing body.
From India cremation extended to Europe, and was adopted by all
Indo-Germanic peoples. This was proven by Prof. Jacob Grimm in an
oration on the burning of the dead, delivered before the Royal Academy
of Sciences at Berlin, in 1849, in which the famous scholar highly
commended the ancient custom.
In old tombs on the island of Malta, urns of a kind of clay containing
ashes, lachrymatories, several mortuary lamps (some of excellent
workmanship), and the model of a mummy, formed of a green
semi-transparent substance, were found. This discovery demonstrates that
the orientals who inhabited this isle of the Mediterranean in the
earliest times were in the habit of cremating their deceased.
The Thracians were the next to embrace burial by fire. Of them
_Herodotus_ relates that they exhibited the corpse publicly for three
days, brought many offerings, and bewailed the deceased. At the
termination of the period stated, they cremated the body and then buried
the ashes and bones. After they had erected a mound over the remains,
they played gymnic games.
From Asia, by way of Thrace, cremation reached Greece. Among the Greeks
burial was originally exceedingly primitive, as we learn from a law that
compelled passers-by to place a handful of earth upon the breast of
every unburied corpse. Interment undoubtedly preceded cremation in
Greece. _Heraclitus_ advanced the theory that everything in existence
was created from fire. Therefore he argued that all corpses must be
burned to free the soul from all material matter, and to return it to
its primitive elements. According to _Eustachius_ Hercules burned the
body of Argius, the son of Likymnios, 1500 years before Christ. He had
promised the father to return the youth, but when the latter fell in
mortal combat, nothing remained for him but to cremate Argius and to
bring home with him the ashes to the sorrowful parent. Hercules was
unquestionably the first to cremate himself. When he was tormented by
the pangs of approaching death, he built a pyre and ordered his servant
to ignite it. When the servant failed to set the wood afire, Hercules
descended from the pyre, kindled it himself and again mounted it to
await his fate.
_Pliny_ was disposed to attribute the origin of incineration among the
Greeks to their custom of burning the dead on the field of battle, to
render them secure from the revenge of the enemy.
Be that as it may, certain it is that incineration never became the only
mode by which the inhabitants of Hellas disposed of their deceased;
except in Athens, where it was practiced exclusively for some time.
Suicides, those who had been struck by lightning, and unteethed children
were not cremated, for it was the prevailing opinion that the pure
flames would have been defiled by them.
[Illustration: GREEK FUNERAL URN.]
Homer, that incomparable Hellenic poet (There is, I know, a dispute
whether the name Homer stands for one person or for a number of bards.
As far as I am concerned, I believe that Homer was an individual, a poor
mendicant perhaps, wandering all over Greece, singing or reciting his
heroic epics, and living on the grace of an admiring public. No
collection of bards could have possibly written the Odyssey and Iliad,
which are so uniform in character throughout.), has preserved for us, in
immortal verse, the records of the Trojan war, in which we find many
instances of cremation chronicled. The recent explorations of Dr.
Heinrich Schliemann on the site of Troy have demonstrated beyond a doubt
that the poems of Homer rest on a basis of actual fact.
During the war that was fought for Helen the beautiful, it was customary
among the Greeks and Trojans to reduce to ashes the bodies of those who
had been slain in battle. Line 69 of the first book of the Iliad proves
that the Greeks burned their dead for sanitary reasons.
The bodies of cowards, criminals, and slaves were not incinerated, but
left unburied, a prey for the beasts of the field and the birds of the
air. Agamemnon, the king, addressing his warriors warns them (_vide_
Pope’s translation of the Iliad, B. II, L. 466) that, during battle:—
“Who dares, inglorious, in his ships to stay,
Who dares to tremble on this signal day,
That wretch, too mean to fall by martial power,
The birds shall mangle, and the dogs devour.”
Incineration was denied Ajax, one of the greatest Grecian heroes,
because he had slain himself in a fit of indignation. Hector’s defiance
of the Greek princes (Iliad, B. VII, L. 85) shows that it was also the
custom among the Trojans to burn the dead. There is further evidence of
this in the truce, between Priam and Agamemnon (_vide_ Iliad, B. VII, L.
898 and 450), for the purpose of burning the dead of both armies.
Homer’s narration of the burning of Patroclus, Achilles’ friend, gives
such an accurate description of the method then in use, that I will be
pardoned for quoting it here. The passage to which I refer occurs in the
twenty-third book of the Iliad, and is as follows:—
“They who had the dead in charge
Remained, and heaped the wood and built a pyre
A hundred feet each way from side to side.
With sorrowful hearts they raised and laid the corpse
Upon the summit. Then they flayed and dressed
Before it many fatlings of the flock,
And oxen with curved feet and crooked horns.
From these magnanimous Achilles took
The fat, and covered with it carefully
The dead from head to foot. Beside the bier
And leaning toward it, jars of honey and oil
He placed, and flung, with many a deep-drawn sigh,
Twelve high-necked steeds upon the pile.
Nine hounds there were, which from the tables of the prince
Were daily fed; of these Achilles struck
The heads from two, and laid them on the wood,
And after these, and last, twelve gallant sons
Of the brave Trojans, butchered by the sword;
For he was bent on evil. To the pile
He put the iron violence of fire,
And, wailing, called by name the friend he loved.
* * * * *
...They quenched with dark red wine
The pyre, where’er the flames had spread, and where
Lay the deep ashes: then, with many tears,
Gathered the white bones of their gentle friend,
And laid them in a golden vase, wrapped round
With caul, a double fold. Within the tents
They placed them softly, wrapped in delicate lawn;
Then drew a circle for the sepulchre,
And, laying its foundations to enclose
The pyre, they heaped the earth, and, having reared
A mound, withdrew.”
These lines are from William Cullen Bryant’s translation of the Iliad,
and give one a very good idea of the cineration of a warrior. In times
of peace the favorite animals of the deceased were placed with him on
the funeral pile, and he was covered with costly robes and rugs. Not
infrequently the pyre was decorated with an abundance of flowers, and
rich folks had their trinkets and jewels thrown into the fire. The
weapons of warriors were consumed with them. The extravagance at
funerals finally became so great among the Greeks that special laws had
to be enacted to put a stop to it. Solon ordained, for instance, that no
more than three robes and one bull should be placed upon the cremation
pyre. After the bones were placed in an urn, the Greeks covered it with
the fat of the animals that had been slaughtered at the funeral
ceremonies, to protect it from the influence of the atmosphere. Many of
the celebrated men of Greece were cremated: Solon, Alcibiades, Timoleon,
Philopoemen, Plutarch, Pyrrhus, and many others.
According to Pindar (Ol. 6, 23, Nem. 9, 54), during the combat of the
Seven against Thebes, funeral pyres were burning at each of the seven
gates of the city, to consume those slain in battle. The heathens, as
they are called, were not to be charged with any lack of respect to
their departed dead. On the contrary, the most tender sentiments
conceivable were attached to the practice of cremation. There was a
Theban regulation that no one should build a house without a specific
repository for the dead.
Æneas and the other Trojans, who escaped with him from the burning city
of the hundred gates (as Priam’s capital was sometimes called),
introduced cremation (Virgil’s Æneid, B. IV, 7) into Carthage, if it did
not exist there previous to their arrival. It is possible that the
inhabitants of Carthage, which was one of the Phœnician cities in
Africa, derived the practice from the mother-country. At all events, the
tragedy of love, in which Æneas was involved, ended with the suicide of
Dido, who cremated herself.
The eleventh book of the Æneas gives a description of an incineration
among the ancient inhabitants of Latium.
Self-cremation seems to have been one of the favorite means of disposing
of one’s self in ancient times, especially among the royalty and
aristocracy. Both tradition and history report of many women, friends,
and servants who, of their own free will, mounted the funeral pyre with
the departed head of the family. Besides Hercules and Dido, already
mentioned, Sardanapalus, the last king of the Assyrians, burned himself
in the year 600 before Christ, because the Tigris had destroyed the
fortifications of besieged Nineveh, and the following also mounted the
pyre for the same purpose: Marpessa, Polydora, and Cleopatra (Vide
Pausanias, 4, 2), three noble women of Messenia, and Euadne, the wife of
Capaneus, who threw herself into the flames which consumed her husband.
The pyre of Sardanapalus, we are told, was very large and contained many
rooms, which were elegantly furnished, and in which the royal treasures
were heaped up, before the king entered them with his women, while his
servants set the pile on fire. It is well known that the widows of
India, until very recently, perished of their own free will in the
flames that consumed their husbands.
Herodotus states that the women of the Thracians, in Eastern Europe, who
were probably of Germanic origin, frequently disputed among themselves
as to which of them should be allowed to ascend the pyre together with
the deceased husband. Œnone, the lawful wife of Paris, whom he had
forsaken to live with Helen the beautiful, forgot all her grievances at
the sight of his misfortune. When the man, whom she had formerly loved
so ardently, wounded by the arrow of Philoctetes, fled to her into the
Ida, she refused to cure him; but when the greedy flames, after death,
devoured his form, she voluntarily ascended the pyre to intermix her
ashes with his. Thus are the ways of the world; the noble deed of the
faithlessly deserted wife is hardly ever mentioned, but frivolous Helena
was made the subject of many works of art, and leads an immortal life in
the songs and poems of man.
[Illustration: CREMATION IN CALCUTTA.]
The ancient Etruscans practiced cremation, both before and after Etruria
became a Roman province; they, no doubt, adopted it from the Greeks, who
were first their rulers and afterward their close neighbors. The tombs
of Etruria were rich in art; the urns in which the ashes of the dead
were kept were either of alabaster or baked clay, the latter often being
decorated with tasty paintings.
The ancient Latins, in turn, borrowed the practice of incineration from
the Etruscans. According to _Mazois_, some cinerary urns, found in the
neighborhood of Alba Longa, prove that the custom of burning the dead
was current among the original population of Latium long before any
recorded epoch of Italian history, for the place in which those urns
were detected was covered entirely over with dense layers of lava, which
apparently came from the mountain Albanus, a volcano, the eruptions of
which have long been buried in oblivion. The urns mentioned are
especially noteworthy, because many of them bear pictures of the
habitations of the earliest residents of Latium, which shows that
cremation was known to them at that time. Such a hut of the aborigines
of Latium was preserved for a long time in the capitol at Rome and was
regarded with great reverence. It is but natural that the Latins, on
becoming the founders of Rome, should have introduced incineration into
their new home. Pliny asserts that the burning of the dead was not
customary among the Romans of old, but Virgil describes it as a usage
that existed long before the foundation of Rome, and Ovid affirms that
the body of Remus was committed to the flames.
Cremation was not in general favor among the Romans until towards the
termination of the republic. Pliny relates that Sylla (78 B.C.) was the
first of the patrician Cornelians who wanted his body to be burned; most
likely because he feared that his remains would be dealt with as those
of Marius had been treated, whose body was exhumed by the order of
Sylla, and thrown into a glutted general grave. During the decline of
the republic and the period of the empire, till the accession of the
Christian emperors, incineration was very popular in Rome; it was not
only general in the capital, but also in the provinces. Julius Caesar,
Antonius, Brutus, Pompejus, Octavius, Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula,
Nero, and Plinius were cremated. The ashes of Tacitus, the model of
historians, who was likewise consigned to the flames, were cast to the
winds in the middle ages by Pope Pius the Fifth, in order to punish the
heretic. Just think of it! a pontiff outraging a scholar’s remains to
punish him! Caligula and Tiberius were only partially burnt, because
they had been tyrants.
At Nero’s obsequies it was but with difficulty that the train achieved
complete cremation. The Roman aristocracy looked upon partial cineration
as a great disgrace, which adhered to the respective family a long time.
Yet this infamy was often meted out to the poor and unfortunate, as we
shall see later on.
During plagues cremation was compulsory in the city of Rome.
It is not my intention to describe in detail the funeral rites of the
ancient Romans, because a description of cremation as practiced by them
may be met with in every encyclopædia. Moreover, a very good account of
incineration, as customary among the Romans of old, may be found in Lord
Bulwer Lytton’s “The Last Days of Pompeii.”
It was the fashion at Rome to pour fragrant oils and balsams over the
corpse before the pyre was ignited, and to cover it with Cyprus boughs.
Previous to cremation, the corpse was enveloped in asbestos, to keep the
ashes of the body separate from those of the funeral pile. At times
locks of hair were sacrificed to the deceased. At last one finger of the
defunct was amputated, to make certain that death had taken place.
Everything being ready, the nearest relative present unclosed the eyes
of the deceased, and then lit the pyre with averted face. While the
flames rose to heaven, the favorite animals of him who was now being
consumed—dogs, doves, and even horses—were flung into the fire. Costly
robes and arms of the dead were consigned to the same fate. During the
early period of Roman history, prisoners of war were also committed to
the flames.
The amount of spices, oils, and balsams destroyed at incinerations was
enormous. Pliny reports that Nero used up more myrrh, incense, and other
aromatics at the cremation of Poppsæa than could be produced by entire
Arabia in one year.
While cremation was practiced in Rome, at the time of the empire, the
mourning garments were white; but when incineration was displaced by
interment, the raiment of the bereaved assumed a black hue, sombre as
death itself.
The deceased poor of Rome (especially the women and slaves) were treated
shamefully after death. Martial avers that invariably one pile had to
serve for a large number. In times of pestilence, thousands were so
disposed of. A cremation-ground was provided for the indigent in a
wretched suburb upon the Esquiline Hill, which was inhabited by the
outcasts of society, the lowest prostitutes, executioners, necromancers,
and so forth. These localities were called _culinæ_ by the people, the
literal translation of which is “roast-places.” The attendants were
police-slaves, whose hair had been shaved off, and who wore a brand on
the bare pate. These, hurrying to and fro, placed the emaciated dead
poor upon one of the many funeral piles; hardly singed by the fire, they
were taken from it and thrown into a universal ditch. To every ten male
corpses one female body was added, which facilitated the cineration by
means of the great quantity of adipose tissue which it contained. The
funerals of the poor were generally held at night.
The urns of the rich were of marble, bronze, and sometimes of gold or
silver; those of the poor were of baked clay or glass. Glass urns,
enclosed in others of lead, were discovered at Pompeii. The urns were
generally deposited in a tomb at the roadside or placed in the
pigeon-hole of a columbarium.
These columbaria, surrounded by beautiful gardens, were situated on the
Via Appia, Aurelia, Flaminia, and Lavicana. The Appian Way was a
favorite resort of the fashionable Roman world; here, daily,
ever-changing life was seen; here the traveller took leave from the
remains of his ancestors; here, too, lovers met and unfortunates took
refuge.
These columbaria were subterranean chambers which served (as I have
already explained) to hold the ashes of the deceased, the urns being
deposited in arched recesses, hewn out in the rock for the purpose.
These niches resembled pigeon-holes; hence the name, columbarium. The
rare beauty of these columbaria, which may yet be seen in the Eternal
City, led Nathaniel Hawthorne, our great romancer, to exclaim that he
would not object to being decently pigeon-holed in a Roman tomb.
[Illustration:
CREMATION IN SIAM.
The late queen and her little daughter on the pyre.
]
Campana discovered columbaria between the Porta Latina and the Porta San
Sebastiana, which are memorials of the time of Augustus. They contain
not less than 400 inscriptions on marble, commemorative of the dead, and
many urns of marble and terra cotta.
In the city of the Caesars the ashes were placed in upright urns, while
in Greece the urns lay horizontally on the ground, and were covered with
rugs. In Greece the ashes were preserved in beautiful mortuary chambers
in the houses, a custom that also obtained at Rome to a certain extent.
The great contrast between the cremation of the opulent and the poor
finally led to the re-introduction of earth-burial, which, however,
strangely enough, was coincident with the decline and fall of the once
mighty empire.
The last Roman funeral piles expired in the fourth century, while the
Indo-Germanic nations practiced cremation till late in mediæval times.
The Germanic tribes and the Celts (according to Tacitus and Diodorus of
Sicily) burned their dead without exception. The testimony of these
historians is confirmed by Ovid (Met., Lib. III, v. 619–620), who adds
that cremation was highly esteemed by these peoples.
Tacitus (_vide_ Germania, Lib. 37), writing one hundred years before
Christ, relates that the ancient Germans preferred a plain funeral to
funereal pomp. Only the bodies of celebrated men were cinerated with
some ostentation on pyres built of certain costly kinds of wood. They
neither ornamented their funeral piles, nor did they use spices at
cremations. The arms of every warrior, however, and sometimes the
battle-horse, were burnt with him. An unadorned mound was raised over
the ashes, and nothing was left to mark the spot where one of their kin
had been laid to rest. Criminals were not cremated, but put to death, in
various ways; traitors and deserters were hanged to convenient trees,
and cowards drowned in swamps.
The Thuringians burned their dead as late as the seventh century; the
Anglo-Saxons down to the end of the eighth century. The Swabians,
Franks, Lombards, Ostrogoths, Alemanni, and Burgundians disposed of
their deceased by fire till 740 A.D. Winfrid, or Boniface, the so-called
apostle of the Germans, in a letter refers to the custom of fire-burial
among the Saxons. Charlemange, who brought about the conversion of the
Saxons by fire and sword, made a special enactment against incineration.
The custom of cremation was so deep-rooted among the Saxons, that the
death-penalty had to be set upon its consummation in order to cause its
abolishment.
The ancient Lithuanians and the forefathers of the present Prussians
were wont to consign their dead to the flames. When the ancient
Prussians were defeated by the knights of the Teutonic order in the year
of our Lord 1249, their vanquishers caused them to promise in writing
that they would henceforth, after cremating their deceased with horse,
armor, and weapons, collect the remains and bury them within the
churchyard, according to Christian usage. There is evidence to show that
cineration of the dead was extant in Western Prussia until after 1300
A.D.
Cinerary urns, containing ashes, were discovered near Dantzig, Prussia,
and in Silesia.
In the course of forming a vineyard in the neighborhood of Wasserbillig,
near Trier, numerous graves were laid bare, in some of which urns were
found with the remains of cremated bodies; in others, skeletons. In the
former case the cinerary urns (_vide_ _Sanitary Record_) were surrounded
by chalkstone slabs; one of the skeletons was contained in a sarcophagus
composed of fourteen roof-tiles. Nine of them had the stamps of the
manufacturer, the same names being given as those of the manufacturers
who furnished material for the erection of the Roman church which forms
the basis of the cathedral of Trier, and for the Roman thermal baths at
St. Barbara. Judging from these circumstances, it is assumed that the
tombs date from the middle of the third century. In one of the graves a
small urn with the representation of a face was found.
In Trier itself, a large glass urn, with cover and handles, was recently
unearthed. It is a relic of the Romans. When opened it was found to
contain bones. Beside this urn five vases of baked clay and several
ornamented lamps were found.
The ancient Swiss were in the habit of cremating their defunct, till the
year 56 before Christ.
Julius Caesar reports that the Gauls burned their dead with
sumptuousness.
Several ancient glass urns, containing calcined bones, were recently
found between two round stones, in the vicinity of Chatenet, France.
The Slavonians observed incineration from the earliest times to the end
of the fifteenth century. When one of their kings died, everything he
might need on awakening in paradise was placed with him on the pyre.
Beside intoxicating drinks, weapons, horses, falcons, male and female
servants, and his wives, his entire household—comprising the minister of
state, secretary, mate at drinking, and physician—was cremated with him.
The Slavonian woman was invariably burned with the corpse of her
husband; but not _vice versa_, the husband with the remains of his wife.
When a bachelor died, single women were substituted for spouses. The
chronicles that have descended to us from the monks affirm that these
women longed for such a death, because they hoped to secure eternal
blessedness thereby.
Large mounds, called Kurgani, were erected over the ashes of the
cremated. These mounds may be seen to-day in the boundless steppes of
Russia, where they afford a rest for the eyes from the monotonous
scenery.
Eckehardt relates that, when Germany was invaded by the Hungarians in
925 A.D., he witnessed the intruders cremate the bodies of the slain
upon rack-wagons.
The Bohemians practiced cremation as late as 1000 A.D.
The Arab Ibn Forszlan, who was ambassador from his native land to the
Russians in the year of our Lord 922, states that he attended the
cineration of a man of rank, on the banks of the Volga River. Previous
to the cremation the deceased was interred, till the robes of state
requisite for the ceremony were finished. Then the ship of the dead was
drawn ashore, the defunct owner placed upon a bench, which had been
covered with gorgeous rugs, and supplied with food, intoxicating
beverages, and a number of slaughtered animals. Thereupon a young girl,
who had voluntarily offered herself for incremation (probably to be the
companion of the deceased in the other world), was led aboard and—after
singing a long chant to the people and drinking a goblet of
mead—strangled and stabbed at the same time. Then the ship was deserted,
and set afire by the nearest relative, who performed this sad office
with averted face. Thereupon every one present threw a burning piece of
wood upon the vessel, which was soon consumed. A mound was erected on
the site on which the ship had stood, in the centre of which a plank was
placed, bearing the name of the departed.
Old German chroniclers mention the cremation of Attila, the king of the
Tartar Huns, who was burned while sitting—fully armed—upon his
war-horse. It is still an undecided question whether incineration was
general among the Huns, or only a royal honor.
The Scythians and Sarmatians of old reduced their dead to ashes, as also
did the Kurds, till 1205 A.D.; and the Esthonians till 1225.
Cremation was likewise practiced by the ancient Scandinavians,—more
especially by the Norwegians and Swedes than by the Danes. The national
Scandinavian epic, the Edda, mentions the funeral piles of Sigurdh and
Brynhilde.
The ancient Britons disposed of their dead by fire. Some workmen engaged
in excavations in the bail within the boundaries of the old Roman city
at Lincoln lately came across a crematorium and a sarcophagus. In the
latter ten urns were found, which contained ashes and calcined bones.
The urns were of different sizes and shapes, and were all provided with
saucer-shaped covers. Only one of them, however, was extracted perfect.
The interior of the sarcophagus was lined with long, thin bricks, that
perished on being exposed to the air.
The Mexicans of antiquity also cinerated their deceased.
Incineration was practiced in India since the most remote ages, and is
now as much in vogue in this country as it was in the earliest times. At
Calcutta, Bombay, Madras,—in fact, all over India,—cremation is executed
daily.
The Vishnavites burn their dead; the worshippers of Siva bury them,
deliver them up to beasts of prey, or throw them into the holy river
Ganges. Folks who are too poor to dispose of their deceased by burning,
also consign them to the waves of the holy stream. This is done at
night, since it is against the law. It is not unusual to see a whole
procession of corpses float down the Ganges, while crows feed on the
remains.
At Calcutta, cremation is performed within the “Burning Ghât,” outside
the city, in a walled enclosure which is frequented by numberless
vultures and other birds of prey, near the Hoogly, as the Ganges is
thereabouts called. This place is seldom visited by the British
inhabitants of Calcutta; for they regard this rude cineration (properly
so) far too horrible to witness.
By order of the government, a cinerator was built on the banks of the
Hoogly, which is used only by a part of the Hindoo population. The
Hindoos are hard to wean from their old-fashioned method of cineration
(which is substantially the same as that practiced by the ancient Romans
and Greeks), and, therefore, seldom make use of a cinerator, as Mr.
William Eassie was informed by the sanitary commissioner of Madras,
where a cinerary apparatus had also been erected. The commissioner,
however, was of the opinion that if the Siemens principle of a furnace
were exhibited before the educated Hindoos, they would very probably
adopt it.
[Illustration: CREMATION AMONG THE TOLKOTINS OF OREGON.]
Thanks to the efforts of the British authorities in India, imperfect
cremation is a thing of the past there.
Cicero already relates that the widows of the Hindoos allow themselves
to be cinerated with the remains of their husbands. Self-cremation of
Indian widows does not occur nowadays; the barbaric custom has been put
down by the English.
It was not before 1831 that the English government in Hindostan
attempted to abolish the practice of burning widows; and up to that
time, as Max Mueller observes, “women were burned wholesale, even in the
immediate neighborhood of Calcutta.” But the custom was probably not
exterminated before late in the sixties—1868 or 69.
Cremation was practiced on the isle of Ceylon as late as 1841.
The people of Burmah cremate their rich dead, and inhume the poor or
consign them to a stream. Persons of rank are embalmed before
incineration, and placed on exhibition in a convent or temple for six
weeks. At the funeral, the body is borne in a coffin on the shoulders of
men, who are preceded by female mourners chanting an epicede. The corpse
is followed by the relatives. When the slowly moving train arrives at
the pyre, which is commonly six or eight feet high, the remains are
placed upon it; the wood of the funeral pile is generally laid
crosswise, to bring about a stronger draught of air. The pyre is set on
fire by the attending priests, who pray before it until the body is
destroyed; then the bones are collected and interred. According to Mr.
W. Eassie, when a Buddhist
|
rythrina indica_ 382
142. Response of leaflet of _Mimosa_ to light 383
143. Response of leaflet of _Averrhoa_ to light 383
144. Diagrammatic representation of different types of
phototropic response 384
145. Phototropic curvature of tendril of _Passiflora_ 392
146. Effect of rise of temperature on phototropic curvature 394
147. After-effect of rise of temperature 395
148. Arrangement for record of torsional response 399
149. Record of torsional response of pulvinus of _Mimosa pudica_ 400
150. Leaflets of _Cassia alata_ 404
151. Positive response to thermal radiation 413
152. Record of positive, neutral, and reversed negative
curvature under thermal radiation 414
153. Diagrammatic representation of the wireless system 419
154. Mechanical response of _Mimosa_ leaf to electric waves 420
155. Electric response of _Mimosa_ to Hertzian wave 420
156. Record of responses of growing organs to wireless
stimulation 422
157. The Quadruplex Geotropic Recorder 428
158. Effect of alternate application of cold on upper and
lower sides of the organ 430
159. Geotropic response of flower stalk of Tube-rose 433
160. Geotropic response of _Tropæolum_ 433
161. The Complete Geotropic Curve 435
162. Diagrammatic representation of photic and geotropic
stimulation 436
163. The effect of super-imposition of photic stimulus 436
164. Diagrammatic representation of the mechanical and
electrical response 443
165. Diagrammatic representation of geo-electric response 447
166. Diagrammatic representation of Methods of Axial and
Vertical Rotation 449
167. Diagrammatic representation of the geo-electric response
of the shoot 450
168. Geo-electric response of the petiole of _Tropæolum_ 452
169. Geo-electric response of the scape of _Uriclis_ 453
170. Mechanical and electric response to indirect stimulation 463
171. Diagrammatic representation of mechanical and electric
response of root 464
172. Diagrammatic representation of geo-electric response of
root-tip 469
173. Diagrammatic representation of geo-electric response of
growing region of root 471
174. Diagrammatic representation of the geo-perceptive layer 480
175. The Electric Probe 483
176. Transverse section showing continuous geo-perceptive
layer (_Bryophyllum_) 488
177. Curve of geo-electric excitation in different layers of
_Nymphæa_ 497
178. Curve of geo-electric excitation in _Bryophyllum_ 497
179. Diagram of arrangement of geotropic torsional response 503
180. Additive effect of stimulus of gravity and light 505
181. Algebraical summation of geotropic and phototropic
actions 505
182. Comparative balancing effects of white and red lights 506
183. Effect of coal gas on photo-geotropic balance 507
184. Diagram of magnetic balance 511
185. Effect of variation of light on phototropic equilibrium 512
186. Effect of variation of temperature on geotropic torsion 514
187. Simultaneous records of variation of temperature, on up and
down movement, and of torsion of the leaf of _Mimosa_ 518
188. Arrest of pulsatory movement of leaflet of _Desmodium
gyrans_ by light 528
189. Effect of unilateral light on hyponastic movement 529
190. The Nyctitropic Recorder 537
191. Effect of sudden darkness on leaflet of _Casia alata_ 539
192. Diurnal movement of the leaflet of _Cassia alata_ 540
193. The day and night position of the petiole and terminal
leaflet of _Desmodium gyrans_ 541
194. Diurnal record of the terminal leaflet of _Desmodium
gyrans_ 542
195. Photograph of closed flower of _Nymphæa_ during day 550
196. Photograph of open flower of _Nymphæa_ at night 550
197. Action of light on the petal of _Nymphæa_ 551
198. Diurnal movement of the petal of _Nymphæa_ 552
199. Diurnal record of the Sijbaria Palm 556
200. Diurnal record of inclined Palm, geotropically curved
procumbent stem of _Tropæolum_, and dia-geotropic
leaf of Palm 557
201. Diurnal record of leaves of _Dahlia_, _Papya_, and _Croton_ 558
202. Diurnal record of procumbent stem of _Tropæolum_, and
leaf of _Dahlia_ for two successive days 560
203. Abolition of the diurnal movement under constant
temperature (_Tropæolum_) 565
204. Effect of inversion of plant on diurnal movement
of _Tropæolum_ 567
205. Electric response of the leaf stalk of _Bryophyllum_
under light 571
206. Diagrammatic representation of electric after-effect
of photic stimulation 571
207. After-effect of pre-maximum photic stimulation 574
208. After-effect of maximum photic stimulation 574
209. After-effect of post-maximum photic stimulation 574
210. Diurnal record of Mimosa in summer and winter 577
211. Record of diurnal variation of torsion in _Mimosa_ leaf 582
212. Continuous record of automatic pulsation of _Mimosa_ leaf 585
213. Photometric record showing variation of intensity of
light from morning to evening 586
214. Record of leaf of _Mimosa_ after amputation of sub-petioles 589
215. Diurnal record of _Cassia_ leaf 591
216. Post-maximum after-effect of light on response of
leaflet of _Cassia_ 592
217. Effect of periodic alternation of light and darkness
on response of _Mimosa_ leaf 594
218. Pre-maximum after-effect of light in _Mimosa_ 595
219. After-effect at maximum 595
220. Post-maximum after-effect exhibiting over-shooting
below position of equilibrium 595
PART III.
TROPISM IN PLANTS.
XXII.--THE BALANCED CRESCOGRAPH
_By_
SIR J. C. BOSE.
We shall in the succeeding series of papers deal with the subject of
tropism in general. Different plant organs undergo curvature or bending,
sometimes towards and at other times away from the stimulus which
induces it. The problem is very intricate; the possibility of its
solution will depend greatly on the accurate determination of the
immediate and after-effects of various stimuli on the responding organ.
The curvature induced in the growing organ is brought about by
variation, often extremely slight, of the rate of growth; the result,
moreover, is liable to be modified by the duration and point of
application of stimulus. The difficulties connected with the problem can
only be removed by the detection and measurement of the minutest
variation in growth, and by securing a continuous and automatic record
of the entire history of the change.
In the chapter on High Magnification Crescograph an account is given of
the apparatus which I have devised by which the rate of growth may be
magnified from ten thousand to ten millions times. It is thus possible
to measure the imperceptible growth of plants for a period shorter than
a single second. The variation of normal rate of growth is also found by
measuring successive growth records on a stationary plate at regular
intervals, say of ten seconds, or from the flexure in the growth-curve
taken on a moving plate (p. 163).
I was next desirous of exalting the sensitiveness to a still higher
degree by an independent method, which would not only reveal very
slight variation induced in the rate of growth, but also the latent
period and time-relations of the change. For this purpose I at first
devised the Optical Method of Balance[1] which was considered at the
time to be extremely sensitive. The spot of light from the Optical Lever
(which magnified the rate of growth) was made to fall upon a mirror to
which a compensating movement was imparted so that the light-spot after
double reflection remained stationary. Any change of rate of
growth--acceleration or retardation--was at once detected by the
movement of the hitherto stationary spot of light in one direction or
the other.
[1] "Plant Response"--p. 413.
A very careful manipulation was required for the adjustment of the
Optical Balance; the record moreover was not automatic. For these
reasons I have been engaged for several years past in perfecting a new
apparatus by which, (1) the balance could be directly obtained with the
utmost exactitude, (2) where an attached scale would indicate the exact
rate of growth, and (3) in which the upsetting of the balance by
external stimulus would be automatically recorded, the curve giving the
time relations of the change.
PRINCIPLE OF THE METHOD OF BALANCE.
I shall take a concrete example in explanation of the method of balance.
Taking the rate of growth per second of a plant to be 1/50,000 inch or
0·5 µ, per second (equal to the wave length of sodium light), the tip of
the plant will be maintained at the same point in space if we succeeded
in making the plant-holder subside exactly at the same rate. The
growth-elongation of the plant will then be exactly balanced by a
compensating movement downwards. The state of exact balance is indicated
when the recording lever of the Crescograph traces a horizontal line on
the moving plate. Overbalance or underbalance will deflect the record
below or above the horizontal line.
[Illustration: FIG. 93.--Arrangement for compensation of growth-movement
by equal subsidence of plant-holder; S, adjusting screw for regulation
of speed of rotation; G, governor; W, heavy weight; P, plant-holder.]
COMPENSATING MOVEMENT.
For securing exact balance the holder of the plant P, in the given
example, will have to subside at a rate of 1/50,000 inch per second.
This is accomplished by a system of reducing worm and pinion, also of
clock wheels (Fig. 93). The clock at first used for this purpose was
worked by the usual balance wheel. Though this secured an _average_
balance yet as each tick of the clock consisted of sudden movement and
stoppage, it caused minute variation in the rate of subsidence; this
became magnified by the Crescograph and appeared as a series of
oscillations about a mean position of equilibrium. This particular
defect was obviated by the substitution of a fan governor for the
balance wheel. But the speed of rotation slows down with the unwinding
of the main spring, and the balance obtained at the beginning was found
to be insufficient later on. The difficulty was finally overcome by the
use of a heavy weight W, in the place of coiled spring. The complete
apparatus is seen in figure 94.
[Illustration: FIG. 94.--Photographic reproduction of the Balanced
Crescograph. L, L', magnifying compound lever. R, recording plate.
P, plant. C, clock work for oscillation of the plate and lateral
movement. G, governor. M, circular growth-scale. V, plant-chamber.]
For purpose of simplicity of explanation, I assumed the growth rate to
have a definite value of 1/50,000 inch per second. But the rate varies
widely in different plants and even in the same plant at different days
and seasons. In practice the rate of growth for which compensation has
to be made varies from 1/150,000 to 1/25,000 inch, or from 0·17 µ to
1·0 µ per second. We have thus to secure some means of _continuous_
adjustment for growth, the rate of which could be continuously varied
from one to six times. This range of adjustment I have been able to
secure by the compound method of frictional resistance and of
centrifugal governor. As regards frictional resistance the two pointed
ends of a hinged fork rub against a horizontal circular plate not shown
in the figure. By means of the screw head S, the free ends of the fork
spread out and the circumference of the frictional circle continuously
increased. The centrifugal governor is also spread out by the action of
the adjusting screw. By the joint actions of the frictional control and
the centrifugal governor, the speed of rotation can be continuously
adjusted from 1 to 6 times. When the adjusting screw is set in a
particular position, the speed of rotation, and therefore the rate of
subsidence of plant-holder, remains absolutely constant for several
hours. The attainment of this constancy is a matter of fundamental
importance, and it was only by the employment or the compound system of
regulation that I was able to secure it.
The method of obtaining balance now becomes extremely simple. Before
starting the balancing movement by clock regulation, the plant is made
to record its magnified growth by the Crescograph. The compensation is
effected as follows: the speed of the clockwork is at the beginning
adjusted at its lowest value, and the pressure of a button starts the
balancing movement of the plant downwards. On account of partial balance
the record will be found to be less steep than before; the speed of the
clock is gradually increased till the record becomes perfectly
horizontal under exact balance. Overbalance makes the record slope
downwards. In figure 95 is seen records of underbalance (_a_) and
overbalance (_b_), to the extent of about 3 per cent.
[Illustration: FIG. 95.--Balanced Crescographic record: (_a_) showing
effect of underbalance and (_b_) overbalance of about 3 per cent.
(Magnification 2,000 times.)]
It will thus be seen that the effect of an external agent may be
detected by the upsetting of the balance; an up-movement indicates
(unless stated to the contrary) an enhancement of the rate of growth
above the normal; and a down-movement, on the other hand, a depression
of the normal rate.
_Calibration._--The calibration of the instrument is obtained in two
different ways. The rate of subsidence of the plant-holder, by which the
balance is obtained, is strictly proportional to the rate of rotation of
the vertical spindle and the attached train of clock-wheels. A striker
is attached to one of the wheels, and a bell is struck at each complete
revolution. The clockwork is adjusted at a medium speed, the bell
striking 35 times in a minute. A microscope micrometer is focussed on a
mark made on the plant-holder, and the amount of subsidence of the mark
determined after one minute; this was found to be 0·0525 mm. As this
fall occurred after 35 strokes of the bell the subsidence per stroke was
0·0015 mm.
_Determination of the absolute rate of growth._--If growth be found
balanced at N strokes of bell per minute, the rate of subsidence per
second
= N × ·0015/60 mm. per second
= N × ·000025 mm. per second
= N × ·025 µ per second
= N × 10^{-5} inch per second.
_Example._--The growth of a specimen of _Zea Mays_ was found balanced
when the number of strokes of the bell was 20 times in a minute.
Absolute rate of growth = 20 × ·025 µ = 0·5 µ per second
or = 20 × 10^{-5} inch "
or = 1/50,000 " "
If we take the wave length of sodium light [Greek: lambda] as our
standard, the growth in length per second is equal to [Greek: lambda].
This will give us some idea of the sensitiveness of the Crescograph
employed in recording the movement of growth.
GROWTH-SCALE.
The Balanced Crescograph enables us not merely to determine the absolute
rate of growth, but the slightest fluctuation in that rate.
_Indicator Scale._--All necessity of calculation is obviated by the
scale provided with the apparatus. The speed of clockwork which brings
about the balance of growth is determined by the position of the
adjusting screw S, the gradual lowering of which produces a continuous
diminution of speed. A particular position of the screw therefore
indicates a definite rate of subsidence for balancing growth. By a
simple mechanism the up or down movement of the screw causes rotation of
an index pivoted at the centre of a circular scale. Each division of the
scale is calibrated by counting the corresponding number of strokes of
the bell per minute at different positions of the adjusting screw. The
scale is calibrated in this manner to indicate different rates of growth
from 0·2 µ to 1·2 µ per second.
The determination of the rate of growth now becomes extremely simple.
Few turns of the screw bring about the balance of growth and the
resulting position of the index against the circular scale automatically
indicates the absolute rate. The procedure is even simpler and more
expeditious than the determination of the weight of a substance by means
of a balance.
SENSITIVENESS OF THE CRESCOGRAPHIC BALANCE.
Perhaps the most delicate method of measuring lengths is that afforded
indirectly by the spectrum of a light. A good spectroscope resolves
differences of wave lengths of D_{1} ( = 0·5896 µ) and D_{2} ( = 0·5890)
_i.e._ of 1 part in a thousand. The average rate of growth of _Zea Mays_
is of this order; being about 0·5 µ per second. Let us consider the
question of the possibility of detecting a fractional variation of the
ultra-microscopic length by means of the Balanced Crescograph. In
reality the problem before us is more intricate than simple measurement
of change of length; for we have to determine the _rate of variation_ of
length.
The sensitiveness of the balance will, it is obvious, depend on the
magnifying power of the Crescograph. By the Method of Magnetic
Amplification referred to in page 170, I have succeeded in obtaining a
magnification of ten million times. In this method a very delicate
astatic system of magnets undergoes deflection by the movement of a
magnetised lever in its neighbourhood. A spot of light reflected from a
small mirror attached to the astatic system, thus gives the highly
magnified movement of the rate of growth, which may easily be raised to
ten million times. I shall in the following describe the results
obtained with this easily managed magnification of ten million times.
_Determination of sensitiveness: Experiment 99._--A seedling of _Zea
Mays_ was placed on the Crescographic Balance; and the magnetic
amplification, as stated above, was ten million times. With 18 strokes
of the bell per minute the spot of light had a drift of + 266 cm. per
minute to the right; this is because the growth was underbalanced. With
faster rate of clock movement, _i.e._, 21 strokes in 68 seconds or 18·53
strokes per minute, the drift of the spot of light, owing to
overbalance, was to the left at the rate of -530 cm. per minute.
Thus
(1) 18 strokes per minute caused a drift of +266 cm. per minute.
(2) 18·53 strokes per minute caused a drift of -530 cm. per minute.
Hence by interpolation the exact balance is found to correspond to
18·177 strokes per minute.
Therefore the absolute rate of growth
= 18·177 × 0·025 µ per second.
= 0·45 µ per second.
= 0·000018 inch per second.
We learn further from (1) and (2) that a variation of
(18·53 - 18)/18·177 produces a change of drift of the spot of
light from +266 to -530 cm., _i.e._, of 796 cm. per minute.
As it is easy to detect a drift of 1 cm. per minute a variation of
0·53/(18·177 × 796), or 1 part in 27,000 may thus be detected by the
Method of Balance. The spectroscopic method enabled us, as we saw, to
detect change of wave length 1 part in a thousand. The sensibility of
the Balanced Crescograph is thus seen to rival, if not surpass that of
the spectroscope.
For obtaining a general idea of the sensitiveness, the absolute of
growth in the instance given above was 0·00018 inch per second, and the
Balanced Crescograph was shown capable of discriminating a variation
of 1 part in 27,000; hence it is possible to detect by this means a
variation of 1/1,500 millionth of an inch per second.
This method of unprecedented delicacy opens out a new field of
investigation on the effect of changes of environment in modification of
growth; instances of this will be found in subsequent chapters. I give
below accounts of certain demonstrations which will no doubt appear as
very striking.
After obtaining the exact balance a match was struck in the
neighbourhood of the plant. This produced a marked movement of the
hitherto quiescent spot of light, thus indicating the perception of such
an extremely feeble stimulus by the plant.
Breathing on the plant causes an enhancement of growth due to the joint
effects of warmth and carbonic acid gas. A more striking experiment is
to fill a small jar with carbonic acid and empty it over the plant. A
violent movement of the spot of light to the right demonstrates the
stimulating effect of this gas on growth.
The method described above is excessively sensitive; for general
purposes and for the method of direct record, a less sensitive
arrangement is sufficient. I give below accounts of several typical
experiments in which the recording form of Crescograph was employed, the
magnification being only 2,000 times.
[Illustration: FIG. 96.--Record showing the effect of CO_{2}. Horizontal
line at beginning indicates balanced growth. Application of CO_{2} at
arrow induces enhancement of growth shown by the up-curve followed by
depression, shown by the down-curve. Successive dots at intervals of 10
seconds. (Seedling of wheat.)]
_Effect of carbonic acid on Balanced growth: Experiment 100._--I have
already shown that carbonic acid diluted with air induces an enhancement
of the rate of growth, but its long continued action induces a
depression (p. 185). I shall now employ the Method of Balance in
studying the effect of CO_{2} on growth. It should be remembered in this
connection that the horizontal record indicates the balance of normal
rate of growth. An up-curve exhibits the induced enhancement and a
down-curve, a depression of growth. In the present experiment after
obtaining the exact balance, pure carbonic acid gas was made to fill up
the plant-chamber at the point marked with an arrow (Fig. 96). It will
be seen that this induced an almost immediate acceleration of the rate,
the latent period being less than five seconds. The acceleration
continued for two and half minutes; the accelerated rate then slowed
down, became enfeebled, and the growth returned for a short time to the
normal as indicated by the horizontal portion at the top of the record;
this proved to be the turning point of inversion from acceleration into
retardation of growth. The stronger is the concentration of the gas the
earlier is the point of inversion. With diluted carbonic acid the
acceleration may persist for an hour or more.
EFFECT OF ANÆSTHETICS.
_Effect of Ether: Experiment 101._--Dilute vapour of ether is found to
induce an acceleration of rate of growth which persist for a
considerable length of time. This is seen in the upsetting of the
balance upwards on the introduction of the vapour (Fig. 97a.).
[Illustration: FIG. 97.--(_a_) Effect of ether, acceleration of growth,
(_b_) effect of chloroform preliminary acceleration followed by
depression.]
_Effect of Chloroform: Experiment 102._--The effect of chloroform vapour
is relatively more depressing than ether. Application of chloroform is
seen to induce at first an acceleration which persisted for 50 seconds,
but after this depression set in (Fig. 97b). Prolonged application of
the anæsthetic is followed by the death of the plant.
SUMMARY.
In the Method of Balance the movement of growth upwards is compensated
by an equal movement of the plant downwards, with the result that the
record remains horizontal.
The effect of an external agent is immediately detected by the upsetting
of the balance, up-record representing acceleration above normal, a
down-record the opposite effect of depression below the normal rate.
The latent period and the after-effect of stimulus may thus be obtained
with the highest accuracy.
The sensitiveness of the Method of Balance may be raised so as to
indicate a variation of rate of growth smaller than 1/1000 millionth of
an inch per second.
XXIII.--ON TROPIC MOVEMENTS
_By_
SIR J. C. BOSE.
The diverse movements induced by external stimuli in different organs of
plants are extremely varied and complicated. The forces in operation are
manifold--the influence of changing temperature, the stimulus of
contact, of electric current, of gravity, and of light visible and
invisible. They act on organs which exhibit all degrees of physiological
differentiation, from the radial to the dorsiventral. An identical
stimulus may sometimes induce one effect, and at other times, the
precisely opposite. Thus under unilateral stimulation of light of
increasing intensity, a radial organ exhibits a positive, a
dia-phototropic, and finally a negative response. Strong sunlight brings
about para-heliotropic or'midday sleep' movement, by which the apices
of leaves or leaflets turn towards or away from the source of
illumination. The teleological argument advanced, that in this position
the plant is protected from excessive transpiration, does not hold good
universally; for under the same reaction, the leaflets of _Cassia
montana_ assume positions by which the plant risks fatal loss of water.
In _Averrhoa carambola_ the movement is downwards, whichever side is
illuminated with strong light; in _Mimosa_ leaflet the movement, under
similar circumstances is precisely in the opposite direction. The
photonastic movement, apparently independent of the directive action of
light, has come to be regarded as a phenomenon unrelated to phototropic
reaction, and due to a different kind of irritability, and a different
mode of response. So very anomalous are these various effects that
Pfeffer, after showing the inadequacy of different theories that have
been advanced, came to the conclusion that "the precise character of the
stimulatory action of light has yet to be determined. When we say that
an organ curves towards a source of illumination because of its
heliotropic irritability, we are simply expressing an ascertained fact
in a conveniently abbreviated form, without explaining why such
curvature is possible or how it is produced."[2]
[2] Pfeffer--_Ibid_--Vol. II, p. 74.
The contradictory nature of the various responses is however not real;
the apparent anomaly had lain in the fact that two definite fundamental
reactions of opposite signs induced by stimulus had not hitherto been
recognised and distinguished from each other. The innumerable variations
in the resultant response are due to the summation of the effects of two
fluctuating factors, with further complications arising from: (1)
difference in the point of application of stimulus, (2) the differential
excitability of the different sides of the responding organ, and (3) the
effect of temperature in modifying tropic curvature. It is therefore
most important to have the means for automatic record of _continuous_
change in the response brought about by various factors, which act
sometimes in accord, and at other times in conflict. The autograph of
the plant itself, giving a history of the change in response and its
time-relations, is alone decisive in explanation of various difficulties
in connection with plant movements, as against the various tentative
theories that have been put forward. The analysis of the resulting
effect, thus rendered possible, casts new light on the phenomena of
response, proving that the anomalies which had so long perplexed us, are
more apparent than real.
One of the causes of uncertainty lay with the question, whether response
changed with the mode of stimulation. I have, however, been able to show
that _all forms of stimuli_ induce a definite excitatory reaction of
contraction (p. 218).
Tropic movements induced by unilateral action of stimulus may, broadly
speaking, be divided into two classes depending on the point of
application of stimulus:
In the first, the point of application of unilateral stimulus is not on
the responding organ itself, but at some distance from it. The question
therefore relates to LONGITUDINAL TRANSMISSION of effect of stimulus.
In the second, unilateral stimulus acts directly on the responding
organ. For the determination of the resultant movement, it is necessary
to take account of effects induced on the two sides of the organ. The
side adjacent to the stimulus I shall designate as the _proximal_, and
the diametrically opposite as the _distal_ side. The question to be
investigated in this case relates to TRANSVERSE TRANSMISSION of effect
of stimulus. It will be shown that the resulting movement depends on:--
(_a_) whether the tissue is a conductor or a non-conductor of
excitation in a transverse direction, and
(_b_) whether it is the proximal, or the distal side of the
organ that is the more excitable.
In connection with the response to environmental changes, a source of
uncertainty is traceable to the absence of sufficient knowledge of the
physiological effect of heat, which has been regarded as a form of
stimulus: it will be shown that heat induces two distinct effects
dependent on conduction and radiation. We shall in the succeeding
chapters, take up the study of the physiological effects induced by
changes in the environment.
XXIV.--TROPIC CURVATURE WITH LONGITUDINAL TRANSMISSION OF EFFECT OF
STIMULUS
_By_
SIR J. C. BOSE,
_Assisted by_
GURUPRASANNA DAS.
I have in previous chapters explained that the direct application of
stimulus gives rise in different organs to contraction, diminution of
turgor, fall of motile leaf, electro-motive change of galvanometric
negativity, and retardation of the rate of growth. I have also shown
that indirect stimulation (_i.e._ application of stimulus at some
distance from the responding organ) gives rise to a positive or erectile
response of the responding leaf or leaflet (indicative of an increase of
turgor), often followed by normal negative response. The positive
impulse travels quickly. The interval of time that elapses, between the
application of stimulus and the erectile response of the responding
leaf, depends on the distance of the point of application, and the
character of the transmitting tissue: it varies in different cases from
0·6 second to about 40 seconds. The positive is followed by a slower
wave of protoplasmic excitation, which causes the excitatory fall. The
velocity of this excitatory impulse is about 30 mm. per second in the
petiole of _Mimosa_, and about 3 mm. per second in _Biophytum_. The
positive followed by the negative thus gives rise to a diphasic
response. The excitatory impulse is much enfeebled during transit: the
negative impulse may thus fail to reach the responding organ, if the
stimulus be feeble or if the intervening distance be long or
semi-conducting. Hence moderate stimulus applied at a distance gives
rise only to positive response; direct application of strong stimulus
gives rise, on the other hand, to the normal negative. By employing the
electric method of investigation, I have obtained with ordinary tissues
the positive, the diphasic, and the negative electric response, in
correspondence with the responses given by a motile organ (p. 214). The
mechanics of propagation of the positive and the negative impulse are
different. It is therefore necessary to distinguish the quick
_transmission_ of the positive impulse from the slow _conduction_ of the
negative impulse due to the propagation of excitatory protoplasmic
change.
It should be borne in mind in this connection that all responsive
movements are ultimately due to protoplasmic changes which are beyond
our scrutiny. We can infer the nature of the change by the concomitant
outward manifestations, which are of two kinds: the _positive_,
associated with increase of turgor, expansion, and galvanometric
positivity, and the _negative_ with concomitant decrease of turgor,
contraction, and galvanometric negativity. Thus positive and negative
reactions indicate the fundamental protoplasmic changes of opposite
characters.
The movement and curvature induced by stimulus have, for convenience,
been distinguished as _positive curvature_, (movement towards stimulus),
and _negative curvature_ (movement away from stimulus). Though these
curvatures result from protoplasmic reactions, yet the _positive
curvature_ is not necessarily associated with _positive protoplasmic
reaction_. It will be shown that the curvature of an organ is determined
by the algebraical summation of effects induced at the proximal and
distal sides of the responding organ.
Physiologists have not been aware of the dual character of the impulse
generated by stimulus, and the term "transmission of stimulus" is thus
misleading since its effect may be an expansion, or its very opposite,
contraction. It is therefore necessary to discriminate the effect of one
from the other: the impulse which induces an increase of turgor,
expansion, and galvanometric positivity will be distinguished as
positive, in the sense that it causes an enhancement of turgor. The
other, which induces diminution of turgor and contraction, will be
termed as the excitatory impulse. Transmission of the latter is
dependent on conducting power of the tissue; the positive impulse is
practically independent of the conducting power.
In animal physiology again, there is no essential difference between the
effect of the direct and indirect stimulation. In a nerve-and-muscle
preparation, for example, indirect stimulation at the nerve induces the
same contraction as the direct stimulation of the muscle. The only
difference lies in the latent period, which is found to be longer under
indirect stimulation by the time interval necessary for the excitation
to travel along the conducting nerve. It is probable that stimulus gives
rise to dual impulses in the animal tissue as in the plant. But the
detection of the positive impulse in the animal nerve is rendered
exceedingly difficult on account of the high velocity of conduction of
excitation. I have explained that the separate effects of the two
impulses can only be detected if there is a sufficient lag of the
excitatory negative behind the positive, so that the relatively sluggish
responding organ may exhibit the two impulses one after the other. In a
highly conducting tissue the lag is very slight, and the negative will
therefore mask the positive by its predominant effect. In spite of the
difficulty involved in the problem, I have recently been successful in
demonstrating the dual impulses in the animal nerve.
In any case it is important to remember the following characteristic
effects of indirect stimulation.
TABLE XXII.--SHOWING THE EFFECT OF INDIRECT STIMULATION.
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THE MYSTERY OF MR. E. DROOD.
AN ADAPTATION.
BY ORFHEUS C. KERR
CHAPTER XIX.
THE H. AND H. OF J. BUMSTEAD.
The exquisitely sweet month of the perfectly delicious summer-vacation
having come, Miss CAROWTHERS' Young Ladies have returned again, for a
time, to their respective homes, MAGNOLIA PENDRAGON has gone to the city
and her brother, and FLORA POTTS is ridiculously and absurdly alone.
Under the ardent sun of August, Bumsteadville slowly bakes, like an
ogre's family-dish of stuffed cottages and greens, with here and there
some slowly moving object, like a loose vegetable on a sluggish current
of tidal gravy, and the spire of the Ritualistic church shooting-up at
one end like an incorrigibly perpendicular leg of magnified mutton.
Hotter and hotter comes the breath fiery of nature's cookery, until some
of the stuffing boils out of one cottage, in the shape of the Oldest
Inhabitant, who makes his usual annual remark, that this is the Warmest
Day in ninety-eight years, and then simmers away to some cooler nook
amongst the greens. More and more intolerably quivers the atmosphere of
the sylvan oven with stifling fervency, until there oozes from beneath
the shingled crust of a vegetarian country-boarding-house a parboiled
guest from the City, who, believing himself almost ready to turn, drifts
feebly to where the roads fork and there is a shade more dun; while, to
the speculative mind, each glowing field of corn, or buckwheat, is an
incipient Meal, and each chimney, or barn, a mere temptation to guess
how many Swallows there may be in it.
Upon the afternoon of such a day as this, Miss POTTS is informed, by a
servant, that Mr. BUMSTEAD has arrived, and, sending her his love, would
be pleased to have her come down stairs to him and bring him a fan.
"Why didn't you tell him I wasn't at home, you absurd thing?" cries the
young girl, hurriedly practicing a series of agitated looks and pensive
smiles before her mirror.
"So I did, Miss," answers the attached menial, "but he'd seen you
looking at him with an opera-glass as he came up the path, and said that
he could hear you taking a clean handkerchief out of tho drawer, on
purpose to receive him with, before he'd got to the door."
"Oh, what shall I do? My hands are so red to-day!" sighs FLCKA, holding
her arms above her head, that the blood may retire from the too pinkish
members.
After a pause, and an adjustment of a curl over her right eye and the
scarf at her waist, to make them look innocent, she yields to the
meteorological mania so strikingly prevalent amongst all the other
characters of this narrative, and says that she will receive the visitor
in the yard, near the pump. Then, casting carelessly over her shoulder
that web-like shawl without which no woman nor spider is complete, she
arranges her lips in the glass for the last time, and, with a garden-hat
hanging from the elbow latest singed, goes down, humming
un-suspiciously, into the open-air, with the guileless bearing of one
wholly unprepared for company.
Resting an elbow upon a low iron patent-pump, near a rustic seat, the
Ritualistic organist, in his vast linen coat and imposing straw hat,
looks not unlike an eccentric garden statue, upon which some prudish
slave of modern conventionalities has placed the summer attire of a
western editor. The great heat of the sun upon his back makes him
irritable, and when Miss POTTS sharply smites with her fan the knuckles
of the hand which he has affably extended to take her by the chin, more
than the usual symptoms of acute inflammation appear at the end of his
nose, and he blows hurriedly upon his wounded digits.
"That hurt like the mischief!" he remarks, in some anger. "I don't know
when I've felt anything smart so."
"Then don't be so horrid," returns the pensive girl, taking a seat
before him upon the rustic settee, and abstractedly arranging her dress
so that only two-thirds of a gaiter-boot can be seen.
Munching cloves, the aroma of which ladens the air all around him, Mr.
BUMSTEAD contemplates her with a calmness which would be enthralling,
but for the nervous twisting of his features under the torments of a
singularly adhesive fly.
"I have come, dear," he observes, slowly, "to know how soon you will be
ready for me to give you your next music-lesson?"
"I prefer that you would not call me your 'dear,'" was the chilling
answer.
The organist thinks for a moment, and then nods his head intelligently.
"You are right," he says, gravely, "--there _might_ be somebody
listening who could not enter into our real feelings. And now, how about
those music-lessons?"
"I don't want any more, thank you," says FLORA, coldly. "While we are
all in mourning for our poor, dear absurd EDDY, it seems like a
perfectly ridiculous mockery to be practicing the scales."
Fanning himself with his straw hat, Mr. BUMSTEAD shakes his bushy head
several times. "You do not discriminate sufficiently," he replies.
"There are kinds of music which, when performed rapidly upon the violin,
fife, or kettle-drum, certainly fill the mind with sentiments
unfavorable to the deeper anguish of human sorrow. Of such, however, is
not the kind made by young girls, which is at all times a help to the
intensity of judicious grief. Let me assure you, with the candor of an
idolized friend, that some of the saddest hours of my life have been
spent in teaching you to try to sing a humorous aria from DONIZETTI; and
the moments in which I have most sincerely regretted ever having been
born were those in which you have played, in my hearing, the
Drinking-song from _La Traviata_. Believe me, then, my devoted pupil,
there can be nothing at all inconsistent with a prevalence of profound
melancholy in your continued piano-playing; whereas, on the contrary,
your sudden and permanent cessation might at least surprise your friends
and the neighborhood into a light-heartedness temporarily oblivious of
the memory of that dear, missing boy, to whom you could not, I hear,
give the love already bestowed upon me."
"I loved him ridiculously, absurdly, with my whole heart," cries FLORA,
not altogether liking what she has heard. "I'm real sorry, too, that
they think somebody has killed him."
Mr, BUMSTEAD folds his brown linen arms as he towers before her, and the
dark circles around his eyes appear to shrink with the intensify of his
gaze.
"There are occasions in life," he remarks, "when to acknowledge that our
last meeting with a friend, who has since mysteriously disappeared, was
to reject him and imply a preference for his uncle, may be calculated to
associate us unpleasantly with that disappearance, in the minds of the
censorious, and invite suspicions tending to our early cross-examination
by our Irish local magistrate. I do not say, of course, that you
actually destroyed my nephew for fear he should try to prejudice me
against you; but I cannot withhold my earnest approval of your judicious
pretence of a sentiment palpably incompatible with the shedding of the
blood of its departed object. If you will move your dress a little, so
that I can sit beside you and allow your head to rest upon my shoulder,
that fan will do for both of us, and we may converse in whispers."
"My head upon _your_ shoulder!" exclaims Miss POTTS, staring swiftly
about to see if anybody is looking. "I prefer to keep my head upon my
own shoulders, sir."
"Two heads are better than one," the Ritualistic organist reminds her.
"If a little hair-oil and powder _does_ come off upon my coat, the
latter will wash, I suppose. Come, dearest, if it is our fate to never
get through this hot day alive, let us be sunstruck together."
She shrinks timidly from the brown linen arm which he begins insinuating
along the back of the rustic settee, and tells him that she couldn't
have believed that he could be so absurd. He draws back his arm, and
seems hurt.
"FLORA," he says, tenderly, "how beautiful you are, especially when
fixed up. The more I see of yon, the less sorry I am that I have
concluded to be yours. All the time that my dear boy was trying to
induce you to relase him from his engagement, I was thinking how much
better you might do; yet, beyond an occasional encouraging wink, I never
gave the least sign of reciprocating your attachment. I did not think it
would be right"
The assertion, though superficially true, is so imperfect in its
delineation of habitual conduct liable to another construction, that the
agitated Flowerpot returns, with quick indignation, "your arm was always
reaching out whenever you sat in a chair anywhere near me, and whenever
I sang you always kept looking straight into my mouth until it tickled
me. You know you did, you hateful thing! Besides, it wasn't you that I
preferred, at all; it was--oh, it's too ridiculous to tell!"
In her bashful confusion she is about to arise and trip shyly away from
him into the house, when he speaks again.
"Miss POTTS, is your friendship for Miss PENDRAGON and her brother such,
that their execution upon some Friday of next month would be a spectacle
to which you could give no pleased attention?"
"What do you mean, you absurd creature?"
"I mean," continues Mr. BUMSTEAD, "simply this: you know my double loss.
You know that, upon the person of the male PENDRAGON was found an apple
looking and tasting like one which my nephew once had. You know, that
when Miss PENDRAGON went from here she wore an alpaca waist which looked
as though it had been exposed more than once to the rain.--See the
point?"
FLORA gives a startled look, and says: "I don't see it."
"Suppose," he goes on--"suppose that I go to a magistrate, and say:
'Judge, I voted for you, and can influence a large foreign vote for you
again. I have lost a nephew who was very fond of apples, and a black
alpaca umbrella of great value. A young Southerner, who has not lived in
this State long enough to vote, has been found in possession of an apple
singularly like the kind generally eaten by my missing relative, and his
sister has come out in a waist made of second-hand alpaca?'--See the
point now?"
"Mr. BUMSTEAD," exclaims FLORA, affrighted by the terrible menace of his
manner, "I don't any more believe that Mr. PENDRAGON is guilty than I,
myself, am; and as for your old umbrella--"
"Stop, woman!" interrupted the bereaved organist, imperiously. "Not even
your lips shall speak disrespectfully of my lost bone-handled friend. By
a chain of unanswerable argument, I have shown you that I hold the fate
of your southern acquaintances in my hands, and shall be particularly
sorry if you force me to hang Mr. PENDRAGON as a rival."
FLORA puts her hands to her temples, to soothe her throbbing head and
display a bracelet.
"Oh, what shall I do! I don't want anybody to be hung! It must be so
perfectly awful!"
Her touching display of generous feeling does not soften him. On the
contrary, he stands more erect, and smiles rather triumphantly under his
straw hat.
"Beloved one," he murmurs, in a rich voice, "I find that I cannot induce
you to make the first advance toward the mutual avowal we are both
longing for, and must therefore precipitate our happiness myself. My
poor boy would not have given you perfect satisfaction, and your
momentary liking for the male PENDRAGON was but the effect of a
temporary despair undoubtedly produced by my seeming coldness. That
coldness had nothing to do with my heart, but resulted partially from my
habit of wearing a wet towel on my head. I now propose to you--"
"Propose to me?" ejaculates Miss POTTS, with heightened color.
"--That you pick out a worthy man belonging to your own section of the
Union," he continues hastily. "Here's my Heart," he adds, going through
the motions of taking something from a pocket and placing it in his
outstretched palm, "and here's my Hand,"--placing therein an equally
imaginary object from another pocket.--"Try the H. and H. of J.
BUMSTEAD."
His manner is as though he were commending some patent article of
unquestionable utility.
"But I can't bear the sight of you!" she cries, pushing away the brown
linen arm coming after her again.
Taking away her fan, he pats her on the head with it, and seems
momentarily surprised at the hollow sound.
"Future Mrs. BUMSTEAD," he cheerfully replies, at last, "my observation
and knowledge of the women of America teach me that there never was a
wife going to Indiana for a divorce, who had not at first sworn to love,
as well as honor and obey, her husband. Such is woman that if she had
felt and said at the altar that she couldn't bear the sight of him, it
wouldn't have been in the power of masculine brutality and dissipated
habits to drive her from his side through all their lives. There can be
no better sign of our future happiness, than for you to say, beforehand,
that you utterly detest the man of your choice."
There is something terrible to the young girl in the original turn of
thought of this fascinating man. Say what she may, he at once turns it
into virtual devotion to himself. He appears to have a perfectly
dreadful power to hang everybody; he considers her strongest avowal of
present personal dislike the most promising indication she can give of
eternal future infatuation with him, and his powerful mode of reasoning
is more profound and composing than an article in a New York newspaper
on a War in Europe. Rendered dizzy by his metaphysical conversation, she
arises from the rustic seat, and is flying giddily into the house, when
he leaps athletically after her, and catches her in the doorway.
"I merely wish to request," he says, quietly, "that you place sufficient
restraint upon your naturally happy feelings to keep our engagement a
secret from the public at present, as I can't bear to have boys calling
out after me, 'There's the feller that's goin' to get married! There's
the feller that's goin' to get married!' When a man is about to make a
fool of himself, it is not for children to remind him of it."
The door being opened before she can answer, FLORA receives a parting
bow of Grandisonian elegance from Mr. BUMSTEAD, and hastens up stairs to
her room in a distraction of mind not uncommon to those having
conversational relations with the Ritualistic organist.
_(To be Continued.)_
* * * * *
Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1870, by the
PUNCHINELLO PUBLISHING COMPANY, in the Clerk's Office of the District
Court of the United States, for the Southern District of New York.
* * * * *
A GOOD FIGHT.
We presume that all the Boston people "lecture" at times; at any rate
they could, if they wanted to. No one doubts their ability.
But, let the number of these imparters of information be ever so great,
we have reason to doubt whether any other of these accomplished parties
has grappled with so formidable, so tremendous a subject, as that which
is now exciting the powerful mind of Miss LILLIAN EDGARTON.
She is going to do it, though! If her life is spared, and her
constitution remains free from blight, (both of which felicities we
trust will be hers,) that subject has got to come under.
That all may know how great is the task, and the confidence required to
pitch into it, we announce, with a flourish, that Miss L. E. is about to
attack that well-known Saurian Monster, termed GOSSIP! Considered as a
Disease, she proposes to find the Cause and the Cure. Considered as a
living and gigantic Nuisance (by far surpassing any Dragon described by
SPENSER,) she designs to hunt him out and slay him incontinently.
Courage, fair Knight! Our eldest Son is kept in reserve for some such
Heroine! If you would be famous, if you would make a perfect thing of
this Crusade, if you would render the lives of your fellow mortals
longer and happier, if you would win that noble and ingenuous youth, our
son, go in vehemently!
And, while you are about it, LILLIAN, would you object to giving your
attention to certain relations of the monster which you propose to slay?
We name them, Detraction and Calumny. They are tough old Dragons, now,
we tell you; perhaps it were best to fight shy of them.
We have it, LILLIAN! Leave 'em to us! Us, with a big U! You kill little
Gossip, and see how quick his brothers and sisters will fall, before our
mighty battle-axe!
(And so they will fall, sure enough, but it will be simply because when
our dear young knight, L.E., has killed _her_ Dragon, she will have
wiped out the whole brood! They can't live without their sweet and
attractive little sister. And so, like many a bigger humbug, we shall
take great credit, that belongs to somebody else, and assume to have
done big things, at enormous expense of blood and money. Trust us, for
that!)
* * * * *
NAPOLEON III AT SEDAN.
September, 1870.
I _was_ an Emperor. _Voilà c'est bon!_
BAZAINE, MACMAHON, fought--'twas my affair.
Only, to please my doctor, NELATON,
I left the throne, to take a Sedan chair.
* * * * *
Unlimited Lie-Ability.
_Veritas_ writes to say that as he was crossing the ferry from Wall
Street to Brooklyn, yesterday afternoon, he counted 117 persons reading
PUNCHINELLO. He did not observe a single copy of the _Sun_ on board,
until the boat neared Brooklyn, when a man of squalid appearance
produced from a dirty newspaper some soiled articles, all of which
seemed to have been steeped in Lye, from contact with the sheet, which
proved to be the _Sun._
* * * * *
A Con for the "Ninth."
What is there in common between Colonel FISK'S war-horse and a New York
Ice Company?
Both are tremendous Chargers.
* * * * *
THE PLAYS AND SHOWS.
Here I am again, back from the seashore, to find the theatres opening,
the war closing, and GREELEY burning to imitate the late French Emperor,
by leading the Republican hosts to defeat in the Fall campaign, so as to
be in a position to write to the Germanically named HOFFMAN--"As I
cannot fall, ballot in hand, at the head of my repeaters, I surrender to
your victorious Excellency."
Being back, I went to see _Julius Cæsar_ at NIBLO'S Garden. It was the
day when the French CAESER fell, and the impertinent soothsayer,
ROCHEFORT, who had so often advised him to beware, not of the Ides of
March, but of the _Idées Napoléoniennes,_ (there is a feeble attempt at
a pun here) obtained his liberty, and the right to assail in his
newspaper, the virtue of every female relative of the Imperial family.
Of course I know that JULIUS CÆSAR was not a Frenchman--for the modesty
of his "Commentaries" is proverbial--and that SHAKESPEARE never so much
as heard of the Man of December. Nevertheless the two CÆSARS were
inextricably mixed up in my mind. I know that two or three editorial
persons who sat close by me, were continually talking of NAPOLEON, and I
may possibly have confounded their remarks with those of the actors.
Still I could not divest myself of the impression that I was sometimes
in Paris and sometimes in Rome, and that the sepulchral voice of Mr.
THEODORE HAMILTON, was more often that of NAPOLEON than that of JULIUS.
The play presents itself to my recollection in the following shape. As I
said before, it was represented at the very moment that the French
republicans, being satisfied with the bees in their respective bonnets,
were obliterating the imperial bees from the doors of the Tuileries, and
being anxious to take arms against a sea of Prussians, were taking down
the imperial arms wherever they could find them. Remembering this, the
reader will be able to account for any slight difference in text between
my _Julius Cæsar,_ and that of the respectable and able Mr. SHAKESPEARE.
ACT I.--_Enter various Irish Roman Citizens, flourishing the shillelahs
of the period._
1ST. CITIZEN. "Here's a row. Great CÆSAR is going to march to Berlin.
Hooray for the Hemperor."
1ST EDITORIAL PERSON. "I grant you he was popular when the war began,
but to-day the people despise him."
CASSIUS. "I hate this CÆSAR. Once he tried to swim across the British
Channel with a tame eagle on his shoulder, and couldn't do it. When he
is sick he takes anti-bilious pills, like any other man. Obviously he
don't deserve to live."
CASCA. (_Who is fat enough to know better, and not pretend to be
discontented_.) "Let's kill him and break all the glass in the windows
of Paris."
BRUTUS. "My friend, those who live in stone houses should never throw
glass about. I don't mean anything by this, but it sounds oracular, and
will make people think I am a profound philosopher."
EDITORIAL PERSON. "What I say is this. He, CÆSAR, governed the Roman
rabble vastly better than they deserved. His only mistakes were, in not
sending CASSIUS, who was a sort of ROCHEFORT, without ROCHEFORT'S
cowardice, to the galleys, and in not sending BRUTUS as Minister to some
capital so dreary that he would have shot himself as soon as he reached
his destination."
ACT II.--_Enter_ BRUTUS _and fellow radicals._
BRUTUS. "I have no complaint against CÆSAR, and I therefore gladly join
your noble band of assassins. We will kill him and establish a
provisional government with myself at its head. CÆSAR is ambitious, and
I hate ambition. All I want is to be the ruler of Rome."
CASSIUS. "Come, my brave fellows. Haste to the stabbing. Away! Away!"
EDITORIAL PERSON. "What a farce is history. Here are PUMBLECHOOK, BRUTUS
and JOHN WILKES CASSIUS held up as models of excellence and integrity.
What did they and their fellow scoundrels do after they had killed
CÆSAR, but desolate their country with civil war?"
ACT III.--_Enter_ ASSASSINS _headed by_ BRUTUS _and_ GAMBETTA, CASSIUS
_and_ ROCHEFORT.
CASSIUS. "Here is CÆSAR with his back toward us, fighting the German's
hordes. Let us steal up and stab him before he can help himself." _(They
stab him.)_
CASSIUS. "Now we will kick his wife out of Paris and smash his
furniture. We will all become a Provisional Government, and fix
everything to suit ourselves. I will revive my newspaper, and hire a
staff from the New York _Sun,_ who will make it more scurrilous than
ever."
_Enter the Parisian populace crying, "Hooray for_ CÆSAR."
CASSIUS. "Hush. CÆSAR is dead, and we are going to proclaim a republic.
Begin and abuse him with all your might. We'll let you smash some
windows presently."
POPULACE. "Hooray. The tyrant has fallen. Let's go and insult his wife
and smash everything generally."
1ST EDITORIAL PERSON. "Yesterday these precious rascals voted for him.
To-day they insult him--it being safe to do so--and to-morrow they will
want him back again."
2ND EDITORIAL PERSON, "There lies the ruins of the noblest nephew of his
uncle that ever lived in France or elsewhere. He was unscrupulous, I
admit, but he knew how to rule. Shall we stay and hear MARK ANTONY
praise him, and set the fickle rabble at the throats of ROCHEFORT and
BRUTUS, and their gang?"
1ST EDITORIAL PERSON. "That will take place very shortly, but I can't
wait for it. I must go home to write an editorial welcoming the new
republic, and prophesying all manner of success for it. The American
people like that sort of trash, though they have already twice seen the
French try republican institutions only to make a muddle of them."
2ND EDITORIAL PERSON. "What do you think of the actors here at NIBLO'S."
1ST EDITORIAL PERSON. "DAVENPORT is good but heavy, BARRETT rants like a
raving French radical. MONTGOMERY is excellent, and the rest are so so."
And the undersigned having seen the French revolution played on the
Roman stage at NIBLO'S, also went home without waiting to see the
prophetic fourth and fifth acts, in which the conspirators come to
grief, and the empire is reëstablished. We shall read all about it in
the cable dispatches a few months hence. Good Heavens! who can listen
calmly to the speeches of the players, while the grandest drama of the
century is acting across the sea, where a mad populace, freed from the
firm grasp of its master, breaks windows and howls itself hoarse as the
best preparations for holding the fairest of cities against the
resistless veterans of VON MOLTKE.
MATADOR.
* * * * *
Insurrectionary.
PUNCHINELLO, pondering over the vast sums that have been forwarded to
Cuba, in aid of the insurrectionary movements there, and struck with the
disadvantages under which the promoters of liberty labor in that sunny
isle, blesses his stars that, thanks to the enterprise of Miss SUSAN B.
ANTHONY, he can raise a Revolution in New York City, at any time,
for ten cents. Let those whom it may concern take heed.
* * * * *
Bluff King Bill.
L.N. declared his determination to kick old King BILLY, of Prussia, off
from French territory. Well, it would only have been a new illustration
of "footing the Bill."
* * * * *
Query.
As soon as the abominable fat-boiling nuisances have been abolished,
will it be right to say that they have fallen into de-_suet_-ude?
* * * * *
A Seasonable Conundrum.
Why is New York City like the ex-Emperor of the French?
Because it has just got rid of its Census.
* * * * *
A Suggestion.
In consideration of the splendid jewels worn by him, might not Colonel
JIM FISK be more appropriately called Colonel GEM FISK.
* * * * *
[Illustration: THE SPIRIT OF THE WAR.
A Sketch In the Bowery.
_Small Frenchman._ "WHAT FOR YOU HIT ME WITH YOUR DAMBABY VEN YOU PASS?"
_Big German._ "WANTS TO FIGHT?--DINKS YOU CAN WHIP ME, EH?"
_Small Frenchman._ "NO--BUT I CAN GIVE YOUR DAMBABY ONE BLACK EYE!"]
* * * * *
BY GEORGE!
LAKE GEORGE, August 30.
DEAR PUNCHINELLO:--I arrived here last Saturday, and as I would be the
last person to allow a commendable enterprise to languish for want of
proper encouragement, and in order to put the Hotel proprietors out of
suspense, I thought I would let you know without further delay that I
consider Lake George a success.
Not being expected, as I supposed, I must admit I was somewhat gratified
to find a full band playing on the veranda as the coach I was in drove
up.
It was a sort of delicate attention, you know.
I notice, however, that they continue playing in the afternoon since
then, I suppose it struck them as a good idea at the time.
The Fort William Henry Hotel is a gorgeous affair in every respect. It
is situated very near the old original Fort, just where the French
troops advanced to capture it, and made their celebrated charges.
Perhaps the present proprietor can't discount them at that sort of
thing.
Perhaps not!
Looking over one's bills reminds you a good deal of the Police Courts,
five dollars fine, twenty-five dollars costs.
The costs they make here are very good, however, altho' they do put a
little too much mint in them, I must say.
L.G. is all right, though. It is supplied with all the modern
conveniences. It isn't within five minutes walk of the post office, but
its water conveniences are apparent to all. There is no end to its
belles, and as for its ranges, it has two of them--both Adirondacks.
Yesterday I took a trip up the Lake and across to its neighbor,
Champlain.
Everybody takes this trip because its "the thing," and it is therefore
particularly necessary to take it. Ostensibly, you go to view the
scenery, really, to be inveigled into paying for a low comedy of a
dinner at the other end.
The first place our boat stopped at is called the "Trout Pavillion,"
principally, so far as I can learn, on account of the immense number of
pickerel caught there, and from the fact that it is unquestionably a
good site for a Pavillion whenever the esteemed Proprietor turns up
jacks enough, at his favorite game, to build one.
The next place was set down in the Guide Book as the "Three Sisters"
Islands, an appellation arising from the fact that there are precisely
_four_ of them.
I mentioned this apparent discrepancy to the boat clerk.
This young man, who belongs to a Base Ball Club, informs me that these
islands invariably travelled with a "substitute," as one occasionally
got "soaked."
This certainly seems a little curious, but as the young man says he was
born here, I suppose he knows.
This same young man pointed out a beautiful spot called Green Island and
asked me if I wouldn't like to live there.
He said he thought it would just suit me.
The attention of these people is really delightful.
Some of these places, however, have very inappropriate names, for
instance another little gem is called "Hog Island." No one knows why it
was so called. The clerk of the boat don't either.
He wanted to know if I had ever dined there.
I always make it a point to get on the right side of these Steamboat
fellows, always.
About half way up the Lake is a place called Tongue Mountain.
A long time ago a colony of strong-minded women settled there.
That may have had something to do with its name.
Nobody ever goes there now.
People go very near the mountain in boats, however, as it is noted for
something very extraordinary in the Echo line.
It has what is called a "Double Echo."
I fully expected something of this kind.
Now if there is anything I am particularly down on, it is those
unmitigated frauds known as Echoes. And if I ever throw four sixes, it
is when I am tackling some unsuspecting old ass of a watering place
echo.
I consider them "_holler_ mockeries."
Of course we steamed within proper distance, and I seized the
opportunity to "put a head on" this venerable two-ply nuisance, as
follows:
First, I read a page of a Patent Office Report I go armed with.
This the Echo, with very little hesitation, repeated in duplicate as
usual. From one side of the rock in English, and from the other in fair
French.
I saw at once that old EK was pretty well filled.
Next I sang "Listen to the Mocking Bird," which it repeated very
creditably indeed, dropping but two notes on the third verse. This it
made up for, I am bound to admit, by throwing in some original
variations in the chorus.
But I hadn't played from my sleeve yet, so I recited HAMLET'S Soliloquy.
From the wooded slope on our right came the familiar "_
|
she
might confide her sorrows and her joys. She did not get on with the
members of the Imperial Family, and she had been very much hurt at the
attitude taken up in regard to her by the Princess Clotilde. Eugénie had
received the Princess with open arms, but had met with repulse from the
very first moment Clotilde arrived in France. Then, again, Eugénie’s
relations with Prince Napoleon became of the worst, perhaps owing to the
fact that there had been a day, before her marriage with the Emperor,
when those relations were very near. The antagonism towards her which
the only cousin of her husband chose to adopt, wounded her to the quick,
and instead of trying to overcome it with tact and apparent
indifference, she did her best to accentuate his animosity, until open
warfare resulted, and the strained situation became a general topic of
gossip.
With Princess Mathilde, the sister of the Prince, the Empress was, also,
not on intimate terms, although apparently they bore one another
affection. The Princess was perhaps the most remarkable among the many
fascinating women with whom the Second Empire will remain associated.
Surpassingly beautiful in her youth, she retained her good looks, and
notwithstanding her _embonpoint_, possessed a personality of great
dignity. She was certainly a _grande dame_, despite her numerous
frailties.
She was clever, kind, brilliant in more senses than one; very talented,
she liked to surround herself with clever people, who, in their turn,
were glad to have her appreciation. There had been a time when the
question of a marriage between her and her cousin, Prince Louis
Napoleon, had been discussed, but the latter’s chances were so
uncertain, that neither Mathilde nor her father had had the courage to
run the risk of uniting her destiny with that of the Pretender.
The Princess married M. Demidoff, and very soon regretted it; so deeply
that she tried to break the bonds. Thanks to the intervention of the
Emperor Nicholas of Russia, a separation was arranged under very
favourable terms for Madame Demidoff, who, by permission of the
government of Louis Philippe, settled in Paris. She did not mix with
politics, and only tried to create for herself a pleasant circle of
acquaintances and friends. Unfortunately, she possessed in addition to a
superior and cultivated mind, a very ardent temperament, and gossip soon
became busy with her name, especially after her liaison with Count de
Nieuwekerke became a recognised fact.
When the Revolution of 1848 brought back to France the heir to the
Bonaparte traditions, the Princess Mathilde at once hastened to his
side, and showed herself to be the best of friends. It was the Princess
Mathilde who presided at his first entertainment at Compiègne, as well
as at the Elysée, where he was residing when in the capital, and it was
at her house that the Prince President, as he was called, met for the
first time the lovely Spaniard who was later to become his wife.
The Princess Mathilde did not like the marriage, in view of the fact
that she might have occupied the place which this stranger took, as it
were by storm; she would hardly have been human had she done so. But she
was far too clever to show her disapproval, and it is related that when
the question arose as to who should carry the train of the new Empress,
Mathilde at once declared that she would do so if the Emperor asked her,
much to the astonishment and perhaps to the scandal of those who heard
her. She bore no malice, and thought herself far too great a lady to
imagine that by whatever she might do she would fall in the estimation
of others, or that it would be derogatory to her position.
But though she consented to receive the future wife of her cousin when
first she entered the Tuileries, and though she tried hard to establish
friendly relations with her, all her efforts failed, partly because the
young Empress felt afraid of the brilliant Princess, and of her sharp
tongue and brusque manners, partly, also, because Mathilde did not care
for the people who formed the entourage of the Sovereign, and never felt
at her ease at the many entertainments given by Eugénie. She thought
them either too dull or too boisterous.
Mathilde was never so happy as when in her own house in the Rue de
Courcelles, where all that was distinguished in France considered it an
honour to be admitted, and where she could live the life of a private
lady of high rank. She was too frank to conceal what she felt, and too
honest to flatter the Empress, or to find charming what she considered
to be the reverse. Though she disapproved of many things that her
brother, Prince Napoleon, did, she did not care to blame him publicly,
and thus she maintained a neutral attitude in regard to both. Eugenie’s
airy disposition and love of amusement in any shape or form prevented
her from finding pleasure in the company of the Princess Mathilde, whom
she thought exceedingly dull, and whom she accused of fomenting the
accusations which her enemies showered upon her. So long as the Empire
lasted there was no sympathy between the Empress and her husband’s
cousin, and it was only later, when both ladies had realised the
emptiness of worldly things, that their relations became intimate and
affectionate, so much so that when Mathilde Bonaparte died, it was
Eugénie who watched beside her, and whose hands were the last she
pressed before expiring.
The best friend that the Empress Eugénie had among the members of the
Imperial Family was the Princess Anna Murat, who married the Duke of
Mouchy, to the horror of all the Noailles family, and the chagrin of the
Faubourg St. Germain generally. Princess Anna was one of the loveliest
women of her time, though perhaps not one of the brightest. Still, she
had a warm heart, a kindly disposition, and a sincere attachment for the
Empress. She had very nice dignified manners, if sometimes stiff, and
was perhaps the only really _grande dame_, with the exception of the
Princess Mathilde, among the many ladies with whom Eugénie liked to
surround herself.
Very much might be said about the ladies of the Court. There were lovely
women, such as the Countess Valovska, née Anna Ricci, the dark
Florentine, whose smiles won her so many hearts, including that of
Napoleon III.; others were clever like Pauline Metternich, and some were
both lovely and clever, Mélanie Pourtalès for instance, that star of the
Empire who condescended later to shine in the Republican firmament, and
who to this day is one of the celebrities of Paris, in spite of her
seventy odd years. There was the Duchesse de Persigny, and the Duchesse
de Cadore, and the Baroness de Rothschild, and many others, but among
them all the Empress could not boast of a real friend, always with the
exception of the Duchesse de Mouchy, who owed her far too much ever to
dare criticise anything she did.
I have mentioned the Princess Metternich. Among all those to whose fatal
influence the Second Empire owed its fall she holds one of the first and
foremost places. She it was who sapped its foundations and lowered its
dignity; she it was who with a rude hand pulled back the veil which,
until she appeared at Compiègne and at the Tuileries, had still been
drawn between the general public and the Imperial Court. Young and ugly,
but clever and gifted with what the French call _brio_, she lived but
for one thing, and that was amusement in any shape or form. She had no
respect for the society in which she found herself, and brought to
Paris an atmosphere of carelessness such as we sometimes display when
we find ourselves travelling in a country where we are unknown, and
where we can do what we like without fear of the _qu’en dira-t-on_, or,
as they say in England, “Mrs. Grundy.” After some experience of the
strict etiquette of the Austrian Hofburg, she felt delighted to be able
to dispense with it, and treated the Empress with disdain, making use of
her in order to attain her own ends, and ruling the Tuileries like some
of the present great ladies in pecuniary straits rule the houses of the
American or South African millionaires whom--for a consideration--they
introduce into society. The behaviour of the Princess Metternich can be
characterised by her remark to a lady who, at Compiègne, reproved her
for trying to induce the Empress to appear in public in a short gown, a
thing that was not considered to be proper at the time of which I am
writing. The friend asked her at the same time whether she would have
advised the Empress Elizabeth to do such a thing; she replied
vehemently: “No, certainly not, I would not do such a thing, but then my
Empress is a real one.”
Pauline Metternich never liked Eugénie; she secretly envied her for her
beauty. She encouraged her in every false or mistaken step the Empress
unwittingly took. She brought a shade of vulgarity into all the
entertainments over which she presided and which she organised. She
smoked big cigars without minding in the least whether it pleased the
Empress or not, and she allowed herself every kind of liberty, sure of
immunity, and careless as to what people thought about her. She showed
herself the most ungrateful of beings, forsaking her friend when the
latter was precipitated into obscurity and misfortune, never once giving
her a thought. Pauline Metternich was a perfect type of an opportunist
without a memory, and after having danced, eaten, smoked, enjoyed
herself at the Tuileries where she always was a favoured guest, she
never once sent a message of sympathy to the discarded Sovereign, whose
acquaintance she probably thought irksome and inconvenient. Once in a
moment of expansion, so the story goes, she gave way to a remark which
deserves to pass to posterity concerning those years during which she
was the leading spirit at all the entertainments given at the Tuileries,
and which I cannot help reproducing here: A diplomat who had known her
in Paris asked her whether she did not regret the Second Empire, and
received a characteristic reply: “Regret it? Why? It was very amusing,
very vulgar, and it could not last; we all knew it, and we all made hay
whilst the sun shone.”
Countess Mélanie Pourtalès, in that respect, was far superior to
Princess Metternich; she at least had the decency to remain faithful to
her former sympathies and to her Bonapartist leanings. To this day she
sees the Empress when the latter visits Paris, and she never indulges in
one word of blame concerning that far away time when she also was one of
the queens of the Tuileries.
Mélanie de Bussières is one of the marvels of last century. As beautiful
as a dream, she had an angelic face, lovely innocent eyes, which used to
look at the world with the guilelessness of a child, and a Madonna-like
expression that reminded one of a long white lily drooping on its stem.
She was intelligent, too, had an enormous amount of tact, and succeeded,
whilst denying herself none of her caprices, in keeping unimpaired her
place in Parisian society, of retaining as her friends all those to whom
the world had given another name, and of acquiring a position such as
few women have ever had before her. Always kind, rarely malicious,
smiling alike on friends and foes, she contrived to disarm the latter,
and never to estrange the former. Though very much envied, yet she was
liked, and she inspired with enthusiasm all those with whom she was
brought into contact. Now she is a great-grandmother, but still a
leading light of social Paris, and those who formerly admired her beauty
continue to crowd around her in order to listen to her conversation.
When I entered the circle of Imperialist society, I was struck by the
number of pretty women that I met there. They were not all clever; a
good many were vulgar, but most of them were lovely. A ball at that time
was a pretty sight, far prettier than it is at the present day, and as
for amusement, one could find it wherever one went. Morals, on the other
hand, were no worse than is the case at present; indeed, in many
respects they were better, insomuch that it was far more difficult then,
owing to the conditions of existence, for a lady belonging to the upper
classes to misbehave herself than is the case at present, when women go
freely everywhere, whilst during the Second Empire it was hardly
possible for a well-known lady to be seen in a cab or a ’bus, or even
walking in unfrequented streets. “Le diable n’y perdait rien,” to use an
old French expression; but a certain decorum, totally absent nowadays,
had to be adhered to, and the Empress was very severe upon all those who
infringed its rules. She had attacks of prudery, as it were, during
which she posed as a watcher over the morals of her Court. Such a
procedure among the very carefully immoral persons who surrounded her
made many people smile.
The Emperor also had but few personal friends. The most faithful and
devoted perhaps was Dr. Conneau, who had watched over Queen Hortense
during her last illness, and who had given to her son the most sincere
proofs of affection that one man can give to another. Conneau was that
_rara avis_, a totally disinterested person. Millions had passed through
his hands, but he died poor, and when the Empire fell he was reduced to
selling a collection of rare books he possessed, in order to have bread
in his old age. He loved Napoleon with his whole heart, soul, and mind,
and belonged to the very few who cared for and believed in the
traditions of the Bonapartes. He did infinite good during the eighteen
years the Empire lasted, and never refused to lay a case of distress
before Napoleon III. once it was brought to his notice. Everybody
respected him, and he was a general favourite with everyone, except
perhaps with the Empress, who felt no personal sympathy for him.
Conneau had voluntarily asked to be allowed to share the Emperor’s
captivity at Ham, and it was thanks to him that the latter contrived to
escape from that fortress disguised as a workman, with a plank on his
shoulder, behind which he hid his face. Whilst Napoleon was hastening
towards the Belgian frontier, Conneau did his best to hide his flight
from the authorities, declaring to those who wanted to see him that he
was ill and asleep in his bed. Conneau had cunningly arranged the
pillows in such a way that they appeared to represent a body wrapped up
in blankets. He knew very well that in doing this he was running a great
risk, but nothing stopped him, and it is certain that to his bold
initiative Napoleon III. owed first his escape and afterwards his
Imperial Crown.
Conneau never left the Emperor, who breathed his last in that faithful
servant’s arms, murmuring before doing so: “Conneau, were you at Sedan?”
thus showing how incurable had been the wound received on that fatal day
which saw the fall of his throne and of his dynasty.
Conneau, with perhaps the exception of M. Mocquard, Napoleon’s private
secretary, was the person who knew the best of the Emperor’s character,
and he remained faithful to him to the last. One day a friend asked him
whether he was sorry not to have died before the fall of the Empire,
and to have witnessed the terrible catastrophes that accompanied it.
Conneau immediately replied: “I am sorry for myself, but glad for the
Emperor who would have had one friend less around him in his
misfortune.” The remark is characteristic of the man.
Mocquard also belonged to the few friends of Napoleon III. who had known
his mother Queen Hortense, and who had devoted his life to the cause of
the Bonapartes. He was one of the pleasantest men of his day, always on
the alert to learn or to hear everything that could be useful to his
Imperial master. Gifted with singular tact, he was able with advantage
to come out of the most entangled and awkward situations. His reply to
Berryer, who had written to him telling him that his political
convictions prevented him from asking to be presented to the Emperor on
his election to the French Academy, is well known, and proves his
ability in that respect. The great advocate, in writing to Mocquard, had
appealed to him as a former colleague. Napoleon’s private secretary at
once responded to his request, and gave him the most courteous and most
respectful reproof, in which the dignity of his Sovereign and that of
the great advocate were equally taken into account.
“The Emperor,” wrote Mocquard, “regrets that M. Berryer has allowed his
political leanings to get the upper hand of his duties as Academician.
M. Berryer’s presence at the Tuileries would not have embarrassed His
Majesty, as he seems to dread. From the height on which he finds himself
raised, the Emperor would only have seen in the new Academician an
orator and a writer; in to-day’s adversary, the defender of yesterday.
M. Berryer is perfectly free to obey the general practice imposed by the
Academy, or to follow his personal repugnances.”
A friend of Berryer, who happened to be with him when that letter
reached him, related to me later that that famous ornament of the French
Bar for once in his life felt embarrassed, and acknowledged his regret
at thus having drawn upon himself a well deserved and tactfully
administered rebuff.
When Mocquard died his place was taken by M. Conti, also a clever man,
who was in possession of the post at the time I arrived in Paris. He did
not succeed in gaining the confidence of the Emperor, as his predecessor
had done, and I believe never felt quite at ease in his difficult
position. I do not know what became of him after the fall of the Empire.
General Fleury was already Ambassador in St. Petersburg at the time of
which I am speaking. He had been, and still was, one of the most
intimate friends of the Emperor, but he was not liked by the Empress,
whose influence he had always tried to thwart. Eugénie was delighted
when he was sent on his foreign mission; she had never got used to the
General: perhaps he knew too many things relating to that distant time
when Mademoiselle de Montijo had never dreamt that fate held a crown in
reserve for her. And then one of the Empress’s closest acquaintances,
the Comtesse de Beaulaincourt, the daughter of the Marshal de
Castellane, and formerly Marquise de Contades, had an undying grudge
against General Fleury. It must be owned that he had not behaved
altogether well in regard to her, and she used her best endeavours to
harm him in the mind of the impressionable Eugénie, to whom she
represented the General as one of her worst enemies. This was not the
case; but Fleury had no sympathy for the Empress, and certainly did
nothing to further her views or her opinions in regard to politics, as
she would have liked him to do. To him is credited the most severe
comment that ever was made on the subject of the marriage between the
Emperor and the lovely Spaniard who had captivated his fancy; that
comment was revealed to the world through the indiscretion of Madame de
Contades, as she was at that time. Fleury had been asked why he objected
so much to his future Sovereign: “I do not like her,” he replied,
“because I feel that she will insist upon wearing her crown in her bed
and her night-cap in public.” This bitter remark being repeated to the
person whom it most concerned, was never forgiven by her.
Fleury, Persigny, and Morny had been the most trusted advisers of
Napoleon III., but unfortunately I never had opportunity to meet any of
them. With their removal from the political scene, the Empire lost its
most solid supports. The ability of M. Rouher could not stave off the
supreme calamity that was to cast it into the abyss; and as for M. Emile
Ollivier, about whom I shall have more to say presently, he had neither
the energy nor the moral courage to resist the current that went against
him and that swept away a regime.
In general, when I look back upon those last two years of the Second
Empire, and try to recapitulate all that I saw, I cannot find anyone,
with the few exceptions already mentioned, who was really the friend of
either the Emperor or the Empress. Surrounded by flatterers, admirers,
courtiers, they had around them no really devoted people willing to risk
anything in order to prove their affection. The Tuileries seemed to be
one vast Liberty Hall, inhabited by men and women who knew very well
that they had but a short time before them to enjoy the good things of
this world, and whose only care was how they could escape with the most
advantage from situations which all the time they felt to be shaking
under their feet. Indeed, the Court reminded one of a vast _cuvée_ out
of which everybody tried to snatch some prize. It was a case of eating,
drinking and being merry, but without thinking that for all these things
there would one day be a reckoning.
CHAPTER III
FONTAINEBLEAU AND COMPIÈGNE
Though still a young man when I was appointed to Paris--a man of
thirty-two years is considered to be quite young--I had already a
considerable experience of the world, and knew the society of most
European capitals, having been at every European Court. I was very well
able, therefore, to judge of what I saw, and to form a reliable opinion,
good or bad, of the people with whom I came into contact.
I must confess at once that I arrived in France with certain prejudices
against the regime, and I did not examine it at first with
over-indulgent eyes. But as I grew to know the Emperor and the Empress
well, many of these prejudices vanished. The kindness of the Emperor,
and his boundless generosity, could not but impress favourably, and as
for Eugénie, her powerful charm made one forget other sides of her
character. When in their presence it was difficult to realise that they
were Sovereigns, or to have the feeling, whether at the Tuileries, at
Compiègne, or at Fontainebleau, that one was at a Royal Court. A mixture
of formality and of gaiety without restraint was prevalent, which
entirely upset one’s notions of what should constitute the atmosphere of
a Court. Eugénie was an incomparable hostess, even if sometimes
eccentric; Napoleon was the most thoughtful of hosts, though restless at
times, and showing some impatience at different vagaries indulged in by
his guests; still, though each was addressed as “Your Majesty,” it was
in much the same spirit that one would have said “Monsieur” or
“Madame”; deference was lacking.
In spite of the shade of Bohemianism which presided over the annual
gatherings at Compiègne and at Fontainebleau, the invitations were
always coveted, and with reason, for a week spent at either place was
certainly most enjoyable. The autumn season generally saw the Sovereigns
at Compiègne, which the Empress liked very much, and there could be met
all the celebrities of modern France and a good many foreigners, whom
the Imperial couple liked to encourage to visit France, and on whom they
lavished every attention. They were generally asked to stay a full week,
and privileged persons were sometimes invited to extend their sojourn.
Life was very pleasant in this old home of the Bourbon dynasty, and the
liberty left to the guests to do what they liked added to its charm. One
rode, one hunted, one drove, and one flirted to one’s heart’s content,
and the only thing which was asked was punctuality at meals and
admiration for the beauty of the Empress.
The exceeding charm and beauty of the Empress was never more seen to
advantage than in one of her country homes, where she felt more at her
ease than in Paris. She used to ask privileged persons among her guests
to drink tea with her in the afternoon. On these occasions she appeared
at her best, talking on every subject, and discussing all the new books.
She rather prided herself on being what French people call “un bel
esprit,” and of caring for literature; she considered it a part of her
duty ostensibly to interest herself in the literary and scientific
movements of the day. She liked to make herself popular among writers
and artists, of whom there was generally a good sprinkling at Compiègne.
Among her favourites were Octave Feuillet, Mérimée, and Carpeaux. More
than once Carpeaux implored her to allow him to carve her bust, to
which, however, she would not agree. Mérimée had been a friend of her
mother’s, the Countess de Montijo, and had known her as a little girl;
indeed, people whispered softly that he had had a good deal to do with
her elevation to the throne, having admirably advised her at that
critical period of her existence when first she became the object of
Napoleon’s adoration.
Mérimée was a charming man in spite of his misanthropic tendencies and
his fits of bad temper, which caused him sometimes to say the rudest
things imaginable, but which in reality he did not mean at all. He was,
however, a privileged person, being customarily forgiven words which
would not have been tolerated in anyone else. He was, perhaps, amidst
the crowd which congregated in the vast halls and galleries of
Compiègne, the one who judged most clearly what was going on around him,
and I remember that one evening, when we were discussing the political
situation, he suddenly asked me: “Et vous croyez que cela durera?” (“And
you think that all this will last?”) Noticing my surprise, he did me the
honour of a lengthy explanation: “You see, my friend, here in this
beautiful France of ours we never look beyond the present day; we enjoy
ourselves without any thought of what the morrow may bring. We have seen
so many changes, so many revolutions, that we have entirely lost the
feeling of stability, without which no nation can achieve really great
things. In politics one must have either stability, faith in the
principles which one is called upon to defend, or else enthusiasm like
that felt by our troops at Marengo. Now can you imagine a spirit of
enthusiasm for our master here?” And he winked in the direction of the
Emperor’s private apartments. “He is good, and kind, and weak, but
though the nation and the army shout ‘Vive l’Empereur’ when they see
him, it is very doubtful whether they would sacrifice anything beyond
the interests of their neighbours for him. And the Empress, she is as
much to be pitied as she is to be envied. I am sorry to have to say so,
because I am really attached to her, but what can one do! She does not
realise that she is not by birth the equal of the other Queens of
Europe, and there lies her great mistake. She is so beautiful that one
would have worshipped at once Mademoiselle de Montijo, but the nation
could not bring itself to respect the Comtesse de Téba in the same way
as had she been a Princess born. Now, don’t betray me, please,” he
added, “but I know that you are discreet, and, besides, who minds the
sayings of that old grumbler Mérimée!”
This _boutade_ left a deep impression on my mind at the time I heard it;
it resounded like the “Mene, Tekel, Upharsin” of the Empire, uttered as
it was by a man who was well known to have personally a great and
sincere devotion for the fair Spaniard whom he had helped to place on
the throne of France. Poor Mérimée was not destined to survive the fall
of that Imperial regime of which he had been one of the strongest
supporters. He died broken-hearted a few days after the disaster of
Sedan, writing pathetically to one of his friends just before his end:
“I have tried all my life to fight against prejudices, and to be a
citizen of the world before being a Frenchman. But all these cloaks of
philosophy are now of no avail to me. I bleed to-day of the same wounds
as these idiots of Frenchmen, and I weep over their humiliation.”
Octave Feuillet was a great favourite of the Empress. He was a charming
man, but always ill and always preoccupied with nursing his health, and
his _malade imaginaire_. His novels were undoubtedly pretty, and created
a great sensation at the time. He was the fashionable novelist of his
generation, and certainly some of his works deserve to pass to
posterity because of their fine observation. He was middle-class to the
core, and this made him worship everything that seemed to be above him.
He took himself far too much in earnest, and even carried so far his
appreciation of his own merit that he wrote once or twice to the
Emperor, proffering unsought his advice in political matters. Napoleon
III. was far too kind to rebuff him, and sometimes even replied to him,
flattering his vanity, as he was accustomed to flatter writers and
journalists, in whom he saw the manufacturers of public opinion, and
whom he liked to conciliate as far as possible. Octave Feuillet
professed a great admiration for the Empress, and he must be given his
due--he remained faithful to her after her fall. He was one of the few
who went to Chislehurst to present their respects to the exiled and
dethroned Sovereigns.
In violent contrast to his behaviour can be instanced that of the
architect Viollet-le-Duc, who, after having been loaded with money and
kindnesses by the Emperor and his Consort, turned his back upon them
after the fall of the Empire, and even tried to make excuses for ever
having known them. Unfortunately, he was but one of many, and bitter
must have been the thoughts of Napoleon III. and Eugénie when they saw
that all the good they had done, the boundless generosity they had
exercised, had only made them a few more enemies among the ranks of
those who owed them so much.
Carpeaux, in spite of his rudeness, was very much appreciated at
Compiègne, and I often saw him there, as indeed I met also most of the
illustrious Frenchmen the Empire could boast of at that time. These
celebrities, and the number of pretty women who were also invited, made
the gatherings unique. The members of the fair sex who were nearly
always present were the Princess Metternich, the pretty Comtesse Mélanie
de Pourtalès, the Marquise de Galiffet, then separated from her
husband, who had already struck up that strange friendship with the
Princesse de Sagan, née Seillères, which gave rise to so much talk later
on. Mme. de Galiffet was one of the loveliest women of the Imperial
Court, and certainly the one who knew the best how to dress. She was an
_élégante_ before everything else, and I believe cared even more for her
dresses than for her lovers. Her relations with General Galiffet were
most strange. They used to meet sometimes in society, and he was always
most polite towards her; it was even said that the warmest admirer the
Marquise de Galiffet had ever had was her husband. This did not prevent
them never agreeing upon any subject save one, and that, it was
rumoured, reunited them sometimes, not under the same roof, but under
the same tent, as the Marquise de Caux once said with more wit than
kindness.
Another habitué of Compiègne was the Baronne de Poilly. She was a daring
horsewoman, an eccentric character, full of brusquerie and kindness, but
not liked, and very much talked about. She was, with the Comtesse de
Beaulaincourt, ex-Marquise de Contades, one of the most dreaded persons
in the whole of Paris society.
Speaking of Madame de Beaulaincourt reminds me of various episodes in
that lady’s career, which set me wondering how the strict Faubourg St.
Germain, as well as the frivolous society of the Second Empire, could
have taken her to their hearts in the way they did. She was bad for
badness’ sake, as unsparing in her words as in her judgments; always on
the look out for something evil to do, or something unpleasant to say.
Full of wit with it all, this last circumstance only made her the more
dangerous. She was a rare example of a vicious woman who had no
charitable instincts; it seemed as if she condemned others the more
bitterly because she knew that there was needing much pardon in herself.
Nevertheless, Madame de Beaulaincourt was one of the most remarkable
personalities at the Court of the Emperor Napoleon III., and as such she
deserves to be remembered.
The members of the Cabinet and their wives were generally asked to
Compiègne in turn. At Fontainebleau, where the Court used to spend the
summer months, this was rarely the case. St. Cloud was too near Paris to
be really pleasant as a summer residence. Fontainebleau was quite in the
country, and its lovely forest afforded many opportunities for riding,
driving, or hunting, which appealed to Eugénie’s tastes. There she used
to live a family life free from the restraints of the Court, with the
guests whom she asked to share her _villégiature_. At Fontainebleau,
too, the Emperor, always a great stickler for etiquette, allowed it to
be relaxed, considering his stay there as a kind of holiday. He was more
often in the company of his guests than at Compiègne, and his presence
was very much appreciated. When he liked, Napoleon III. could be a
charming man and an interesting talker, but it was not often that he
allowed himself to become expansive.
Life at Fontainebleau as well as at Compiègne was almost uniform in its
round of gaieties. The company assembled for breakfast at noon, after
which the guests followed their own inclinations during the afternoon. A
few privileged ones, however, were asked to drive or walk with the
Empress, and afterwards to have tea with her. All guests enjoyed perfect
liberty, but this did not prevent them from watching their neighbours to
find out their little weaknesses, for gossip was rife both at Compiègne
and at Fontainebleau, and many unpleasant rumours concerning the Emperor
and the Empress were started there. The manners and customs that
prevailed among the recipients of the Imperial hospitality were publicly
criticised, the feeling being that it would certainly have been better
had more discrimination been exercised. There was little dignity though
much ceremony during these “series,” as they used to be called, and the
extreme liberty granted was the source of all kinds of unmerited rumours
concerning what happened in those vast halls. Somehow it savoured of
desecration to see the gay company of careless men and fashionable women
who thronged Fontainebleau without giving a thought to the great events
which its walls had witnessed.
One evening at Fontainebleau, after the rest of the world had retired, I
was returning late to my bedroom from an enjoyable stroll in the lovely
park. There was a beautiful moon, and it lit up the old castle of
François I., with its many turrets, its old gables, its whole aspect
speaking of the grandeur of many ages. I thought myself the only one to
indulge in such an eccentricity, when suddenly I came face to face with
the Chevalier Nigra, then one of the great admirers of the Empress, and
a general favourite both at Court and in Society. Chevalier Nigra had
been the private secretary of Count de Cavour, and was considered one of
|
ower,
Molest her ancient solitary reign.
[Illustration]
Beneath those rugged elms, that yew-tree's shade,
Where heaves the turf in many a mouldering heap,
Each in his narrow cell forever laid, 15
The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep.
[Illustration]
The breezy call of incense-breathing morn,
The swallow twittering from the straw-built shed,
The cock's shrill clarion, or the echoing horn,
No more shall rouse them from their lowly bed. 20
[Illustration]
For them no more the blazing hearth shall burn,
Or busy housewife ply her evening care;
No children run to lisp their sire's return,
Or climb his knees the envied kiss to share.
[Illustration]
Oft did the harvest to their sickle yield, 25
Their furrow oft the stubborn glebe has broke;
How jocund did they drive their team afield!
How bow'd the woods beneath their sturdy stroke!
[Illustration]
Let not Ambition mock their useful toil,
Their homely joys, and destiny obscure; 30
Nor Grandeur hear with a disdainful smile
The short and simple annals of the poor.
The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power,
And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave,
Awaits alike th' inevitable hour. 35
The paths of glory lead but to the grave.
Nor you, ye proud, impute to these the fault,
If Memory o'er their tomb no trophies raise;
Where, through the long-drawn aisle and fretted vault,
The pealing anthem swells the note of praise. 40
Can storied urn or animated bust
Back to its mansion call the fleeting breath?
Can Honour's voice provoke the silent dust?
Or Flattery soothe the dull cold ear of Death?
Perhaps in this neglected spot is laid 45
Some heart once pregnant with celestial fire;
Hands, that the rod of empire might have sway'd,
Or wak'd to ecstasy the living lyre:
But Knowledge to their eyes her ample page,
Rich with the spoils of time, did ne'er unroll; 50
Chill Penury repress'd their noble rage,
And froze the genial current of the soul.
[Illustration]
Full many a gem of purest ray serene
The dark unfathom'd caves of ocean bear;
Full many a flower is born to blush unseen, 55
And waste its sweetness on the desert air.
Some village Hampden, that with dauntless breast
The little tyrant of his fields withstood,
Some mute inglorious Milton here may rest,
Some Cromwell, guiltless of his country's blood. 60
[Illustration]
Th' applause of listening senates to command,
The threats of pain and ruin to despise,
To scatter plenty o'er a smiling land,
And read their history in a nation's eyes,
Their lot forbade: nor circumscrib'd alone 65
Their growing virtues, but their crimes confin'd;
Forbade to wade through slaughter to a throne,
And shut the gates of mercy on mankind,
The struggling pangs of conscious truth to hide,
To quench the blushes of ingenuous shame, 70
Or heap the shrine of Luxury and Pride
With incense kindled at the Muse's flame.
[Illustration]
Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife,
Their sober wishes never learn'd to stray;
Along the cool sequester'd vale of life 75
They kept the noiseless tenor of their way.
Yet even these bones from insult to protect,
Some frail memorial still erected nigh,
With uncouth rhymes and shapeless sculpture deck'd,
Implores the passing tribute of a sigh. 80
[Illustration]
Their name, their years, spelt by th' unletter'd Muse,
The place of fame and elegy supply;
And many a holy text around she strews,
That teach the rustic moralist to die.
[Illustration]
For who, to dumb forgetfulness a prey, 85
This pleasing anxious being e'er resign'd,
Left the warm precincts of the cheerful day,
Nor cast one longing lingering look behind?
On some fond breast the parting soul relies,
Some pious drops the closing eye requires; 90
Even from the tomb the voice of Nature cries,
Even in our ashes live their wonted fires.
[Illustration]
For thee, who, mindful of th' unhonour'd dead,
Dost in these lines their artless tale relate,
If chance, by lonely contemplation led, 95
Some kindred spirit shall inquire thy fate,
[Illustration]
Haply some hoary-headed swain may say,
"Oft have we seen him at the peep of dawn
Brushing with hasty steps the dews away,
To meet the sun upon the upland lawn. 100
[Illustration]
"There at the foot of yonder nodding beech,
That wreathes its old fantastic roots so high,
His listless length at noontide would he stretch,
And pore upon the brook that babbles by.
"Hard by yon wood, now smiling as in scorn, 105
Muttering his wayward fancies he would rove;
Now drooping, woeful-wan, like one forlorn,
Or craz'd with care, or cross'd in hopeless love.
"One morn I miss'd him on the custom'd hill,
Along the heath, and near his favourite tree; 110
Another came; nor yet beside the rill,
Nor up the lawn, nor at the wood was he;
"The next, with dirges due in sad array,
Slow through the church-way path we saw him borne.
Approach and read (for thou canst read) the lay 115
Grav'd on the stone beneath yon aged thorn."
[Illustration]
THE EPITAPH.
Here rests his head upon the lap of Earth
A youth, to Fortune and to Fame unknown;
Fair Science frown'd not on his humble birth,
And Melancholy mark'd him for her own. 120
Large was his bounty, and his soul sincere,
Heaven did a recompense as largely send;
He gave to Misery all he had, a tear;
He gain'd from Heaven ('twas all he wish'd) a friend.
No farther seek his merits to disclose, 125
Or draw his frailties from their dread abode,
(There they alike in trembling hope repose)
The bosom of his Father and his God.
[Illustration]
MISCELLANEOUS POEMS.
[Illustration]
ON THE SPRING.
Lo! where the rosy-bosom'd Hours,
Fair Venus' train, appear,
Disclose the long-expecting flowers,
And wake the purple year!
The Attic warbler pours her throat, 5
Responsive to the cuckoo's note,
The untaught harmony of spring;
While, whispering pleasure as they fly,
Cool Zephyrs thro' the clear blue sky
Their gather'd fragrance fling. 10
Where'er the oak's thick branches stretch
A broader browner shade,
Where'er the rude and moss-grown beech
O'ercanopies the glade,
Beside some water's rushy brink 15
With me the Muse shall sit, and think
(At ease reclin'd in rustic state)
How vain the ardour of the crowd,
How low, how little are the proud,
How indigent the great! 20
Still is the toiling hand of Care;
The panting herds repose:
Yet hark, how thro' the peopled air
The busy murmur glows!
The insect youth are on the wing, 25
Eager to taste the honied spring,
And float amid the liquid noon:
Some lightly o'er the current skim,
Some show their gayly-gilded trim
Quick-glancing to the sun. 30
To Contemplation's sober eye
Such is the race of Man;
And they that creep, and they that fly,
Shall end where they began.
Alike the busy and the gay 35
But flutter thro' life's little day,
In Fortune's varying colours drest:
Brush'd by the hand of rough Mischance,
Or chill'd by age, their airy dance
They leave, in dust to rest. 40
Methinks I hear in accents low
The sportive kind reply:
Poor moralist! and what art thou?
A solitary fly!
Thy joys no glittering female meets, 45
No hive hast thou of hoarded sweets,
No painted plumage to display:
On hasty wings thy youth is flown;
Thy sun is set, thy spring is gone--
We frolic while 'tis May. 50
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
ON THE DEATH OF A FAVOURITE CAT,
_Drowned in a Tub of Gold Fishes_.
'Twas on a lofty vase's side,
Where China's gayest art had dyed
The azure flowers that blow;
Demurest of the tabby kind,
The pensive Selima, reclin'd, 5
Gaz'd on the lake below.
Her conscious tail her joy declar'd:
The fair round face, the snowy beard,
The velvet of her paws,
Her coat, that with the tortoise vies, 10
Her ears of jet, and emerald eyes,
She saw; and purr'd applause.
Still had she gaz'd; but midst the tide
Two angel forms were seen to glide,
The Genii of the stream: 15
Their scaly armour's Tyrian hue
Through richest purple to the view
Betray'd a golden gleam.
The hapless nymph with wonder saw:
A whisker first, and then a claw, 20
With many an ardent wish,
She stretch'd in vain to reach the prize.
What female heart can gold despise?
What Cat's averse to fish?
Presumptuous maid! with looks intent 25
Again she stretch'd, again she bent,
Nor knew the gulf between.
(Malignant Fate sat by, and smil'd.)
The slippery verge her feet beguil'd,
She tumbled headlong in. 30
Eight times emerging from the flood,
She mew'd to every watery God,
Some speedy aid to send.
No Dolphin came, no Nereid stirr'd:
Nor cruel Tom, nor Susan heard. 35
A favourite has no friend!
From hence, ye beauties, undeceiv'd,
Know, one false step is ne'er retriev'd,
And be with caution bold.
Not all that tempts your wandering eyes 40
And heedless hearts is lawful prize,
Nor all that glisters gold.
[Illustration]
ON A DISTANT PROSPECT OF ETON COLLEGE.
[Greek: Anthrôpos, hikanê prophasis eis to dustuchein.]--MENANDER.
Ye distant spires, ye antique towers,
That crown the watery glade,
Where grateful Science still adores
Her Henry's holy shade;
And ye, that from the stately brow 5
Of Windsor's heights th' expanse below
Of grove, of lawn, of mead survey,
Whose turf, whose shade, whose flowers among
Wanders the hoary Thames along
His silver-winding way: 10
Ah, happy hills! ah, pleasing shade!
Ah, fields belov'd in vain!
Where once my careless childhood stray'd,
A stranger yet to pain!
I feel the gales that from ye blow 15
A momentary bliss bestow,
As, waving fresh their gladsome wing,
My weary soul they seem to soothe,
And, redolent of joy and youth,
To breathe a second spring. 20
Say, Father Thames, for thou hast seen
Full many a sprightly race
Disporting on thy margent green
The paths of pleasure trace;
Who foremost now delight to cleave 25
With pliant arm thy glassy wave?
The captive linnet which enthrall?
What idle progeny succeed
To chase the rolling circle's speed,
Or urge the flying ball? 30
While some, on earnest business bent,
Their murmuring labours ply
'Gainst graver hours that bring constraint
To sweeten liberty,
Some bold adventurers disdain 35
The limits of their little reign,
And unknown regions dare descry:
Still as they run they look behind,
They hear a voice in every wind,
And snatch a fearful joy. 40
Gay hope is theirs by fancy fed,
Less pleasing when possest;
The tear forgot as soon as shed,
The sunshine of the breast:
Theirs buxom health of rosy hue, 45
Wild wit, invention ever new,
And lively cheer of vigour born;
The thoughtless day, the easy night,
The spirits pure, the slumbers light,
That fly th' approach of morn. 50
Alas! regardless of their doom,
The little victims play;
No sense have they of ills to come,
No care beyond to-day:
Yet see how all around 'em wait 55
The ministers of human fate,
And black Misfortune's baleful train!
Ah, show them where in ambush stand
To seize their prey the murtherous band!
Ah, tell them, they are men! 60
These shall the fury Passions tear,
The vultures of the mind,
Disdainful Anger, pallid Fear,
And Shame that skulks behind;
Or pining Love shall waste their youth, 65
Or Jealousy with rankling tooth,
That inly gnaws the secret heart;
And Envy wan, and faded Care,
Grim-visag'd comfortless Despair,
And Sorrow's piercing dart. 70
Ambition this shall tempt to rise,
Then whirl the wretch from high,
To bitter Scorn a sacrifice,
And grinning Infamy.
The stings of Falsehood those shall try, 75
And hard Unkindness' alter'd eye,
That mocks the tear it forc'd to flow;
And keen Remorse with blood defil'd,
And moody Madness laughing wild
Amid severest woe. 80
Lo! in the vale of years beneath
A grisly troop are seen,
The painful family of Death,
More hideous than their queen:
This racks the joints, this fires the veins, 85
That every labouring sinew strains,
Those in the deeper vitals rage:
Lo! Poverty, to fill the band,
That numbs the soul with icy hand,
And slow-consuming Age. 90
To each his sufferings: all are men,
Condemn'd alike to groan;
The tender for another's pain,
Th' unfeeling for his own.
Yet, ah! why should they know their fate, 95
Since sorrow never comes too late,
And happiness too swiftly flies?
Thought would destroy their paradise.
No more;--where ignorance is bliss,
'Tis folly to be wise. 100
[Illustration: SEAL OF ETON COLLEGE.]
[Illustration: APOLLO CITHAROEDUS. FROM THE VATICAN.]
THE PROGRESS OF POESY.
_A Pindaric Ode_.
[Greek: Phônanta sunetoisin: es
De to pan hermêneôn
Chatizei.]--PINDAR, _Ol_. II.
I. 1.
Awake, Æolian lyre, awake,
And give to rapture all thy trembling strings.
From Helicon's harmonious springs
A thousand rills their mazy progress take:
The laughing flowers that round them blow, 5
Drink life and fragrance as they flow.
Now the rich stream of music winds along,
Deep, majestic, smooth, and strong,
Thro' verdant vales, and Ceres' golden reign:
Now rolling down the steep amain, 10
Headlong, impetuous, see it pour;
The rocks and nodding groves rebellow to the roar.
I. 2.
Oh! Sovereign of the willing soul,
Parent of sweet and solemn-breathing airs,
Enchanting shell! the sullen Cares 15
And frantic Passions hear thy soft control.
On Thracia's hills the Lord of War
Has curb'd the fury of his car,
And dropt his thirsty lance at thy command.
Perching on the sceptred hand 20
Of Jove, thy magic lulls the feather'd king
With ruffled plumes and flagging wing:
Quench'd in dark clouds of slumber lie
The terror of his beak, and lightnings of his eye.
I. 3.
Thee the voice, the dance, obey, 25
Temper'd to thy warbled lay.
O'er Idalia's velvet-green
The rosy-crowned Loves are seen
On Cytherea's day
With antic Sports, and blue-eyed Pleasures, 30
Frisking light in frolic measures;
Now pursuing, now retreating,
Now in circling troops they meet:
To brisk notes in cadence beating,
Glance their many-twinkling feet. 35
Slow melting strains their Queen's approach declare:
Where'er she turns the Graces homage pay.
With arms sublime, that float upon the air,
In gliding state she wins her easy way:
O'er her warm cheek, and rising bosom, move 40
The bloom of young Desire and purple light of Love.
[Illustration: DELPHI AND MOUNT PARNASSUS.]
II. 1.
Man's feeble race what ills await!
Labour, and Penury, the racks of Pain,
Disease, and Sorrow's weeping train,
And Death, sad refuge from the storms of Fate! 45
The fond complaint, my song, disprove,
And justify the laws of Jove.
Say, has he given in vain the heavenly Muse?
Night and all her sickly dews,
Her spectres wan, and birds of boding cry, 50
He gives to range the dreary sky;
Till down the eastern cliffs afar
Hyperion's march they spy, and glittering shafts of war.
II. 2.
In climes beyond the solar road,
Where shaggy forms o'er ice-built mountains roam, 55
The Muse has broke the twilight gloom
To cheer the shivering native's dull abode.
And oft, beneath the odorous shade
Of Chili's boundless forests laid,
She deigns to hear the savage youth repeat, 60
In loose numbers wildly sweet,
Their feather-cinctur'd chiefs, and dusky loves.
Her track, where'er the Goddess roves,
Glory pursue, and generous Shame,
Th' unconquerable Mind, and Freedom's holy flame. 65
II. 3.
Woods, that wave o'er Delphi's steep,
Isles, that crown th' Ægean deep,
Fields, that cool Ilissus laves,
Or where Mæander's amber waves
In lingering labyrinths creep, 70
How do your tuneful echoes languish,
Mute, but to the voice of anguish!
Where each old poetic mountain
Inspiration breath'd around;
Every shade and hallow'd fountain 75
Murmur'd deep a solemn sound:
Till the sad Nine, in Greece's evil hour,
Left their Parnassus for the Latian plains.
Alike they scorn the pomp of tyrant Power,
And coward Vice, that revels in her chains. 80
When Latium had her lofty spirit lost,
They sought, O Albion! next thy sea-encircled coast.
[Illustration: THE AVON AND STRATFORD CHURCH.]
III. 1.
Far from the sun and summer gale,
In thy green lap was Nature's darling laid,
What time, where lucid Avon stray'd, 85
To him the mighty mother did unveil
Her awful face: the dauntless child
Stretch'd forth his little arms and smil'd.
"This pencil take (she said), whose colours clear
Richly paint the vernal year: 90
Thine too these golden keys, immortal Boy!
This can unlock the gates of joy;
Of horror that, and thrilling fears,
Or ope the sacred source of sympathetic tears."
III. 2.
Nor second He, that rode sublime 95
Upon the seraph wings of Ecstasy,
The secrets of th' abyss to spy.
He pass'd the flaming bounds of place and time:
The living throne, the sapphire blaze,
Where angels tremble while they gaze, 100
He saw; but, blasted with excess of light,
Clos'd his eyes in endless night.
Behold, where Dryden's less presumptuous car,
Wide o'er the fields of glory bear
Two coursers of ethereal race, 105
With necks in thunder cloth'd, and long-resounding pace.
III. 3.
Hark, his hands the lyre explore!
Bright-eyed Fancy hovering o'er
Scatters from her pictur'd urn
Thoughts that breathe, and words that burn. 110
But ah! 'tis heard no more----
Oh! lyre divine, what daring spirit
Wakes thee now? Tho' he inherit
Nor the pride, nor ample pinion,
That the Theban eagle bear, 115
Sailing with supreme dominion
Thro' the azure deep of air,
Yet oft before his infant eyes would run
Such forms as glitter in the Muse's ray
With orient hues, unborrow'd of the sun: 120
Yet shall he mount, and keep his distant way
Beyond the limits of a vulgar fate,
Beneath the Good how far--but far above the Great.
[Illustration]
THE BARD.
_A Pindaric Ode_.
I. 1.
"Ruin seize thee, ruthless King!
Confusion on thy banners wait;
Tho' fann'd by Conquest's crimson wing,
They mock the air with idle state.
Helm, nor hauberk's twisted mail, 5
Nor e'en thy virtues, Tyrant, shall avail
To save thy secret soul from nightly fears,
From Cambria's curse, from Cambria's tears!"
Such were the sounds that o'er the crested pride
Of the first Edward scatter'd wild dismay, 10
As down the steep of Snowdon's shaggy side
He wound with toilsome march his long array.
Stout Gloster stood aghast in speechless trance:
"To arms!" cried Mortimer, and couch'd his quivering lance.
I. 2.
On a rock whose haughty brow 15
Frowns o'er old Conway's foaming flood,
Rob'd in the sable garb of woe,
With haggard eyes the poet stood
(Loose his beard, and hoary hair
Stream'd, like a meteor, to the troubled air), 20
And with a master's hand, and prophet's fire,
Struck the deep sorrows of his lyre.
"Hark, how each giant oak, and desert cave,
Sighs to the torrent's awful voice beneath!
O'er thee, O King! their hundred arms they wave, 25
Revenge on thee in hoarser murmurs breathe;
Vocal no more, since Cambria's fatal day,
To high-born Hoel's harp, or soft Llewellyn's lay.
I. 3.
"Cold is Cadwallo's tongue,
That hush'd the stormy main; 30
Brave Urien sleeps upon his craggy bed;
Mountains, ye mourn in vain
Modred, whose magic song
Made huge Plinlimmon bow his cloud-topt head.
On dreary Arvon's shore they lie, 35
Smear'd with gore, and ghastly pale:
Far, far aloof th' affrighted ravens sail;
The famish'd eagle screams, and passes by.
Dear lost companions of my tuneful art,
Dear as the light that visits these sad eyes, 40
Dear as the ruddy drops that warm my heart,
Ye died amidst your dying country's cries--
No more I weep. They do not sleep.
On yonder cliffs, a grisly band,
I see them sit, they linger yet, 45
Avengers of their native land:
With me in dreadful harmony they join,
And weave with bloody hands the tissue of thy line.
II. 1.
"Weave the warp, and weave the woof,
The winding-sheet of Edward's race. 50
Give ample room, and verge enough
The characters of hell to trace.
Mark the year, and mark the night,
When Severn shall reëcho with affright
The shrieks of death thro' Berkeley's roofs that ring, 55
Shrieks of an agonizing king!
She-wolf of France, with unrelenting fangs,
That tear'st the bowels of thy mangled mate,
From thee be born, who o'er thy country hangs
The scourge of heaven. What terrors round him wait! 60
Amazement in his van, with Flight combin'd,
And Sorrow's faded form, and Solitude behind.
II. 2.
"Mighty victor, mighty lord!
Low on his funeral couch he lies!
No pitying heart, no eye, afford 65
A tear to grace his obsequies.
Is the sable warrior fled?
Thy son is gone. He rests among the dead.
The swarm that in thy noontide beam were born?
Gone to salute the rising morn. 70
Fair laughs the morn, and soft the zephyr blows,
While proudly riding o'er the azure realm
In gallant trim the gilded vessel goes;
Youth on the prow, and Pleasure at the helm;
Regardless of the sweeping whirlwind's sway, 75
That, hush'd in grim repose, expects his evening prey.
II. 3.
"Fill high the sparkling bowl,
The rich repast prepare;
Reft of a crown, he yet may share the feast:
Close by the regal chair 80
Fell Thirst and Famine scowl
A baleful smile upon their baffled guest.
Heard ye the din of battle bray,
Lance to lance, and horse to horse?
Long years of havoc urge their destined course, 85
And thro' the kindred squadrons mow their way.
Ye towers of Julius, London's lasting shame,
With many a foul and midnight murther fed,
Revere his consort's faith, his father's fame,
And spare the meek usurper's holy head. 90
Above, below, the rose of snow,
Twin'd with her blushing foe, we spread:
The bristled boar in infant gore
Wallows beneath the thorny shade.
Now, brothers, bending o'er the accursed loom, 95
Stamp we our vengeance deep, and ratify his doom.
[Illustration: THE BLOODY TOWER.]
III. 1.
"Edward, lo! to sudden fate
(Weave we the woof. The thread is spun.)
Half of thy heart we consecrate.
(The web is wove. The work is done.) 100
Stay, oh stay! nor thus forlorn
Leave me unbless'd, unpitied, here to mourn:
In yon bright track, that fires the western skies,
They melt, they vanish from my eyes.
But oh! what solemn scenes on Snowdon's height 105
Descending slow their glittering skirts unroll?
Visions of glory, spare my aching sight!
Ye unborn ages, crowd not on my soul!
No more our long-lost Arthur we bewail.
All hail, ye genuine kings, Britannia's issue, hail! 110
III. 2.
"Girt with many a baron bold
Sublime their starry fronts they rear;
And gorgeous dames, and statesmen old
In bearded majesty, appear.
In the midst a form divine! 115
Her eye proclaims her of the Briton line;
Her lion-port, her awe-commanding face,
Attemper'd sweet to virgin-grace.
What strings symphonious tremble in the air,
What strains of vocal transport round her play! 120
Hear from the grave, great Taliessin, hear;
They breathe a soul to animate thy clay.
Bright Rapture calls, and soaring as she sings,
Waves in the eye of heaven her many-colour'd wings.
III. 3.
"The verse adorn again 125
Fierce War, and faithful Love,
And Truth severe, by fairy Fiction drest.
In buskin'd measures move
Pale Grief, and pleasing Pain,
With Horror, tyrant of the throbbing breast. 130
A voice, as of the cherub-choir,
Gales from blooming Eden bear;
And distant warblings lessen on my ear,
That lost in long futurity expire.
Fond impious man, think'st thou yon sanguine cloud, 135
Rais'd by thy breath, has quench'd the orb of day?
To-morrow he repairs the golden flood,
And warms the nations with redoubled ray.
Enough for me; with joy I see
The different doom our fates assign. 140
Be thine despair, and sceptred care;
To triumph, and to die, are mine."
He spoke, and headlong from the mountain's height
Deep in the roaring tide he plung'd to endless night.
[Illustration: QUEEN ELIZABETH.]
[Illustration]
HYMN TO ADVERSITY.
[Greek: Zêna----
Ton phronein brotous hodô-
santa, tôi pathei mathan
Thenta kuriôs echein.]
ÆSCHYLUS, _Agam_.
Daughter of Jove, relentless power,
Thou tamer of the human breast,
Whose iron scourge and torturing hour
The bad affright, afflict the best!
Bound in thy adamantine chain, 5
The proud are taught to taste of pain,
And purple tyrants vainly groan
With pangs unfelt before, unpitied and alone.
When first thy sire to send on earth
Virtue, his darling child, design'd, 10
To thee he gave the heavenly birth,
And bade to form her infant mind.
Stern rugged nurse! thy rigid lore
With patience many a year she bore:
What sorrow was, thou bad'st her know, 15
And from her own she learn'd to melt at others' woe.
Scar'd at thy frown terrific, fly
Self-pleasing Folly's idle brood,
Wild Laughter, Noise, and thoughtless Joy,
And leave us leisure to be good. 20
Light they disperse, and with them go
The summer friend, the flattering foe;
By vain Prosperity receiv'd,
To her they vow their truth, and are again believ'd.
Wisdom in sable garb array'd, 25
Immersed in rapturous thought profound,
And Melancholy, silent maid,
With leaden eye that loves the ground,
Still on thy solemn steps attend;
Warm Charity, the general friend, 30
With Justice, to herself severe,
And Pity, dropping soft the sadly-pleasing tear.
Oh! gently on thy suppliant's head,
Dread goddess, lay thy chastening hand!
Not in thy Gorgon terrors clad, 35
Not circled with the vengeful band
(As by the impious thou art seen),
With thundering voice and threatening mien,
With screaming Horror's funeral cry,
Despair, and fell Disease, and ghastly Poverty: 40
Thy form benign, O goddess, wear,
Thy milder influence impart;
Thy philosophic train be there
To soften, not to wound, my heart.
The generous spark extinct revive, 45
Teach me to love and to forgive,
Exact my own defects to scan,
What others are to feel, and know myself a Man.
[Illustration: BERKELEY CASTLE.
"Mark the year, and mark the night,
When Severn shall reëcho with affright
The shrieks of death thro' Berkeley's roofs that ring,
Shrieks of an agonizing king!"
_The Bard_, 53.]
NOTES.
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS.
A. S., Anglo-Saxon.
Arc., Milton's _Arcades_.
C. T., Chaucer's _Canterbury Tales_.
Cf. (_confer_), compare.
D. V., Goldsmith's _Deserted Village_.
Ep., Epistle, Epode.
Foll., following.
F. Q., Spenser's _Faërie Queene_.
H., Haven's _Rhetoric_ (Harper's edition).
Hales, _Longer English Poems_, edited by Rev. J. W. Hales (London,
1872).
Il Pens., Milton's _Il Penseroso_.
L'All., Milton's _L'Allegro_.
Ol., Pindar's _Olympian Odes_.
P. L., Milton's _Paradise Lost_.
P. R., Milton's _Paradise Regained_.
S. A., Milton's _Samson Agonistes_.
Shakes. Gr., Abbott's _Shakespearian Grammar_ (the references are to
_sections_, not pages).
Shep. Kal., Spenser's _Shepherd's Kalendar_.
st., stanza.
Wb., Webster's Dictionary (last revised quarto edition).
Worc., Worcester's Dictionary (quarto edition).
Other abbreviations (names of books in the Bible, plays of
Shakespeare, works of Ovid, Virgil, and Horace, etc.) need no
explanation.
NOTES.
[Illustration]
ELEGY IN A COUNTRY CHURCHYARD.
This poem was begun in the year 1742, but was not finished until
1750, when Gray sent it to Walpole with a letter (dated June 12,
1750) in which he says: "I have been here at Stoke a few days (where
I shall continue good part of the summer), and having put an end to a
thing, whose beginning you have seen long ago, I immediately send it
you. You will, I hope, look upon it in the light of a thing with an
end to it: a merit that most of my writings have wanted, and are like
to want." It was shown in manuscript to some of the author's friends,
and was published in 1751 only because it was about to be printed
surreptitiously.
February 11, 1751, Gray wrote to Walpole
|
bring us the most delicious iced milk.
There was a curious, but so far as we could see un-enforced, regulation
hung up in the _salle-à-manger_, to the effect that if one was late
for _table d'hôte_ one would be punished by a fine of fifty centimes.
The evenings we usually spent in our bedroom; it being the off-season
there was practically nowhere else to go to. But it was cosy enough up
there, with our pine log fire blazing up the chimney, its brown streams
of liquid resin running down the surface of the wood, alight, and
dripping from time to time in dazzling splashes on to the tiles below.
The only drawback to our comfort--and it was a drawback--was that
the young man who had such unpleasant coughs and upheavals during
_table d'hôte_ paced restlessly and creakily up and down overhead
continuously, both in the evening as well as in the early morning, and
was, to judge by the sounds, always trying the effects of his bedroom
furniture in different parts of the room, and generally altering its
geography. He had quite as pronounced a craze for patrolling as had
John Gabriel Borkman.
There are few more irritating sounds, I think, than a creak, whether
it be of the human boot or of a door. Of the many penances which have
been devised from time to time could there be a more irritating form
of nerve flagellation than an insistent, recurring squeak when you are
vainly endeavouring to write an article, an important letter, or, if it
be night, to get to sleep? A squeak in two parts, as this particular
one was, was calculated to make one ready for any deed of violence!
One knew so well when one must expect to hear it, that it got in time
to be like the hole in a stocking which, as an old nurse's dictum ran,
one "looks for, but hopes never to find!" Thus one half unconsciously
listened for the creak. So great is the power of the Insignificant
Thing!
There were other sounds which broke the stillness of the night at
Arcachon. In England cocks crow, according to well-authenticated
tradition, handed down from cock to cock from primitive times, at
daybreak; in Arcachon they crow all through the night and, indeed,
keep time with the hours. They have, too, a more elaborate and ornate
crow. They do not accentuate, as ours do, the final "doo," but
introduce instead semi-quavers in the "dle;" so that it sounds thus:
"Cock-a-doo-a-doo-dle-doo." I noticed that they had a tendency to leave
off awhile at daybreak, while it was yet dark.
Then, sounding mysteriously and from afar on one's ear, came the quick
tones of the bell calling to early Mass from the little church in the
village street below.
Of ancient history Arcachon has its share. It was, in the thirteenth
century, the port of the Boiens, and in old records one finds it
mentioned under the name "Aecaixon" or "Arcasson," "Arcanson" being a
word used to designate one of the resin manufactures. In the beginning
of things, Arcachon was nothing but a desert, its forest surrounding
the little chapel founded by Thomas Illyricus for the seamen. During
the whole of the middle ages the country had the entire monopoly of the
pine oil industry, which was turned to account in so many ways.
CHAPTER III
At Arcachon there is an old _Chapelle miraculeuse de Notre Dame_,
adjoining the newer church, founded about 1520 by Thomas Illyricus. It
contains many of the fishermen's votive offerings, such as life-belts,
stilts, pieces of rope, and boats and wreaths. I noticed, too, a
barrel, on which were the words "_Echappé dans le golfe du Méxique,
1842_." These offerings are hung up near the chancel, and give a
distinct character to it.
As we came into the little church, a child's funeral was just leaving
it, the coffin borne by children. We waited by the door till the sad
little procession had gone by, and before me, as I write, there rises
in my memory the expression on the father's face. It had something in
it that was absolutely unforgettable.
Illustration: ARCACHON, MIRACULOUS CHAPEL, 1722.
[_Page 40._
As we passed down the village street, we passed another little
procession; two acolytes in blue cassocks and caps, bearing in their
hands the vessels of sacred oil, a priest following them in biretta,
surplice and cassock, and by his side a server. I noticed that each
man's cap was instantly lifted reverently, as it passed him. As they
turned in at a cottage, the whole street down which they had passed
seemed full of the lingering fragrance of the incense carried by the
acolytes.
Arcachon, at one time, must have been exceedingly quaint and
picturesque, but since then an alien influence has been introduced
which has--for all artistic purposes--spoilt it. Facing the chief
street--dominating it, as it were--is the Casino; an ugly, flashy,
vulgar building, out of keeping structurally with everything near it.
It resembles an Indian pagoda, and when we were there in November its
huge, bleary eyes were shut as it took its yearly slumber, deserted
by Fashion. It was like an enormous pimple on the quiet, picturesque,
unpretending countenance of this village of the Landes which had been
subjected to its obsession, and that of the two hotels in immediate
attendance.
The people, however, appear unspoilt and unsophisticated. At each
cottage door sit the women knitting; and, as one passes, they pass the
time of day, or make some remark or other, with a pleasant smile.
When we were at Arcachon telegraph poles were being put up. The method
of setting up these eminences was distinctly curious, to the English
eye. There was an immense amount of propping up, and many anxious
glances bestowed on the poles before anything could be accomplished.
The men on whom this tremendous labour devolves have to wear curious
iron clasps strapped on to their boots, so that they should be able to
dig into the bark as they swarm up the poles for the poles are just
trunks of pine trees stripped of their branches, and many of them look
very crooked.
* * * * *
In many of the gardens poinsettias were flowering, and hanging
clusters of a vivid red flower which our hotel proprietress called
"Songe de Cardinal." It was the same tint of scarlet as the berries
called "Archutus" or "Arbousses," which grow here in abundance by the
side of the road on bushes, and are like a large variety of raspberry,
a cross between that and a strawberry. It has a very pleasant flavour
when eaten with cream: this our waiter confided to me, and, after
tasting the mixture, I quite agreed with him, although the proprietress
had treated the idea with scorn.
In November the roads, in places, are red with the fallen fruit of this
plant. There are also curious long brown seed cases which had dropped
from trees something like acacias, but which have a smaller leaf than
our English variety. The tint of the pods is a warm reddish brown; they
are about the length of one's forearm, the inner edges all sticky with
resin.
In the village street the inevitable little stream, which is encouraged
in most French towns, runs beside the roadside, and is fed by all
the pailfuls of dirty water that are flung from time to time into its
midst. The _plage_ at Arcachon is not attractive in autumn, and it is
difficult to understand how it can be a magnet at a warmer time of the
year to the hundreds that frequent it. An arm of land stretches all
round the little inland pool--for it is not much more than a pool--in
which in summer time the bathers disport themselves. In November, of
course, it requires an enormous effort of imagination to picture it
full of sailing ships and pleasure boats.
Murray mentions a particular kind of boat, long, pointed, narrow and
shallow, which was much to the fore in 1867, and which he imagined to
be indigenous to the soil, so to speak. But, apparently, they have
changed all that. I only saw one that was built as he describes, and
this was green and black in colour. He also mentions stilts being worn
by the peasants at Arcachon and the neighbourhood near the village,
but of these we saw few traces. There were pictures of them in an old
print of the _chapelle_ built in 1722, and in a photo of the shepherds
of the plains. The photos, indeed, are numerous in the whole country of
the Gironde of _anciens costumes_, but when one sets oneself to try and
find their counterparts in real life, evidences are practically nil.
All that remains of them in these matter-of-fact, levelling days, in
which so much that is quaint, characteristic and peculiar is whittled
down to one ordinary dead level of alikeness, are the stiff white
caps, varied in shape and size, according to the district, and the
sabots. Some of the peasants here often go about the streets in woollen
bed-slippers, but most of them use wooden sabots--pointed, and with
leathern straps over the foot.
One gets quite used to the sight of two sabots standing lonely without
their inmates in the entrance to some shop, their toes pointing
inwards, just as they have been left (as if they were some conveyance
or other--in a sense, of course, they are--which is left outside to
await the owner's return). Continually the women leave them like this,
and proceed to the interior of the shop in their stockinged feet.
Sometimes the countrywomen go about without any covering at all to
their heads, and it is quite usual to see them thus in church as well
as in the streets. The men wear a little round cap, fitting tightly
over the head like a bathing cap, and very full, baggy trousers,
close at the ankles, dark brown or dark blue as to colour, and very
frequently velveteen as to material.
At La Teste, a village close to Arcachon, the women much affect the
high-crowned black straw hat, blue aprons and blue knickerbockers.
At most of the cottage doors were groups of them, knitting and
chatting; and, as we passed, the old grandmother of the party would
be irresistibly impelled to step out into the road to catch a further
glimpse of the strangers within their borders--clad in quite as unusual
garments as their own appeared to ours.
There are no lack of variety of occupations open to the feminine
persuasion: the women light the street lamps; they arrange and pack
oysters; fish, and sell the fish when caught. They work in the fields;
they tend the homely cow, as well as the three occupations which some
folk will persist in regarding as the only ones to which women--never
mind what their talents or capabilities--can expect to be admitted,
viz: the care of children and needlework and cooking! I saw one quite
old woman white-washing the front of her cottage with a low-handled,
mop-like broom, very energetically, while her husband sat by and
watched the process, at his ease.
La Teste stands out in my memory as a village of musical streets,
though of course in the Gironde it is the exception when one does not
hear little melodious sentences set to some street call or other. As we
passed up the village street, a woman was coming down carrying a basket
of rogans, a little silvery fish with dazzling, gleaming sides, and
crying, "_Derrr... verai!_" "_Derrr... verai!_" with long sustained
accent on the final high note. "_Marchandise!_" was another call which
sounded continually, and its variation, "_Marchan-dis... e!_"
Passing through Bordeaux, I remember a very curiously sounding
street-hawk note: it did not end at all as one expected it to end. I
could not distinguish the words, and was not near enough to see the
ware.
* * * * *
But the human voice was not the only street music, for as we sat on
one of the benches that are so thoughtfully placed under the lee of
many of the cottages at La Teste, there fell on our ears a sound from a
distance which somehow suggested the approach of a Chinese procession:
"Pom-pom-pom-pom-pom-pom!" mixed with the sharp "ting-ting" of brass,
and the duller, flatter tone of wood, sweet because of the suggestion
of the trickling of water which it conveys.
A procession of cows turned the corner of the long street and moved
sedately towards us, their bells keeping time with their footsteps,
their conductor, as seems the custom in these parts, leading the
detachment. It was followed by a little cart drawn by two dogs, in
which sat a countrywoman, much too heavy a weight for the poor animals
to drag.
La Teste itself is a picturesque little village, and larger than it
looks at first sight. Each cottage has its own well, arched over. Up
each frontage, lined with outside shutters, is trained the home vine,
while little plantations of vines abound everywhere. The women travel
by train with their heads loosely covered with shawls, when not wearing
the stiff caps or hats, and it is very usual for them to carry, as
a hold-all, a sort of little waistcoat buttoning over a parcel; a
waistcoat embroidered with some device or other.
Illustration: THE GIRONDE SHEPHERDS.
[_Page 51._
Coming back to Arcachon, we met a typical old peasant woman, with
two huge straw baskets--one white and one black, a big stick, and
a black handkerchief tied over her head, and a most characteristic
face, crumpled, seamed and lined with all the different hand-writings
over it that the pencil of Fate had drawn during a long lifetime.
When young, the peasant women of the Landes are not striking. The
peculiar characteristics of the face are unvarying; you meet with them
everywhere all about the Gironde and Bordeaux. The faces are sallow,
low-browed, with dark hair and eyes. They are brisk-looking, but just
escape being either pretty or noticeable. Most of the women, too, that
we saw, were of small stature and insignificant looking. It is when
they are old that the beauty to which they are heir, is developed.
The women of the Landes are evening primroses: the striking quality
of their faces comes out after the heyday of life is over. It seems
that the face of the Gironde woman needs many seasons of sun and heat
to bring out the sap of the character. The autumn tints are beautiful
in faces, as in trees. Theirs is the beauty that Experience--that
Teacher of the Thing-as-it-is--brings; and it is in the clash of
the meeting of the peculiar personality with the experience from
outside, that character springs to the birth. You see--if you can read
it--their life, in the eyes of the dweller by the countryside. In a
more civilised class one can but read too often, what has been put
on with intention, as a mask. Civilisation and convention eliminate
individuality, as far as possible, and they recommend dissimulation,
and we, oftener than not, take their recommendation.
So in all countries, and in all ages, Jean François Millet's idea is
the right one--that to find life at its plainest, at its fullest, one
should study it, _au fond_, in the lives of the sons and daughters
of the soil. Their open-air life prints deep on their faces the
divine impress of Nature, obtainable, in quite the same measure, in
no other way; they have become intimate with Nature, and have lived
their everyday life close to her heart-beats. What she gives is
incommunicable to others: it can only be given by direct contact, and
can never be passed on, for only by direct contact can the creases of
the mind, caused by the life of towns and great cities, be smoothed
out, and a calm, strong, new breadth of outlook given.
I remember a typical face of this kind. We had been out for a day's
excursion from Arcachon, and, coming home, at the station where we
took train, there got into our carriage, a mother and daughter. After
getting into conversation with them--a thing they were quite willing to
do, with ready natural courtesy of manner,--we learned that the mother
was eighty-one years old and had worked as a _parcheuse_ in her young
days. She had a fine old face, wrinkled and lined with a thousand life
stories. Kindly, pathetic, had been their influence upon her, for her
eyes and expression were just like a sunset over a beautiful country:
it was the beauty that is only reached when one has well drunk at the
goblets of life--some of us to the bitter dregs--and set them down,
thankful that at last it is growing near the time when one need lift
them to one's lips no more.
The mother told me that the women _parcheuses_ could not earn so much
as the men, three francs a day--perhaps only thirty centimes--being
their ordinary wage. She turned to me once, so tragically, with such a
sudden world of sorrow rising in her eyes. "I have worked all my life
in the fields, and at fishing, and now, one by one, all whom I love
have left me, and I am so lonely left behind."
"Ah, _c'est malheureux_!" exclaimed the daughter, turning
sympathetically to her.
We parted at Arcachon station, but how often since, have I not seen the
face of the old mother looking sadly out of our carriage window, the
tears gathering slowly in her eyes as she remembered those with whom
she had started life, and whom death had distanced from her now, so
far.
There are two distinguishing characteristics of the villages of the
Landes as we saw them, and these are the absence of beggars and of
drunkenness--I didn't see a single drunken man. As one knows, it is
somewhat rare to meet with them in other parts of France, and one
remembers the story of the English barrister who was taken up by the
police and thought to be drunk (so seldom had they been enabled to
diagnose drunkenness), and taken off to the lock-up! It turned out that
he was only suffering from an over-emphasised Anglicised pronunciation
of the French language, studied (without exterior aid) at home, before
travelling abroad.
Thrift and sobriety are two virtues which generally go in company--they
are very much in evidence in the country of the Gironde to-day. Happy
the land where this is the case! Unfortunately it is not the case in
England now, nor has been indeed for many a long year. Think of the
difference too there is in manner between the countrymen of our own
England and that of France. One cannot travel in this part of France
without meeting everywhere that simple, native courtesy which is so
spontaneously ready on all occasions. It is a perfect picture of what
the intercourse of strangers should be.
As a nation, we are apt to be stiff and awkward in our initial
conversation with a stranger. We require so long a time before we thaw
and are our natural selves; our introductory chapters are so long and
tiresome.
But to the Frenchman, _you are there!_ that is all that matters. You do
not require to be labelled conventionally to be accepted; there is such
a thing, in his eyes, as an intimate strangership, and it is this very
immediateness of friendliness and smile, that makes the charm of those
unforgettable day-fellowships of intercourse which are so possible
in France and--so difficult in England. How many such little cordial
acts of _camaraderie_ come back to my mind, perhaps some of them only
ten minutes in duration, perhaps even less than that, and consisting
solely in some spontaneous sympathy during travelling incidents; in the
kindly, ready recognition of a difficulty, in the quick appreciation
maybe of the humour of some idyll of the road. Whatever it is, you are
at home and in touch at once for a happy moment, even if nothing more
is to come of the brief encounter.
In a garden near the post-office at Arcachon we came upon this
startling notice: "Beware of the wild boar!" Then there followed an
injunction to the wild boar himself: "Beware of the snare," in the
same sort of way as "Mind the step" is sometimes written up! Making
inquiries later at the hotel, I found that there were plenty of wild
boars in the forest of Arcachon, and that in winter time they often
ventured into the town. Hunting parties, for the purpose of limiting
family developments, are organised from time to time throughout the
winter.
Illustration: SHEPHERD AND WOODSMEN, ARCACHON.
[_Page 57._
As regards the forest of Arcachon, we were struck specially by the
fungi of all sorts and colours, that grow at the foot of the trees,
and on the vivid green branching, long-stalked moss that envelops
the surface of the ground: deep violet, orange, soft blue, brilliant
yellow, scarlet and black spotted, dingy ink-black were some of the
colours that I noted. Indeed, I did more than "note" them, for I picked
a fair-sized basket full, took them back to the hotel, did them up
carefully and despatched them to the post-office, where they refused to
send them to England, saying that, owing to recent stipulations, they
were not allowed to send such commodities by parcel post any longer.
Crestfallen and disappointed, I had to unpack that gorgeous paint-box
of colours again, and left them on my window ledge to enjoy them myself
before they deliquesced.
In the forest here is no sound of birds. Too many have been shot for
that to be possible any longer, and consequently a strange, eerie
silence prevails over everything. Alas! I saw no birds at all, except
a few long-tailed tits. The sunlight lay roughly gleaming on the
red-brown needles below the dark pine trees, and grey and soft on the
white, silvery sand. No other colour broke the sombre, olive green of
the foliage overhead, but here and there flecks of vivid yellow, from
the heather growing sparsely in clumps, spattered like a flung egg upon
the banks. The stems of the pines are a rich red-brown, flaked and
covered in places with soft, green lichen.
The hotel was not a place where one got much change in the matter of
guests, but people came in for lunch now and again _en route_ for
somewhere else; and I shall never forget one such party. It consisted
of a father, mother and two small infants of about one and a half and
two and a half years of age. The children fed as did the parents.
I watched with interest the courses which were packed into these
children's mouths. Radishes, roast rabbit, egg omelet, _vin ordinaire_
and milk, mixed (or one after the other, I really forget which!) From
time to time they were attacked by spasms of whooping-cough, which
rendered the process of digestion even more difficult than it would
otherwise have been. One of the children had a cherubic face, and each
time a doubtful morsel was crammed into his mouth he turned up his
eyes seraphically to heaven as he admitted it, but--if he disliked its
taste--only for time enough to turn it over once in his mouth previous
to ejecting it! The parents never seemed to be in the least deterred
from pressing these morsels on him, however often they returned.
The _concierge_ at our hotel, (he who knew four words of English),
was a distinct character. He would often come up to our room after
_table d'hôte_ for a chat, on the pretence of making up our already
glowing log fire. But whenever a bell rang he would instantly stop
talking and cock his ears to hear if it were two peals or one, for
two peals were _his_ summons, and one only the chambermaid's. Before
we left we added to his stock of English, and it was a performance
during the hearing of which no one could have kept grave. "_Ah, c'est
difficile_," he exclaimed after trying ineffectually to achieve a
correct pronunciation: "_Pad-dool you-r-y-owe carnoo!_"
He told us that, as a rule, a _concierge_ was paid only fifty francs,
but sometimes he got as much as 250 francs a month in _pourboires_ from
the guests in the hotel. A _femme de chambre_ would make twenty-five
francs a month at a hotel. Neither _concierge_ nor _femme de chambre_
would be given more than eight days' notice if sent away. At this hotel
he had no room to himself, no seat even (we often found him sitting on
the stairs in the evening) and up most nights until half-past twelve,
and yet he had to rise up and be at work, each morning by half-past
five.
In the summer months it seemed the custom to go further south to some
hotel or other, guests spending half the year at one place, and half at
another.
Illustration: GUJAN-MESTRAS,
Huts of the Fishermen, and "Parcheurs" (Oyster Catchers).
[_Page 61._
CHAPTER IV
By far the most interesting village in the neighbourhood of Arcachon,
is Gujan-Mestras.
Gujan-Mestras is the centre of the oyster fishery, and that of the
royan, which is a species of sardine. Nearly all royans indeed are
caught there. The _patois_ of the _parcheurs_ and _parcheuses_ (oyster
catchers) we were told, is partly Spanish. They can talk our informant
said, very good French, but when any strangers are present they talk
a sort of Spanish _patois_. "For instance, _une fille_ would be _la
hille_," he explained. "The Spaniards talk very slowly, as do the
Italians; it is only _les Anglais qui, je trouve, parlent très vite_."
The oysters of Gujan-Mestras are of worldwide renown. Among others, it
will be remembered, Rabelais praised highly the oysters of the Bassin
d'Arcachon. And indeed, it cannot fail to be one of the most important
places for oyster-culture and the breeding ground of the young oyster,
considering what the annual production is--more than a million of
oysters, young, middle-aged, and infants under age.
The day I first saw Gujan-Mestras there was a grey, lowering sky, and
everything was dun-coloured. But the port was alive with activity,
interest, and excitement. The huts, which face the bay, are built
all on the same pattern--of one story, dark brown in colour,
wooden-boarded, and roofed with rounded, light yellow tiles, which look
in the distance like oyster shells. Over the doors of some are little
inscriptions: over some a red cross is chalked, or a _fleur de lys_.
The _parcheurs_ do not sleep here; they live in the village above, but
these huts are simply for use while they are at work during the day.
A road leads up from the station lined with these huts, and a long row
of them faces the bay and skirts one side of it. Beside the water are
many clumps of heather tied up at the stalks, which are for packing
purposes: and there are also many wooden troughs, sieves, and trestles.
The boats used for fishing are mostly long and narrow, black or green
as to colour, and with pointed prows. Most of them had the letters
"ARC," and a number painted on them: for instance, I noticed "ARC. 4S
47" upon one name-board. All the boats have regular, upright staves
placed all along the inner sides, and are planked with the roughest of
boarding.
The first day I saw Gujan-Mestras, as I came up to the landing stage,
the boats were all rounding the corner of the headland, which is
crowned by the big crucifix, and crowding into the little harbour.
As they swung rapidly round, down came the sails with a flop, and in
a moment the gunwales bent low to the surface of the water. A moment
later still, they grounded on the little beach, and were instantly
surrounded by a great crowd of excited, jabbering _parcheurs_,
gesticulating and arguing energetically. They seemed to be expecting
some one who had failed to put in an appearance.
The baskets were soon full of glistening, steely fish, their greenish,
speckled backs in strong contrast to the grey, oval baskets in which
they lay, heap upon heap.
The women helped unlade the boats, and also in cleaning and sorting
the fish. One woman whom I noticed, in an enormous overhanging,
black sun-bonnet, slouched far over her face, her dress, made of
some material like soft silk, tucked up and pinned behind her, went
clattering along in her wooden sabots, wheeling the fish before her in
a rough wheelbarrow. They shone literally with a dazzling centre of
light. Then came slowly lumbering along the road, one of the typical
waggons of the neighbourhood, which are disproportionately long for
their breadth, with huge wheels; at either end two upright poles, and
on each side a sort of fence of staves, yellow for choice.
Presently this was succeeded by a diminutive donkey cart, loaded
with _marchandise_, and covered over in front with a wide tarpaulin.
Inside, I caught sight of a large pumpkin (presumably), sliced open,
its yellow centre showing up vividly against its dark background, some
cauliflowers, watercress, etc., while its owner, a burly countryman in
a full blue blouse and cap, excitedly gesticulated and called out, "_En
avant! Allez!_" to the meek and diminutive one in front.
Under a sort of open shelter were rows of barrels; some arranged
in blocks, some arranged all together in one position. The whole
effect against the glaring yellow of the vine leaves being a strongly
effective contrast, the barrels being the palest straw colour.
We were told that the _parcheuses_ cannot make as much as the men:
perhaps three francs a day would be their outside wage. Indeed
sometimes they found it impossible to earn more than thirty centimes;
and, notwithstanding the low wage, the life of a _parcheuse_ is every
bit as hard as that of her countrywoman in the fields.
At most of the street corners the groups of peasant women sit and knit
behind their wares, wearing flounced caps, (ye who belong to the sex
that needleworks these garments, forgive it, if I have appropriated
to the use of the headgear the adjective that of right belongs to the
petticoat!) and many coloured neckerchiefs. Sometimes they sit in
little sentry boxes, their wares by their side, but oftener they sit,
in open defiance of the weather, with no shelter above their heads.
As for the boys, it is almost impossible to see them without the
inevitable short golf cape, with hood floating out behind, which is so
much affected in that Order! It is difficult to understand quite why
this particular costume has had such a "run," for one would imagine it
to be rather an impeding garment for a boy.
Illustration: GUJAN-MESTRAS, OYSTER CATCHERS.
[_Page 67._
Before I came away that afternoon the fishing nets were being hung
up to dry, and, as we went along, we could see groups of men and
women cleaning, sorting, and chopping oysters, and placing them in
the characteristic shallow baskets that one sees all over the Landes,
and some, on other trestles, were packing them up for transport. One
woman near by was loading a cart with manure, while her companion--one
of that half of mankind which possesses the most rights, but does not
always (in France) do the most work--was calmly watching the process,
without attempting to help! It is true that, in their dress, there was
not much to distinguish the one sex from the other, as most of the
women wore brilliant blue, or red, knickerbockers, no skirt, and coats,
aprons, and big sabots. Some of the latter had very striking faces,
though weather-beaten. Anything like the vivid contrast afforded by the
arresting colours of their knickerbockers, backed by the cold, even
grey of the huts, against which the _parcheuses_ were standing, as
they worked, it would be difficult to imagine.
I believe at La Hume, the adjoining village to Gujan-Mestras, which
appeared to be dedicated to the goddess of laundry work, even as this
place was dedicated to pisciculture, the women go about in the same
gaudy leg gear, but I only saw it from the train, as we had not time to
make an expedition to the spot.
As we were coming back to the train we came upon a line of bare
tables and chairs, looking empty, forlorn, and forsaken (the rain
had apparently driven the oyster workers to the shelter of the huts)
beside the _plage_. Somehow they suggested to me an empty bandstand,
and indeed the _parcheurs_ and _parcheuses_ are the factors of the
entire local "music" of the place. Without them it were absolutely
characterless--devoid of life and meaning.
Illustration: GUJAN-MESTRAS, NEAR ARCACHON.
[_Page 68._
At the station a number of _parcheuses_ were waiting. Suddenly, without
any note of warning, a sudden storm of discussion, heated and
menacing, swept the humble, bare little waiting-room. It arose with
simply a puff of conversation, but it spread in a moment to thunder
clouds of invective, gesticulations of threatening import, lightning
flashes of anger from eyes that, only an instant previously, had been
bathed in the depths of phlegm. It seemed to be concerned (as usual!)
with a matter affecting both sexes, for the _facteur_, and a young man
who accompanied him, kept suddenly turning round on the women, and
literally flinging impulsive shafts of fiery retort, beginning with,
"_Pourquoi? Vous êtes vous-même_," etc., etc. The dispute raged with
terrific force for a few minutes, then it was suddenly spent, and, as
unexpectedly as it had begun, it fell away into a complete silence.
CHAPTER V
One of the most spontaneous, infectious laughs that I have ever heard,
was in the market place at Bordeaux, from a market woman keeping one of
the stalls. It was like the trill of a lark springing upwards for pure,
light-hearted impulse of gaiety. In it seemed impressed the whole soul
of humour.
There is so much in a laugh. Some laughs make one instantly desire
to be grave: some are absolutely mirthless, but are part of one's
conventional equipment, and come in handy when some sort of a
conversational squib has been thrown into the midst of a drawing-room
full of people, and does not go off as it was expected to do. But the
laugh born of the very spirit of humour itself is rare indeed.
The laugh of the woman in the market place at Bordeaux, was one of
these last. What provoked it I have forgotten, but I rather fancy it
was in some way connected with my camera, as a few moments later she
was exclaiming to her companions, her whole face beaming with pleasure,
"_Ah! je suis pris! je suis pris!_" Her voice
|
along.”
When the two who were in the rear came galloping up a couple of minutes
later it was a very red-faced and indignant chum they found there,
patting the trembling Jupiter tenderly, and even caressing his velvety
muzzle, as though begging his pardon for all that slapping of the cruel
quirt.
“But how was I to know that all the while the poor thing was in agony,
with me in the saddle pressing these poisoned stickers deeper and deeper
into his back? Oh! it was a cruel trick, putting this bunch of sand
spurs under the saddle; and no wonder the broncho acted like he was
crazy as I jumped up and down, driving the points in deeper. Poor old
Jupiter, how was I to know you weren’t to blame?”
CHAPTER III.
THE FIRST NEWS OF THE BAR-S RANCH.
“A mean trick!” echoed the indignant Adrian, “I’d like to help whip the
fellow who would think it funny to inflict that torture on a poor dumb
beast, not to mention having the rider run a chance of breaking his
neck. Whoever d’ye think could have been guilty—oh! yes, that grinning
hostler at the village tavern. It must have been him!”
“Just who it was!” said Donald, grimly, and his face told how gladly he
would have taken pleasure in being one of several to treat the
ugly-faced half-grown cub to a good hiding, to pay him for his
detestable trick.
“He kept on looking at me all the time, and grinning like a monkey,”
grumbled Billie, who was still caressing his broncho; and somehow
Jupiter seemed to understand it was all a mistake that he received that
whipping, for he whinnied, and rubbed his nose against his master’s
cheek.
“Yes,” continued Donald, “somehow the silly thought it’d be a fine sight
to see how a fellow built like Billie here is, would carry on when a
horse got skittish; and like as not he couldn’t think up any other way
than this. I once knew a mean greaser to fasten some of these sand spurs
under a horse’s tail, and the game worked so that the rider was thrown;
with a broken arm to show for it.”
“What happened to the Mexican?” demanded Billie, eagerly.
“I never just knew,” replied Donald, seriously; “but the boys took after
him, and from that day to this I’ve never set eyes on his yellow face
again. I sometimes think they must have lynched the scoundrel, though
nobody would ever let on.”
“Well, he sure deserved it,” muttered Billie; “but say, I hope now we
ain’t going any further this same day. I’d like Jupiter to have some
rest; and besides, I want to rub his poor blistered back here with some
witch hazel, and put some salve on. When I ride tomorrow I’ll see
there’s a good pad under my saddle, you hear me.”
That was just like generous, good-hearted Billie. He would never harm
any sort of domestic animal, which accounted for his anger toward the
thoughtless hostler who in order to have a little fun, and see the fat
boy throw his arms around the neck of his mount, as he imagined would
come to pass, had taken advantage of his opportunity to play such a
wicked trick.
“Oh! we’d already decided that!” declared Adrian.
“And we stop somewhere close by, do we?” asked Billie, anxiously;
“because, like as not this terrible work will give me something of an
appetite, and I’ll be wanting to start supper a little earlier than
usual tonight—now, don’t laugh, boys; I know it’s hard on the rest of
you that nature made me so big I have to eat for two; but I just can’t
help it. And that work used up all my dinner, you see.”
They had long ago stopped arguing with Billie with regard to his
abnormal appetite. Sometimes one or the other would joke him about it,
but they never tried to cut him short on his rations.
Looking around Adrian quickly decided that they had come upon as good a
place to spend this the last night on the Wyoming trail as any that
could be found.
“What better could heart wish?” he put it up to them; “with this fine
little watercourse running zigzag along, and right here a motte of
timber where we can make our camp? And there are several riders heading
toward us, that perhaps we might try and pump, so as to get some
information about the Bar-S Ranch. That landlord at the tavern didn’t
seem to know anything.”
“Look like cowboys too,” declared Billie, after an anxious glance toward
those who were galloping in their direction; for Billie knew that on the
plains it is hardly wise to trust any one you happen to meet until they
have proved their title to be looked on as friends.
“Oh! come, don’t keep feeling for your gun that is strapped so safely to
your back, Billie,” said Adrian, laughing. “There are only three in the
bunch, and they’re sure enough punchers. Let’s give them the cowboy
salute, and show that we happen to be of the same stripe; though I
reckon our outfit tells that already.”
“Yes,” added Donald, “and don’t forget, Billie, that we said we’d keep
mum about Adrian here being the owner of the Bar-S Ranch. Just say we
belong down Arizona-way, and have come up here to look around. People
mind their own business generally speaking, here on the plains, and they
won’t pry into our affairs when they see we don’t care to open up.”
“All the same, I’d like to ask a few questions myself,” Adrian went on
to say. “It might be right useful to us if we could get a line on what’s
going on up around the Bar-S, before we arrived.”
“A good idea,” commented Billie, quickly. “They say forewarned is
forearmed, you know; and if we learn something is crooked, why, you’ll
be able to figure on what you ought to do, eh, Ad?”
“Just what I will, Billie,” replied the other, grimly; “though it’s hard
for me to even suspect my uncle of stealing. If you knew what a spirited
little man he used to be, and what a high sense of honor he had, you’d
understand that. But keep quiet about these things now, Billie, for here
they come galloping up, waving their hats, and whooping like mad.”
The three cow-punchers quickly pulled in when apparently about to ride
the others down, and hearty salutations followed on both sides.
They were just such rough riders as may be found scattered all over the
country where cattle are raised for the market, requiring a host of
dashing fellows to herd them, brand the mavericks and youngsters, and
keep the drove from being stolen by rustlers or preyed upon by wild
animals.
Just as they had planned to do, the three boys told that they were from
a ranch away down in the Southwest, coming up in the Northern country
just to look around, and see how things were done here. Adrian had
quickly made sure that he did not know any one of the men, and this
seemed to promise that they could not have the least suspicion regarding
his own identity.
It was Donald who led the conversation to the subject of the ranches
within a radius of fifty miles; and when one of the others happened to
mention the Bar-S among several, the Arizona boy remarked:
“Seems to me I’ve heard considerable about that same Bar-S Ranch. And
whoever it was told me must have said it was a bang-up outfit, as smart
as any in Wyoming. Let’s see, it’s owned by a man named Comstock, ain’t
it, pards?”
He saw the three cowboys turn toward each other, and thought a flicker
of a smile passed over their weather-beaten faces, while one winked his
eye at the same time.
“Oh! Fred Comstock he’s on’y manager of that Bar-S Ranch,” replied one.
“He _used_ to be,” chuckled a second, “and as husky a little manager as
you’d be apt to run up against in a month out here.”
“Why, who’s the manager now, then?” asked Adrian, rather startled; for
he had not had any intimation of a change; and certainly nothing of the
kind had ever been instituted with his consent.
At that the three cow-punchers chuckled some more.
“Why, you see, everybody reckons as how _Mrs._ Fred Comstock she holds
the whip hand over pore old Fred; and runs things as she feels like at
the Bar-S,” came the puzzling reply.
Then Adrian remembered that a year and more ago he had heard that Uncle
Fred, being an old bachelor, had married; though the woman whom he had
taken to his heart was utterly unknown to the boy. He had sent them his
best wishes, and a generous present at the time, and then forgotten all
about it, because a boy of Adrian’s age could hardly be expected to care
in the slightest degree about such things.
“Oh! is that it?” remarked Donald, elevating his eyebrows. “Seems to me
I heard that this same Fred Comstock was a little terror, and his
punchers minded him from the word go. Has he changed any since he got in
double harness, boys?”
“Changed any?” echoed one of the rough riders, with a grin; “well, you’d
never know it was the same old Fred Comstock these fine days. He ain’t
got a bit of spunk any more, seems like. She just orders him around like
he was a waterboy. Reckon that woman must be a terror when she gets mad,
and everybody says as how Fred he had both his eyes black for a month
before he give in. She runs the ranch as she sees fit. But that ain’t
the wust of it, neither.”
“Why, what more could there be, with poor old Fred Comstock sat down on
in such a way?” demanded Donald, noticing that the three men looked
toward each other, and acted in a mysterious fashion, as though afraid
about saying too much.
“Well, we don’t want our names mentioned in the matter,” said one,
finally; “but you see, this Mrs. Fred was one of the Walkers before she
got spliced.”
“And who are the Walkers?” continued Donald, bent on learning all he
could, for the benefit of his chum, who was listening eagerly, his face
filled with surprise, because all this was indeed news to him.
“The Walkers—well, they happen to be a pretty numerous family in Wyoming
at the present time,” replied his informant, cautiously.
“They got three ranches down south from here, and people says as how—”
began a second cow-puncher, when one of his mates held up a finger
warningly—“well, all I’m agoin’ to say is that lots of people believe
they ain’t runnin’ them three ranches jest for the cattle they raise.
Some say the Walkers are bootleggers in the dry counties, acarryin’
licker when it’s against the law. Others have gone further and call ’em
a bunch of cattle rustlers; but as for _me_, kids, remember that I ain’t
asayin’ anything agin that bunch, I don’t know a thing; I’m just tellin’
what I heard other folks say.”
“It may be true, and agin it might be a pack o’ lies,” a second
remarked, as he prepared to start off again, after shaking hands with
Adrian and his chums.
“But where there’s smoke there’s nearly always fire,” observed Donald,
sagaciously, as he in turn took the hand of each of the three genial
punchers in his.
“You never spoke truer words, my friend,” said the last man, leaning
down to speak in a low tone, as though he feared that the trees might
carry what he said to hostile ears; “and while you’re around these
diggin’s best remember not to get _too much_ interested in what the
Walkers are adoin’. They seem to have a wide chain o’ friends, and
nobody ain’t ever had the grit to round that bunch up, so far. We used
to work on the Bar-S before _she_ came there, but it soon got too warm
for us, and we quit. So-long, boys; hope you get safe back again down in
old Arizona, where some of us may drop in later on; and if we do, we’ll
sure hunt up the Keystone Ranch, and ask for Donald Mackay.”
With that he too whirled his cow pony around, and waving his hand to the
boys, went off at a reckless pace in a cloud of dust.
CHAPTER IV.
THE NIGHT ALARM.
“That was a time you got some news that looks like it staggered you,
Adrian,” remarked Billie, after the three cow-punchers had dashed away,
on their road west.
“Seems like it,” declared the one addressed, who was scratching his head
in a puzzled way; “but do you know, it’s hard to believe that any sort
of woman could get the whip-hand over my Uncle Fred. Why, there never
was a more fiery and determined character. He ran things with an iron
hand, even that puncher admitted as much. How he could be brought under
a woman’s thumb is more’n I can understand.”
“Oh!” spoke up Donald, sagaciously, “you don’t know how some women can
manage. And from the way that fellow mentioned Mrs. Fred I reckon now
that she’s that big she can just fling her hubby around like a cat, when
she’s riled up. Two black eyes is going some, and for a whole month too!
Looks like you might be getting a little closer to an explanation of the
queer things that have been going on up here on your Bar-S Ranch, Chum
Adrian.”
“Yes, it looks like it,” agreed the other; “but I’ll never believe Uncle
Fred is ruled by a petticoat till I see it with my own eyes. He’s a
small man, but a masterful fighter. I can remember him flinging a fellow
twice his heft in a wrestling match; for Uncle Fred has been in Japan,
and learned the ju jitsu way of doing an antagonist up.”
“Mebbe he has,” remarked Billie, who was taking pains to search his pack
for the bottle of witch-hazel, meaning to get to work easing the pain of
the lame back Jupiter had; “but seems like it don’t work with a female
scrapper; or else your unk is too gallant a gentleman to apply such
strong tactics against the wife of his bosom, so he lets her get the
best of every scrimmage, till his spirit is broken—leastwise that was
what our cowboy friend seemed to imply just now.”
“It’s something to think about, anyhow,” observed Donald; “and for one
I’m right glad we ran across those punchers. And we know about the
Walkers, too. Fine bunch to have around, ain’t they, now? And Mrs. Fred,
he took pains to tell us, was one of the Walkers before she got married!
There’s a nigger in this woodpile somewhere, Adrian, and looks like it
might be up to us to find out just where.”
“We will, before we head back South again, depend on that,” said Adrian,
with the set look about his mouth that his chums knew so well, and which
spoke of a grim determination before which every obstacle must give way.
They now set about making themselves as comfortable as possible, meaning
to camp there in among those few trees for the night, which was only a
couple of hours distant. As this was a very old story with both Adrian
and Donald, and even Billie now came to look upon it as a lesson well
learned, they knew just how to go about it in order to get the best
results.
The ponies were staked out, not that it was expected that any one of the
well-trained animals would stray far away while cropping the grass; but
on account of wild animals, or possible horse thieves, it was thought
best to have them within reach, and so fastened that they could not be
stampeded in any way.
Then came the duty of starting the cooking fire. This was usually
Billie’s job, for he had shown considerable ability along the cooking
line, and moreover relished being placed in a position where his
allowance of “grub” could not be cut down by ruthless hands.
On this particular occasion Billie was so much taken up with doctoring
the sore back of his pony that Adrian took the duty of making the fire
on his shoulders.
In lieu of stones with which to build a fireplace where coffee-pot and
frying-pan could rest, he simply dug out a hole in the ground, and
started his blaze there. Later on, when this became half-filled with
glowing embers, it would be time to commence the business of getting
their camp supper.
No matter where they might happen to partake of a meal, or how good the
fare at some of the taverns they had struck in towns along the way,
Billie loved the genuine camp meal best of all. They had found chances
to do some shooting when on the trail, so that it was seldom they were
without fresh meat for supper. On several occasions Billie had even
insisted on purchasing a big generous beefsteak in some town through
which they happened to pass along about the middle of the afternoon,
when it was decided that they would keep on and camp out, the weather
conditions seeming favorable.
There was some venison still in the larder, for on the previous day
Adrian had managed to creep up close enough to several feeding antelope
to attract their attention by waving his red bandanna, while he lay
sheltered from their view among a patch of rattle-snake weeds; the timid
animals had started to run away at first, and then that fatal gift of
curiosity began to get in its work, so that they had stopped, come back
a little, run off again, and repeated these hesitating tactics until the
sportsman, believing they were within easy rifleshot, had taken aim and
knocked over a youngster.
And there was plenty left for a full meal all around, even counting on
Billie as two persons, which the others generally did.
“We’re going to have a decent night of it, I reckon,” observed Donald,
as the three of them sat around, just before sunset, and discussed the
tender venison that had been cooked, and which along with coffee, and
plenty of crackers, made up their supper.
“Yes,” added Adrian, with a glance aloft as he spoke, “some clouds
floating over, perhaps, but not enough to mean rain. And the moon ought
to come up in less’n two hours from now.”
“Glad of it,” ventured Billie, wondering if he could manage to dispose
of that last piece of meat in the pan, for it always distressed him to
throw anything away; “because I just hate black nights. You never know
what might lie close to you, out here on the big open, when it’s like
the inside of your hat. But give me the jolly moonlight. I just love the
nights when you can look out miles away, and tell when a measly old wolf
is creeping up.”
At that the others laughed.
“Seems like you hadn’t learned your lesson yet, Billie,” remarked
Adrian. “Just wait till the brightest night you ever saw comes along,
and find out how far away you can say for sure whether it’s a stump you
see, or a cow lying down. Moonlight is all good enough close at hand,
but this thing of telling your best friend two hundred yards away is
silly. It can’t be done, can it, Donald?”
“Well, I should say not,” agreed the other.
“You surprise me, fellows!” declared Billie; “and the first chance I get
I’m going to put it to the test. But mebbe not tonight, because I’m that
weary after my hot ride I feel like I could lie right down now, and
never open my eyes till sun-up.”
“That wouldn’t surprise us any, Billie,” chuckled Donald; “fact is, it’s
a regular habit with you, seems like. I’ve rolled you over as many as
seven times, and only got a few grunts out of you to pay me for it. A
dash of cold water in your face is often the only way we have of waking
you up.”
“Yes, and every time I’m dreaming that I’ve fallen overboard in Niagara
River, and find myself floating down the terrible falls!” declared the
fat boy, “so please let up on that game, won’t you? Try sticking a pin
in me if you want. P’raps then I’ll go and dream I’m bleeding to death;
but even that’s better than to drop over Niagara Falls.”
They sat there as night fell, chatting, and occupying themselves in
various ways. Adrian had his log to write up, and no doubt would do full
justice to the wild ride that the fat chum had been forced to take that
afternoon, all on account of the mean trick played by the village boy.
Donald was writing a letter to his home folks, which he hoped to mail on
the next day somewhere; while Billie wandered out several times to where
Jupiter was tethered, wishing to put more soothing balm on the abrasion
caused by the bunch of sand spurs weighed down under the saddle.
About the time the battered moon appeared above the level horizon in the
east all of them were thinking of making their beds ready, being more or
less tired after the long day’s journey.
It was not thought worth while to stand guard, for the ponies had been
trained so as to give warning if anything out of the common came about.
Both Adrian and Donald were light sleepers, and should the horses
commence to snort, or strike the ground with their hoofs, the sound was
sure to awaken one or both lads.
Each of them had a heavy double blanket along, which would feel very
comfortable during these chilly nights. Wrapped up in this, Billie found
it easy to shut off all sounds, and could be asleep in about three
minutes, because he never worried over anything, leaving all this to his
chums.
But then neither of the others was very long in getting to sleep on this
night. Possibly Adrian lay there for a little while, puzzling his brain
over the singular news he had received from those three cow-punchers,
with reference to the remarkable change that had come to pass in the
domestic relations of Uncle Fred; but in good time he too yielded to the
demands of Nature, and slept peacefully.
It must have been some hours later when Donald lifted his head to
listen. Then he gave Adrian a little punch, as he whispered:
“Wake up, Ad; something doing, I reckon, because our horses are acting
queer and uneasy out here.”
Instantly the other sat up, throwing back his blanket, while his hand,
perhaps unconsciously, reached out for the faithful rifle that had lain
close beside him as he slept.
“Hear ’em?” inquired Donald, presently.
“I should say, yes,” came the reply; “and just as you say, Donald, it
must mean danger of some kind. The moon’s behind the clouds, and p’raps
we’re going to have some sort of a storm after all, because that sounds
like thunder I hear.”
“Listen again, Ad,” said the other, quickly, “and perhaps you’ll change
your mind about the _kind_ of thunder that is. When a heap of hoofs come
down chunketty-chunk on the hard prairie it always makes that thunder
noise.”
At that Adrian jumped to his feet.
“What’s that, Donald?” he cried, excitedly, “do you mean long-horns?”
“Just what I do, and heading this way as fast as they can come. Sure you
must know all the signs right well, Adrian; you’ve been on the range
enough to understand when cattle get frightened, and start off on a
stampede. That’s what’s happened; and as they go past this timber,
p’raps we can see what it all means!”
CHAPTER V.
THE STAMPEDE.
The two boys stood there, listening to the sounds that constantly
increased in volume, as though approaching rapidly nearer the camp in
the timber growing along the little stream.
There could no longer be the slightest doubt as to what made the noise.
Before now Adrian had heard enough to fully agree with his chum when the
other pronounced it a stampede of cattle. Besides the crash of many
hoofs on the earth, they could catch wild snortings, low, frightened
lowings, and the rattle of striking horns; all of which were very
familiar sounds to both lads, as they had witnessed just such sights on
many a previous occasion.
“The queer part of it is,” Adrian had taken pains to say before the
noise grew so boisterous as to prevent all ordinary conversation, “that
there doesn’t seem to be anything around to start such a wild rush. A
storm will do it quicker than most anything else, and there couldn’t be
one in the quarter where they’re heading from.”
“Wait and see,” Donald had wisely added; if he suspected anything as to
the real facts he did not appear willing to share his thoughts with his
chum as yet, waiting doubtless until he could pick up further proof.
“Shall we wake Billie up?” asked Adrian.
“He’d never forgive us if we didn’t,” the other replied. “You’d think
the sound would get him to stirring, but Billie could sleep through the
biggest earthquake that ever happened; and if you did knock him up he’d
want to know who was shaking the floor with dancing. But I’ll get him on
his feet, while you fetch our ponies in.”
So Donald stepped over to where the fat chum was cuddled up in his
blanket just like an Esquimau. After shaking him several times without
any result, save a grunt, Donald shouted in his ear:
“Wake up, Billie! earthquake! cattle stampede, and we’re right in the
way!”
“Goodness gracious! is that so?” remarked Billie, as he sat up, and
began to dig his knuckles into his eyes; then, hearing the roar of the
approaching hoofs he became suddenly greatly excited, as he realized
that it was after all no joke his comrades were trying to play upon him.
“Oh! will they grind us to powder, Donald? Can’t we even climb a tree,
and get out of reach of their hoofs? Hurry up, and say something before
it’s too late! Think what a terrible muss there’ll be if ever they
trample on me, and do please tell a fellow what to do!”
“Don’t worry, Billie; they won’t come into the timber at all. Fetch your
gun, and come along to join Adrian near by. We want to see what it all
stands for as the herd sweeps past. Be quick now, or you’ll lost a sight
worth looking at, I tell you!”
Billie hurried at hearing this. Besides, he did not exactly fancy being
left behind when his chum departed.
“How about the ponies, Donald; won’t they get in trouble?” he managed to
call out, as he trailed along in the wake of the other.
“I reckon Adrian has brought the lot into the timber; he was just
starting out to do the same when I came to wake you up. Yes, here he is,
and with all our horses safe and sound. Fasten Jupiter to a tree with
his rope, and be quick about it, Billie!”
This was speedily done, after which the trio of Broncho Rider Boys
crouched there on the edge of the timber, waiting until the herd of
stampeding cattle came along.
“If that moon’d only draw out stronger,” said Adrian, as he cast a look
upward toward the sky, over the face of which light clouds were drifting
lazily; “but it don’t mean to, and we’ll just have to do the best we
can. Look sharp, boys!”
“I can see ’em coming right now!” announced Billie.
In fact all of them saw the fast-moving blurr upon the prairie some
little distance away, which they knew must be the cattle rushing
headlong toward them, spurred on by some unseen power, either fear, or a
more tangible force.
Ten seconds later and they were on a line with the hidden boys, who,
crouching there, stared as hard as they could, trying to see whether
wolves were chasing after the herd, as might happen when the ferocious
animals were in great numbers, but not otherwise; or what other cause
there could be for such a great commotion among the cattle.
“Oh! did you see that steer go down?” ejaculated Billie suddenly. “He
must a put his forelegs in a gopher hole, and before he could get up the
rest had trampled him into flinders. Whee! ain’t I glad that wasn’t
Jupiter and me!”
“You’ve a right to be thankful, believe me,” said Donald, solemnly;
“because it’d be all over with you before you could give more’n a single
yelp. That steer was a big and powerful beast, but you saw how even he
couldn’t get up again, once those many hoofs began to pound him flat.
We’ll find him there afterwards, and only food for the coyotes.”
The stream of cattle had now swept past them, and the thunder of their
many hoofs was gradually growing less insistent as they passed on.
“Well, that was a queer sight, sure,” said Billie, rubbing his eyes, as
though he hardly knew whether he could believe what they had told him or
not.
Adrian was strangely quiet, Donald thought.
“Did you ever see a stampede like it?” asked Donald, determined to find
out what the other chum’s opinion might be.
“I surely never did, if it _was_ a real stampede,” returned Adrian,
slowly, as if he might still be struggling to see light.
“Oh! it was that, all right, but not one brought about by a storm, nor
yet by fear of wild animals,” Donald continued.
“Then you heard them too, did you?” demanded the other.
“What was that?” asked Billie, arousing to the fact that he was somewhat
behind, and never liking to be left out of a race through any handicap.
“Cowboys yelling like mad!” Donald went on to say, seriously.
“Oh! you mean that they were trying the best they knew how to head off
the herd and start them to milling; was that it?” Billie went on; for he
had managed to pick up considerable information connected with a cattle
ranch during the time he had spent on the border with his cousin, down
in Arizona.
“On the other hand,” Donald remarked, still more solemnly, “it struck me
they were yelling like that to make the long-horns more frightened than
ever; because they whooped like wild Injuns off their reservation, and
in for a gay old time.”
Billie gave it up. His wits were inclined to be a little dense at best;
and on being so suddenly aroused from a sound sleep, to witness this
strange passing of a stampeded herd of cattle, he was hardly in a fair
condition to do himself justice when it came to figuring what a mystery
meant.
“I throw up the sponge!” he hastened to say; “somebody’ll just have to
take hold and whisper what it all means; because for the life of me I
ain’t able to get a grip on the thing. What’s the answer, fellows?
Cowboys awhooping things up, and making more work for themselves by
scaring the life half out of their cattle. Say, that’s a silly thing to
do, strikes me, now, boys. Tell me what possesses the chump to act that
way? And be quick about it, because when I’m that curious it’s dangerous
to leave me groping in the dark. Don’t you know fellows have been known
to pine away to nothing just because they kept aworrying about
something. Donald, what’s it mean?”
“Adrian you tell him, while I get that little electric torch we used to
find so valuable; I’d like to step out and take a look at that dead
steer, now that the danger’s gone past.”
The roar of many hoofs was dying away by degrees in the near distance,
showing that the herd must still be on the full run, and as filled with
fright as when the boys saw them sweep past.
“Why,” began Adrian, as the other hurried back to where the red embers
of the little camp-fire glowed like a wakeful eye among the trees, “all
I can say, Billie, is that the herd was in a panic, and had been
frightened. If there were punchers galloping along, as both Donald and I
think we made out, they didn’t seem to be trying to head the cattle off,
or turn them, but kept in the rear, or the flank, and yelled just to
keep them hustling. Now do you catch on, Billie?”
“Rustlers, you mean, Adrian; cattle thieves carrying off a bunch of the
long-horns!” ejaculated the astonished Billie. “Just to think of running
on a game as old as that the very first thing we come up here? Why, I
thought that was only a practice along the border, where the rustlers
could drive the stolen cattle over into Mexico, and be safe from
pursuit.”
“Oh! that’s all a mistake, Billie!” declared Adrian; “wherever cattle
are raised on any large scale you’ll find men trying to steal them, and
change the marks; because once this is done it’s hard to pick out your
own property. And unless both of us are mighty much mistaken, that’s
what was being done with that herd we saw pass by on the gallop. But
here comes Donald with the little torch; and as the dust has partly
settled by now, we can go out and take a look around.”
“And,” said Billie, as if to show that he was not so dull as he had been
once upon a time, “if them rustlers _were_ chasing along behind the herd
we’ll find the plain hoofprints of their ponies there; because they’ll
show up different from the split hoofs of the steers, eh, Adrian?”
“Good for you, Billie; you’re on to the racket nowadays!” declared the
other; and then Donald coming up, the three stepped out toward the spot
where they had seen the unlucky steer fall never to rise again.
There was little trouble about finding the remains, for these prairie
boys had a fashion of locating things at the time they happened, so that
they could head straight to them again when they wished.
And just as Donald had said, the wretched animal had been pounded almost
flat by the many hoofs that passed over him. They might find some decent
pieces of beef to make use of, and that was all, for even the hide had
been ruined.
Adrian took the torch from his chum’s hand. They saw him bend down
closer as if to examine the flank of the dead steer. Hardly had he done
so than he gave utterance to a loud cry.
“What have you found now?” demanded Billie, scenting new developments in
the remarkable mystery which had greeted their advent into the Wyoming
cattle country.
“Look at this mark here!” was what the other said, as he drew in a long
breath; and of course both Donald and the fat chum dropped on their
knees, the better to see what was meant.
And there, plainly branded on the flank of the dead animal was the sign
manual which Adrian recognized as his own property, a bar, and the
letter S!
CHAPTER VI.
TO STAND BY A CHUM.
“Why, ain’t that your brand, Adrian?” gasped Billie, who was not very
quick to catch on to things, as a rule.
“Just what it is,” replied the other, between his set teeth.
“Then this steer belonged to the Bar-S herd, didn’t it?” the fat boy
continued, gradually approaching the point of full comprehension about
as one might circle around and around in a whirlpool, getting nearer the
center all the while.
“No doubt of it, Billie,” Donald took the trouble to say.
“And chances were, that whole drove that was stampeded right under your
eyes as it were, must a been the Bar-S herd of cattle. Gee whiz! now
what d’ye think of that for a warm reception? Must a been a committee
appointed to meet up with Adrian Sherwood, and let him know that things
were moving lively up here, all right.”
The idea was so vast that Billie seemed to fall into a reflective mood;
just as if he needed time to grasp its full significance.
Donald turned to the other chum.
At least he was not in need of further explanations in order to
understand just what that strange panic among the cattle stood for.
“It was a stampede with an object ahead of it, Adrian!” he exclaimed,
gritting his
|
he be wrong? Must there not be reality in the
experience that took away all fear of death, and made the youth of
twenty-three so willing to die? 'The deep impression made by George's
death,' says Dr. Hanna, the chief biographer of Chalmers, 'was the first
step towards his own conversion.'
Less than two years after, his sister Barbara, who was five years older
than himself, sickened and died. The same fell disease which had cut
off George proved fatal to her. But her father could write of her that
she showed a cheerful submission to the will of God, and a humble
confidence in the satisfaction of her great Redeemer. Here was another
case of one very near and dear to him deriving all her support and
comfort in the hour of death from a source which he had been accustomed
to associate with superstition and fanaticism. Again the question could
not but force itself upon him, Must there not be something real in it,
after all?
As to the ordinary management of his household, being under the control
of his sister, it proceeded in the ordinary fashion without much
interference from him. He was easy, and easily pleased, but he was not
an absent-minded dreamer. At an early period his chemical studies had
led him to believe that the time would come when coal-vapour would be
purified and used for illuminating houses; and when he got a new manse,
he had pipes laid in it, in anticipation of this domestic use. When
coffee was introduced as a beverage, he believed that in burnt rye he
had found a rival to it, and used to have it produced for his friends.
Once when it was proposed to subject the two substances to a sort of
competitive trial, and a select company assembled to pass a verdict upon
them, a cup of genuine Mocha was first handed round and much approved
of; then a second cup was presented, and being tasted was pronounced to
be much inferior; whereupon Mr. Chalmers burst into laughter and
exclaimed, 'It's your own Mocha coffee, the second cup is just the same
article as the first!' At another time, when some friends were to be at
dinner, it turned out that the whole resources of the larder could
produce nothing but two kinds of dried fish. Nothing daunted, Mr.
Chalmers had both of them properly served; and the covers being removed,
called on his guests to make their choice. 'This, gentlemen, is salt
fish from St. Andrews; and that is salt fish from Dundee.' Of course he
had to be often on horseback; but as a horseman he did not excel. 'What
most provoked him was the frequency with which his horse threw him. At
first he was much interested in noting the intervals between each fall.
Taking the average length, and calculating how far a dozen falls would
carry him, he resolved to keep the horse till the twelfth fall was
accomplished. Extremely fond of such numerical adjustments (a singular
result of the mathematical structure of his mind), he was most faithful
in counting them. In this instance, however, the tenth fall was so bad
that his resolution gave way, and he told his servant to take the horse
to the next market and sell him forthwith. 'But remember,' he said,
'you must conceal none of its faults; you must tell that it has thrown
its master ten times.' 'But who,' asked the man, 'will think of buying
the horse if I tell him all that beforehand?' 'I cannot help that,'
said Mr. Chalmers; 'I will have no deception practised, and if nobody
will buy the horse, you must just bring him back again.' Nobody did buy
the horse; ultimately in return for a book he was transferred to his
neighbour, Mr. Thomson of Balmerino, whom the animal served quietly and
faithfully for many a year, without showing any vicious tendency; whence
it came to be surmised 'that the peculiarities of the case were not in
the animal but the restless and energetic horsemanship of the rider!'
His patriotism was intense, and not only did he fulminate against
Bonaparte in the pulpit, but he joined the volunteers, and held
commissions both as chaplain and lieutenant.
The early years at Kilmany passed with little change except a visit to
England in the beginning of 1807. These English visits, rare in those
days, enlarged his horizon, and showed him much that he did not find at
home. At Liverpool he preached for a Mr. Kilpatrick, and we may gather
the character of his ordinary pulpit lessons from his two subjects--in
the forenoon on the comforts of religion; in the afternoon on
drunkenness. His impression of Woodstock showed that intense admiration
of nature which remained to the last: 'I spent two hours in the garden.
Never spot more lovely--never scenes so fair and captivating. I lost
myself in an elysium of delight, and wept with perfect rapture.' At
Oxford there was kindled a reverence for English academical life and
learning which never left him. 'I was delighted with the academic air
and costume of the place; and amid the grossness of a mercantile age, it
is the delight of my spirit to recur to the quiet scenes of philosophy,
and contemplate what our ancestors have done for learning, and the
respect that they once paid to it.'
Three weeks were spent among the sights of London. He had a lively
interest in all he saw, especially in all that concerned science and the
mechanical arts. Among his old friends and neighbours were two sons of
Fifeshire manses, rising to that high distinction which he coveted in
his own department,--John Campbell, afterwards Lord Campbell, and Mr.
(afterwards Sir David) Wilkie. He was greatly interested in all he saw
of royalty: Windsor, with all its glories; the chapel-royal there, where
the King and Queen and Princess Elizabeth seemed so simple, frank, and
devout; and he noted especially a view he had of these royal personages
at St. James's, when her majesty returned his salutation with a
'condescending notice.' Not in the vulgar sense, but as useful and
ornamental elements in the social fabric, he had a high regard for
royalty and the nobility. 'I am charmed with the cordial and
affectionate loyalty of the people. I saw a glow of reverence and
satisfaction on every countenance, and my heart warmed within me.'
Sheridan was the great orator of the day, and oftener than once he heard
him speak. He used to give two instances of Sheridan's readiness of
repartee when standing the fire of the hustings at Westminster. One
elector complained that he was not satisfied with his treatment of the
Carnatic. 'My dear sir,' he said, with a significant bow, 'the affairs
of the Carnatic are in much abler hands.' Another elector, with a very
ugly face, raised on the shoulder of the mob, said, 'If you do not alter
your ways, I will withdraw my countenance from you.' 'I am delighted to
hear it,' said Sheridan, 'for it is the ugliest countenance I ever
beheld.'
Cambridge attracted him even more than Oxford: 'It smells of learning
all over, and I breathe a fragrancy most congenial to me.' As if he had
foreseen Girton and Newnham, he said, 'The very women have an air of
academic mildness and simplicity.' He preferred it to Oxford,
apparently because its objects of interest were not so concentrated, but
really, in all probability, because it was the great sanctuary of
mathematical study. 'In Cambridge, everything wears a simplicity and
chasteness allied to the character of philosophy, and the venerable name
of Newton gives it an interest that can never die.' The glories of York
Minster entranced him. Wherever he went he made careful observation
alike of all that was beautiful and all that was instructive. He
returned to Kilmany in July (1807), after an absence of nearly three
months.
Immediately after his return, Mr. Chalmers set himself to prepare for
the press a work of considerable size and research, entitled an _Inquiry
into the Extent and Stability of National Resources_. Political economy
had always attracted him. At the time of this publication, much fear
was expressed that the continued war with Bonaparte, implying the
shutting against Britain of all the ports of the countries to which his
influence extended, and the confiscation of all cargoes of British
goods, would exhaust the resources of the country and ruin its foreign
traders. Mr. Chalmers held strongly an opposite opinion. Whether he
succeeded in proving his contention may be a question; certainly his
position was paradoxical. But his sagacity, as the result has proved,
came out in more than one indirect form. With reference to the
income-tax, he contended strongly that it ought not to be charged on the
whole of a man's income, but only on the part that remained after
providing for the necessaries of life. It was only a few years ago that
effect was given to this view in the case of small incomes. Another
matter for which he contended strongly was our obligation to provide a
better living for our soldiers. He denounced the compulsory system of
enlistment--it ought to be a voluntary service. And it ought to be a
service of limited duration; the nation had no right to make an
exception against soldiers and sailors when all other servants were
engaged for a limited number of months or years. 'Let it no longer be a
slavery for life, and let the burning ignominy of corporal punishment be
done away.' It was many years before these suggestions were acted on;
Chalmers lived to see his proposal of limited enlistment carried out,
when a friend of his own (Lord Panmure, afterwards Earl of Dalhousie)
was Secretary at War.
In this and in later writings on political economy it has been well
remarked that 'he bent the whole energies of his thought, not so much on
its abstruser theories, as on those practical and vital problems which
tend to meet the difficulties and ameliorate the condition of the
working classes.' 'He was the first political economist,' says Mr.
Dodds, 'who seized with a forethought and philanthropy equally before
his time upon _the condition-of-the-people question_, as the paramount,
the coming question of the age.' His opinion as to the dynamic by which
the desired change was to come underwent a great change when his
religious views changed; at the present stage he hoped that the forces
of reason would gradually effect the desired improvement; afterwards he
saw that these forces would be of little avail without the power of the
Gospel.
But a more important publication had now come into his horizon. One of
his friends, Dr. (afterwards Sir David) Brewster, was at this time
engaged in editing a voluminous work, the _Edinburgh Encyclopædia_.
Chalmers was engaged to contribute several articles, chiefly on
mathematical subjects. After the death of his sister Barbara (in 1808)
he wrote to the editor requesting that the article on 'Christianity'
should be assigned to him. Probably he felt, after what he had seen at
the two deathbeds in his family, that he needed to make this great
subject a matter of more careful study. His own belief in the divine
origin of Christianity had been firmly established long before--the
historical evidence, as presented by Paley, and the analogical
confirmation of it by Butler appearing to him irresistible. As it
turned out, his article in the _Encyclopædia_ bore mainly on the
evidences; and the historical evidence received by far the most
prominent place. Indeed, he was disposed to lay little stress on what
was known as the internal evidence. This arose out of the fear he
entertained lest men would substitute their own impressions of
Christianity for the clear, authoritative declarations of God. Since
God had uttered His voice, the sole and simple duty of men was to
ascertain what He had spoken, and give it their profound and absolute
acceptance. If they began to discuss the quality of His message, even
though its supreme excellence should be the point insisted on, they
would be bringing their own judgment into the case, and that might prove
a very dangerous element. It needs hardly to be pointed out that in
this position Chalmers placed himself in antagonism to the current view
of the friends of Christianity. In point of fact, the internal evidence
is that which carries conviction to the great mass of believers. At the
present day, the character of Jesus Christ stands far the highest and
most impressive of all the evidences. Chalmers was influenced, by a
mental tendency which clung to him more or less all his life, to dwell
on one side of a truth, which, to be fully set forth, needed to be
viewed in a variety of lights. But after a time he came to see that the
internal evidence deserved a higher place than he had assigned to it.
When his article was expanded into his treatise on the _Evidences of
Christianity_, the internal branch was duly acknowledged.
But before the article was finished, Chalmers, who was then in his
thirtieth year, passed through the ordeal of a very severe illness,
which confined him to his room for four months, prevented him from
entering his pulpit for six months, and affected him more or less for a
whole year. He believed that he was about to die. The whole subject of
religion assumed a new aspect of importance in his eyes. He came to see
that he had been living without God, and the discovery appalled him.
The will of God now became an imperative rule to him, and every energy
was bent towards bringing his own heart and life into conformity to it.
In such a man as Pascal the sublime transition had been made from the
highest walks of mathematical science to the still higher walk of faith.
Might not he be able to realise what Pascal had achieved? For a whole
year Chalmers laboured to effect this change. His friends could not
fail to mark the difference. Brief but solemn allusions such as they
had never heard before would drop from his lips. But in many respects
he was still the same. 'There were the same cordial greetings, the same
kindly questionings about themselves and all their friends, and the same
hearty laugh at the racy anecdote or stroke of quiet humour; for, great
as was the change effected, neither at the first nor ever afterwards did
it damp or narrow that genial and most social spirit which carried him
into varied intercourse with all classes of his fellow-men, and made the
joy of that intercourse to be a very cordial to his heart.' But, deeply
solemnised though he was, he had not attained the peace that passeth
understanding, nor had he learned the precious act of free and loving
fellowship with his Father in heaven.
During all this time he was ever keeping a most vigilant eye on his
habits and life, and in a diary now begun we find him pulling himself up
for every little fault, every loss of temper, every bitter word, every
conceited feeling. And he is constantly praying for forgiveness and for
strength. He is making progress in theological knowledge, finding, for
example, a far higher place in his regard for the atonement of Jesus
Christ. A very strong mark of his earnestness is seen in his
determination finally to give up his mathematical reading, and devote
himself to theology.
His views came to a point after the reading of a book then in
vogue--Wilberforce's _Practical View_. Fifteen years after, he
described the effect which that book had upon him in a letter to a
younger brother. 'When I meet with an inquirer, who, under the impulse
of a new feeling, has set himself in good earnest to the business of his
eternity, I have been very much in the habit of recommending
Wilberforce. This perhaps is owing to the circumstance that I myself
experienced a very great transition of sentiment in consequence of
reading his work. The deep views he gives of the depravity of our
nature, of our need of an atonement, of the great doctrine of acceptance
through that atonement, of the sanctifying influences of the
Spirit--these all give a new aspect to a man's religion.... But there
are other books which might be as effectually instrumental in working
the desired change; and in defect of them all there is the Bible, whose
doctrines I well remember I then saw in an altogether new light, and
could feel a power and a preciousness in passages which I formerly read
with heedlessness, and even with disgust.'
We cannot dwell at more length on this most interesting struggle; enough
to say that he emerged from it into the joy and peace of believing; he
laid hold of Jesus Christ as his only Saviour; entered into conscious
reconciliation with God; looked habitually to the Holy Spirit for all
sanctifying grace; and counted it his highest honour and delight to be a
fellow-worker with God, especially in all that concerned the welfare of
his fellow-men. Yet it was always observed of him that while cordially
agreeing with evangelical divines in the great essentials of the faith,
he would accept of no position which did not commend itself to his own
mind as according to Scripture. For a class of men who insisted on very
minute orthodoxies, and even questioned his own soundness because he
might not agree with them, he used to speak with little patience and
less respect.
The change became very apparent in his ministerial work. He threw new
ardour into the visitation of his flock and the instruction of the
young. His preaching passed into those evangelical lines which formerly
he had treated with contempt. Family worship, morning and evening, was
regularly conducted in the manse, although sometimes it was a great
trial to introduce that much contemned practice when a guest was present
who had little sympathy with the evangelical life. A Bible Society was
established in the parish, and all the people were exhorted to join it.
Strangers flocked to his church, not merely as of old to enjoy his
eloquent and impassioned delivery, but for guidance and aid in the
service of God. Converts to living Christianity gladdened his heart and
aided him in his work. 'Sandy Paterson,' his first convert, became a
great and earnest worker among his neighbours, and afterwards, as a city
missionary, in the Canongate of Edinburgh, successfully laboured in the
slums. With a young gentleman in Dundee, Mr. James Anderson, Chalmers
formed a remarkable friendship on the basis of their mutual interest in
religion, and in his great humility corresponded with him more like a
fellow-student or brother than a spiritual father. And Chalmers himself
became an earnest and laborious student of the Bible; and, in order to
keep up the glow of his spiritual life, instituted for himself a monthly
exercise, in which he reviewed before God the work of the month, and
with much confession and thanksgiving, implored the blessing of God on
all his work and on all his people.
No man was more sensible than himself of the great difference between
his earlier and later ministry. He told his people that earnest though
he had been at first in pressing honour, truth, and integrity upon them,
he never once heard of any resulting reformation; all his vehemence had
not the weight of a feather on their moral habits. It was only after he
became acquainted with the true way of approach to God, and the real
fountain of divine strength in Christ, that those minor reformations
showed themselves as the result of that deeper and more vital process by
which the heart was changed. It was his delight to hear masters
testifying to the scrupulous honesty and conscientious fidelity of their
servants, after they had come under the power of the Gospel. He prayed
that such servants, while thus adorning the doctrine of God their
Saviour, humble though they were, might reclaim the great ones of the
land to the acknowledgment of the faith.
Though not much addicted to church courts, Chalmers, during his Kilmany
ministry, made a few memorable appearances in them. His maiden speech
in the General Assembly was delivered in 1809. The subject was not an
inspiring one; it related to a recent act of the legislature on the
augmentation of stipends. But his speech was a most logical and
brilliant performance. The house was taken by storm. 'Who is he?' was
the question on every lip; 'he must be a most extraordinary person.'
Later, in 1814, he spoke on a kindred subject--the repairs and
alterations of manses. A better chance for his powers occurred in the
Assembly of that year in connection with a plurality case, where the
'wonderful display of his talents' contributed much to the passing of an
enactment that no professorship in a university should be held in
connection with a _country_ charge.
During the latter part of his Kilmany ministry he became a contributor
to the _Edinburgh Christian Instructor_, under the distinguished
editorship of Dr. Andrew Thomson. One of his papers dealt with the
new-born science of geology, and greatly soothed the anxieties of many
good men, by pointing out that the first chapter of Genesis does not fix
the antiquity of the globe, but only that of the human race. To the
_Eclectic Review_ he contributed an able paper on Moravian missions, in
opposition to an ignorant and scandalous misstatement on that subject
that had appeared in the _Edinburgh Review_. An eloquent pamphlet,
likewise in refutation of injurious statements, vindicated Bible
Societies from the charge of hurting the poor. It was at this time, and
in connection with this defence of Bible Societies, that he first
published those views of pauperism which he maintained so constantly all
his life. At Kilmany there was no assessment for the poor, and very
little pauperism. It seemed to him far better to foster a spirit of
independence, thrift, and industry on the part of the poor, and a spirit
of brotherly consideration on the part of the rich, than to confer a
legal claim on the one, and impose a legal obligation on the other.
'What, after all,' asks the author of the pamphlet on Bible Societies,
'is the best method of providing for the secular necessities of the
poor? Is it by labouring to meet the necessity after it has occurred, or
by labouring to establish a principle and a habit which would go far to
prevent its existence?... If you wish to extinguish poverty, combat
with it in its first elements.... The education and religious principle
of Scotland have not annihilated pauperism, but they have restrained it
to a degree that is almost incredible to our neighbours of the south.
The writer of this paper knows of a parish in Fife, the average
maintenance of whose poor is defrayed by £24 sterling a year, and of a
parish of the same population in Somersetshire where the annual
assessment amounts to £1300 sterling.'
But the most interesting feature in the pastoral development of Chalmers
during the latter part of his Kilmany ministry was the new direction
given to his power as a pulpit orator. We have seen that, from the
beginning, his more careful discourses were marked by great force of
argument and beauty of expression, and that there was such a fervour in
his manner of delivery as approached to wild uncouthness. Certain it is
that from first to last his pronunciation was very broad and his accent
intensely provincial. But when he struck into a vein of thought that
was full of interest to his own mind and soul, he was wonderfully
arrestive and impressive. In his earlier years he evidently took but
little trouble with his ordinary discourses; writing shorthand, he could
easily throw off a sermon in two or three hours. Yet even then he was
at times singularly felicitous; and, for sheer eloquence, no sermon he
ever preached was more remarkable than one delivered on occasion of the
national fast, on 8th February 1809, when, after a five-mile plodding on
foot through a heavy fall of snow, he convened the handful of people who
had reached the church in a room in the damp, uninhabited manse. After
his change of views, his preparation for the pulpit received much more
attention, and a distinction of longhand and shorthand sermons indicated
that on some he bestowed peculiar pains. The late Andrew Fuller,
attracted by his fame, having paid him a visit, tried to persuade him to
give up reading his sermons, believing that a more free delivery would
add infinitely to the impression. Chalmers made various attempts to
carry out the extemporaneous method, but, instead of his acquiring more
freedom, the effect was the reverse. At last he gave up all attempts at
the extemporaneous, both in his sermons and speeches, except in the way
of parenthetical remarks designed to elucidate some point that had not
been made sufficiently clear.
But we must not close the record of his Kilmany life without adverting
to an important domestic event which took place about two years before
he left the place. Till near that time he had, like Dr. Livingstone in
Africa at a later period, determined to lead the life of a bachelor. A
recent disappointment in connection with an application for augmentation
of stipend, confirmed him in that resolve. But neither Chalmers nor
Livingstone had taken into reckoning a mysterious influence which can
make sport of the firmest resolutions, and prostrate strong men at the
feet of Hymen. Chalmers had fallen in love with Miss Grace Pratt,
daughter of Captain Pratt of the First Royal Veteran Battalion, who had
been living for some time with her uncle, Mr. Simson, at Starbank, in
the parish of Kilmany. The marriage took place on 4th August 1812, and
the union lasted for thirty-five years of unbroken domestic happiness.
His sister Jane, his housekeeper, had been married shortly before to Mr.
Morton, a gentleman in Gloucestershire, and in communicating to her what
was probably a very unexpected piece of intelligence, he veiled the news
under an allegorical form which it may have taken her a little trouble
to elucidate. Referring to a recent but somewhat unsuccessful process
of his before the Court of Tiends for augmentation of stipend, he said
he had been involved in another process before another court. He had
been defeated in the one, but he was glad to say he had been triumphant
in the other. In the latter case he had had to do the whole business
himself. He had had to frame the summons and to conduct the pleadings.
There had been replies and duplies, and many a personal appearance at
court before the process was settled. At last a decision had been given
in his favour. But the law required the decision to be followed by a
proclamation--not a single proclamation at the cross, but two
proclamations, that had to be made within a quarter of a mile of his own
house. The letter concluded: 'I ken, Jane, you always thought me an
ill-pratted (mischievous) chiel; but, I can issure you, of all the
_pratts_ I ever played, none was ever carried on, or even ended more
_grace_-fully.' And Mrs. Morton congratulated him on his victory.
His fame as a pulpit orator had now travelled from Maidenkirk to John o'
Groats, and it could not be expected that he should be left in a
secluded country parish. In Glasgow, the Tron parish church had become
vacant, and Chalmers was suggested as successor to Dr. Macgill. It was
easy for the anti-evangelical party to ridicule the idea of bringing a
madman to such a place; but a deputation from the Town Council, who were
patrons of the church, went to hear him preach. On the Sunday in
question he preached, at Bendochy, a funeral sermon on Mr. Honey, a
young minister whose fatal illness had been brought on by his exertions
in saving from shipwreck seven exhausted sailors, whom, one by one, he
bore from their stranded vessel to the shore. The impression of that
sermon was overpowering. In spite of the opposition of the Duke of
Montrose, Sir Islay Campbell, the Lord Provost, and the College,
Chalmers received from the Town Council a presentation to the Tron, and,
after considerable hesitation, accepted it. It was a great wrench to
tear himself from Kilmany, which he loved and admired so greatly, and
from the people that were dear to him as his own children. All his
life, Fife, and especially Kilmany, continued thus dear. On his way to
Glasgow he had occasion to climb the Calton Hill in Edinburgh, and the
sight of Norman Law, which was visible from the windows of the manse of
Kilmany, quite overcame him. 'Oh! with what vivid remembrance can I
wander in thought over all its farms and all its families, and dwell on
the kind and simple affection of its people, till the contemplation
becomes too bitter for my endurance.'
It was no less a trial to leave the work which was now advancing so
hopefully in the parish. But he could not be insensible to the claims
of such a city as Glasgow, and the boundless field for usefulness it
afforded. And so, in great humility, and in great fear lest he should
be giving an undue preference to intellect and culture over poverty and
obscurity, he accepted the call. He preached a most impressive farewell
sermon on 9th July 1815, which concluded with these words: 'Be assured,
my brethren, that after the dear and the much-loved scenery of this
peaceful vale has disappeared from my eye, the people who live in it
shall retain a warm and an ever-enduring place in my memory; and this
mortal body must be stretched on the bed of death ere the heart that now
animates it can resign its exercise of longing after you, and praying
for you that you may so receive Christ Jesus, and so walk in Him, and so
hold fast the things you have gotten, and so prove that the labour I
have had among you has not been in vain, that when the sound of the last
trumpet awakens us, these eyes which are now bathed in tears may open
upon a scene of eternal blessedness, and we, my brethren, whom the
providence of God has withdrawn for a little time from each other, may
on that day be found side by side at the right hand of the everlasting
throne.'
When we compare Chalmers as he came to Kilmany and as he left it, we
find much that remains the same, and much that has been changed or
modified.
Remaining the same, we find his singularly energetic, forceful nature;
his high integrity and kindliness of heart, as it constantly streamed
out towards his family, his friends, and his flock; his eager desire for
the welfare of his people, for their advancement and elevation in all
that he counted good, pure, and noble; his indomitable energy of purpose
and fearless contending for right and truth; his passionate intensity of
conviction, rolling itself out in whirlwinds and tempests of eloquence,
that swept all before it. The great change which he has undergone has
not destroyed these fundamental elements of character.
Nevertheless, all things have become new. He has learned that true
life, in its every department, must be lived in fellowship with God. He
has learned the way to God, to God reconciled, a loving Father, a
considerate Master, a gracious Friend and Guide. He has seen the
reality of Christ's atonement, and of the work of the Holy Spirit, and
found a new value in prayer, and a new use of the sacred Scriptures. He
has got new light on the true welfare of the people, and especially on
the need for every one of personal contact with Christ; new light, also,
on the true dignity of every individual man and woman in view of the
capacities of their souls and the immortality that is before them. He
has found a nobler theme and a higher inspiration for that eloquence
which has moulded his labours in the pulpit. He is not less desirous to
see the people prosperous and happy, but he has been convinced that
their true welfare is dependent on heavenly grace, and, in the case of
the poor, that there is nothing like Christian influence whether for
preventing or alleviating the evils of poverty, or, where there are
poor, raising them above the depressing conditions of their lot. And
this is just the germ of that more comprehensive view of the conditions
of social welfare to which he will be drawn when he finds himself side
by side with the teeming thousands of Glasgow. He looks forward more
ardently than ever to the full development of the parochial system. Nor
has his enthusiasm for science abated. He has seen that, much though he
loves it, it is not his part to devote to it the time needed for his
more immediate duties. But now that he sees it more clearly than ever a
department of that great kingdom of God in which all interests are
combined in a wonderful unity, his respect for it is greater rather than
less. And, as a handmaid to the Gospel, he will soon find a noble use
for it in those astronomical discourses which are soon to arrest the
attention of the intellectual world.
Thus equipped, and with these aims, Chalmers proceeds to Glasgow. He is
inducted into his new charge, 23rd July 1815. His incumbency there is
to be shorter even than at Kilmany; but the eight years that are now
before him are to witness the commencement of a work and the advocacy of
a cause which will not only bring out the greatness of his character,
but tell on the welfare of the whole Church and country for generations
to come.
CHAPTER III
GLASGOW
1815-1823
It cannot be said that Chalmers took very kindly to Glasgow. He missed
the wide expanse, the fresh air, the Arcadian simplicity of his
much-loved Kilmany; also, the intimate acquaintance he had with every
individual, and the comparative leisure of a country life. He found
himself 'cribbed, cabined, and confined' by streets and lanes and
'lands,' and flung upon dense masses of population that baffled every
attempt at individual acquaintance and interest. No doubt the people
were most kind and hospitable, and if dinners and other entertainments
could have satisfied him, he might have had them to his heart's content.
But, bent as he was on his especial work, and eager to launch new plans
of usefulness, it was irksome beyond endurance to have to devote whole
afternoons and evenings to eating and drinking, considering the very
trifling amount of good that could be expected to come of such
protracted engagements. And another thing that worried him was the
trifling matters of purely secular interest to which, as a director of
societies, or a member of public boards, he was expected to give
attention. Fancy an hour spent in debating whether a certain ditch was
to be covered over or not; fancy himself and his brother-directors
engaged in a long controversy whether pork soup or ox-tail soup should
be served to the inmates of an institution, and finally resorting to a
practical test--a portion of each kind being brought to each director to
taste! Then there was an expectation that much of his time should be
devoted to certain attentions that people liked to be paid to them.
Why, a funeral was hardly counted respectable unless there were four
clergymen in attendance! Much nervous energy was consumed in resisting
these unreasonable expectations, and if Chalmers had not come to be a
great man, and possessed of a fame which overbore everything, he would
certainly have suffered not a little in reputation from the necessity of
so often applying a snub where kindness was meant, and becoming a
transgressor where tradition had established its law.
During the eight years of his Glasgow incumbency many things happened,
worthy to be noticed even in a short biography like this. First of all,
his fame as a pulpit orator reached its climax; a climax never surpassed
|
although he could not rise to her standard of refinement and elegance,
nor give her the means of gratifying those tastes which her breeding
and habits had fostered within her, yet they both had sense enough to
know how to adapt themselves to each other; so their life, if not a
luxurious one, was one of resignation and contentment. She followed
him to those places to which his regiment was occasionally ordered;
and when, in a year or two, he was invalided and discharged from the
army, she retired with him to his native village of Burton-in-Kendal,
and thence to Workington, where he found employment in the foundry at
Beerpot. Two children were born to them, both girls; the elder of whom,
as I have said, was on a visit to her relatives in Dublin; while the
other daughter, Isabella, narrowly escaped death from the plague, at
the time of her mother's decease, as I have narrated. I now resume my
story at the period when she was left an orphan.
Lady Curwen, as has been intimated, undertook the necessary and, to
her, pleasant task of befriending the desolate girl. She had been kind
to her mother; indeed she thought it an honour rather than otherwise to
be on friendly terms with her. She was a frequent visitor at the Hall,
where she was received rather as a friend and equal than as a poor
woman; for although she was in straitened circumstances, she was free
from that cringing dependence which poverty is calculated to engender
in those who are reared therein.
Her paternal relatives in Westmoreland also interested themselves in
the orphan; so the bereaved child knew neither want nor scant. In a
while she went to her uncle's homestead in Burton, where for a year
or two she resided and throve amain. But the sea and its surroundings
had more charms for an ardent girl than the more sober associations
of an inland life; she would rather scamper among the rocks and
sea-weed of her native shore than ramble among the heather of her
moorland home; and so, as time passed on, she began to yearn after
the earlier associations of her life. And inheriting the recklessness
and determination of her parents, she, unmindful of obligation and of
self-interest, carried out a long-cherished project: she ran away!
While her uncle and his family were at church one Sunday morning, she
went to the stable, and taking thence a cart-horse with which she had
become familiar, she got astride upon his back, and bidding adieu to
the farm and all its belongings, she set off to the place of her birth,
which she reached safe and sound, but not without having attracted
considerable attention from the onlookers on the way. Taking the horse
to the inn, at which her uncle happened to be known, and requesting
that it might be cared for until it was called for, she bent her steps
to the well-remembered homes of her old neighbours, by whom she was
cordially received.
She was at this time a fine blooming girl of twelve or thirteen years
of age, tall, stately, handsome, with a natural aristocratic bearing,
but remarkably unsophisticated and simple. Her return, and the way in
which it had been effected, soon reached the ears of her late mother's
friend, Lady Curwen, by whose influence she soon secured a good place
as housemaid; in which position I shall leave her while I recount a
fragment of the history of her elder sister Letitia.
I have said that her family renounced for ever their runaway relative.
But in course of time an elder sister of the offender, who was married
to a gentleman named Weeks, and living in London, relented of her
animosity by occasionally corresponding with her, and sending her now
and again what enabled her to keep a few marks of her former life about
her. The children, however, were not visited with the same hostility as
was their mother; they were inquired about, and, through a cousin who
was known to the girls as Councillor Lennon, an occasional letter of
recognition was sent them. This courtesy led to Letitia being sent for
to Dublin, where she resided under the care of Lord Annesley for a few
years. But what is bred in the bone is certain sooner or later to make
itself visible; it was so in the case of Letitia: a disposition for
frolic and adventure was in her; she found it difficult to conform to
the rules of life which now held her in, and in spite of all restraint
and watchfulness, she went into forbidden paths, and became at last a
self-made outcast from her high-bred friends. The way was this: falling
in with the steward of an American ship lying in one of the docks, and
taken with his charms as he with hers, she agreed to a marriage and a
flight with him like those of her mother. The chief difficulty which
presented itself was how to get to America with her intended husband;
but where there is a will there is mostly a way; both existed in this
case, and proved successful. She adopted male attire, applied for and
obtained a position which had become open on board of her husband's
ship, that of assistant steward or cook, in which capacity she served
in company with her husband during the voyage to Charleston. There she
arrived in safety; her husband left off going to sea; and the last
time her sister Isabella heard of her, she was mistress of a large and
flourishing inn in the above city.
Some time after Letitia's abscondment, Lord Annesley, yielding to Lady
Curwen's entreaty, and perhaps to the voice of his own conscience
as well, sent for Isabella, promising to give her the education and
position of a lady, provided she would in all things conform to his
wishes. The offer was a good and kind one, and presented temptation
sufficient to induce an enthusiastic girl to yield thereto a ready
compliance. The only means which Cumbrians had of reaching Ireland
at that time was by the coal-vessels which regularly sailed from
Workington to Dublin. In one of these Isabella Pearson set sail with
visions of grandeur and greatness before her. But the winds and waves
had well-nigh extinguished the lamp of hope which was burning so bright
within her, for she had not been long on her voyage before a terrific
storm broke upon the deeply-laden brig; it was impossible to make
progress; it was hazardous to put back, for Redness Point, where many
a noble ship had been wrecked and many a precious life lost, stood
threateningly behind them. At last, however, the master of the brig
made for the Scotch coast, and happily succeeded in gaining the port
of Kirkcudbright. Here our heroine remained with the vessel nearly a
week, when the weather permitting, the voyage was again attempted, and
without further mishap accomplished.
Isabella Pearson was received into the mansion of her noble relative
with becoming friendliness. I have heard her, in her old age, describe
his lordship as being a fine-looking venerable man, with a head white
through age, an eye beaming with kindness, and a heart brimful of love.
He had had the misfortune to lose a leg, and like many of his lowlier
brethren, had to be content with a wooden one. With him she spent a few
happy months; and at length became as familiar with the ways of those
in high rank as she had been with those of her own class. I cannot say
how long this new life lasted; but it is certain that as time passed
she began to feel her lot irksome, and to long for the less elegant,
but to her more pleasurable life she had previously led. The fact is
that, as in the case of her sister and her mother, Cupid, small and
child-like though he seems, was far more powerful than wealth and
fashion, and all other attractions of aristocratic life. While living
as a domestic servant in Cumberland, she had fallen in with a young
sailor, who had run away with her heart. When she set sail for Dublin
she had a hope that nothing would happen to prevent her from yielding
to her wishes to become his wife; but she had not been long her
relative's guest before she was forced to come to another conclusion;
for she saw plainly that her worthy kinsman had set his heart upon
fitting her to become something better than a common sailor's wife.
A lady had been engaged as her governess and a time fixed for her
arrival; but before the time came the inbred spirit of freedom had
again asserted itself, and Isabella had bidden adieu for ever to Lord
Annesley and all the good things which his kindness had gathered around
her! A collier brig took her back to her native village, and soon after
she became the wife of John Ruddock, able seaman.
No one can justify, though all may extenuate, the conduct of Isabella
Pearson; nor can any one be pronounced harsh and unfeeling who may
say: 'The suffering that might fall to her lot in after-life was the
result of her folly and recklessness. On the other hand, it may be
pleaded that her heart was her own, to give to whom she pleased; and as
it had been sought for and gained by the young sailor, her happiness
could only be secured by living with him; therefore she did right in
preferring his lot to the wishes of her noble uncle. Be this as it
may, she grievously erred in quitting him in so heartless a way after
the tender care she had received at his hands. And this she afterwards
acknowledged. After her marriage, her husband left the sea, and
taking his young wife with him to Durham, he there found employment
as a sail-maker, in which art he was proficient. A letter, professing
repentance, was written to her uncle; but before it was posted the
death of Lord Annesley was announced; which event put an end for ever
to all hope for help or favour in that quarter. Soon after, a pressgang
laid relentless hands upon poor Ruddock, and dragged him on board a
ship of war; so once more our heroine was forced to seek her living in
domestic servitude. But herein she was not able long to abide, for the
birth of a daughter made such life for a while impracticable. Sad as
was her lot, it soon became worse; for her poor husband was killed in
an engagement off the coast of Spain, and with many other brave hearts
found an early grave in the ocean's bed.
Isabella was now left with a young child to fight the world alone.
Health and vigour, however, were her portion; and hearing that plenty
of work for women was to be had at Cleator near Whitehaven, she
repaired thither, and found a settlement and a living. While there,
she was one day agreeably surprised by a visit from her kind friend
Lady Curwen, who had driven from Workington Hall expressly to tell her
that an advertisement applying for the heirs of John Pearson who worked
in Beerpot Foundry, had that week appeared in the columns of a London
newspaper, and urged her to attend to it. But she was illiterate, was
unused to business habits, and being alone and helpless, put off the
matter day by day, until at last she gave it up altogether. What might
have come out of this, is of course unknown to the writer; but Isabella
herself believed--I do not know why--that her aunt, Mrs Weeks, had
died, and had bequeathed to her sister's children a considerable sum of
money.
Time passed on, and her child grew, developing among other things
a love of mischief; for one day, while her mother was at the mill
where she wrought, she got to the box in which were kept her mother's
cherished family documents and letters, and amused herself by setting
them ablaze one by one at a lighted candle got for the purpose! Thus,
in one half-hour, every document necessary to prove her mother's
pedigree was destroyed, and with it all hope of bettering her position
was thrown to the winds; so, when some years afterwards, Lady Curwen
sent a messenger to tell her that the advertisement I have named had
once more appeared in the public prints, she paid no attention to the
information, satisfying herself simply with an expression of thanks to
her kind benefactor!
She was, however, content with her lot. Her child was her chief comfort
and joy. For her she toiled in the mill by day, and in her humble home
at night; and as she grew in stature and in beauty, the mother's heart
throbbed its gratitude and her eye beamed with admiration. But on one
occasion she had nearly lost her. Playing one fine afternoon on the
bank of the stream which drove the wheel belonging to the mill, her
feet slipped, and she fell in. A man who happened to be a little in
advance, had his eye drawn to an object on the water, which he at first
took to be a quantity of loose hair; but another glance revealed to
him the head of a little girl beneath the surface of the rapid stream.
He ran and was just in time to lay hold of the hair as its possessor
was falling over on to the wheel. Another moment, and Jane Ruddock
(the drowning girl) would have been no more; in which case he who
now pens these fragments of a strange history would not have been in
existence--for that little girl became his mother.
I have little more to add. Isabella Pearson, who, as I have shewn,
became Isabella Ruddock, wife of a common sailor, once more entered the
matrimonial lists; but she neither improved her position nor increased
her happiness by so doing. Indeed her life, while her second husband
lived, was imbittered by his love of strong drink. But she survived
him. She was a widow the second time when she became familiar to my
youthful eye. Many a merry hour have I spent in her company. Often I
have heard her relate the incidents which make up this story. She was
a fine, tall, handsome woman while health remained with her; she had
also a large womanly heart, a hot impetuous temper, and a remarkable
simplicity and honesty of character. She died in 1849, weighed down
with years and infirmities; but she ended her eventful life in much
patience and peace.
A LADY'S ASCENT OF THE BREITHORN.
Fancy the following tableau. Scene--Switzerland; time--August 1875,
at a desolate rocky part of the Surenen Pass. A group--Youthful grace
and vigour; manly strength and endurance, &c. Foreground--Four heads
eagerly bent over a huge bowl of _café_ placed on a board, which is
extended over four laps. Hands belonging to said heads ladling the
mixture into their mouths with large wooden ladles with little curved
handles, between convulsions of mirth. Background--The châlet of the
Waldnacht Alp, from which the realistic artist should cause hideous
odours to ascend in the form of dense vapour. At the door of it,
the unwashed and scantily clad figure of a Swiss herdsman, fearful
to behold, owner of châlet, and like Caliban himself, chattering
an ominous jargon, and grinning at the English feeders. Right of
background--Attendant guide, cheerful and pleased that he has at last
secured some sustenance for his 'leddies,' who have been walking from
eight A.M. to four P.M., and will yet have to go on till three-quarters
of an hour after midnight. These tableaux, with minor variations, were
frequent in our tour.
After many adventures and many jokes, after being lost in a pass from
eight o'clock to ten, when the sun had set, and having to wander about
for those two hours on the edge of a precipice guiltless of path, being
finally rescued by a heaven-sent and most unexpected peasant with
a lamp--after these things and their results, which were blackened
complexions, dried skins, and dilapidated costumes, we arrived at
Zermatt, where we settled down for a time. The object of the settling
down was in one word--ascents.
Nothing much, according to the men, had yet been done, though we in our
secret hearts hugged the proud thought that Pilatus had not defeated
us, and that the Twelfth-cake-like snows of Titlis had been pressed
by our tread; that the Aeggischhorn, though it had witnessed (N.B. at
the end of a long day) the heat and perspiration which dimmed our few
remaining charms, and had heard our smothered groans, had had in the
end to feel our light weight upon its summit, and to bear us as we
gazed with awe at its mighty circle of peaks. But what do these avail?
In the eye of man they were mere preparation for mightier things.
After some debate, mingled with faint remonstrance on our part, when
Monte Rosa was mentioned, the _Breithorn_ was decided upon; and the
manly spirits, which had become depressed by a few days' lounge, arose.
Such is the enigma Man! The day was fixed, an extra guide (one Franz
Biener--known as Weisshorn Biener) engaged on the night before we went
up to the Riffel. After a few hours' disturbed sleep we were awoke at
two; and dragging our weary and daily emaciating bodies from the beds
where they had not been too comfortable, we dressed by the flickering
light of a candle; and as we dressed, my friend and I cast fearful
looks out at the Matterhorn, which fiercely pierced the dark sky, and
seemed to say to me in the words of the poet:
Beware the pine-tree's withered branch;
Beware the awful avalanche!
As I put the last finishing touches to my collar at the glass, my
feminine pulses slightly quickened to the tune of--'This was the
peasant's last good-night;' and though no voice far up the height
replied 'Excelsior!' yet a voice came from outside which meant in
downright English very much the same thing; and my reflections were
quenched in the carousal down-stairs, which I hastened to join. An
unfortunate and sleepy maid was ministering to the wants of my friends
in the dimly lighted salon of the Riffel-haus. Outside, the guides
were impatiently stamping about in the frosty night, and complaining
of the length of our delay, insinuating that the sun would soon be up.
The fact is the preparations of toilet on our part were complicated.
The uninitiated may not know that the feminine clothing of the present
time, elegant though some may think it, is not conducive to comfort
in mountain climbing. A well-tied back _tablier_ has a restrictive
influence upon the free movement of the lower limbs, and only admits of
a step of a certain length. In rock-work it is felt to be peculiarly
irksome, and in soft snow it is trying to the temper.
Let the imaginative reader then, if he be able, picture two young
women devoid of tabliers, and so at once removed from the pale of
polite society. I tremble as I write with the fear that this avowal
may remove from me and my companion that feminine sympathy so dear
to our hearts. But I must descend a step lower. Freedom from tablier
was not sufficiently radical. Our skirts must be carefully pinned up
round our waists à la washerwoman, so that our progress be perfectly
unimpeded; and armed with masks and spectacles we sallied forth into
the darkness--a party of six. I shall not easily forget the delicious
exhilaration we felt as we hastened along towards the Gorner glacier.
The dark cold air touched our faces crisply, and feelingly persuaded us
of the advantage of the sun's absence.
The searching sensation of being about to commit a crime, attendant
on nocturnal adventures, clung to us, and we were filled with a vague
remorse, in which we felt at one with Eugene Aram. At the same time the
ridiculousness of our position soon wrought upon us to such a degree
that we profaned that wonderful silence with unholy bursts of laughter.
Our festivity ceased when we reached the glacier, for there we broke
up into line, we ladies being tenderly taken possession of each by
a guide, who soon got us over a rough moraine. The glacier we found
unpleasantly slippery; and it was exciting work, as at the point where
we crossed it was very much crevassed, and steps had often to be cut.
The nails on our marvellous boots answered admirably, and we sprang
about with great sure-footedness and with exquisite enjoyment.
The leader of our party was in a rather dangerous plight, for he
had had no nails put into his boots, and we felt quite anxious as
through the dim light we noticed his uncertain movements. How he
got across with the ice in so bad a condition, is a marvel! We had
been on the glacier about an hour when the light began to creep up
over the mountains, and we were in the midst of a scene of wonderful
beauty. The Monte Rosa, the Lyekamm, Castor and Pollux, the Breithorn,
the Matterhorn, and many another shrouded in their utter whiteness
stood round us in awful calm, closing us in upon a lake of tossed
and heaving ice. The moonlight which streamed down upon us on one
side, and the pale yellow light of the dawn on the other, lit up the
scene with a weirdness which seemed not of our world. We saw each
other's phantom-like figures gliding about, and felt that we were too
real to be there--a place where only ghosts had any right to be. The
feeling that pressed upon me was that I had suddenly intruded into
nature's holiest of holies. It seemed as if some secret of a higher
life than this was being sighed through the air, and that I, with
all my earth-stains on me, could not rise to the understanding of
that secret. Yet on that early morning in August, in the same world
far away, the same London was going on in the same old way we knew
so well. Cats were even then stealing along suburban walls; cocks
were beginning to practise their crescendos, tired-out citizens were
tossing in oppressive four-posters, dreaming tantalising dreams of cool
sea-breezes not for them; while round all must be clinging that heavy
breathed-out air, which of itself is a very _inferno_ in contrast with
the mountain ether.
By the time we had reached the upper plateau of the St Théodule
glacier, it was light, and we were all roped together. The process of
roping in this enlightened age I feel it to be unnecessary to describe.
Thus we marched along that profound and frozen solitude tied together
in a long line. The snow was as hard as a road, and the cold intense.
Biener is an excellent guide, but his pace is very slow, and thus we
got rather benumbed. We had, however, passed the Little Matterhorn
on our left, and the Théodulhorn on our right, with the little rude
_cabane_ erected on the rocks at its foot--more than eleven thousand
feet above the sea, and the highest habitation in Europe--and were
beginning to trail our snake-like length up the snow-slopes on the west
and south of the mountain, when my friend became so unmistakably ill
that we came at once to a halt and a consultation. She (to her honour)
much wished to go on, in spite of sickness, giddiness, faintness, and a
livid complexion; but as that was out of the question, she was untied
from the rope, and sent back with our ordinary guide (a first-rate
fellow, one Johann von Aa) to the hut already mentioned.
When we reached the actual snow-fields of the Breithorn, I had to
learn that the work of my day had scarcely begun. As the sun rose, the
snow began to get very soft, and instead of going in to my knees, as
I had expected, I literally waded in it up to my waist. With mighty
efforts I lifted up my already wearied legs and plunged them into ever
fresh pits of snow, where they frequently became so firmly imbedded
that, struggle as I might, I could not move; and presented to the
spectator the hapless object of half a woman masked and spectacled,
striving and panting. From an æsthetic point of view I cannot say I
felt myself a success; but from a moral point, I felt myself a very
finger-post through the ages. Truly I had given up my all in the shape
of appearance, and had offered myself up on that altar of adventure on
which so many braves of my country have been sacrificed. The mode of
rescue from the uncomfortable position indicated above was almost as
bad as the plight itself. I feebly kicked; you can't kick boldly with
your legs in tight pits; and the guide dragged at the rope which bound
my waist, and then out I came like the cork out of a bottle. Two hours
and a half of this sort of thing went on, varied by refreshments and
occasional rests for breath-taking, but still it appeared to me that
we were always at the same spot, and ever the glittering summit from
afar mocked my helpless gasps. At last (ah! what an at last!) the final
slope--really the final one--stretched right up before us. A party of
men who were engaged in scientific experiments peered over at us; and
with one last desperate effort I found myself landed amongst them at
the top of the Breithorn, and thirteen thousand seven hundred feet
above the sea. As we placed our feet upon the summit we groaned the
groan of triumph, and gazed with awe around us upon the inexpressibly
magnificent scene which spread itself out before us. A mighty circle of
mountains stood in awful calm around us. Every fantastic line, every
curious heaping, every wild wreck, every gleaming curve of glacier
possible to mountains, seemed gathered together before us. Each peak
had a proud originality of its own, which shewed through all the
sameness of the uniform whiteness. But the spirit of these places is
the most wonderful thing about them. The clamour, the struggle, the
unrest, which make up to most of us the atmosphere of this world,
seemed in these regions to have been left behind in a past state;
and this in a way was illustrated by the scene itself. The contorted
forms and tossed rocks spoke of struggle, gradual it may be, but still
struggle. But in the sereneness surrounding those unearthly peaks there
was a peace which seemed to have left struggle far behind--the repose
of a wide knowledge gained only through sore fight and aspiration.
A short time of peaceful dream was allowed me, and that was rather
marred by the intense glare of the light, and then we began the
descent. In an evil moment of rest some little way down, I left hold
of my alpenstock and leaned it against my shoulder. In a moment it was
gone--down, down, sliding skittishly away, till my heart was pained
by its final leap into a crevasse far away. As I looked, I imagined
what a crash my skull would have come at the bottom of that crevasse.
I afterwards found out that the alpenstock was not my own, as I then
thought, but that I had inadvertently changed with one of our guides.
Imagine my grief at the thought that I had lost the dear companion of
my travels, that staff which had guided my wavering feet and upheld my
tottering body through passes and up mountains, and which I intended to
preserve until my death! My situation without it was rather perilous,
and would have been more so had not the snow been very soft. But the
guide took me entirely in charge, and lent me his axe, which I was
certain I should recklessly lose after the same fashion. After a weary
time, Biener the guide decided to _glissade_ me. I was resigned. What
else could I be? By that time I was very resigned. He took off his
coat, and made me sit down upon it, then tied my skirts around me.
A rope was attached round my waist, one end of which was grasped by
Biener in front, and the other by my gentlemen friends behind. Then
ensued a process in which my limbs were nearly severed from the body,
and in which I suffered greatly. Biener rushed down the slope dragging
me behind him; while the gentlemen, unaccustomed to this sort of thing,
and not being able to go fast enough, hung a good part of their weight
on to the rope behind, and so almost bisected me. I never expected to
be an individual whole again; halves were my fate. Never was creature
in so miserable a plight. No Procrustean bed could have produced
greater tortures than those I suffered as I sped down that miserable
slope. I shouted all the French I could think of to Biener to stop
him, and rid me from the hideous rope, which cut me like a knife; but
the air would not carry my words, and on I skimmed and floundered. At
last he heard my cries, and released me from the fetters. The fact was
that the gentlemen were quite unable to keep up with Biener in the deep
snow, with the dismal result, as seen above, of almost cutting through
my waist. The lesson to be deduced from this is the simple maxim I
commend to all my feminine readers: _Never_, under the most favourable
circumstances, _glissade_.
When we reached the cabane where my friend was waiting for us, we were
met by Johann, who told us with a long-face that the 'leddy' would not
eat anything, and was very sick. We found, to our sorrow, that she had
been in a miserable condition all day, and had suffered dreadfully from
mountain sickness. She was so ill that it was impossible she could
walk, and we were a long time in deciding what was to be done. Now,
a helpless invalid, at a height of over eleven thousand feet above
the sea, is not a being easy to legislate for. At last a litter was
contrived. A chair was placed on some alpenstocks; and an American
gentleman whom we met at the cabane being kind enough to lend us his
porter, we found hands enough to carry her part of the way at least,
to Zermatt; the Riffel-haus, where we were staying, being out of the
question, on account of the Gorner glacier and its moraines and rocks,
which would have to be passed to get there. Our party, sad to say, had
then to separate, two of us going to Zermatt and two to the Riffel. The
melancholy _chaise-à-porteur_ procession wended its way to Zermatt; and
with considerably damped spirits we went on to the Riffel, which we
reached at about half-past six P.M. The ambulance party did not get to
their destination till eight o'clock.
All that remains now to be told of this our adventure is the sad
result. The next morning, on waking from sleep, I found that my ear
adhered to the pillow; and when, with much trembling I approached the
glass, a spectacle presented itself to me which I can never forget. As
I gazed at the grotesque reflection of myself, I inwardly vowed that
no mask of London make, elegantly worked as it might be, should ever
cover my face again. A large flapping cover-all mask 'of the country'
let me recommend to ladies who go up snow mountains. I was swollen;
I was black; I was hideous! Half of the skin of one ear was hanging
by a shred, and the ear itself was a blister; while all round my neck
from ear to ear was a chain of blisters. Their state was so bad that
the dressing of them by one of our party (a doctor) took half an hour,
and I could scarcely turn my head. It required a good deal of courage
to face _table-d'hôte_ and the young ladies who were indulging in
complexions and large portmanteaus. But I did! Would that I could say
I enjoyed it. I did _not_ enjoy it. The complexions of the scornful
and the scorn itself, embittered that meal, usually attended with such
joys. In my travelling afterwards, I became accustomed to the searching
glance at my poor tattered skin and to the remark: 'I see you have
been doing glacier-work.' And it was not until a month of English life
had to some extent repaired me that I could look back with delight and
triumph to the ascent of the Breithorn.
ECCENTRIC PEOPLE.
Mr Timbs, in his book upon _English Eccentrics and Eccentricities_,
introduces us to a collection of funny people, with whom it is
good company to pass an hour. To get away from the dull routine
of conventionality for a while is at all times a relief, more
especially when we fill the interval by watching some of our eccentric
fellow-creatures who are good enough to divert us by their antics. Some
are serious in their folly; some are mad; some we admire, while others
again awake our pity; but one and all they are gifted with a force of
will that merits attention.
A collection of dead-and-gone eccentrics now pass before us, recalling
a few living ones that we know of, whose collected vagaries, if
published, may in turn probably amuse our grandchildren. First, let us
look at Beckford, a name not much remembered now, although it belonged
to a man who was a marvel in his day. Gifted with extraordinary powers
of mind and will, he did everything by turns, and nothing long. He
wrote a book that created a sensation. No great marvel that, to
people of our day, when the difficulty is to find some one who has
not written a book; but Beckford wrote as no other author. _Vathek_
was written at one sitting! It took him three days and two nights of
hard labour, during which time he never undressed. We know of one
instance somewhat similar. A reigning lady novelist told us once that
she was pledged to her publisher to send him a three-volume novel by
a certain date. Two days previous to the expiration of her contract,
her novel had only reached the opening chapter of the third volume.
On the evening of the first day she went to a ball, danced all night,
returning home at the small-hours of morning, when, after taking off
her ball-dress, and drinking some strong tea, she sat down to finish
her task. All that day she wrote and on into the next night, never
leaving her desk until she had written _finis_; when with trembling
hands she despatched her manuscript in time to fulfil her engagement.
There are some natures that need the pressure of necessity, or
self-imposed necessity, to goad them into action; their resolution
once formed, no obstacle is suffered to come between them and its
fulfilment. Beckford was one of these. He determined to build a
house--the abbey at Fonthill, where he resided for twenty years--and
swore by his favourite St Anthony that his Christmas-dinner should be
cooked in the abbey kitchen. Christmas approached, and the kitchen was
in an unfinished condition. Every exertion that money could command was
brought to the task, and Christmas morning saw the kitchen finished and
the cooks installed. A splendid repast was prepared, and the dinner
actually cooked, when lo! and behold, as the servants were carrying in
the dishes through the long passages into the dining-room, a loud noise
was heard, and the kitchen fell through with a crash! But what cared
Beckford? He was rich; he could afford to build his kitchen over again;
meantime he had humoured his whim and kept his vow to St Anthony; and
we may add, made good his title to eccentricity, for which we applaud
him, and pass on to watch some others.
What sorry figure is this that comes next? A poor neglected imbecile,
living in squalid lodgings at Calais. It is scarcely possible to
recognise in this unhappy being the once gay and elegant Beau Brummel,
the glass of fashion and mould of form to the men and women of his
generation, whom he ruled with the despotism of an autocrat. Yet this
is the poor Beau and no other. He is holding a phantom reception.
Having desired his attendant to arrange his apartment, set out
|
Mass.
GREGORY INSTITUTE.
_Principal_,
Mr. Geo. A. Woodard, Weymouth, Mass.
_Assistants_,
Miss E. Jennie Peck, Bristol, Ct.
Miss H. L. Fitts, Candia, N.H.
Miss E. A. Warner, Lowell, Mass.
Miss Mary A. Mason, Westfield, Mass.
Miss Anna M. Nicholas, Toledo, Ohio.
Miss Mary D. Hyde, Zumbrota, Minn.
Miss Jessie Garfield, Sheffield, Ohio.
Mrs. Geo. A. Woodard, Weymouth, Mass.
_Special Missionary_,
Miss A. E. Farrington, Portland, Me.
RALEIGH.
_Minister_,
Rev. Geo. S. Smith, Raleigh, N.C.
OAKS AND CEDAR CLIFF.
_Minister and Teacher_,
Rev. J. N. Ray, Oaks, N.C.
Miss E. W. Douglas, Decorah, Iowa.
CHAPEL HILL AND HILLSBORO.
_Minister and Teacher_,
Rev. Jas. Walker, Hillsboro, N.C.
Mrs. Jas. Walker, Hillsboro, N.C.
MELVILLE.
_Teacher_,
Mr. Sandy Paris, Cedar Cliff, N.C.
BEAUFORT.
_Minister and Teacher_,
Rev. Michael Jerkins, Beaufort, N.C.
Miss Lydia Hatch, Beaufort, N.C.
DUDLEY.
_Minister and Teacher_,
Mr. Chas. Ellis, Southfield, Mass.
KITTRELL.
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Miss P. M. Lee, Oxford, Mass.
McLEANSVILLE.
_Minister and Teacher_,
Rev. Alfred Connet, Solsberry, Ind.
Mr. O. Connet, Solsberry, Ind.
STRIEBY AND SALEM.
_Minister and Teacher_,
Rev. Z. Simmons, Dudley, N.C.
Mrs. Elinor Walden, Strieby, N.C.
TROY AND NALLS.
_Minister and Teacher_,
Rev. Wm. H. Ellis, Southfield, Mass.
PEKIN AND DRY CREEK.
_Minister and Teacher_,
Rev. James E. Smith, Pekin, N.C.
* * * * *
SOUTH CAROLINA.
CHARLESTON.
_Minister_,
Rev. Geo. C. Rowe, Charleston, S.C.
AVERY INSTITUTE.
New teachers have not yet been appointed. The buildings
were seriously injured by earthquake, and are now
undergoing repairs.
ORANGEBURG.
_Minister_,
Rev. J. L. Grice, Orangeburg, S.C.
GREENWOOD.
BREWER NORMAL SCHOOL.
Rev. J. E. B. Jewett, Pepperell, Mass.
Mrs. J. E. B. Jewett, Pepperell, Mass.
* * * * *
GEORGIA.
ATLANTA.
_Ministers_,
Rev. Evarts Kent, Chicago, Ill.
Rev. C. W. Francis, Atlanta, Ga.
ATLANTA UNIVERSITY.
_Instructors and Managers_,
Prof. Thos. N. Chase, Atlanta, Ga.
Rev. Cyrus W. Francis, Atlanta, Ga.
Rev. Horace Bumstead, D.D., Atlanta, Ga.
Mr. Horace M. Sessions, Hampden, Mass.
Mr. Charles P. Sinnott, Marshfield, Mass.
Mr. C. C. Tucker, Fitchburg, Mass.
Mr. John W. Young, Atlanta, Ga.
Miss Emma C. Ware, Norfolk, Mass.
Miss Sarah E. Marsh, Chicago, Ill.
Miss Ella W. Moore, Chicago, Ill.
Miss Rebecca Massey, Oberlin, O.
Miss Margaret Neel, Livonia, N.Y.
Miss Carrie E. Jones, Atlanta, Ga.
Mrs. Lucy E. Case, Charlton Dep’t, Mass.
Miss F. E. Weston, Fort Fairfield, Me.
[A]Miss Eliza J. Perkins, Exeter, N.H.
Miss S. A. Hosmer, Augusta, Ga.
Mrs. Jane T. Ware, Atlanta, Ga.
Miss Martha E. Elkins, Exeter, N.H.
Miss Mary E. Sands, Saco, Me.
Mrs. H. W. Chase, West Randolph, Vt.
[B]Miss O. A. Thompson, Durham, N.H.
Miss F. M. Andrews, Milltown, N.B.
Miss E. H. Merrill, Boston, Mass.
STORRS SCHOOL (104 Houston St.)
_Principal_,
Mrs. Hattie I. Miller, East Corinth, Vt.
_Assistants_,
Miss Minnie Hubbard, Hiram, Me.
Miss M. L. Gerhard, Nebraska City, Neb.
Mrs. C. G. Ball, Clifford, N.Y.
Miss Amelia L. Ferris, Oneida, Ill.
Miss Caledonia Phillips, Cannonsburg, Pa.
Miss A. H. Levering, Philadelphia, Pa.
Miss Carrie J. Parry, Chicago, Ill.
Miss Nellie E. Blood, Pepperell, Mass.
_Special Missionary_,
Miss Lizzie Stevenson, Bellefontaine, O.
CUTHBERT.
_Teacher_,
Mr. F. H. Henderson, Cuthbert, Ga.
ATHENS.
_Minister_,
Rev. Geo. V. Clarke, Atlanta, Ga.
_Teachers_,
Mr. A. L. Tucker, Athens, Ga.
Miss Auffling, Athens, Ga.
RUTLAND.
_Minister and Teacher_,
Rev. N. B. James, New Orleans, La.
SAVANNAH.
_Minister and Superintendent of Missions_,
Rev. Dana Sherrill, Forrest, Ill.
BEACH INSTITUTE.
_Principal_,
Miss A. A. Holmes, Lee, Mass.
_Assistants_,
Miss Mary F. Lord, Fredonia, N.Y.
Miss M. A. Perry, Holden, Mass.
Miss E. M. Clapp, East Hampton, Mass.
Miss M. M. Foote, Norwich, N.Y.
Miss Alice M. Field, North Bennington, Vt.
Mrs. Dana Sherrill, Forrest, Ill.
MACON AND BYRON.
_Minister_,
Rev. S. E. Lathrop, New London, Wis.
LEWIS HIGH SCHOOL.
_Principal_,
Mrs. Liva A. Shaw, Owego, N.Y.
_Assistants_,
Mr. Aug. J. Burger, New London, Wis.
Miss E. L. Patten, Somers, Conn.
Miss Gertrude F. Yard, Dakota City, Ia.
Miss E. B. Scobie, Peninsula, Ohio.
Miss Anna Doyen, Antioch, Ill.
Miss S. F. Clarke, Medina, Ohio.
Miss L. G. Freeman, Saratoga, N.Y.
Mrs. S. E. Lathrop, New London, Wis.
Mrs. F. E. Greene, Rochester, N.Y.
MARIETTA.
_Minister and Teacher_,
Rev. E. J. Penney, Marietta, Ga.
ALBANY.
_Teacher_,
Mr. W. C. Greene, Albany, Ga.
WOODVILLE.
_Minister and Teacher_,
Rev. J. H. H. Sengstacke, Savannah, Ga.
Mr. J. Loyd, Savannah, Ga.
MILLER’S STATION.
_Superintending Minister_,
Rev. Dana Sherrill, Forrest, Ill.
LOUISVILLE AND BELMONT.
_Superintending Minister_,
Rev. Dana Sherrill, Forrest, Ill.
M’INTOSH, LIBERTY CO.
THE GROVE.
_Minister_,
Rev. Floyd Snelson, McIntosh, Ga.
_Teachers_,
Miss Elizabeth Plimpton, Walpole, Mass.
Miss Bertha Robertson, Richibucto, N.B.
Miss Minnie Dox, Kalamazoo, Mich.
Miss Mary A. Cutler, Greenwich Valley, Mass.
CYPRESS SLASH.
_Minister and Teacher_,
Rev. Wilson Callen, Cypress Slash, Ga.
Miss ——
THOMASVILLE.
NORMAL AND INDUSTRIAL SCHOOL.
_Principal_,
Mrs. W. L. Gordon, Richmond, Mich.
_Assistants_,
Miss Martha J. Davis, Dunstable, Mass.
Miss Julia A. Goodwin, Mason, N.H.
Miss Carrie M. Park, West Boxford, Mass.
DAVISVILLE AND STONEWALL.
_Minister_,
Rev. R. M. Lewis, Milford, Ga.
* * * * *
FLORIDA.
ST. AUGUSTINE.
_Teachers_,
Miss Emma B. Caughey, Kingsville, O.
Miss Helen D. Burton, Terre Haute, Ind.
ORANGE PARK.
_Minister_,
Rev. W. A. Benedict, Orange Park, Fla.
* * * * *
ALABAMA.
TALLADEGA.
_Minister_,
Rev. H. S. DeForest, D.D., Talladega, Ala.
TALLADEGA COLLEGE.
_Instructors and Managers_,
Pres. H. S. DeForest, D.D., Talladega, Ala.
Rev. G. W. Andrews, D.D., Talladega, Ala.
Prof. Geo. H. Howe, Orwell, Pa.
Mr. E. C. Silsby, Talladega, Ala.
Mr. John Orr, Clinton, Mass.
Mr. E. A. Bishop, Talladega, Ala.
Miss Bertha Bass, Gardiner, Me.
Miss L. F. Partridge, Holliston, Mass.
Miss Maud S. Wheeler, Salem, Mass.
Miss May L. Phillips, Canonsburg, Pa.
Mrs. Clara O. Rindge, Homer, N.Y.
Miss Helen M. Andrews, Columbus, Kan.
Miss Lura Aldridge, Oak Park, Ill.
Mrs. E. A. Bishop, Talladega, Ala.
Mrs. John Orr, Clinton, Mass.
Mrs. E. C. Silsby, Talladega, Ala.
Miss Julia C. Andrews, Milltown, N.B.
Mrs. H. S. De Forest, Talladega, Ala.
Mrs. G.W. Andrews, Talladega, Ala.
Mrs. Geo. H. Howe, Orwell, Pa.
_Special Missionary_,
Miss M. H. E. Clary, Conway, Mass.
KYMULGA.
_Minister_,
Rev. J. A. Jones, Talladega, Ala.
SHELBY IRON WORKS.
_Minister_,
Rev. J. R. Sims, Talladega, Ala.
CHILDERSBURG.
_Minister_,
Rev. J. R. Sims, Talladega, Ala.
BIRMINGHAM.
_Minister_,
Rev. A. J. Headen, Talladega, Ala.
MOBILE.
_Minister_,
Rev. F. G. Ragland, Mobile, Ala.
EMERSON INSTITUTE.
_Principal_,
Mr. F. B. Wells, Rhinebeck, N.Y.
_Assistants_,
Miss E. R. Morrison, Chillicothe, Ohio.
Miss Isadore M. Caughey, Kingsville, Ohio.
Miss Carrie E. Ferris, Passaic, N.J.
Miss Laura F. Keeler, South Britain, Ct.
Miss Mary R. Whitcomb, Redfield, Dak.
Miss Gertrude Wyckoff, Galesburg, Ill.
_Matron and Special Missionary_,
Mrs. F. B. Wells, Rhinebeck, N.Y.
CITRONELLE.
_Minister_,
Rev. Max M. Schwarzauer, Citronelle, Ala.
MONTGOMERY (P. O. Box 62.)
_Minister_,
Rev. R. C. Bedford, Watertown, Wis.
SELMA.
_Minister_,
Rev. C. B. Curtis, Burlington, Wis.
_Special Missionary_,
Miss Mary K. Lunt, New Gloucester, Me.
MARION.
_Minister_,
Rev. A. W. Curtis, Crete, Neb.
ANNISTON.
_Minister_,
Rev. H. W. Conley, Talladega, Ala.
_Teachers_,
Mr. E. V. Wilson, Anniston, Ala.
Mrs. Emma C. Wilson, Anniston, Ala.
LAWSONVILLE AND COVE.
_Minister_,
Rev. W. P. Hamilton, Talladega, Ala.
JENIFER AND IRONOTON.
_Minister_,
Rev. J. B. Grant, Talladega, Ala.
TECUMSEH.
_Minister and Teacher_,
Rev. Milus Harris, Talladega, Ala.
ATHENS.
_Minister_,
Rev H. S. Williams, Wetumpka, Ala.
TRINITY SCHOOL.
_Teachers_,
Miss M. F. Wells, Ann Arbor, Mich.
Miss Villa D. Crumb, Norwich, N.Y.
Miss Alice M. Whitsey, Dover, Ohio.
Miss Mary Wyckoff, Galesburg, Ill.
FLORENCE.
_Minister and Teacher_,
Rev. Sydney H. Dale, Talladega, Ala.
Miss Fannie Jones, Florence, Ala.
* * * * *
TENNESSEE.
NASHVILLE.
_Minister_,
Rev. Henry S. Bennett, Nashville, Tenn.
FISK UNIVERSITY.
_Instructors and Managers_,
Pres. E. M. Cravath, D.D., Nashville, Tenn.
Rev. A. K. Spence, Nashville, Tenn.
Rev. H. S. Bennett, Nashville, Tenn.
Rev. F. A. Chase, Nashville, Tenn.
Prof. H. H. Wright, Oberlin, O.
Rev. E. C. Stickel, Oberlin, O.
Miss Helen C. Morgan, Cleveland, O.
Miss Anna M. Cahill, Nashville, Tenn.
Miss Laura A. Parmelee, Toledo, O.
Miss Anna F. Ballantine, Oberlin, O.
Miss Mary E. Edwards, Westhampton, Mass.
Miss Henrietta Matson, Nashville, Tenn.
Miss Jennie A. Robinson, Oberlin, O.
Miss Sarah Bowen, Bloomington, Ind.
Miss C. E. Burr, Oberlin, O.
Miss Luella Miner, Glencoe, Wis.
Miss S. M. Wells, Middletown, N.Y.
Miss Maria S. Parsons, Boston, Mass.
Miss Jessie Leonard, Clyde, Ohio.
Mrs. Lucy R. Greene, No. Amherst, Mass.
Miss M. L. Matthews, Millville, N.Y.
Mrs. W. D. McFarland, Winsted, Conn.
Mr. William R. Morris, Nashville, Tenn.
Mrs. A. K. Spence, Nashville, Tenn.
Mrs. E. M. Cravath, Nashville, Tenn.
HOWARD CHURCH.
_Minister_,
Rev. W. A. Sinclair, Nashville, Tenn.
THIRD CHURCH.
_Minister_,
Rev. J. M. Gilmere, Nashville, Tenn.
JONESBORO.
_Minister_,
Rev. J. M. Hall, Jonesboro, Tenn.
_Teachers_,
Mrs. Julia B. Nelson, Red Wing, Minn.
Miss Minnie A. Stowe, Marion, Kan.
Miss J. E. Fahnestock, Lewiston, Ill.
MEMPHIS.
_Minister_,
Rev. B. A. Imes, Oberlin, O.
LE MOYNE SCHOOL.
_Principal_,
Prof. A. J. Steele, Whitewater, Wis.
_Assistants_,
Rev. B. A. Imes, Oberlin, O.
Mr. Chas. M. Stevens, Clearwater, Minn.
Miss Esther A. Barnes, Tallmadge, O.
Miss S. C. Bateham, Painesville, O.
Miss Ruth E. Stinson, Woolwich, Me.
Miss M. A. C. Stewart, Wilmot, N.S.
Miss C. S. Goldsmith, Chester, N.H.
Miss Rebecca M. Green, Hamlet, N.Y.
Miss M. A. Kinney, Whitewater, Wis.
Miss Zulee E. Felton, Memphis, Tenn.
Miss Fannie A. McCullough, Memphis, Tenn.
WHITESIDE.
_Minister and Teacher_,
Rev. Jos. E. Smith, Chattanooga, Tenn.
Mr. G. W. Jackson, Tougaloo, Miss.
GRAND VIEW.
_Minister and Teacher_,
Rev. C. B. Riggs, Emmington, Ill.
Mr. E. A. Palmer, Grand View, Tenn.
PLEASANT HILL.
_Minister and Teacher_,
Rev. Benj. Dodge, Centre Lebanon, Me.
Miss Jeanne A. Calkins, Daysville, N.Y.
POMONA.
_Minister and Teacher_,
Rev. B. Dodge, Centre Lebanon, Me.
Miss Mattie Mattice, Pine Plains, N.Y.
JELLICO.
_Minister_,
Rev. E. H. Bullock, Jellico, Tenn.
_Teachers_,
Mr. Geo. Lawrence, Hillsdale, Mich.
Mrs. Geo. Lawrence, Hillsdale, Mich.
ROBBINS, SLICK ROCK AND HELENWOOD.
_General Missionary_,
Rev. John Kershaw, Bound Brook, N.J.
_Minister and Missionary_,
Rev. W. E. Barton, Robbins, Tenn.
Mrs. N. J. St. Clair, Robbins, Tenn.
KNOXVILLE.
_Minister_,
Rev. S. P. Smith, Knoxville, Tenn.
CHATTANOOGA.
_Minister_,
Rev. Jos. E. Smith, Chattanooga, Tenn.
SHERWOOD.
_General Missionary_,
Rev. John Kershaw, Bound Brook, N.J.
_Teachers_,
Mr. Geo. O. Hannum, Sherwood, Tenn.
Miss Gert. Bridgeman, S. Amherst, Mass.
* * * * *
KENTUCKY.
LEXINGTON.
NORMAL SCHOOL.
_Instructors_,
Rev. Azel Hatch, Oberlin, O.
Miss N. H. Nutting, Randolph, Vt.
Miss M. Glassburn, Gallipolis, O.
Miss L. J. Fish, Akron, O.
Miss Louise Denton, Hempstead, L.I.
Miss Jennie Woodruff, Berea, Ky.
Mrs. H. S. Woodruff, Berea, Ky.
LOUISVILLE.
_Minister_,
Rev. Spencer Snell, Louisville, Ky.
_Special Missionary_,
Miss S. S. Evans, Fryeburg, Me.
WILLIAMSBURG AND S. WILLIAMSBURG.
_General Missionary_,
Rev. A. A. Myers, Williamsburg, Ky.
_Minister_,
Rev. F. E. Jenkins, S. Coventry, Ct.
ACADEMY.
_Teachers_,
Mr. W. E. Wheeler, Marshfield, Wis.
Mrs. W. E. Wheeler, Marshfield, Wis.
Miss Maria M. Lickorish, North Ridgeville, O.
Mrs. A. J. Hubbard, Hiram, Me.
Miss M. A. Packard, Williamsburg, Ky.
_Missionary_,
Mrs. A. A. Myers, Williamsburg, Ky.
PLEASANT VIEW AND CORBIN.
_Minister_,
Rev. A. A. Myers, Williamsburg, Ky.
ROCKHOLD AND WOODBINE.
_Minister_,
Rev. W. H. Baker, Berea, Ky.
LYNN CAMP AND LIBERTY.
_Missionary_,
Mrs. A. A. Myers, Williamsburg, Ky.
MAHAN STATION.
_Missionary_,
Mrs. A. A. Myers, Williamsburg, Ky.
DOWLAIS AND SAXTON.
_Minister_,
Rev. E. H. Bullock, Jellico, Tenn.
CLOVER BOTTOM AND GRAY HAWK.
_Minister_,
Rev. Mason Jones, Clover Bottom, Ky.
_Teachers_,
Miss Nellie S. Archer, Berea, Ky.
Miss Etta Ames, Berea, Ky.
* * * * *
KANSAS.
TOPEKA.
_Minister_,
Rev. B. F. Foster, Topeka, Kan.
LAWRENCE.
_Minister_,
Rev. Welborn Wright, Lawrence, Kan.
EUREKA.
_Minister_,
[C] Rev. W. W. Weir, Eureka, Kan.
* * * * *
ARKANSAS.
LITTLE ROCK.
_Minister_,
Rev. Y. B. Sims, Talladega, Ala.
FAYETTEVILLE.
_Minister and Teacher_,
Rev. W. R. Polk, New Iberia, La.
* * * * *
MISSISSIPPI.
TOUGALOO.
_Minister_,
Rev. G. S. Pope, Tougaloo, Miss.
TOUGALOO UNIVERSITY.
_Instructors and Managers_,
Pres. G. S. Pope, Tougaloo, Miss.
Prof. Geo. P. Armstrong, Speedside, Canada.
Mr. Henry P. Kennedy, Jackson, Mich.
Mr. Wm. D. Hitchcock, Jackson, Mich.
Mr. W. H. Bishop, Amherst, Mass.
Mr. J. C. Kline, Stockbridge, Mich.
[D]Mrs. Geo. P. Armstrong, Speedside, Canada.
Miss Josephine Kellogg, Clyde, O.
Miss Julia A. Sauntry, Burbank, Minn.
Miss Sarah Humphrey, East Saginaw, Mich.
Miss Annie L. Harwood, Oak Park, Ill.
A. L. Platt, Marcellus, N.Y.
Miss Julia L. Phelps, Racine, Wis.
Miss Nellie L. Ruddock, Hancock, Minn.
Mrs. G. S. Pope, Tougaloo, Miss.
Mrs. H. P. Kennedy, Jackson, Mich.
Miss Wm. D. Hitchcock, Jackson, Mich.
Miss S. L. Emerson, Hallowell, Me.
NEW RUHAMAH, PLEASANT RIDGE AND SALEM.
_Minister_,
Rev. Eli Tapley, Columbus, Miss.
MERIDIAN.
_Minister_,
Rev. L. D. Cunningham, Talladega, Ala.
JACKSON.
_Minister_,
Rev. C. L. Harris, Jackson, Miss.
GREENVILLE.
_Minister_,
Rev. J. B. Oliver, Greenville, Miss.
* * * * *
LOUISIANA.
NEW ORLEANS.
_Minister and Prof. of Theology_,
Rev. M. L. Berger, Claverack, N.Y.
STRAIGHT UNIVERSITY.
_Instructors and Managers_,
Pres. R. C. Hitchcock, Thompsonville, Ct.
Rev. M. L. Borger, Claverack, N.Y.
Mr. J. H. Freeman, Rockford, Ill.
Mr. Otis C. Olds, Beloit, Wis.
Mr. E. A. Guernsey, Amherst, Mass.
Mr. E. C. Rose, New Orleans, La.
Mrs. E. C. Rose, New Orleans, La.
Miss Mary A. George, Monticello, Iowa.
Miss Mary A. Peffers, Peru, Vt.
Miss Anna F. Condict, Adrian, Mich.
Miss Hannah T. Mead, Denver, Col.
Miss Ella Samson, Somerville, Mass.
Miss Sarah A. Coffin, Beloit, Wis.
Miss Eugenia Northrop, Lysander, N.Y.
Miss Jennie Fyfe, Lansing, Mich.
Miss Emma A. Rand, Whitewater, Wis.
Mrs. R. C. Hitchcock, Thompsonville, Ct.
Mr. James D. Gordon, —— ——
SPAIN STREET CHURCH.
_Minister_,
Rev. C. H. Claiborne, New Orleans, La.
MORRIS BROWN CHURCH.
_Minister_,
Rev. I. H. Hall, New Orleans, La.
NEW IBERIA.
_Minister_,
Rev. Byron Gunner, Talladega, Ala.
FAUSSE POINT AND BELLE PLACE.
_Minister_,
Rev. William Butler, New Iberia, La.
CHACAHOULA.
_Minister_,
Rev. I. H. Hall, New Orleans, La.
* * * * *
TEXAS.
AUSTIN.
TILLOTSON INSTITUTE.
_Minister_,
Rev. Henry S. Hubbell, D.D., Amherst, Mass.
_Instructors and Managers_,
Pres. Henry S. Hubbell, D.D., Amherst, Mass.
Mr. E. J. Pond, Austin, Tex.
Miss Rose M. Kinney, Oberlin, O.
Miss Fanny J. Webster, Weymouth, O.
Miss E. F. Newton, Andover, Me.
Miss E. G. Kershaw, Bound Brook, N.J.
Miss Julia Condict, Adrian, Mich.
Miss Phebe B. Parsons, Marcellus, N.Y.
Miss Amelia Knapp, Greenwich, Ct.
Mrs. E. J. Crew Pond, Austin, Tex.
_Special Missionary_,
Miss M. J. Adams, Columbus, Wis.
GOLIAD.
_Minister_,
Rev. T. E. Hillson, Goliad, Tex.
HELENA.
_Minister_,
Rev. Mitchell Thompson, Helena, Tex.
CORPUS CHRISTI.
_Minister_,
Rev. J. W. Strong, Talladega, Ala.
FLATONIA AND LULING.
_Minister_,
—— —— —— ——
PARIS.
_Minister and Teacher_,
Rev. J. R. McLean, Talladega, Ala.
DODD.
_Minister and Teacher_,
Rev. E. E. Sims, Dodd, Tex.
DALLAS.
_Minister_,
Rev. J. W. Roberts, Savannah, Ga.
* * * * *
INDIAN MISSIONS.
SANTEE AGENCY, NEBRASKA.
NORMAL TRAINING SCHOOL.
_Superintendent and Missionary_,
Rev. A. L. Riggs. Santee Agency, Neb.
_Treasurer_,
Mr. Joseph H. Steer, Santee Agency, Neb.
_Teachers_,
Mr. J. A. Chadbourne, Bridgewater, Mass.
Miss Harriet B. Ilsley, Newark, N.J.
Mrs. Mary E. Wood, Spirit Lake, Iowa.
Miss Helen E. Haynes, Townsend Harbor, Mass.
Miss Edith Leonard, Santee Agency, Neb.
Miss Julia E. Pratt, Essex, Ct.
_Assistant Teachers_,
James Garvie, Sisseton Agency, D.T.
Eli Abraham, Santee Agency, Neb.
Daniel Cetaumani, Santee Agency, Neb.
Benjamin Zimmerman, Santee Agency, Neb.
James Redwing Owamaza, Santee Agency, Neb.
James Brown, Santee Agency, Neb.
_Matrons_,
Miss Mary W. Green, (Dakota Home),
Philadelphia, Pa.
Miss Harriet A. Brown, (Bird’s Nest),
Brooklyn, N.Y.
Miss Jennie E. Kennedy, (Young Men’s Hall),
Montrose, Iowa.
Miss S. Lizzie Voorhees, (Boys’ Cottage),
Rocky Hill, N.J.
Miss L. H. Douglass, (Dining Hall),
New Haven, Ct.
_Assistant Matrons_,
Miss Jennie Cox, Santee Agency, Neb.
Miss Nettie Calhoun, Kenton, Ohio.
_Missionaries_,
Mrs. A. L. Riggs, Santee Agency, Neb.
Mrs. J. H. Steer, Santee Agency, Neb.
_Industrial Department_,
Joseph H. Steer, Santee Agency, Neb.
J. Reid McKercher, Moscow, N.Y.
Reuben Cash, Niobrara, Neb.
Ivor P. Wold, Santee Agency, Neb.
_Native Pastor_,
Rev. Artemas Ehnamani, Santee Agency, Neb.
PONCA AGENCY.
_Minister and Teacher_,
Rev. J. E. Smith, De Smet, Dak.
UPPER PONCA.
_Teacher_,
Mr. Albert Frazier, Santee Agency, Neb.
OAHE, DAKOTA.
_Superintendent_,
Rev. T. L. Riggs, Oahe, Dak.
_Teachers_,
Mr. Elias Jacobson, Clinton, Wis.
Miss Nellie Donnell, Bath, Me.
Mrs. A. J. Warner, Vinton, Iowa.
Miss Louise Merrick, Onida, Dak.
Miss Ellen Kitts, Santee Agency, Neb.
Miss M. Lindermann, West Newton, Mass.
Mrs. T. L. Riggs, Santee Agency, Neb.
CHEYENNE AGENCY, DAKOTA.
_Native Teachers_,
[E] Titus Jugg, Sisseton Agency, Dak.
Elizabeth Winyan, Sisseton Agency, Dak.
David Lee, Cheyenne Agency, Dak.
William Lee, Cheyenne Agency, Dak.
John Bluecloud, Brown Earth, Dak.
Joseph Day, Sisseton Agency, Dak.
[E] P. O. Matthews, Fort Bennett, Dak.
[E] Louis De Coteau, Sisseton Agency, Dak.
[F] James Brown, Santee Agency, Neb.
STANDING ROCK AGENCY.
_Native Teachers_,
Elias Gilbert, Sisseton Agency, Dak.
Adams Warama, Sisseton Agency, Dak.
RUNNING ANTELOPE VILLAGE.
P. O. AT PRESENT, OAHE, DAK.
_Missionary_,
Miss Mary C. Collins, Oahe, Dak.
FORT BERTHOLD AGENCY, DAKOTA.
_Missionary_,
Rev. C. L. Hall, Fort Berthold, Dak.
_Teachers_,
Mrs. C. L. Hall, Fort Berthold, Dak.
Miss Lizzie Bechan, Fergus, Ont.
_Matron_,
Miss Briggs, Fort Berthold, Dak.
S’KOKOMISH AGENCY, W.T.
_Missionary_,
Rev. Myron Eells, S’kokomish, W.T.
NEW MEXICO.
SANTA FÉ.
_Principal_,
Elliot Whipple, Reed’s Ferry, N.H.
_Matrons_,
Miss S. E. Moore, Olivet, Mich.
Mrs. Annie P. Hills, Santa Fé, N.M.
_Teacher_,
Miss Mary E. De Sette, Hiawatha, Kan.
* * * * *
CHINESE MISSIONS.
_Superintendent_,
Rev. William C. Pond, San Francisco, Cal.
_Teachers_,
Alameda,
Mrs. Geo. Morris, West End, Ala. Co., Cal.
Pou Fang, San Francisco, Cal.
Alturus,
Mrs. Hester Griffiths, Alturus, Cal.
Marysville,
Miss M. A. Flint, Marysville, Cal.
Joe Wee, Marysville, Cal.
Oakland,
Mrs. Mary D. Kurtz, Oakland, Cal.
Chin Kue, San Francisco, Cal.
Oroville,
Miss Maria Topping, Oroville, Cal.
Petaluma,
Mrs. M. H. Colby, Petaluma, Cal.
San Diego,
Mrs. M. A. McKenzie, San Diego, Cal.
Quong Newey, San Diego, Cal.
Sacramento,
Miss Maria Carrington, Sacramento, Cal.
San Francisco.—_Central_,
Jee Gam, San Francisco, Cal.
Miss Jessie S. Worley, San Francisco, Cal.
Miss L. F. Lamont, San Francisco, Cal.
Mrs. M. A. Green, San Francisco, Cal.
Lou Quong, San Francisco, Cal.
San Francisco.—_Barnes_,
Mrs. H. W. Lamont, San Francisco, Cal.
San Francisco.—_West_,
Miss F. M. Worley, San Francisco, Cal.
Miss Rosa E. Lamont, San Francisco, Cal.
Santa Barbara,
Mrs. E. M. Shattuck, Santa Barbara, Cal.
Gin Foo King, Santa Barbara, Cal.
Santa Cruz,
Mrs. Laura A. Osgood, Santa Cruz, Cal.
Hong Sing, Santa Cruz, Cal.
Stockton,
Mrs. A. J. Patterson, Stockton, Cal.
Joe Jet, San Francisco, Cal.
Tulare,
Mrs. A. M. Sanders, Tulare, Cal.
_Teacher of Native Helpers_,
Mrs. Allie M. Smith, San Francisco, Cal.
FOOTNOTES:
[A] Deceased.
[B] Served part of the year.
[C] Deceased.
[D] Served part of year
[E] Supported by Soc. for Prop. of the Gospel among Indians.
[F] Supported by Native Miss. Soc.
* * * * *
THE SOUTH.
* * * * *
NOTES IN THE SADDLE.
BY FIELD-SUPERINTENDENT C. J. RYDER.
The romantic, pathetic and comical j
|
—Detroit—Diploma—Valuable
Testimonial—Simcoe, 113
CHAPTER XI.
Toronto—“British Ensign”—Diploma—Silver Tea-Set—Hamilton—
Belleville—Diploma—Picton, 124
HISTORY OF THE HORSE, 141
DIRECTIONS FOR FEEDING AND FITTING HORSES, 154
SYSTEM OF EDUCATING THE HORSE, 161
INTELLIGENCE OF ANIMALS, 345
TRICK HORSES, 363
EDUCATING DOGS, 411
MISCELLANEOUS, 419
TRAINING STEERS, 428
TREATISE ON HORSESHOEING, 431
DUNBAR SYSTEM OF HORSESHOEING, 445
RECIPES, 496
RECORD OF FAST HORSES UP TO 1876, 513
REVISED RULES OF TROTTING COURSE, 521
AUTOBIOGRAPHY.
CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTION—EARLY LIFE—THIRST FOR KNOWLEDGE—FIRST ATTEMPTS IN
BUSINESS—SUCCESS—MARRIAGE.
In the social interchanges of life it is always pleasant to possess some
knowledge of the antecedent history of the ones we meet; to know who and
what they are; while to one who feels that there is something in his own
career not unworthy of notice, there is a satisfaction in recounting
the steps by which his success has been attained; especially, if in
gaining it he has been called to contend with difficulties and vanquish
obstacles which opposed his progress. Such narratives may prove helps and
encouragements, as they show what energy and perseverance have achieved,
and thus stimulate others to stronger and more successful endeavors.
This was taught by the greatest of our American poets in his well-known
lines:
“Lives of great men all remind us
We may make our lives sublime;
And, departing, leave behind us
Foot-prints on the sands of time.”
Although few men may lay claim to greatness in its military, political
or literary sense, there is something in every earnest life which will
interest and instruct other men, and which may prove an assistance to
some, who, with failing hearts are engaged in life’s stern battle. With
this brief explanation of his design, the author of the following pages
trusts to receive the favorable attention of his readers as he proceeds
to recount the leading incidents of a somewhat eventful career.
I was born in the town of Darien, Genesee County, in the State of New
York, on the seventh day of December, A. D. 1835. There, amidst the
quiet and elevating influences of nature, the bright days of my infancy
and childhood were passed, until my boyhood’s days were over, and my
fifteenth year of life was reached.
My father owned the farm on which we lived, besides being the proprietor
of several mills, and, like many other purely practical men, he had a
higher appreciation of material than of intellectual advantages. As a
consequence, he was more desirous that I should early engage in the
active business of the farm, than that I should employ hours, which might
be made profitable in work, in studies which paid no immediate profit.
At the age of eight years I was often sent after the cows, barefooted,
and a distance of nearly a mile through the woods, coming home after
the shades of night had fallen, and being obliged to trace my way by
following the cows in the narrow path made by them. Day after day, in my
great desire to secure an education, I would beg my father to send me to
school, but always he had work for me to do, and thus my endeavors were
foiled. But such was my determination to secure an education, that I
resolved, at all hazards, to go to school, and often did I jump from my
bed-room window and run a distance of half a mile to the school-house. My
greatest ambition was to be a merchant, and I knew that I must procure
at least a limited scholastic education to enable me to succeed in my
anticipated calling. But, while I was laying my youthful plans for the
future, my father would lay plans for work, and often, on returning at
night from school, I would hide in the barn till after dark, dreading
the punishment which awaited me for having gone to school in place of
working.
[Illustration: THE OLD HOMESTEAD, DARIEN, GENESEE CO., N. Y.]
At the age of ten years I have taken a team, gone alone into the woods
and loaded saw-logs on a sleigh, using the horses to draw up the logs. As
my father owned a saw-mill as well as a farm, it seemed to him necessary
that every effort should be put forth to keep both branches of business
going; therefore, no time was allotted to his children for securing an
education. Many times have I approached him, timidly and with tears,
humbly requesting to be allowed to go to school, when, instead of
responding to my desire, he would send me to the saw-mill to work; and at
the age of twelve or thirteen I ran the mill alone, though, while doing
so, I have had to mount on the lever and load it with extra weight, as
I was not heavy enough to raise the water-gate. Thus I labored on from
month to month, until I was fourteen, in the meantime going but little to
school. Many times I would lay plans to run away, believing that I could
do for myself, and make my own mark in the world.
Money, in those times and in that region, was not plentiful, and I was
early taught its value, a lesson of great practical value to a youth who
has to hew his own path through life. Many times I have traveled miles
on a special errand for a neighbor, or for some traveler, and received
as compensation a single penny. Money, so hardly acquired, was not to be
expended lightly, and I saved my little earnings till the accumulated
sum amounted to four dollars. This seemed to me like quite a fortune. I
now felt myself to be a capitalist, and, naturally, the desire to use
my riches to advantage led me to seek some profitable investment which
would increase my wealth. My earliest speculation was the purchase of a
gun; but after the first pleasure of its possession had passed, I saw
my mistake in having expended money for something that would yield me
no increase, and began to look around for an opportunity to retrieve my
error. Soon a chance occurred for me to trade the gun off for a cow. I
saw there was “money in it,” and closed the bargain, thus turning my
first mistake into a profitable investment. Having become the owner of
a cow, my ambition was awakened to increase my stock, and I kept my
attention fixed in that direction until I was the sole proprietor of
three cows. I had now entered on my fifteenth year, and having learned
one day, in conversing with my father, that his intention was soon to
sell his farm and stock, and remove to the Far West, I proposed to him
to allow me to carve my own way in the world. I felt ambitious to strike
out for myself, and “paddle my own canoe.” To this my father consented,
when, after selling my cows and receiving the money, with all my fortune
in my pockets, I bade farewell to the parental roof and its many pleasant
associations, looking for the last time upon the
“Old family Bible that lay on the stand,”
and taking that decisive step by which I was to become the architect of
my own fortune.
Having an uncle who resided in the town of Byron, I turned my steps in
that direction, and for the ensuing winter found a home beneath his roof.
During that season I devoted myself to study, attending the village
school under the superintendence of Mr. Bennum, whom I greatly esteemed,
and whose many acts of kindness linger in my memory to the present hour.
On the opening of spring my thoughts turned towards commercial life,
and I devoted my time to becoming better acquainted with various
business avocations, intending to adopt some profitable employment.
After reflecting well, I took the money I had accumulated and with it
purchased a horse, wagon, and harness. Then, through the kindness of
a dear friend, who became responsible for me, I was loaned one hundred
dollars, and with this as my working capital I commenced traveling over
the country, buying produce and shipping it to Buffalo and New York.
I continued in this business until the year 1855, when, having arrived
at the age of twenty, I began to think of enlarging my operations.
Influenced by this desire, I directed my course to the beautiful and
flourishing town of Batavia, where I secured a store and became a dealer
in all kinds of produce, shipping it, as before, to Buffalo and New York.
[Illustration: FIRST STORE IN BATAVIA, N. Y.]
The cut here given is an accurate representation of my first place
of business, and speaks for itself in regard to the size and general
appearance of the place. It was, however, as it proved, insufficient for
the business which flowed in upon me and increased so greatly that soon
I found it necessary to secure larger and more commodious premises. At
the time of doing this I determined to still further extend my business
by opening a wholesale and retail grocery and provision store. Fortune
smiled on my endeavors, and all evidences encouraged the belief that I
was on the direct road to wealth.
Having thus attained a good position in business, my mind began to make
excursions in another direction. The wisest of men has said that “Whoso
findeth a wife findeth a good thing,” and, having a natural liking for
“a good thing,” I found my thoughts led to the important subject of
marriage, until I finally determined to try the experiment of trading
in the matrimonial market. After thus deciding, it took me but a short
time to reach the important object contemplated, for, it would seem, I
was specially directed in my course. I formed the acquaintance of Miss
Northrop, an estimable and accomplished young lady, the only daughter
of the late Dr. Northrop, and soon the fair one was led to the hymeneal
altar and became the wife and partner of O. S. Pratt.
CHAPTER II.
ENLARGING BUSINESS—ATTACHMENT TO THE HORSE—VISITS TO BATAVIA OF RAREY AND
HAMILTON—MY OWN SYSTEM—GOING BEFORE THE PUBLIC—EARLY SUCCESSES.
Having now made myself a home and feeling permanently settled, I desired
to still further increase my business, but finding my capital somewhat
too limited for the amount I wished to transact, I sought assistance
from an esteemed friend, Elandus Dotey, Esq., banker. The aid I sought
was given with a cheerfulness that added to its value, and enabled me to
carry into execution the plans which I had formed. The accommodations I
received frequently amounted to from ten thousand to twenty-five thousand
dollars, thus placing ample means in my hands for extended operations and
enabling me to do a large and remunerative business in which I continued
up to the year eighteen hundred and sixty-seven.
[Illustration: BRICK STORE.]
During these business years in Batavia my attachment for that noble
animal, the horse, gradually increased, and learning that a horse trainer
by the name of Rarey, intended visiting the town, I was one of the first
to seek for and obtain what knowledge I could from him; but finding his
system to be not at all practical, I applied myself to the investigation
of the subject, and began experimenting with a view to the discovery of a
better, simpler and more certain system.
Some years later it was rumored that a gentleman named R. P. Hamilton,
who was self-announced as “the great renowned horse trainer,” would
give instruction on the subject. He soon made his appearance, and, with
others, I attended his lectures. Mr. Hamilton advanced some valuable
ideas which I gladly adopted and added to my former knowledge, and when
I had grasped all that was valuable in his instructions, and united it
to the results of my own experiments, I felt assured that, ere long, I
should reach the height of my ambition and develop a system of educating
the horse far in advance of anything then known, and by which my name
would be handed down to coming generations as one who, more than any
other, had befriended that noble but greatly abused animal. Often in my
retired moments my thoughts would go forward to the time when I should
be able to present my perfected system to the public, and as I looked
down the vista of time to the period when I should announce my system, my
mind pictured to itself the success I since have realized. I was fully
conscious of its value to the world, and thousands have since then freely
acknowledged the practicability and excellence of my system of educating
the horse.
In the autumn of eighteen hundred and sixty-seven I felt myself
sufficiently master of my new and unequaled system to commit myself
unreservedly to its public advocacy: so, after selling out my stock in
trade, I made my preparations to travel for the purpose of bringing it
before the world. Previous to leaving Batavia I had purchased from a
perambulating horse dealer my favorite horse, “Tom Thumb,” then partly
trained.
Feeling now tolerably well equipped, I came before the public with my
new and perfect system, confident that it needed only to be known to be
welcomed with pleasure by every intelligent friend of the horse. In the
month of January, eighteen hundred and sixty-eight, I made my debut at
the town of Geneva, erecting, at considerable cost, an academy for the
exhibition of my system of training. My success was immediate; friends
and well-wishers clustered about me; the hand of encouragement was
extended on every side, and in a little while my class in that place
numbered seventy-five members. The reader can scarcely conceive the
feelings of gratification that were excited in my breast by such prompt
and flattering success. It confirmed my own judgment of the superiority
of my system, and inspired a full confidence in its success.
After leaving Geneva, I visited the pleasant town of Waterloo, where
I built another academy and formed a class of about eighty members,
whose hearty appreciation of the ideas embodied in my system of training
afforded me great pleasure.
Leaving that place, I next proceeded to the beautiful village of Penn
Yan, where also I built an academy and met with brilliant success, my
class numbering over ninety members.
Such gratifying success, and at so early a period, was very encouraging
to me. Both myself and my system were new to the public, and, coming
before them almost unheralded and without the prestige of great names to
give it support, its progress and the general approval it met, could be
attributed only to its own merits, which were everywhere conceded.
The next point visited by me was the beautiful and highly picturesque
village called Watkins, so well and widely known to pleasure-seekers as
an attractive summer resort; its famous “Glen” having an almost national
reputation for romantic beauty. Here I formed an interesting class
of about sixty persons, many of whom gave unmistakable evidences of
confidence in the superiority of my rapidly spreading system for rightly
educating the horse.
Cheered by my continued success, I pursued my journey to the city of
Ithaca, where I built an academy much larger than any I had previously
erected. Here I remained about a week, and had the pleasure of forming a
class of one hundred persons.
Finding it somewhat inconvenient to build academies in many places, I
now purchased canvas for a movable tent, which I had constructed, and
this I carried from place to place, erecting academies only where my tent
was insufficient to accommodate the audiences. On the fourth of July I
pitched my tent at the city of Elmira, and soon had the satisfaction
of enrolling the names of one hundred and fifty persons, who eagerly
sought information, and expressed the greatest gratification with the
instruction they had received.
After this, I continued my tour, exhibiting and lecturing in many towns
and villages during that summer and the autumn following. My success
was everywhere of the most gratifying character, and exceeded my most
sanguine expectations.
In bringing my system to the attention of the public, I employed that
great engine of power, the Press to call attention alike to the cruelty
of most of the previous modes of training the horse, and the superiority
of my new and rational system. As an illustration of this, it may not
be out of place to give a single one of my many addresses to the public
through the medium of the press:
PROFESSOR O. S. PRATT TO THE PUBLIC.—Probably not one person in
a thousand has any adequate idea of the wonderful intelligence
displayed by the noblest of the brute creation, the horse.
Patient, affectionate, sensitive and faithful, possessing
wonderful powers of endurance and a capacity for education far
exceeding any animal extant, a study of his characteristics
is ennobling, and commands the attention of every intelligent
person. But how often do we see him abused, through ignorance,
compelled to draw tremendous loads for hours on a stretch,
whipped, clubbed, and cursed, until patience ceasing to be a
virtue, and through sheer exhaustion, panting, trembling, and
discouraged, he stops to breathe, and men call him balky,
apply the whip again, put sand in his ears, gravel in his
mouth, twist his tail, and goad him to desperation by a system
of barbarous inflictions unworthy of even the first stages of
civilization. Trotting over slippery pavements, imperfectly
shod, twitched to the right or left as a sudden emergency seems
to demand, he stumbles and falls. No compassion is excited by
this mishap. Hastily assisted to arise, and reharnessed, crack
goes the whip. O, lash him, cut him, until the great ridges
of swollen flesh stand out upon his back to testify to man’s
superiority over the brute. Left standing for hours while the
master attends to business or pleasure, impatient to change his
position, he starts before the man is comfortably seated in the
vehicle; crack again goes the whip, until his nerves are strung
to their highest tension.
Crazed almost beyond endurance, he leaps forward, suddenly
a bolt gives way, something strikes his heels, he becomes
frightened, and then, “O! he’s a runaway!” Confined in a
dungeon, poorly ventilated, called a stable, improperly fed,
driven fast, compelled to draw heavy loads, with very little
attention paid to his requirements, it is a wonder that he
lives even a year. The question naturally arises, Why is this?
Simply because the great masses of humanity are ignorant of
the disposition of the horse. They do not understand how to
manage or educate him. They do not think and therefore do not
care. Now any one who succeeds in ameliorating the condition
of this noble animal, is a public benefactor, deserving of
the highest praise. Prof. O. S. Pratt has made this the study
of his life. Slowly, but steadily, he has progressed in his
investigations respecting the management of the horse, until
the press, the pulpit and the public acknowledge him to be
the “Great Horse Educator of the World.” In fact he rules the
horse by a system so comprehensive, and at the same time so
simple, that a child of ordinary intelligence can understand
it. His pupils are numbered by the thousand in almost every
State, and they all endorse the system heartily. No matter how
badly the horse has been abused, no matter how disagreeable
his disposition may be, no matter if he kicks, strikes, bites,
or is a runaway, in a few minutes the most delicate lady or
timid child can manage him with ease by using Prof. Pratt’s
system. Ladies and gentlemen throughout the land! nearly every
one has had a friend or relative injured or killed by some
unmanageable horse. It is within the power of every person
to prevent a like occurrence. “Knowledge is power.” Do not
neglect the opportunity of acquiring this knowledge. We ask
it in no selfish spirit. We urge it that a recurrence of the
accidents that are every day filling our land with sorrow may
be prevented.
CHAPTER III.
VISIT TO MONTROSE—LARGE CLASS AT
SCRANTON—DIPLOMA—WILKESBARRE—ENTHUSIASTIC RECEPTION—COMPLIMENTARY
NOTICE—TESTIMONIAL.
As the winter had now set in I found it necessary, on reaching the
beautiful town of Montrose, to lay aside my tent. At this place I
received so enthusiastic a reception that I was induced to erect a large
academy, of capacity sufficient to contain at least one thousand persons.
I remained at Montrose about three weeks, my efforts meeting with such
appreciation that my class numbered five hundred and two persons, amongst
whom were many who became my warm friends, and whose cordial greetings
and good wishes attended me on my departure from the town.
My course next led me to the flourishing city of Scranton, at which place
I received a cordial reception, and formed the acquaintance of many
noble-hearted men. I at once entered on the duties of my profession,
and early found that my system was appreciated, the class which I here
gathered numbering four hundred and four members. On the last day of my
stay in Scranton my class presented me with what I may justly call a
diploma, in the following complimentary language:
The undersigned, citizens of Scranton, Luzerne County, Pa.,
take this method of assuring all whom it may concern of the
practicability, as well as the certainty, with which the most
vicious and dangerous habits so common to the horse can be
overcome by Prof. O. S. Pratt’s system of training, in evidence
of which we cite but one or two of the numerous cases which
have come under our observation as members of his class: A
kicking horse, owned by Jos. Utley, of Greenfield, and brought
twenty-two miles, was handled about twenty-five minutes, after
which he was driven from the arena with the vehicle rattling
behind his heels. This horse would bite, strike and kick. A
vicious mule, that could not be shod, and had to be brought
to him by force, being chained between two other mules, after
being handled by the Professor about forty minutes, was
perfectly subdued, and his feet could be handled with safety.
On the last day of his exhibition here, a horse ran away near
the amphitheatre, who proved to be a most ferocious kicker. The
owner was induced by a number of his class to let the Professor
handle him, and after twenty minutes’ training he was driven
out of the tent, the whole length of the street, with the cart
rattling against his heels, without manifesting the slightest
disposition to repeat his unruly conduct.
These, and numerous other evidences, we think, are sufficient
to entitle Prof. Pratt to the encouragement and patronage of
all interested in the management of the horse.
This testimonial was followed by the names of seventy-six prominent
members of the class, headed by the mayor of the city, Hon. E. S. M.
Hill, and embracing many of the leading citizens of Scranton.
After leaving that thriving city, I passed over a beautiful country for a
distance of twenty-five miles, until I reached the town of Wilkesbarre,
situated in the Susquehanna Valley. Through this city flows one of the
most beautiful of all the charming rivers which adorn our land. The
pencil of the artist and the pen of the tourist have often been employed
in sketching its picturesque charms and extolling its matchless beauty.
At this important town my success surpassed any previously attained. The
exhibitions of my power over the horse, and of my simple yet certain
method of instructing and controlling him created wide-spread interest
and excitement. Ministers, doctors and lawyers, together with others of
the most respectable classes of society, thronged my academy. The press
resounded with the praises of my system, and with many who learned my
plan of educating the horse the interest rose to enthusiasm. A leading
paper of the place, referring to my consenting to prolong my visit, used
the following language:
Prof. Pratt announces that he will remain in this place two
weeks longer, agreeably to the wishes of the very large
class which he has formed here. The Professor’s success in
this county has been of a most gratifying character, and yet
not more than has been fully deserved. In Waverly his class
numbered one hundred and twenty-nine in five days; Scranton
furnished a class of four hundred and one in thirteen days,
and Wilkesbarre, thus far, has given him three hundred and
twenty-three seekers after information in relation to the horse
and his management. The Professor is a perfect adept in the art
which he assumes to teach.
As that article announced, in view of the popular interest, I prolonged
my stay in Wilkesbarre, and I have the pleasant recollection that over
FIVE HUNDRED persons there secured the knowledge of properly educating
the horse, and before taking my leave I was presented with a diploma
that would have cheered the heart of a statesman. The following, from
A. Ricketts, Esq., will show how even incredulity was convinced, and
strongly-rooted prejudices were overcome:
WILKESBARRE, PA., _April 23, 1869_.
DEAR SIR: Permit me to introduce Prof. O. S. Pratt, teacher of
doubtless the best system of horse-training yet discovered,
and to add my unqualified recommendation of the same to any of
you that may care to know how to be master of the horse. When
Prof. Pratt first came here, I, in common with others, passed
and repassed his amphitheatre daily, thinking no more of it
than that it was something pertaining to horse-jockeyship,
and therefore did not think it worth while to turn aside to
see the “free exhibition” he advertised; but one day the
representations of a friend induced me to purchase a ticket for
his instructions. I was at once so impressed with the utility
of the system that I advised all my friends to become members
of his class. The satisfaction expressed by all gave me full
reason to be glad that I had adopted this course, which, by
the way, was adopted on the principle of doing to others as
I would they should do to me. I thought I had found a good
thing, and wished others to share it. It is upon the same
principle that I write this letter, for I know of nothing so
well calculated to prevent cruelty to this excellent animal,
the horse, as the general diffusion of the knowledge of his
proper management. The simplicity and practicability of Prof.
Pratt’s system are among its chief recommendations, being such
that any ordinary man of common-sense can practice it as well
as the Professor, and without costly appliances. Our best and
leading men here became members of his class, and I have heard
but one opinion, and that of approbation.
You will find Prof. Pratt courteous and gentlemanly, and,
should you become a member of his class, I doubt not you will
agree with me that the trifling cost of his tickets is a very
small consideration for the benefits received.
_Very respectfully_,
A. RICKETTS
CHAPTER IV.
ACROSS THE MOUNTAINS—EASTON—HAMBURG—LANCASTER—TESTIMONIALS—WESTCHESTER
—DIPLOMA—PHILADELPHIA—CLASS OF 2,523—CANE.
It was now my purpose to pursue my journey eastward, in order to do which
it was necessary for me to cross a wild and mountainous tract of country,
fifty miles in extent; but, inspirited by my success and the good fortune
which hitherto had attended my way, I entered on the journey with a stout
and hopeful heart, attended by my men and horses. Before traveling many
miles we reached the foot of Pokeno Mountain, and as I gazed upon the
distant heights which stood out against the sky, I could see that the
elevation extended a distance of at least ten miles. Up the rough road
and along steep acclivities we pressed on until, when the summit was
reached, I found a keen appetite had been awakened by the mountain air
and exercise, and I sought for some abode of man where we might secure
rest and food for man and beast. Keeping up the search, after a few
miles, I discovered a rude old log house, quite in keeping with the wild
region through which we were passing. Approaching the door, I knocked
for admission, when it was opened by an old veteran of seventy winters,
who invited us to enter. After making known my wants, he assured me that
they should be supplied as best he could, and at once he summoned the
hostess who, though like himself, advanced in years, moved across the
rustic floor with almost youthful agility, manifesting a disposition to
relieve our hunger without delay. We partook of the repast she spread
with appetites quickened by the pure mountain air, and, when the meal was
over, after rewarding them for the hospitality they had displayed, we
resumed our journey through dreary solitudes and along the rough mountain
roads until, at length, we reached the city of Easton, in the State of
Pennsylvania.
This beautiful little city is situated near the Delaware River, and is an
enterprising and flourishing place. The inhabitants are chiefly Germans,
or descendants from that stock. Here we pitched our tent and met with
good success, my class numbering over one hundred persons.
From Easton we continued our journey, through valleys and over hills,
reaching Harrisburg, the capital of Pennsylvania, quite late in the
evening; the silver moon shedding her light upon us as we moved along,
made our journey pleasant and lighted our way to the city. Here again
we planted our stakes, pitched our tent and announced our intention of
giving a public exhibition and of imparting instruction to those who
desired, and once more I met with a hearty response from the public. It
was at the time of the annual State Fair, and thousands from all parts
of the commonwealth had gathered. Taking advantage of the occasion
to display the results of my system of training, I built a platform,
elevated about ten feet above the ground, led my horses up a rude stairs,
made for the occasion, and exhibited my trained animals to the gaze and
admiration of thousands of wondering spectators. Here I formed a class
of over one hundred and fifty.
My next effort was made at Lancaster, a city of no small magnitude or
interest, as I there formed a class of nearly two hundred, the major
portion of whom were Germans, or of German descent. On the last day of my
stay in that city I received a testimonial from a leading banker of the
place, which I give below:
LANCASTER, PA., _October 16, 1869_.
PROF. O. S. PRATT:
_Dear Sir_: I take pleasure in testifying to the success of
your system of controlling vicious horses as applied to my
colt. Since you handled and drove him without backing-strap,
I have driven him twice without his showing the least fear or
disposition to return to his dangerous habit of kicking.
I believe you have perfectly taught him to work without
kicking, and that he will not forget the impression your
treatment made on him. Your system is so easily learned and
can be so quickly applied, that it is the owner’s fault if his
balky, runaway, or kicking horse, ever forgets what you, _or
any member of your class can teach him in half an hour_.
Every one who owns or drives a horse ought to join your class.
Yours,
B. J. MCGRAUN,
President First National Bank.
I next stopped at a nice country town called Westchester, the inhabitants
of which seemed alive to the great cause I had espoused, as my class
there numbered two hundred and fifty. I was happily surprised, just
before leaving, by receiving a diploma which greatly cheered, at the same
time that it stimulated, me to add more and more to my store of knowledge.
Having now had two years’ experience in the practice of my system, my
confidence in it, and its superiority over any other known system, was
so thoroughly established that I had no fear of submitting it to any
test nor of subjecting it to any criticism. I, therefore, decided upon
visiting the great city of Philadelphia. I fortified myself as best
I could, and on the 28th of November, 1869, I made my _debut_ there.
Whatever solicitude I might have felt would have been speedily removed
by the cordial and flattering reception I received from the people of
the Quaker City. One academy being insufficient to accommodate those who
flocked to listen to my instructions, I built a second, and as the time
rolled on and my success constantly enlarged, I felt as if the summit of
my ambition had been almost attained. The limit of time I had fixed for
remaining was one month, but as the end of that period drew near I was
strongly solicited by many friends to extend my visit, to which, as the
interest was daily augmenting, I consented. Month after month passed,
during which time my class was constantly increasing until, by the close
of the fourth month, it had swelled to the number of four thousand eight
hundred and eighty-six members! At the end of that time my preparations
were made to depart, but I was not allowed to leave before receiving the
most conclusive and gratifying evidence of the high estimation which my
system had secured and of the friendship I had been so fortunate as to
win.
The evening of the 21st of February, 1870, had arrived; a free exhibition
of the power and beauty of my system was in progress in the great tent,
when, most unexpectedly to myself, Elmer Ruan Coates, Esq., a well-known
citizen and poet of Philadelphia, entered the ring. This seeming
intrusion on the business of the evening somewhat surprised me, while,
as I turned towards him, every eye in the vast assembly was fixed on the
well-known poet who, cane in hand, advanced towards me. A brief moment
of suspense ensued, during which the question which ran through every
mind was “what does it mean?” Then, amidst the profound silence which
prevailed, Mr. Coates held up to view the magnificent, gold-headed cane
he carried and, in an eloquent address, presented the elaborately-chased
and beautiful testimonial as a memento given by my Philadelphia class.
The gratification which I experienced in this unexpected compliment may
be conceived by my readers but can scarcely be described by my pen.
Mr. Coates began his address by saying that
All nations, in all ages, have delighted to honor the
meritorious. The analytic mind of Greece was promoted to
the Academy and Groves of that classic land while bright
intellects gave their homage as they gathered the gems of
thought and poesy which enriched their varied lore.
The school-boy-quoted Roman, if a victor, passed under the
triumphal arch, bowing to popular plaudits. If a poet, he was
laureated; if philosophic, oratoric, or mechanical, he had
his meed of honor from proper sources. Even the Tartars were
grateful, and Tamerlane, the great Usbeck, was elevated in
proportion to merit.
The American Indian who exhibits military strategy, is chosen
chief _pro merito_, and leads the painted warriors. The
highly-cultured United States never forgets the truly great.
Here the statesmen, poet, orator, lawyer, divine, artist, man
of science or mechanism, is both courted and remunerated. Our
worthy dead live in hearts, monuments, statues, statuettes, and
oil. The living, acting man of the day is recipient of both
newspaper glory and _material_ recognition.
Taking me by the hand, he continued:
My friend, a full consideration of gratitude has timely and
most heartily determined your large class to offer this
El-Dorado-headed cane. Sir, we recognize you as the greatest
equestrian educator in the world
|
llustration: Fig. 2.--The Edelweiss, _Gnaphalium leontopodium_.]
As I walked on, a belated Apollo butterfly, with its two red spots,
and a pale Swallow-tail fluttered by me. Then some children emerged
from unsuspected lurking-places in the wood and offered bunches of
edelweiss (Fig. 2). This curious-looking little plant does not grow
(as pretended by reporters of mountaineering disasters) exclusively in
places only to be reached by a dangerous climb. I have gathered it in
meadows on the hillside above Zermatt, and it is common enough in
accessible spots. The flowers are like those of our English groundsel
and yellow in colour--little "composite" knobs, each built up of many
tubular "florets" packed side by side. Six or seven of these little
short-stalked knobs of florets are arranged in a circlet around a
somewhat larger knob, and each of them gives off from its stalk one
long and two shorter white, hairy, leaf-like growths, flat and
blade-like in shape and spreading outwards from the circle, so that
the whole series resemble the rays of a star (or more truly of a
star-fish!). They look strangely artificial, as though cut out of new
white flannel (with a greenish tint), and have been dignified
by the comparison of the shape of the white-flannel rays with that
of the foot of the lion and the claws of the eagle. They are
extraordinary-looking little plants, and are similar in their
hairiness and pale tint to some of the seaside plants on our own
coast, which, in fact, include species closely allied to them
("cud-weeds" of the genus _Gnaphalium_).
The huge cliffs of rocks on either side (in some parts over a thousand
feet in sheer height from the torrent) come closer to one another in
the part where we now are than in most Alpine valleys, so as almost to
give it the character of a "gorge." At some points the highest part of
the precipice actually overhangs the perpendicular face by many feet.
A refreshing cold air comes up from the icy torrent, whilst the heat
of the sun diffuses the delicious resinous scent of the pine trees.
Above the naked rock we see steep hill-sides covered with forest, and
away above these again bare grass-slopes topped by cloud. But as the
clouds slowly lift and break we become suddenly aware of something
impending far above and beyond all this, something more dazzling in
its white brightness than the sun-lit clouds, a form sharply cut in
outline and firm, yet rounded by a shadow of an exquisite purple tint
which no cloud can assume. The steely blue Alpine sky fits around this
marvel of pure whiteness as it towers through the opening cloud, and
soars out of earth's range. What is this glory so remote yet impending
over us? It is the Jungfrau, the incomparable virgin of the ice-world,
who bares her snowy breast. She slowly parts her filmy veil, and, as
we gaze, uncovers all her loveliness.
The rock walls of the Lauterbrünnen valley show at one place a
thickness of many hundred feet of strongly marked, perfectly
horizontal "strata"--the layers deposited immense ages ago at the
bottom of a deep sea. Not only have they been raised to this position,
and then cut into, so as to make the profound furrow or valley in the
sides of which we see them, but they have been bent and contorted in
places to an extent which is, at first sight, incredible. Close to one
great precipice of orderly horizontal layers you see the whole series
suddenly turned up at right angles, and the same strata which were
horizontal have become perpendicular. But that is not the limit, for
the upturned strata are seen actually to turn right over, and again
become horizontal in a reversed order, the strata which were the
lowest becoming highest, and the highest lowest. The rock is rolled up
just as a flat disc of Genoese pastry--consisting of alternate layers
of jam and sponge-cake--is folded on itself to form a double
thickness. The forces at work capable of treating the solid rocks, the
foundations of the great mountains, in this way are gigantic beyond
measurement. This folding of the earth's crust is caused by the fact
that the "crust," or skin of the earth, has ceased to cool, being
warmed by the sun, and therefore does not shrink, whilst the great
white-hot mass within (in comparison with which the twenty-mile-thick
crust is a mere film) continually loses heat, and shrinks definitely
in volume as its temperature sinks. The crust or jacket of stratified
rock deposited by the action of the waters on the surface of the globe
has been compelled--at whatever cost, so to speak--to fit itself to
the diminishing "core" on which it lies. Slowly, but steadily, this
"settlement" has gone on, and is going on. The horizontal rock layers,
being now too great in length and breadth, adjust themselves by
"buckling"--just as a too large, ill-fitting dress does--and the Alps,
the Himalayas, and other great mountain ranges, are regions where this
"buckling" process has for countless ages proceeded, slowly but
surely. Probably the "buckling" has proceeded to a large extent
without sudden movement, but with a lateral pressure of such power as
ultimately to throw a crust of thousands of feet thickness into deep
folds a mile or so in vertical measurement from crest to hollow,
protruding from the general level both upwards and downwards, whilst
often the folds are rolled over on to each other.
[Illustration: Fig. 3.--Diagrams to show the "folding" of rock strata.
A. Normal horizontal position of the strata, _a_, _b_, _c_, _d_; _xy_,
horizontal line. B. Folding due to a shortening of the horizontal _xy_
by lateral pressure, acting in the direction of the arrow and due to
shrinkage. C. More extreme case of folding, in which a raised ridge is
made to fall over so as to bring the lowest layer _d_ above _a_, _b_
and _c_.]
This crumbling and folding has gone on at great depths--that is to
say, some miles below the surface (a mere nothing compared with the
8,000 miles diameter of the globe itself), though we now see the
results exposed, like the pastry folded by a cook. Immense time has
been taken in the process. A folding movement involving a vertical
rise of an inch in ten years would not be noticed by human onlookers,
but in 600,000 years this would give you a vertical displacement of
more than 5,000 ft. (nearly a mile!). It has been shown that in
Switzerland, along a line of country extending from Basle to Milan,
strata of 10,000 ft. to 20,000 ft. in thickness, which, if
straightened out, would give a flat area of that thickness, and of 200
miles in length, have been buckled and folded so as to occupy only a
length of 130 miles! The former tight-fitting skin of horizontal rock
layers has "had to" buckle to that extent here (and in the same way in
other mountain ranges in other parts of the world), because the whole
terrestrial sphere has shrunk, owing to the gradual cooling of the
mass, whilst the crust has not shrunk, not having lost heat.
Filled with interest and delight in these things, I reached the
railway station at Lauterbrünnen, from whence the little train is
driven far up the mountain, even into the very heart of the Jungfrau,
by an electric current generated by a turbine, itself driven by the
torrent at our feet, the waters of which have descended from the
glaciers far above, to which it will carry us. In a few minutes I was
gently gliding in the train up the to the "Wengern Alp" and the
"Little Scheidegg"--a slope up which I have so often in former years
painfully struggled on foot for four hours or more. One could to-day
watch the whole scene, in ease and comfort, during the two hours'
ascent of the train. And a marvellous scene it is as one rises to the
height of 8,000 ft., skirting the glaciers which ooze down the rocky
sides of the Jungfrau, and mounting far above some of them. At the
Scheidegg I changed into a smaller train, and with some thirty
fellow-passengers was carried higher and higher by the faithful,
untiring electric current. After a quarter of an hour's progress we
paused high above the "snout" of the great Eiger glacier, and
descended by a short path on to it, examined the ice, its crevasses
and layers, and its "glacier-grains," and watched and heard an
avalanche. The last time I was here it took a couple of hours to reach
this spot from the Scheidegg, and probably neither I nor any of my
fellow-passengers could to-day endure the necessary fatigue of
reaching this spot on foot. Then we remounted the train, and on we
went into the solid rock of the huge Eiger. The train stops in the
rock tunnel and we got out to look, through an opening cut in its
side, down the sheer wall of the mountain on to the grassy meadows
thousands of feet below.
Then we start again, and on we are driven by the current generated
away down there in Lauterbrünnen, through the spiral tunnel, mounting
a thousand feet more till we are landed at an opening cut on the
further side of the rocky Eiger, which admits us to an actual footing
on the great glacier called the Eismeer, or Icelake. We lunch at a
restaurant cut out as a cavern in the solid rock, and survey the
wondrous scene. We are now at a height of 10,000 feet, and in the real
frozen ice-world, hitherto accessible only to the young and vigorous.
I have been there in my day with pain, danger, and labour, accompanied
by guides and held up by ropes, but never till now with perfect ease
and tranquillity and without "turning a hair," or causing either man
or beast to labour painfully on my behalf. We had taken two hours only
from Lauterbrünnen; in former days we should have started in the small
hours of the morning from the Scheidegg, and have climbed through many
dangers for some six or seven hours before reaching this spot.
I confess that I am not enchanted with all of the modern appliances
for saving time and labour--the telegraph, the telephone, the
automobile, and the aeroplane. But these mountain railways fill me
with satisfaction and gratitude. When the Jungfrau railway was first
projected, some athletic Englishmen with heavy boots and ice-axes,
protested against the "desecration" of regions till then accessible
only to them and to me, and others of our age and strength. They
declared that the scenery would be injured by the railway and its
troops of "tourists." As well might they protest against the
desecration caused by the crawling of fifty house-flies on the dome of
St. Paul's. These mountains and glaciers are so vast, and men with
their railroads so small, that the latter are negligible in the
presence of the former. No disfiguring effect whatever is produced by
these mountain railways; the trains have even ceased to emit smoke
since they were worked by electricity. I quite agree with those who
object to "funiculars." The carriages on these are hauled up long,
straight gashes in the mountain side, which have a hideous and
disfiguring appearance. But I look forward with pleasure to the
completion of the Jungfrau railway to the summit. I hope that the
Swiss engineers will carry it through the mountain, and down along the
side of the great Aletsch glacier to the Bel Alp and so to Brieg. That
would be a glorious route to the Simplon tunnel and Italy!
I took three hours in the unwearied train descending from the Eismeer
to Interlaken, and was back in my hotel in comfortable time for
dinner, "mightily content with the day's journey," as Mr. Pepys would
have said. I have always been sensitive to the action of diminished
pressure, which produces what is called "mountain sickness" in many
people. Many years ago I climbed by the glacier-pass known as the
Weissthor from Macugnaga to the Riffel Alp, with a stylographic pen in
my pocket. The reservoir of the pen contained a little air, which
expanded as the atmospheric pressure diminished, and at 10,000 feet I
found most of the ink emptied into my pocket. Probably one cause of
the discomfort called "mountain sickness" arises from a similar
expansion of gas contained in the digestive canal, and in the
cavities connected with the ear and nose. The more suddenly the change
of pressure is effected, the more noticeable is the discomfort. But I
was rather pleased than otherwise to note, as I sat in the comfortable
railway carriage, that when we passed 8,000 feet in elevation the old
familiar giddiness, and tendency to sigh and gasp, came upon me
as of yore, as I gathered was the experience of some of my
fellow-passengers: and when we were returning, and had descended
half-way to Lauterbrünnen, I enjoyed the sense of restored ease in
breathing which I well remember when the whole experience was
complicated by the fatigue of a long climb. A white-haired American
lady was in the train with me ascending to the Eismeer. "I have longed
all my life," she said, "to see a glaysher--to touch it and walk on
it--and now I am going to do it at last. I and my daughter here have
come right away from America to go on these cars to the glaysher."
When we were descending, I asked the old lady if she had been pleased.
"I can hardly speak of it rightly," she said. "It seems to me as
though I have been standing up there on God's own throne." I do not
sympathise with the Alpine monopolist who would grudge that dear old
lady, and others like her, the little train and tramway by which alone
such people can penetrate to those soul-stirring scenes. They are at
least as sensitive to the beauty of the mountains as are the most
muscular, most long-winded, and most sun-blistered of our friends--the
acrobats of the rope and axe.
Interlaken
_September, 1909_
CHAPTER II
SWITZERLAND IN EARLY SUMMER
It is the early summer of 1910 and I have but just returned from a
visit to Switzerland. The latter part of June and the beginning of
July is the best for a stay in that splendid and happy land if one is
a naturalist, and cares for the beauty of Alpine meadows, and of the
flowers which grow among and upon the rocks near the great glaciers.
This year the weather has, no doubt, been exceptionally cold and wet,
and at no great height (5,000 feet) we have had snow-storms, even in
July. But as compared with that of Paris and London the weather has
been delightful. There has been an abundance of magnificent sunshine,
and many days of full summer heat and cloudless sky. A fortnight ago
(July 16th), and on the day before, it was as hot and brilliant in the
valley of Chamonix as it can be. Mont Blanc and the Dome de Goutet
stood out clear and immaculate against a purple-blue sky, and, as of
old, we watched through the hotel telescope a party struggling, over
the snow to the highest peak.
At Chillon the lake of Geneva, day after day, spread out to us its
limitless surface of changing colour, now blending in one pearly
expanse with the sky--so that the distant felucca boats seemed to
float between heaven and earth--now streaked with emerald and
amethystine bands. The huge mountain masses rising with a vast sweep
from St. Jingo's shore displayed range after range of bloom-like greys
and purples, whilst far away and above delicately glittered--like some
incredible vision of a heavenly world beyond the sun-lit sky
itself--the apparition of the snows and rocks of the great Dents du
Midi. All this I have left behind me, and have passed back again to
dull grey Paris, to the stormy Channel, and to the winter of London's
July.
The incomparable pleasure which the lakes and valleys and mountains of
Switzerland are capable of giving is due to the combination of many
distinct sources of delight, each in itself of exceptional character.
A month ago, in bright sunshine, I went, once again, by the little
electric railway (most blessed invention of our day) from the
pine-shaded torrent below to the great Eiger rock-mountain, and
through its heart to the glacier beyond, more than 10,000 feet above
sea-level. On the way back I left the train at the foot of the Eiger
glacier, and walked down with my companion amongst the rocks of the
moraine and over the sparse turf of these highest regions of life.
Everywhere was a profusion of gentians, the larger and darker, as well
as the smaller, bluest of all blue flowers. The large, plump, yellow
globe-flowers (_Trollius_), the sulphur-yellow anemone, the glacial
white-and-pink buttercup, the Alpine dryad, the Alpine forget-me-nots
and pink primroses, the summer crocus, delicate hare-bells, and many
other flowers of goodly size were abundant. The grass of Parnassus and
the edelweiss were not yet in flower, but lower down the slopes the
Alpine rhododendron was showing its crimson bunches of blossom. It is
a pity that the Swiss call this plant "Alpenrose," since there is a
true and exquisite Alpine rose (which we often found) with deep red
flowers, dark-coloured foliage, and a rich, sweet-briar perfume.
Lovely as these larger flowers of the higher Alps are, they are
excelled in fascination by the delicate blue flowers of the
Soldanellas, like little fringed foolscaps, by the brilliant little
red and purple Alpine snap-dragon, and by the cushion-forming growths
of saxifrages and other minute plants which encrust the rocks and
bear, closely set in their compact, green, velvet-like foliage, tiny
flowers as brilliant as gems. A ruby-red one amongst these is "the
stalkless bladder-wort" (_Silene acaulis_), having no more resemblance
at first sight to the somewhat ramshackle bladder-wort of our fields
than a fairy has to a fishwife. There are many others of these
cushion-forming, diminutive plants, with white, blue, yellow, and pink
florets. Examined with a good pocket lens, they reveal unexpected
beauties of detail--so graceful and harmonious that one wonders that
no one has made carefully coloured pictures of them of ten times the
size of nature, and published them for all the world to enjoy. Busily
moving within their charmed circles we see, with our lens, minute
insects which, attracted by the honey, are carrying the pollen of one
flower to another, and effecting for these little pollen flowers what
bees and moths do for the larger species.
Thus we are reminded that all this loveliness, this exquisite beauty,
is the work of natural selection--the result of the survival of
favourable variations in the struggle for existence. These minute
symmetrical forms, this wax-like texture, these marvellous rows of
coloured, enamel-like encrustation, have been selected from almost
endless and limitless possible variations, and have been accumulated
and maintained there as they are in all their beauty, by survival of
the fittest--by natural selection. All beauty of living things, it
seems, is due to Nature's selection, and not only all beauty of colour
and form, but that beauty of behaviour and excellence of inner quality
which we call "goodness." The fittest, that which has survived and
will survive in the struggle of organic growth, is (we see it in these
flowers) in man's estimation the beautiful. Is it possible to doubt
that just as we approve and delightedly revel in the beauty created by
"natural selection," so we give our admiration and reverence, without
question, to "goodness," which also is the creation of Nature's great
unfolding? Goodness (shall we say virtue and high quality?) is, like
beauty, the inevitable product of the struggle of living things, and
is Nature's favourite no less than man's desire. When we know the ways
of Nature, we shall discover the source and meaning of beauty, whether
of body or of mind.
As these thoughts are drifting through our enchanted dream we suddenly
hear a deep and threatening roar from the mountain-side. We look up
and see an avalanche falling down the rocks of the Jungfrau. The vast
mountain, with its dazzling vestment of eternal snow, and its slowly
creeping, green-fissured glaciers, towers above into the cloudless
sky. In an instant the mind travels from the microscopic details of
organic beauty, which but a moment ago held it entranced, to the
contemplation of the gigantic and elemental force whose tremendous
work is even now going on close to where we stand. The contrast, the
range from the minute to the gigantic, is prodigious yet exhilarating,
and strangely grateful. How many millions of years did it take to form
those rocks (many of them are stratified, water-laid deposits) in the
depths of the ocean? How many more to twist and bend them and raise
them to their present height? And what inconceivably long persistence
of the wear and tear of frost and snow and torrent has it required to
excavate in their hard bosoms these deep, broad valleys thousands of
feet below us, and to leave these strangely moulded mountain peaks
still high above us? And that beauty of the sun-lit sky and of the
billowy ice-field and of the colours of the lake below and of the
luminous haze and the deep blue shade in the valley--how is that
related to the beauty of the flowers? Truly enough, it is not a beauty
called forth by natural selection. It is primordial; it is the beauty
of great light itself. The response to its charm is felt by every
living thing, even by the smallest green plant and the invisible
animalcule, as it is by man himself. As I stand on the mountain-side
we are all, from animalcule to man, sympathizing and uniting, as
members of one great race, in our adoration of the sun. And in doing
this we men are for the moment close to and in happy fellowship with
our beautiful, though speechless, relatives who also live. Even the
destructive bacteria which are killed by the sun probably enjoy an
exquisite shudder in the process which more than compensates them for
their extinction.
The pleasures of flower-seeking in Switzerland are by no means
confined to the great heights. At moderate heights (4,000 to 5,000
feet) you have the Alpine meadows, and below those the rich-soiled
woods which fill in the sides of the torrent-worn valleys. You cannot
see an Alpine meadow after July, as it is cut down by then. It is at
its best in June. It bears very little grass, and consists almost
entirely of flowers. In places the hare-bells and Canterbury bells and
the bugloss are so abundant as to make a whole valley-floor blue as in
MacWhirter's picture. But more often the blue is intermixed with the
balls of, red clover and the spikes of a splendid pale pink polygonum
(a sort of buckwheat) and of a very large and handsome plantain. Large
yellow gentians, mulleins, the nearly black and the purple orchids,
vetches of all colours, the Alpine clover with four or five enormous
flowers in a head instead of fifty little ones, the Astrantias (like a
circular brooch made up of fifty gems each mounted on a long elastic
wire and set vibrating side by side), the sky-blue forget-me-nots, and
the golden potentillas, are usually components of the Alpine meadow.
At Murren, and no doubt commonly elsewhere, there are a few very
beautiful grasses among the flowers, but the most remarkable grass is
one (_Poa alpina_), which has on every spikelet or head a bright green
serpent-like streamer. Each of these "streamers" is, in fact, a young
grass-plant, budded off "viviparously," as it is called, from the
flower-head, or "spikelet," and having nothing to do with the proper
fertilized seed or grain. The young plants so budded fall to the
ground, and striking root rapidly, grow into separate individuals. It
is probably owing to some condition in Alpine meadows adverse to the
production of fertilized seed that this viviparous method of
reproduction has been favoured, since it occurs also in an Alpine
meadow-plant allied to the buckwheat, namely, _Polygonum viviparum_
(not the kind mentioned above), where the lower flowers are converted
into little red bulbs, by which the plant propagates. Both the
viviparous grass and the polygonum are found in England. In fact, a
very large proportion of Alpine plants occur in parts of the British
islands (a legacy from the glacial period), though many which are
abundant in Switzerland are rare and local here.
At a lower level, in the woods, we come upon other plants, not really
"Alpine" at all, but of great and special beauty. We found four kinds
of winter-green (_Pirola_), one with a very large, solitary flower,
white and wax-like, and the beautiful white butterfly-orchid with
nectaries three quarters of an inch long, and other large-flowered
orchids. We were anxious to find the noble Martagon lily, and hunted
in many glades and forest borders for it. At last, concealed on a bank
in a wood, between Glion and Les Avants, it revealed itself in
quantity, many specimens standing over three feet in height. Martagon
is an Arabic word, signifying a Turkish cap. A very strange and
uncanny-looking lily, which I had never seen before, turned up near
Kandersteg at the Blue Lake, beloved of Mr. H. G. Wells. This is "the
Herb Paris." It has four narrow outstretched green sepals, and four
still narrower green petals, eight large stamens, and a purple seed
capsule. Its broad oval leaves are also arranged in whorls of four.
Its name has nothing to do with the "ville lumière," nor with the
Trojan judge of female beauty, but refers to the symmetry and "parity"
of its component parts. I was not surprised to find that "the Herb
Paris" is poisonous, and was anciently used in medicine. It looks
weird and deadly.
Marmots, glacier fleas (spring-tails, not true fleas), admirable
trout, and burbot (the fresh-water cod, called "lote" in French),
outrageous wood-gnats, which English people call by a Portuguese name
as soon as they are on the Continent, and singing birds (usually one
is too late in the season to hear them) were our zoological
accompaniment. There were singularly few butterflies or other insects,
probably in consequence of the previous wet weather.
_July, 1909_
CHAPTER III
GLETSCH
Varied and uncertain as the weather was in Switzerland during July of
the year 1910, it showed a more decided character when I returned
there at the end of August. For three weeks there was no flood of
sunshine, no blazing of a cloudless blue sky, which is the one
condition necessary to the perfection of the beauty of Swiss
mountains, valleys and lakes. The Oberland was grey and shapeless, the
Lauterbrünnen valley chilly and threatening; even the divine Jungfrau
herself, when not altogether obliterated by the monotonous,
impenetrable cloud, loomed in steely coldness--"a sterile promontory."
Crossing the mountains from the Lake of Thun, we came to Montreux,
only to find the pearl-like surface of the great Lake Leman
transformed into lead. Not once in eight days did the celestial
fortress called Les Dents du Midi reveal its existence, although we
knew it was there, immensely high and remote, far away above the great
buttresses of the Rhone valley. So completely was it blotted out by
the conversion of that most excellent canopy, the air, into a foul and
pestilent congregation of vapours, that it was difficult to imagine
that it was still existing, and perhaps even glowing in sunshine above
the pall of cloud. Italy, surely, we thought, would be free from this
dreadful gloom.
The southern slopes of the Alps are often cloudless when the colder
northern valleys are overhung with impenetrable mist. In four hours
you can pass now from the Lake of Geneva through the hot Simplon
Tunnel to the Lago Maggiore. So, hungering for sunshine, we packed,
and ran in the ever-ready train through to Baveno. Thirty years ago we
should have had to drive over the Simplon--a beautiful drive, it is
true--but we should have taken sixteen hours in actually travelling
from Montreux, and have had to pass a night _en route_ at Brieg! A
treacherous gleam of sunshine lasting half an hour welcomed us on
emerging from the Simplon tunnel, and then for eight days the same
leaden aspect of sky, mountain, and lake as that which we had left in
Switzerland was maintained. Even this could not spoil altogether the
beauty and interest of the fine old garden of the Borromeo family on
the Isola Bella. Really big cypress trees, magnificent specimens of
the Weymouth pine--the white pine of the United States, _Pinus
strobus_, first brought from the St. Lawrence in 1705, and planted in
Wiltshire by Lord Weymouth--a splendid camphor tree, strange varieties
of the hydrangea, and many other old-fashioned shrubs adorn the quaint
and well-designed terraces of that seat of ancient peace. The granite
quarries close behind Baveno, and the cutting and chiselling of the
granite by a population of some 2,000 quarrymen and stonemasons, were
not deprived of their human interest by rain and skies more grey than
the granite itself. But, at last, we gave up Italy in despair,
retreated through the tunnel one morning, and an hour after mid-day
were careering in a carriage along the Rhone valley--with jingling of
bells and much cracking of a harmless whip--upwards on a drive of
seven hours to the Rhone glacier, to the hotel called "Gletsch,"
staking all on the last chance of a change in the weather.
We passed the enclosed meadow near Brieg, whence three days later the
splendidly daring South-American aviator started on his flight across
the Alps, only to die after victory--a hero, whose courage and fatal
triumph were worthy of a better cause. After some hours, passing many
a black-timbered mountain village--the houses of which, set on stone
piles, are the direct descendants of the pile-supported lake dwellings
of the Stone Age on the shores of the Lake of Neuchatel--we came to
the upper and narrower part of the valley. The road ascended by
zig-zags through pine forests, in which the large blue gentian, with
flowers and leaves in double rows on a gracefully bowed stem, were
abundant. In open places the barberry, with its dense clusters of
crimson fruit, was so abundant as actually to colour the landscape,
whilst a huge yellow mullen nearly as big as a hollyhock, and bright
Alpine "pinks," were there in profusion. Before the night fell, a
long, furry animal, twice the size of a squirrel, and of dark brown
colour, crossed the road with a characteristic undulating movement, a
few feet in front of our carriage. It was a pine-marten, the largest
of the weasel and pole-cat tribe, still to be found in our own north
country. It must not be confused with the paler beech-marten of Anne
of Brittany, which often takes up its abode in the roofs of Breton
houses, according to my own experience in Dinard and the
neighbourhood. Night fell, and our horses were still toiling up the
mountain road. Impenetrable chasms lay below, and vast precipices
above us. We crossed a bridge, and seemed in the darkness to plunge
into the sheer rock itself, and, though thrilled with a delightful
sense of mystery and awe, were feeling a little anxiety at the
prospect of another hour among these gloomy, intangible dangers, when
we rounded a projecting rock, and suddenly a brilliant constellation
burst into view in the sky. It was the electric outfit of the
Belvedere Hotel, 7,500 feet above the sea, and far up more than a
thousand feet above us and the glacier's snout. In another minute the
great arc lamps of the Gletsch Hotel, close to us, blazed forth, and
we were welcomed into its snug hall and warmed by the great log-fire
burning on its hospitable hearth.
The next day we were early afoot in the most brilliant sunshine, under
a cloudless sky--really perfect Alpine weather. In the shade the
persisting night-frost told of the great height of the marvellous
amphitheatre which lay before us. The valley by which we had mounted
the previous night abruptly abandons its steep gradient and gorge-like
character, and widens into a flat, boulder-strewn plain, a little over
a mile in diameter, surrounded, except for the narrow gap by which we
had entered, by the steep, rocky sides of huge mountains. At the far
end of the plain, a mile off, the great Rhone glacier comes toppling
over the precipice, a snowy white, frozen cascade of a thousand feet
in height. It looks even nearer than it is, and the gigantic teeth of
white ice at the top of the fall seem no bigger than sentry-boxes,
though we know they are more nearly the size of church steeples. The
celebrated Furca road zig-zags up the mountain side for a thousand
feet close to the glacier, and when you drive up it and reach the
height of the Belvedere, you can step on to the ice close to the road.
Then you can mount on to the flat, unbroken surface of the broad
glacier stream above the fall, and trace the glacier to the
snow-covered mountain-tops in which it originates. There is no such
close and intimate view of a glacier to be had elsewhere in Europe by
the traveller in diligence or carriage. We walked by the side of the
infant Rhone, among the pebbles and boulders, to the overhanging snout
of the great glacier from beneath which the river emerges. A very
beautiful wine-red species of dwarf willow-herb (_Epilobium
Fleischeri_) was growing abundantly in tufts among the pebbles, and
many other Alpine plants greeted our eyes. The heat of the sun was
that of midsummer, whilst a delicate air of icy freshness diffused
itself from the great frozen mass in front of us.
Some large blocks of the glacier ice had fallen from above, and lay
conveniently for examination. Whilst the walls of the ice-caves which
have been cut into this and other glaciers present a perfectly smooth,
continuous surface of clear ice, these fragments which had fallen from
the surface exposed to the heat of the sun, were, as seen in the mass,
white and opaque. When a stick was thrust into the mass, it broke into
many-sided lumps of the size of a tennis-ball, which separated, and
fell apart in a heap, like assorted coals thrown from a scuttle,
though white instead of black. These were the curious glacier nodules,
"grains du glacier," or "Gletcherkörne," characteristic of glacier ice
as contrasted with lake ice. This structure of the glacier ice is
peculiar to it, and is only made
|
impressions made by rain-drops, ripple-marks in the sand, coprolites
or indurated remains of fæces of animals, and even impressions of
vegetables, have been preserved and transmitted from a remote
antiquity. No authentic human impressions have yet been established;
and none of the mammalia, except the marsupials.(?) We must, however,
remember that, although the early paleontology contains no record of
birds, the ancient existence of these animals is now fully
ascertained. Remains of birds were discovered in the Paris gypsum by
Cuvier previous to 1830. Since that time, they have been found in the
Lower Eocene in England, and the Swiss Alps; and there is reason to
believe that osseous relics may be met with in the same deposits which
contain the foot-marks. Most of the bird-tracks which have been
observed, belong to the wading birds, or Grallæ.
The number of toes in existing birds varies from two to five. In the
fossil bird-tracks, the most frequent number is three, called
tridactylous; but there are instances also of four or tetradactylous,
and two or didactylous. The number of articulations corresponds in
ornithichnites with living birds: when there are four toes, the inner
or hind toe has two articulations, the second toe three, the third toe
four, the outer toe five. The impressions of the articulations are
sometimes very distinct, and even that of the skin covering them.
President Hitchcock has distinguished more than thirty species of
birds, four of lizards, three of tortoises, and six of batrachians.
The great difference in the characters of many fossil animals from
those of existing genera and species, in the opinion of Prof. Agassiz,
makes it probable that in various instances the traces of supposed
birds may be in fact traces of other animals, as, for example, those
of the lizard or frog. And he supports this opinion, among other
reasons, by the disappearance of the heel in a great number of
Ornithichnites.
D'Orbigny, to whom we are indebted for the most ample and systematic
work on Paleontology ("Cours Elémentaire de Paléontologie et de
Géologie," 5 vols. 1849-52), does not accept the arrangement of
President Hitchcock. He objects to the term Ornithichnites, and
proposes what he considers a more comprehensive arrangement into
organic, physiological, and physical impressions. _Organic
impressions_ are those which have been produced by the remains of
organized substances, such as vegetable impressions from calamites,
&c. _Physiological impressions_ are those produced by the feet and
other parts of animals. _Physical impressions_ are those from
rain-drops and ripple-marks; and to these may be added coprolites in
substance. This plan of D'Orbigny seems to exclude the curious and
interesting distinctions of groups, genera, and species; in this way
diminishing the importance of the science of Ichnology.
Fossil impressions have been found on this continent in the
carboniferous strata of Nova Scotia, and of the Alleghenies; in the
sandstone of New Jersey, and in that of the Connecticut Valley in a
great number of places, from the town of Gill in Massachusetts to
Middletown in Connecticut, a distance of about eighty miles.
A slab from Turner's Falls, obtained for me by Dr. Deane in 1845,
measuring two feet by two and a half, and two inches in thickness,
contains at least ten different sets of impressions, varying from five
inches in length to two and a half, with a proportionate length of
stride from thirteen inches to six. All these are tridactylous, and
represent at least four different species. In most of them the
distinction of articulation is quite clear. The articulations of each
toe can readily be counted, and they are found to agree with the
general statement made above as to number. The impressions are
singularly varied as to depth; some of them, perfectly distinct, are
superficial, like those made by the fingers laid lightly on a mass of
dough, while others are of sufficient depth nearly to bury the toes;
some of the tracks cross each other, and, being of different sizes,
belong to animals of different ages or different species. There is one
curious instance of the tracks of a large and heavy bird, in which,
from the softness of the mud, the bird slipped in a lateral direction,
and then gained a firm footing; the mark of the first step, though
deep, is ill-defined and uncertain; the space intervening between the
tracks is superficially furrowed; in the settled step, which is the
deepest, the toes are very strongly indicated. On the same surface are
impressions of nails, which may have belonged to birds or chelonians.
The inferior surface of the same slab exhibits appearances more
superficial, less numerous, but generally regular. There are three
sets of tracks entirely distinct from each other; two of them
containing three tracks, and one containing two,--the latter being
much the largest in size. In addition, there is one set of tracks,
which are probably those of a tortoise. These marks present two other
points quite observable and interesting. One is that they are
displayed in relief, while those on the upper surface are in
depression. The relief in this lower surface would be the cast of a
cavity in the layer below; so the depressions in the upper surface
would be moulds of casts above. The second point is the
non-correspondence of the upper and lower surfaces; i.e. the
depressions in the upper surface have not a general correspondence
with the elevations on its inferior surface. The tracks above were
made by different individuals and different species from those below.
This leads to another interesting consideration, that in the thickness
of this slab there must be a number of different layers, and in each
of them there may be a different series of tracks.
To these last remarks there is one exception: the deep impression in
which the bird slipped in a lateral direction corresponds with an
elevation on the lower surface, in which the impression of these toes
is very distinctly displayed, and even the articulations. Moreover,
one of the tracks on the inferior surface interferes with the outer
track in the superior, and tends in an opposite direction, so that
this last-described footstep must have been made before the other. It
is also observable, that, while all the other tracks are superficial,
this last penetrates the whole thickness of the slab; thus showing
that the different deposits continued some time in a soft state.
On the surfaces of this slab, particularly on the upper, there are
various marks besides those of the feet, some of which seem to have
been made by straws, or portions of grass, or sticks; and there is a
curved line some inches in length, which seems to have arisen from
shrinkage.
In the collection of Mr. Marsh,[B] there were two slabs of great size,
each measuring ten by six feet, having a great number of impressions
of feet, and about the same thickness as the slab under examination.
One of these presented depressions; and the other, corresponding
reliefs. These very interesting relations were necessarily parted in
the sale of Mr. Marsh's collection; one of them being obtained for the
Boston Society of Natural History, and the other for the collection of
Amherst College.
[Footnote B: Mr. Marsh was a mechanic of the town of Greenfield,
and procured his subsistence by his daily labor. Being employed by
Dr. Deane in obtaining the sandstone slabs of Ornithichnites, he
acquired a taste for the pursuit, entered into it with
extraordinary ardor, and accumulated by his own labors a great
collection of fine specimens. He unfortunately fell into a
consumption, and died in 1852. The collection was sold at public
auction for a sum between two and three thousand dollars. The
specimens were purchased by the Boston Society of Natural History,
by Amherst College, and by varioud colleges and scientific
associations in this country.]
The _Physical Impressions_, according to Professor D'Orbigny, are
of three kinds, viz.: 1st, Rain-drops; 2d, Ripple-marks; and 3d,
Coprolites. I have a slab which exhibits two leptodactylous
tracks very distinct, about an inch and a half long, surrounded
by impressions of rain-drops and ripple-marks. Another specimen
exhibits the impressions of rain in a more distinct and remarkable
manner. The imprints are of various sizes, from those which might
be made by a common pea to others four times its diameter; some
are deep, others superficial and almost imperceptible. They are
generally circular, but some are ovoid. Some have the edge equally
raised around, as if struck by a perpendicular drop; and others
have the edge on one part faintly developed, while another part is
very sharp and well defined, as if the drop had struck obliquely.
It has been suggested, that these fossil rain-drops may have been
made by particles of hail; but I think the variety of size and
depth of depression would have been more considerable if thus
made.
Although we have necessarily treated the subject of fossil
footmarks in a very brief way, sufficient has been said to show
that this new branch of Paleontology may lead to interesting
results. The fact that they are, in some manner, peculiar to this
region, seems to call upon our Society to obtain a sufficient
number of specimens to exhibit to scientific men a fair
representation of the condition of Ichnology in this quarter of
our country; and we have therefore great reason to congratulate
ourselves, that, through the vigilance and spirit of our members,
the Society has the expectation of obtaining a rich collection
of ichnological specimens.
FOSSIL IMPRESSIONS.--II.
Since writing the preceding article, I have been able to obtain,
through the kindness of President Hitchcock, a number of additional
specimens of fossil impressions. By the aid of these, I may hope to
give an idea of the system of impressions, so far as it has been
discovered, without, however, attempting to enter into minute details.
For these, I would refer to the account of the "Geology of
Massachusetts," by President Hitchcock; to his valuable article
published in the "Memoirs of the American Academy;" and to his
geological works generally.
The numerous tracks which have been assembled together in the
neighborhood of Connecticut River have afforded an opportunity of
prosecuting these studies to an extent unusual in the primitive rocky
soil of New England. These appearances are not, indeed, wholly new.
Such traces had been previously met with in other countries; but, in
their number and variety, the valley of the Connecticut abounds above
all places hitherto investigated.
Twenty years have elapsed since the study of Ichnology has been
prosecuted in this country; and, in this period of time, about
forty-nine species of animal tracks have been distinguished in the
locality mentioned, according to President Hitchcock; which have been
regularly arranged by him in groups, genera, and species.
I propose now to lay the specimens, recently obtained, before the
Society, as a slight preparation for the more numerous and more
valuable articles which they are soon to receive.
The traces found on ancient rocks, as has been shown in the previous
article, are those of animals, vegetables, and unorganized substances.
The traces of animals are produced by quadrupeds, birds, lizards,
turtles, frogs, mollusca, worms, crustacea, and zoophytes. These
impressions are of various forms: some of them simple excavations;
some lines, either straight or curved, and others complicated into
various figures.
President Hitchcock has based his distinctions of fossil animal
impressions on the following characters, viz.:--
1. Toes thick, pachydactylous; or thin, leptodactylous.
2. Feet winged.
3. Number of toes from two to five, inclusive.
4. Absolute and relative length of the toes.
5. Divarication of the lateral toes.
6. Angle made by the inner and middle, outer and middle toes.
7. Projection of the middle beyond the lateral toes.
8. Distance between tips of lateral toes.
9. Distance between tips of middle and inner and outer toes.
10. Position and direction of hind toe.
11. Character of claw.
12. Width of toes.
13. Number and length of phalangeal expansions.
14. Character of the heel.
15. Irregularities of under side of foot.
16. Versed sine of curvature of toes.
17. Angle of axis of foot with line of direction.
18. Distance of posterior part of the foot from line of direction.
19. Length of step.
20. Size of foot.
21. Character of the integuments of the foot.
22. Coprolites.
23. Means of distinguishing bipedal from quadrupedal tracks.
By these characters, President Hitchcock has distinguished
physiological tracks, or those made by animated beings, into ten
groups provisionally. To these may be added, "organic impressions,"
made by organized bodies; and the impressions made by inanimate
bodies, called "physical impressions."
The specimens under our hands enable us to give some notion of the
distinctions which characterize the greater part of these groups.
* * * * *
GROUP FIRST--STRUTHIONES.
The ostrich-tracks present a numerous natural and most remarkable
group; remarkable from the great size of some species,--all of them
tridactylous and pachydactylous. The ostrich of the Old World has only
two toes, but this family exists in South America at the present time
under the name of Rhea Americana; and tracks of an animal, probably of
the same family, are found in the numerous impressions near
Connecticut River,--all of them having three toes in front, and the
rudiment of a fourth behind.
This group contains a number of genera. The FIRST GENUS, denominated
_Brontozoum_, presents the tracks of a most extraordinary bird. These
tracks appear less questionable since the discovery in Madagascar of
the eggs of the Epyornis.
The tracks of the largest species, the BRONTOZOUM GIGANTEUM, are
four times the magnitude of those made by the existing ostrich of
Africa. They are very numerous, and congregated together. The foot of
the Brontozoum Giganteum, including the inferior extremity of the
tarso-metatarsal bone, which makes a part of the foot, measures in our
specimen twenty inches; in the Mastodon Giganteus, the foot measures
twenty-seven inches; the width also is less, being ten inches across
the metacarpals, while that of the Mastodon is twenty-two: but the one
is a bird, the other a quadruped. The toes are three in number, and
present the same divisions with existing birds; the inner toe having
three, the middle four, the outer five phalanges. Some of the
articulations of the toes of this noble specimen are remarkable for
the manner in which they illustrate the mode of formation of the
tracks. These phalanges have become separated from the solid rock in
which they were encased, so as to be removable at pleasure; and they
thus show that the whole foot is not a simple impression in the rock
which contains it, but a depression filled by foreign materials, i.e.
by sand, clay, and other relics of pre-existing rocks. These materials
had been gradually deposited in the mould formed by the bird's foot,
and are therefore independent of this rock, in the same way as the
plaster-of-Paris cast of a tooth, or any other body, is independent of
the mould to which it owes its form. The impressions are in gray
sandstone.
On the reversed surface of the slab is seen a small piece of broken
quartz, about half an inch square. This piece forms a beautiful
illustration of a part of the process by which the sandstone rocks are
formed.
The second species of the same genus is the BRONTOZOUM SILLIMANIUM.
Of this we have three specimens; the tracks have the same general
character with the preceding, but are smaller.
The third species of this genus is styled the BRONTOZOUM LOXONYX,
from _loxos_, a _bow_, and _onyx_, a _nail_,--a curved nail. It is
smaller than the Sillimanium, and has the nail set to one side.
The fourth species, still smaller, is the Brontozoum Gracillimum. On
this slab the impressions are in relief; viz.: 1st, of Brontozoum
Gracillimum; 2d, of Brontozoum Parallelum; 3d, of the track of a
tortoise, fourteen inches long, and two wide. Other extensive
eminences and depressions, with rain-drops, may be observed on the
same surface.
The fifth species is called BRONTOZOUM PARALLELUM, from the tracks
being on a line with each other. Of this there are two specimens, one
of them, however, being a single track. On the surface of the other
slab there are at least five distinct tracks, one of them being a
small new and undescribed species,--thus making the whole number of
species of Brontozoum which we possess to be at least six.
The SECOND GENUS of Struthiones is called _Æthyopus_, from
_aithuia_, a _gull_, and _pous_, a _foot_,--gull-footed. This genus
is smaller than the Brontozoum Giganteum; and we have two species,
viz. the ÆTHYOPUS LYELLIANUS, which is the larger, and two specimens
of ÆTHYOPUS MINOR. All of these are distinguished from the preceding
genus by the winged foot, and in the Lyellianus by the shallowness of
the impression. The Æthyopus Minor is not always distinguished by the
superficiality of its impression. This is sometimes deep. Therefore
this character may not be considered a distinctive one, or the
Æthyopus Minor might be referred to another genus. Of the two
specimens of this latter species, the first is in depression,
tridactylous. The depressions are deep with rain-drops, marks of
quadrupeds and zoophytes over the whole surface. The ornithichnic
impressions are two in number; one superficial, the other very deep.
The reversed surface of this slab contains one tridactylous impression
in relief. The second specimen has three depressions; two of which are
superficial, and the third is quite deep, displaying, by a depressed
surface, the webbed character of the foot.
* * * * *
GROUP SECOND.
We shall take, to characterize this group, the _Argozoum_, from
_argês_, _swift_, _winged_.
Of this genus there are two species, the larger of which is the
ARGOZOUM DISPARIDIGITATUM. It is leptodactylous, and remarkable for
the length of the middle toe. We have another species, which is
smaller than the last named, and in which the toes are nearly of equal
length; hence called ARGOZOUM PARIDIGITATUM.
The other genus of this group is the PLATYPTERNA, and our specimen
is named _Deaniana_. This genus is remarkable for the width of the
heel; hence the name, from _platys_, _broad_, and _pterna_, _a heel_.
It has three toes like the other genera of this group.
* * * * *
GROUP THIRD.
This and the succeeding group are tetradactylous; having one toe
behind, three forwards.
The third group is leptodactylous; foot usually small, but sometimes
of medium size. Of it we have two specimens, viz.: ORNITHOPUS
GALLINACEUS, and ORNITHOPUS GRACILIS. The former is so called from the
resemblance to the domestic fowl: for convenience sake, in this and
other instances, we use the whole for a part. It is about three inches
in length, and the Ornithopus Gracilis about two.
This latter specimen is particularly interesting. It consists of two
parts, which open like the covers of a book. These covers present four
impressions: first, the superficial, which is distinct, slender, and
beautiful--the heel is broad; second, corresponding with this
depression and on the inside, is a figure in relief as distinct as the
depression; third, on the inside of the second cover is a depression
corresponding with the relief last mentioned; fourth, on the outer
side is a second relief corresponding with the second depression, but
less distinct than either of the other three, still, however,
exhibiting three toes pointing anteriorly, but the hind toe is
wanting. The whole of this double slab forms a series of cameos and
intaglios, measuring four inches by three, and in thickness an inch
and a quarter.
* * * * *
GROUP FOURTH.
Of the fourth group we have five specimens. The _Triænopus_, so called
from its resemblance to a trident, has besides three leptodactylous
toes pointing forwards, a fourth extending backwards in a remarkable
way, like the handle of a trident; the impression, however, being
expanded so as to show an extensive displacement of the mud. All the
specimens of Triænopus are in a beautiful red shale, very thin and
fragile, but presenting well-defined impressions, generally about
three inches long.
There are two species to this genus. Of the TRIÆNOPUS EMMONSIANUS we
notice three impressions in relief. In another specimen there is the
appearance of a part of the toes of the Anomoepus Scambus, and on the
upper side are seen two excavations corresponding with the three
impressions. In the last slab, the track of the TRIÆNOPUS BAILEYANUS
appears to have been made by two feet placed successively in the same
spot, which led President Hitchcock to suspect it might have been made
by a quadruped. One of the specimens has the Triænopus tracks
intermixed in a peculiar way with other impressions.
The specimen representing the genus HARPEDACTYLUS is larger than the
preceding; and, though leptodactylous, the toes are much broader and
also more curved, whence the name Harpedactylus, _sickle-finger_, from
_harpê_ and _daktylos_.
* * * * *
GROUP FIFTH.
The fifth group differs much from the four previous ones. In this and
the following groups we pass from the vestiges of birds to those of
other animals, some of which are bipeds, some quadrupeds. Many
impressions are without any distinct character, belonging probably to
the lower animals, to vegetables, and unorganized bodies.
The fifth group comprehends the tracks of an extraordinary animal, the
OTOZOUM.[C] The name which has been given to it is taken from that
of an ancient giant, Otus, who with his brother Ephialtes, according
to heathen mythology, made war with the gods. These fabled giants
were, at nine years of age, nine cubits in width and nine fathoms in
height.
[Footnote C: The specific name of Moodii has been attached to the
Otozoum, from its having been discovered by Mr. Moody.]
The foot is divided into four toes; the two outer of which seem to be
connected by a common basis. The inner toe has three phalanges; the
second toe, also three; the third and fourth toes, four each. The
first is the shortest, the second longer, the third longest, the
fourth shorter than the third. It will appear, then, that this track
differs from that of birds in the number of toes pointing forwards;
these being four, while in birds the forward toes are only three.
There is a difference also in the number and arrangement of the
articulations.
The track in our possession is twenty inches long by thirteen and a
half inches broad. The rock in which it is imbedded is a dark-colored
sandstone. President Hitchcock has a slab showing a regular series of
tracks of this animal; the distance between the steps being about
three feet, and the tracks equidistant and alternate, which would not
be the case if the animal had been quadrupedal. In a quadruped, the
horse for example, the hind feet are set down near the fore feet, and
sometimes even strike them. Hence it must be inferred that the track
in question was that of a biped, or of a quadruped which did not use
its fore feet in progression, like a kangaroo. We naturally ask, What
kind of biped could this have been? Evidently not a man, the size of
the foot being too large to admit such a supposition; nor could it
have been a bird, the number of toes and their direction not admitting
this hypothesis.
Tetradactylous birds, or those which have four toes, have only three
of them directed forwards, and the fourth backwards, generally. There
are, however, exceptions; some birds have four toes directed forwards:
this is the fact with the Hirundo Cypselus and the Pelicanus Aquilus
of Linnæus, or Man-of-war Bird. But the articulations are different in
the two animals, birds having regularly two, three, four, and five
phalanges, and the spur, where it exists, supported by a single
osseous phalanx; whereas the Otozoum has three phalanges in the inner
and second toe, four in the third and fourth toes. In this last
arrangement, the Otozoum is decidedly different from all known birds.
It is not likely to have been a tortoise or a lizard. The kangaroo has
four feet, and uses only two in progression, moving forward by leaps;
also, like the Otozoum, it has four toes; but the size of the toes
does not accord with that of the Otozoum, nor is the structure of the
foot the same, so far as we know. It has been suggested by Professor
Agassiz, that this animal might have been a two-footed frog. Nature
had, in those days, animal forms different from those we are
acquainted with; and this might have been the fact with the Otozoum.
* * * * *
GROUP SIXTH.
We have in this group a specimen of the track of a four-footed animal,
which may have been a frog, though different from ours. The feet are
unequal in size, and present a different number of toes. In existing
frogs there are four toes in the fore feet, and five in the hind; but,
in the specimen before us, the front toes are five in number, and the
back toes three. It is called, therefore, ANOMOEPUS, _unequal-footed_.
These impressions are in the red shale of Hadley, and very distinct.
In some of them the lower leg is indicated, forming an impression six
or seven inches long. The feet being smaller than the legs, the
impression made by the latter is more expanded, superficial, and
broader, yet still very definite. The opinion of President Hitchcock
and Dr. Deane is, that the different impressions of five and three
toes are those of the anterior and posterior extremities of one animal,
which, from the size of the limbs, might be a frog three feet high.
On the same schist with these footmarks, are other curious
impressions. The back of the slab is almost covered with the imprints
of rain-drops. In the midst of these is a tridactylous impression,
probably of a quadruped, crossed at its root by a single depression,
nearly an inch broad, and two and a half long: this seems to form part
of another broad superficial impression of about seven by four inches,
which is probably also quadrupedal. Other parts present the
impressions of nails and worm-tracks. At the opposite end is a deep,
smooth, regular excavation, which might have been made by a Medusa.
* * * * *
GROUP SEVENTH.
The seventh group contains the impressions of the feet of Saurians or
lizards. We have a specimen of quadrupedal marks, with five toes to
each foot, about an inch long, which may have been made by these
animals. The impressions are small, but very distinct. There are
lizards of the present day with five toes, about the size of these
impressions; and these may, therefore, be set down as belonging to
this order of reptiles. Like a number of the last-named specimens,
they are in red shale.
* * * * *
GROUP EIGHTH.
The eighth group is assigned by President Hitchcock to the Chelonian
or turtle tribe. The slab bearing impressions of Brontozoum
Gracillimum has a mark about fourteen inches long and two wide, which
may be attributed to the plastron or breast-plate of the tortoise. On
the slab from Turner's Falls there is a longitudinal furrow, which
might have been made by the tail of a turtle; and in various of our
slabs are impressions which we think belong to this tribe. We shall
have occasion to notice hereafter remarkable tracks of these animals
in the old red of Morayshire, in Scotland.
The most distinct of the traces of chelonians are on the large slab
lately obtained for me by President Hitchcock from Greenfield. (_Vide_
Plate.) This interesting slab contains the traces of quadrupeds,
various birds, and two trails of chelonians: the largest of these is
nearly five feet long, and four inches in diameter. The trail is
composed of a number of parallel elevations, comparatively
superficial.
* * * * *
GROUP NINTH.
Of the ninth group, containing the marks of Annelidæ, Crustacea, and
Zoophytes, we have various specimens.
The impressions of insects do not seem as yet to have been
distinguished on the ancient rocks. There is reason to believe,
however, that many of the marks we discover in the rocky beds might
have been made by the feet and bodies of large insects; and small
species of the same tribes have been found imbedded in, and actually
constituting, immense masses of calcareous and siliceous rocks.
The tracks of worms are numerous. No doubt these worms drew together a
concourse of birds to the shores on which they rolled. On various
slabs we find long cylindrical furrows, about the eighth of an inch in
diameter, and of different lengths; one of them, in the slab from Dr.
Deane, being eight or nine inches long. To these impressions the name
of HERPYSTEZOUM, from _herpystês_, _crawling_, has been given. They
vary, however, and some of them are very likely to be the tracks of
the common earth-worm, or of some species of worm which existed when
these rocks were formed. These impressions vary in length and in
diameter; some of them are moderately regular, and others irregularly
curved.
Very interesting tracks have been found in the ancient Potsdam white
sandstone of Beauharnais, on the St. Lawrence, by Mr. Logan, an
excellent geologist of Canada, and determined by Professor Owen to
belong to Crustacea, crabs. The number of impressions made by each
foot is sometimes seven, sometimes eight, and even more. This track,
showing the traces of Crustacea, goes to form another link in the
chain of fossil footsteps.
The Medusæ, commonly called jelly-fish, dissolving as they do under
the influence of the sun and air, would hardly be expected to leave
their traces impressed on ancient rocks. Professor D'Orbigny, however,
has watched the dissolution of these animals on the sea-shore, and
found that, after wasting, they may leave their impressions on the
sand; which, not being disturbed by a high tide for nearly a month,
retains the impression of the zoophyte, and serves as a mould to
receive materials which take a cast and transmit it to subsequent
ages. We find one of these impressions on the slab of the Anomoepus
Scambus; and President Hitchcock, having examined it, is of opinion
that it retains the traces of a Medusa. The impression is about five
inches in diameter, of a darker color and smoother texture than the
rest of the rock. Its edges fade away gradually in the surface of the
subjacent sandstone. A similar impression is found on the superior
surface of the slab containing the Argozoum.
* * * * *
GROUP TENTH.
The tenth group contains the HARPAGOPUS, a name derived from
_harpagê_, _seizure_, _rapine_. It is represented by President
Hitchcock as having the form of a drag. The figure given by him
resembles in a degree the foot of the African ostrich; being a long
thick toe, with a shorter one, not unlike a thumb, on the side. An
impression approximating this, but of small size, may be seen on the
slab of the Anomoepus Scambus.
* * * * *
The formation of bird-tracks is well represented by a clay specimen,
about an inch thick, and ten inches long. This is a piece of dried
clay, obtained by President Hitchcock from the banks of the
Connecticut, and produced by washings from clay on the shore above,
covered with foot-impressions of a small tridactylous bird, and dried
in the sun. This piece shows, in a way not to be questioned, the
manner in which the ancient vestiges were produced. Sir Charles Lyell
noticed a similar fact on the banks of the Bay of Fundy.
ORGANIC IMPRESSIONS.
The _second_ great division of fossil impressions is called ORGANIC,
meaning impressions made by organized bodies; the bones of animals,
fishes, and vegetables.
Near one extremity of the slab of the Ornithopus Gallinaceus is an
elevation, about a foot long, and between one and two inches wide,
projecting from the surface nearly half an inch. It has the appearance
of a round bar of iron imbedded in the rock, which is clayey
sandstone. This apparent bar of iron was probably a bone, buried in
the stone, now silicified and impregnated with iron; the animal matter
having entirely disappeared. In the slab of the Brontozoum Sillimanium
is a projection about seven or eight inches long, and half an inch
wide; probably the bone of an animal, perhaps a clavicle of the
Brontozoum Giganteum.
The vestiges of fishes are very numerous in the sandstone rocks of
Connecticut River. We have not less than two dozen specimens from this
locality; a number equal to all the other specimens in our collection.
These impressions of fishes are generally from three to six inches
long, and three or four inches wide. They are of the grand division
denominated by Professor Agassiz "heterocercal," having their tails
unequally bilobed, from the partial prolongation of the dorsal spine;
and they are considered to be of lower antiquity than the fishes which
are entirely heterocercal. The most remarkable of the fish-specimens
in our collection is a CEPHALASPIS (?): this fish is found in the
specimen containing tracks of the Brontozoum Gracillimum, and traces
of a turtle or tortoise. This fossil was discovered in the upper layer
of the old red sandstone of Scotland, and had been mistaken by some
for a trilobite: to us it appeared to be a Limulus, but further
observation leads us to believe it to be a _Cephalaspis_. It exhibits
a convex disc, four inches across, by two inches from above downwards,
and a tail at right angles with the disc, the uncovered part of which
is three inches long. The animal has been described by Professor
Agassiz as being composed of a strong buckler, with a pointed horn at
either termination of the
|
," replied Elmer. "But you must have been
absent at the time it was talked over. You see, it's hardest to find
fellows qualified to be scout leaders, and assistant leaders. Plenty of
raw recruits can be enlisted on the other hand. Myself and Mark happened
to be selected for the first patrol, and Matty Eggleston, with Red
Huggins, came along and qualified for the second. That gave us just six
members for each patrol, you see."
"Yes, I'm following you, Elmer; please go on," said Jasper, eagerly.
"It just happened that the next two boys to enlist were Jack and Nat,
both of whom knew considerable about woodcraft, and were ambitious to
learn more. When Mr. Garrabrant and myself talked it over--for I was a
duly appointed assistant scout-master by that time, you know--we
concluded that it would be wise to start a third patrol, with those two
fellows at the head, and after that fill up our three patrols to the
limit of eight each."
"Thank you, Elmer; I get on to it now," Jasper remarked.
"And I understand that several good fellows have applied for membership
in our troop?" observed Larry.
"Yes, their names will be proposed at the next meeting, which by the way
comes this very night. Hope neither of you will be so leg tired that you
stay away. Before Fall comes around the church improvements will be
finished, and then we'll have a meeting room worth while. Just now that
old wheelwright's shop at the crossroads must serve our purpose."
"Oh! there, that's too bad!" suddenly ejaculated Jasper, coming to a
halt.
"What ails him now?" Larry remarked, surveying his companion queerly.
"I went and forgot something; how silly of me," Jasper went on.
"Oh! we'll agree with you, all right," grinned Larry; "but suppose you
tell us what it was? If you left anything back there where we hung our
clothes on a hickory limb, until it looked like a regular Irish washday,
why, the chances are you're out that much, because I for one decline to
cover all that ground again."
"And I wanted to know so much!" grumbled Jasper, as he raised one of his
feet and rubbed his shoe regretfully.
Elmer watched his actions and smiled. Evidently he had guessed what was
on the other's mind.
"Perhaps I might tell you what it was, Jasper," he said, quietly.
"I wish you would, Elmer," cried the other. "Did you peek in, and see
him? And was it a great big black bear, or a savage bobcat?"
"Neither, I think," came the answer. "You would be pretty safe to call
it a 'coon, and let it go at that."
"What, only a pesky little raccoon, and to pitch in for me like that?"
cried the other. "Why, I thought he was going to chew me all to pieces,
and I was sure it must be a wildcat at least."
"That may have been because you were excited," the scout leader pursued;
"and I've no doubt but what the rascal clawed at you, and used his sharp
teeth pretty freely, because he was badly frightened and concerned. Even
a rat will fight when at bay. And he thought you were coming in to get
him."
"But how do you know it was a raccoon?" demanded Jasper.
"I saw his tracks near the log, in a spot where the rain hadn't washed
them out," Elmer went on.
"Oh!" Jasper laughed, "I forgot that you showed us how different the
tracks of wildcats, raccoons, mink, possums, and muskrats were. I saw it
at the time, but just now they're all alike 'coons to me. But Elmer, I'm
going to study up on that subject. It seems to grip me more'n anything
else about the scout business, except p'raps that Injun picture writing.
I liked that; and me to be an artist. I can draw, if I can't excel in
other things."
"But when you get to drawing remember that every picture has got to tell
a story, so plain and simple that a child can read it. That's the beauty
of Indian picture writing. But look, fellows, what's ahead!"
Elmer pointed as he spoke, and the other scouts gave a hearty cheer.
"The road!" cried Larry.
"Now things look promising," Jasper observed; "and the walking will be
easier. But speaking of shoes, I suppose those scratches on mine will
prove my little yarn about the hollow log, when I tell it to the bunch.
If they try to make out I'm stretching things, you fellows have just got
to back me up."
"So long as you stick to facts we will," remarked Larry; "but take care
you don't go to calling it a bobcat, or a tiger. I'll throw up my hands
at that."
"A scout is truthful, even if it doesn't say anything about that in the
twelve articles we subscribe to," remarked Jasper, solemnly.
"Yes," Elmer broke in, "and now that Jasper knows it was only a 'coon
that had its den in that hollow log, he will never try to say it was a
wildcat; though if he wants he can declare he _thought_ at the time he
was being attacked by a panther."
"I somehow can't help thinking of that Matt Tubbs," Larry observed,
after they had been tramping along the road for half an hour or more,
and had covered nearly two miles of the five separating them from
Hickory Ridge.
"Yes," Elmer admitted, "I suppose there'll be more or less talk about
him to-night at the meeting. Now, if his crowd only went into this thing
the right way, what great times we could have competing with the
Fairfield troop! But as it is, as they find themselves debarred from
becoming affiliated with the regular Boy Scout organization, I'm afraid
Matt and his cronies will try to take it out on us, by giving us all the
trouble they can."
"Why, I wouldn't put anything past that mean chap," declared Jasper.
"It does seem as though Matt didn't have any redeeming qualities about
him," remarked Elmer, thoughtfully; "and yet, fellows, do you remember
that just one year ago when a house burned over at Fairfield, who was
it dashed recklessly into the building, when even the regular fire
laddies held back, and pulled an old woman out alive? Seems to me that
was Matt Tubbs, queer though it sounds."
"Right you are, Elmer," admitted Larry. "We all wondered about it at the
time, and were beginning to think Matt might be turning over a new leaf,
but the next time we met him he was just the same nasty scrapper as
ever."
"And you know," went on Jasper, "it turned out that the old woman was
his grandmother, and not a stranger."
"All the better," said Elmer, stoutly. "It proves that Matt must have
had some human feeling in that tough heart of his, to risk his life for
an old and infirm woman. But listen, fellows, I thought I heard somebody
shouting!"
The three scouts stood still, and strained their ears.
"Oh! help! help! won't somebody come to help us?" came a wailing cry, in
what seemed to be a woman's voice.
"Goodness gracious!" exclaimed Jasper, "somebody's in a peck of trouble
right around that bend in the road there!"
"Yes, and I remember there was a house along here somewhere," Larry
cried, as the three of them started on a sprint along the road.
When presently they turned the bend they came upon a scene that gave
them a severe shock. And even Jasper forgot all his recent thrilling
experiences in the warm impulse of his boyish heart to prove of some
assistance to those who seemed in such dire need of aid.
CHAPTER IV.
FIRST AID TO THE INJURED.
APPARENTLY the storm that had so lately passed over this section had
played particular havoc with the farm buildings. Perhaps, with the
queer, jumping movements known to cyclones, it had dipped down in this
one quarter much more severely than anywhere else near by.
At any rate, it had succeeded in partly demolishing a barn, scattered
several tons of fine hay--that year's crop--and upset things generally.
The first thing the scouts noticed after that one glance around at the
damage done by the gale, was that a little group of persons seemed to be
hovering over a certain spot.
"Somebody hurt by the storm!" Elmer called over his shoulder, for, being
a good runner, he had easily taken the lead--Jasper was not so very
strong, while Larry happened to be built much too stockily for a
sprinter.
Then the boys received another shock. One of those bending over had
straightened up, and proved to be a stout-looking boy, with a bold,
resolute face.
Perhaps Jasper may have been reminded of the old saying he had heard
quoted in his home many times: "Speak of an angel, and you'll feel his
wings;" only no one who knew Matt Tubbs would ever dream of comparing
that quarrelsome youth with a celestial visitor; in fact, their thoughts
would be more apt to go out in the other direction.
Two women were wringing their hands, and crying. A man lay upon the
ground, and his groans told that he was suffering considerable bodily
pain.
"Don't I wish Ted Burgoyne was along!" exclaimed Elmer involuntarily, as
he hurried toward the group.
The boy mentioned belonged to the Wolf Patrol. He seemed to possess a
natural fancy for surgery, and had long ago been dubbed Dr. Ted by his
mates. And in numerous instances had he proved that their confidence in
him was not misplaced.
That was why Elmer now felt keen regret because of a lost opportunity
for the young Boy Scout medicine man to show his skill at setting broken
bones, or binding up other injuries almost as well as any experienced
physician could have done.
Elmer himself had made it a point to know something about such things.
He had in the past lived a wild life out in the great Canada wilderness,
where men, and boys, too, find it necessary to depend upon themselves in
great emergencies.
Although he feared he might be somewhat clumsy, and certainly lacked the
natural talent Ted Burgoyne had always shown, the scout leader was only
too willing to do whatever lay in his power to alleviate suffering.
In another moment he was leaning over the stricken man, whom he now
recognized as a middle-aged farmer, Simon Kent by name. The women, wife
and daughter of the farmer, had looked up eagerly as Matt seemed to
speak of the coming of others on the scene. Then their faces grew blank
again with despair. For what could a trio of mere boys do, when a doctor
was needed so badly?
"Oh! Matt, find the horse if you can, and hurry to town for Dr. Cooper!
He couldn't have run very far away!" the older woman was saying,
doubtless referring to the horse, and not the well-known Hickory Ridge
physician.
"Please wait just a minute or so, and let me take a look at Mr. Kent,"
said Elmer, modestly. "I happen to know a little about these things, you
see, ma'am; and I've set more than one broken limb."
The women stopped wailing for a time, and watched the confident boy as
he carefully examined the groaning farmer.
"How did it happen?" asked Larry of Matt Tubbs, who apparently must be
some relative of the Kents, as the woman seemed to know him very well.
"Storm blew the roof off'n the barn, and he got caught. Any feller with
peepers in his head ought tuh see that," replied young Tubbs, between
whom and Larry there had always been bad blood.
Elmer looked up and smiled in the faces of the two frightened women. He
knew they needed encouragement, and that he could not do them a greater
benefit than to allay their fears.
"He has a broken arm," he said, reassuringly, "and I think a couple of
his ribs are fractured, Mrs. Kent; but besides that there are only a few
bruises, and they do not amount to much. Nothing very serious,
understand. Mr. Kent isn't going to die. But I guess he'd better have
the doctor here as soon as Matt can ride to town. I'll do what I can in
the meantime, ma'am."
Matt Tubbs had been watching what he did with apparently the greatest
curiosity. He was utterly ignorant himself about everything that
pertained to first aid to the injured, and perhaps never before had felt
so utterly insignificant as when he saw Elmer Chenowith go about the
duties of a doctor with such calm assurance.
Jasper had run off in obedience to a request from the scout leader, and
now returned with some cold water. When Elmer had dashed a little of
this in the face of the farmer, the injured man came to his senses. His
groans ceased, though they could see from the expression on his rugged
face that he was suffering severely.
"It's all right, Mr. Kent," Elmer hastened to say in that convincing way
of his, as the farmer looked at him inquiringly. "You've got a broken
arm, and perhaps a couple of your ribs are out of the running for a
while, but you'll pull through all to the good. I'm going to do what I
can while Matt rides off for Dr. Cooper."
"Oh! it's you, Elmer, is it?" said the man, faintly. "But how d'ye know
I ain't got my death in that wreck of my barn? I feel like I'd been
through a threshing machine; on'y my left arm is numb."
"I've had some experience with these things, Mr. Kent, up in Canada.
Besides, sir, we belong to the Boy Scouts movement, and one of the
things taught there is what we call 'first aid to the injured.' I could
set your arm all right, but since the doctor can get here soon, I'd
better leave it for him. He mightn't like my meddling too much with his
practice. Will you ask Matt to please find the horse, and start for
town?"
"Oh! I'm agoin', all right," said that worthy, arousing himself; for he
had been staring at Elmer all this while, and listening to what he said
about the obligations of the scouts in time of need, as though he might
be hearing something that astonished him.
He glanced back several times as he walked away to look for the horse,
that was doubtless in some corner of the lot beyond the demolished
barns.
"Got something to think over, I reckon," grunted Larry, who had closed
up like a clam when Matt answered his civil question so roughly.
Shortly afterward they heard a shout. Then Matt dashed past, riding
bareback on the horse, and using the halter to guide him along the road.
He went flying toward town, and they knew he would send the doctor
before a great while.
"Here, fellows, Mr. Kent ought to be carried into the house," said
Elmer, turning to his chums. "We've got to make a litter to lay him on.
Come over here with me, and we'll knock one together in a jiffy."
"Sure we will!" declared Larry, who had a warm heart, even though a bit
inclined to quarrel at times, being quick-tempered.
There was plenty of material lying around; the storm had seen to that
when it tore things loose on the Kent farm. And presently the scouts
came back with some boards forming a very fair litter. Elmer had covered
it with several horse blankets he discovered in the partly demolished
barn.
But the farmer was getting back his strength again. He shook his head at
sight of the litter, and a slight smile appeared on his face, much to
the joy of his sadly frightened wife and daughter.
"I reckon I ain't so bad off as to need that, Elmer," he remarked. "Now,
if so be ye boys draw around, and take care not to handle that left arm
too rough, p'raps I could manage to get up. Arter that, with some help,
I'll hobble to the house. Don't ye look so peaked, wife; I'm better'n
ten dead men yet."
They helped him to rise, and then, leaning on Elmer, with the others
following close behind, eager to assist, they made their way slowly to
the farm building.
"Oh! what would we have done only for the coming of you boys?" exclaimed
Mrs. Kent, after they had managed to get the wounded farmer seated
fairly comfortably in a big sleepy hollow chair.
Elmer was making a sling in which the broken arm could be held, to ease
the pain and the strain until Dr. Cooper's arrival.
"Does this scouting teach you boys how to do that sort of thing?" asked
the grown daughter, who had been watching these actions of the boys
curiously.
"It is one of the things we have to learn before we can hope to become
first-class scouts," the boy replied. "You see, no one can ever tell
when a scout may be called on to help bring back a person to life who
has been nearly drowned, or to keep another from bleeding to death after
being cut with an ax in camp; then besides, sometimes boys have to be
rescued when they get a cramp while in swimming. And when a fellow knows
how to go about these things, he may be able to help save a human life.
We think it worth while."
"I should say it was!" exclaimed Miss Kent, enthusiastically. "After
this I'm going to take more interest in boys than I have. I always
thought they were as much alike as peas in a pod; and perhaps I oughtn't
to say it, because he's in our family, but you see, I somehow judged all
boys by my Cousin Matt."
Elmer smiled.
"Well," he said, nodding, "I hope that when you come to look into this a
little closer, Miss Julia, you'll understand that it stands for big
things. My father says it's the greatest movement for the uplifting of
American boys that ever happened, barring none. And I'm going to send
you some printed matter that will tell you just what the Boy Scouts aim
to do. When you know that, I just guess you'll find reason to change
your opinion of boys."
Even the injured farmer had listened to what was said with a show of
interest.
"Sho! Elmer," he remarked, "I've heard a heap of this thing, and didn't
take much stock in it. Thought it meant the boys was goin' to be made
into soldiers, and as I'm a man of peace I couldn't stand for that. On'y
yesterday the dominie was tellin' me it ain't got a blessed thing to do
with military tactics. And arter the able way you handled yourself
to-day, blessed if I ain't agoin' to read the stuff you send Julie. If I
had a boy I'd like him to jine the scouts. And that's as far as I've
got. But if it makes the lads clean, manly, and ekal to emergencies,
like you seem to be, it's a boss thing."
And Elmer felt his heart glow with satisfaction, for his whole interest
was by now bound up in the success of the Hickory Ridge troop of scouts;
and anything that went to make them new friends appealed to him
strongly.
When half an hour had gone the sound of an automobile horn was heard out
on the road.
"There comes Dr. Cooper!" called Jasper, who had been on the lookout.
When the physician came bustling in he looked questioningly at the three
boys. Possibly Matt may have told him the scouts were meddling with
things, and his professional instincts were shocked. But when he saw
what Elmer had done, and made an examination himself, he declared that
the extent of Mr. Kent's injuries were just as the boy had stated.
"And I want to say, Elmer," he added, as the boys were about to hurry
away, "I believe in the first-aid-to-the-injured principle which you
boys try to live up to. If more people only kept their senses about them
in cases of accident, it would make easier work for the doctors, and
save lots of lives. Good luck to you, boys!"
"And we shall never be able to tell you how thankful we all are for your
coming, Elmer. The first time I meet your mother, I'm going to let her
know what a fine son she has," declared Miss Julia, as she and her
relieved mother shook hands with the three scouts at the door.
"I had two comrades, please remember, Miss Julia," said Elmer,
significantly; and taking the hint she repeated the words while bidding
Jasper and Larry good-by.
"Well," remarked Elmer, as he and his chums once more tramped along the
road, "I notice that you two fellows have your badges turned upside down
still, to remind you that so far to-day you've found no opportunity to
do anybody a good turn. As your scout master, I want to say that you
can't get them changed any too soon; for you've just been of the
greatest help to the Kent family!"
And both Larry and Jasper, making the usual scout salute, with the thumb
holding back the little finger of the right hand, proceeded to unfasten
their badges, and replace them right side up.
They had earned the privilege to wear them so for the balance of that
eventful day!
CHAPTER V.
THE MEETING IN THE OLD WAGON SHOP.
"ABOUT time to begin business, don't you think, Mark?" asked Elmer
Chenowith.
"Just about on the minute; and I've been counting noses, Mr.
Scout-master; there are eighteen fellows present--not a single gap in
the line," answered his chum.
"That's fine. We'll get our four new members through to-night, and have
two complete patrols, with a third well started. Suppose you sound the
assembly, Mark, and we'll close the doors. While the Hickory Ridge Troop
of Boy Scouts doesn't pretend to be a secret society, there's no reason
why we should have every Tom, Dick, and Harry gaping in at us, and
listening to all we say."
Elmer and his closest chum, Mark Cummings, were standing inside the old
abandoned wagon-maker's shop that for long years had been a landmark at
the crossroads just outside the town of Hickory Ridge.
Half a dozen and more lighted lanterns hanging from beams or the low
rafters dissipated the darkness of the cobwebby interior; for the once
busy shop had been deserted some years now.
A bustling, laughing, chattering crowd of half-grown boys occupied the
place; and all but four of them were clad in the customary olive drab
khaki uniform of the scouts, met with in every part of this wide
country, between the Pacific and the Atlantic, and from the Great Lakes
of the north to the Mexican Gulf on the south.
Mark carried a bugle at his side, and was quite a genius as a musician.
Indeed, there were few musical instruments he could not play; and when
in camp the boys looked to him to enliven the evenings around their fire
with bugle, banjo, or mandolin.
Another member of the troop was the official drummer; but as yet he had
not secured an instrument on which to sound the long roll. But they
lived in hopes of soon supplying this need, as there was good money in
the treasury.
When the sweet, clear notes of the bugle sounded the assembly call, the
chattering ceased. Obedience is one of the first principles inculcated
in the breast of a scout; and Elmer, as the president of the
association, had always insisted upon the meeting being conducted with a
fair amount of decorum.
First came the roll call, when it was found that every member was
present, showing that the meeting was deemed an especially important
one.
True, several of the boys looked a bit tired, notably Jasper, who had
hardly been able to get out of his chair after supper, and was obliged
to exert more than the ordinary amount of will power before he could
reach the place of meeting.
A little routine program was first of all gone through with, such as
marked each meeting of the troop--a song that was patriotic in its
character sung, with considerable vim, for there were some really good
voices present; after which the commendable trait of patriotism was
further carried along by a salute to the flag which stood at one end of
the dingy old wheelwright's shop, where all eyes could fall upon its
starry blue field and warm red stripes.
"I'm sorry to state," said Elmer, in opening the meeting, "that our
capable scout-master was unable to be with us to-night, as a sudden
business call took him to New York last night. So we'll have to conduct
the exercises without him. And as the most important part of our meeting
is the initiation of four new members who have lately expressed a desire
to unite with the Hickory Ridge Troop of Boy Scouts, it would be in
order for a motion that we proceed immediately to complete that
function."
"I move, Mr. President, we go about that business," suggested "Lil
Artha" Stansbury, who had curled his long legs under him, and managed to
sit down on a low stool he had found somewhere; the balance of the boys
being disposed of in all sorts of ways, some on worn wooden "horses,"
others on blocks of wood, makeshift benches, and even on the bare
ground.
"Thecond the motion!" cried Ted Burgoyne, who often lisped, though he
could never be convinced of the fact, and would everlastingly and
vehemently deny it when accused.
Of course it was quickly carried; and the usual ceremonies having been
gone through with, the four applicants were declared fairly elected
members of the organization. Phil Dale became Number Five and George
Robbins Number Six of the Wolf Patrol; while Henry Condit and "Landy"
Smith filled the vacant numbers of the Beaver Patrol.
"This makes our two patrols complete," remarked Elmer. "It also
increases our membership to eighteen. We need several more fellows of
the right sort, and if any of you happen to know of any candidates,
bring their names before the committee between now and the next regular
meeting. But they must be boys of good moral character, who promise to
make scouts worthy of the name."
"Hear! hear!" called out "Red" Huggins, grinning, as though he took this
as a personal compliment.
"We can now proceed with the regular business before us. The new
members will consult with Comrade Merriweather about their suits. But of
course they understand that every cent must have been earned before they
can wear the new clothes. That is one of the things we stand for--a
scout must be independent, and able to do things for himself. It tends
to make him manly and reliant."
"Mr. President," said the secretary, who was no other than the tall "Lil
Artha," "I would like to inform the members of Hickory Ridge Troop that
I have with me a collection of finished pictures, taken on our recent
camping trip at Lake Solitude. Some of them are rather interesting, and
will serve to revive pleasant, or unpleasant, memories. They can be seen
after the meeting closes. Please excuse me for not rising, Mr.
President. Fact is, I don't believe I could without help, for it seems
as if my lower extremities had become locked."
There were numerous snickers at this, for it was a failing of the
good-natured "Lil Artha" to get his long legs twisted in a knot; though,
when he once started running, he could cover the ground at an amazing
pace.
"I understand," remarked Matty Eggleston, the leader of the Beaver
Patrol, getting up so suddenly from the swaying bench upon which he had
been seated that it tilted the remaining three scouts backward, and
deposited them on the ground, to the amusement of the assemblage--"I
understand," he went on, not disturbed by the tragic occurrence, as the
boys scrambled up, and began to brush themselves off, "that several of
our number met with an interesting experience to-day while off on a
hike. The rest of us would like very much to hear an account of what
happened."
"Yes! yes! tell us the story, Mr. President! We all want to know!" came
from a dozen of the lads, in one breath.
Elmer smiled encouragingly.
"If some one puts that in the form of a motion, and it is carried,
perhaps between Comrades Larry, Jasper, and myself we might be able to
spin the little yarn," he remarked.
Needless to say the motion was carried unanimously.
"Mr. President," said Larry, who was Number Six of the Beavers, "I
suggest that you give your version of the little adventure. If
necessary, Jasper and myself can dip in, and add some touches to it from
time to time."
Nothing loath, for he had an object in letting the new recruits see what
splendid chances there were for _doing things_ in the scout
organization, both for themselves and others, the acting scout-master
started to tell how Larry and Jasper had conceived a laudable ambition
to test their knowledge of woodcraft, and started out with the idea of
putting it to the trial.
He pointed out their mistakes, and showed where they could have avoided
them. He commended their pluck, and as he described the storm in the big
timber more than a few of the listening boys fairly quivered with
excitement. In imagination they could almost hear the terrific thunder,
and see the giant trees swaying in the howling wind.
After Elmer had brought out a number of points that would serve as a
valuable lesson to the tenderfoot scouts, and which he wanted to sink
into their minds, he presently carried the story to the final stage by
telling about their arrival at the farmhouse, where they found the
family in great distress, and in need of help.
He made a particular point of telling how helpless Matt Tubbs had
seemed, simply because he had never been instructed in the principles of
"first aid to the injured"; and went on to show how very important it
was for every true scout to know what to do in an emergency where human
life was in peril.
When, finally, Elmer finished, there was a hearty cheer from the
assembled lads. A number of questions were asked, which either the
acting scout-master or one of his mates answered.
"But perhaps another time, comrades, Matt Tubbs may not feel so helpless
as he did to-day," Elmer went on to say. "The fever has reached
Fairfield, and we hear they are trying to organize a troop of scouts
there, with Matt at the head. Let us hope, fellows, that when the
Fairfield Troop becomes a fact, there may be a chance for the Hickory
Ridge boys to renew their old-time rivalry with the neighboring town.
For the rowdy spirit will have to give way to order and decency before
Matt Tubbs and his cronies ever find themselves accepted as Boy Scouts."
"They never will do it!" cried Ty Collins, who had been the chief cook
of the troop while in camp, and was known as one of the best athletes in
Hickory Ridge.
"That's what I was saying to Elmer," echoed Larry Billings.
"Oh! well, you never can tell," laughed the leader. "I sometimes think
none of us know just what Matt Tubbs might do, if once he took a notion
to turn over a new leaf."
"Oh! he's just a regular bully, and that's all there is about it!" cried
Nat Scott.
"I hope you won't say that again, Nat," remarked Elmer. "I know on the
face of things people around Hickory Ridge think that, because Matt
always started trouble when the two towns used to be rivals on the
gridiron and the diamond. But over in Fairfield, fellows, they're not
quite so sure about it. Perhaps all of you don't know that when a house
burned down, and the firemen were afraid to rush in to save an old and
infirm woman who was known to be inside, Matt Tubbs took his life in
his hands _and got her out_! It was his own grandmother, but that makes
no difference. I say that the fellow who would do that can't be all
wrong; that he must have a spark, and a pretty big one, too, of decency
in his make-up. Those are just the kind of fellows this scout movement
can help. And I believe that if once they _change about and face the
other way_, they're bound to make the best of scouts. Let's give Matt
Tubbs a fair and square chance to make good!"
Considerable talk followed. Some of the boys were farsighted enough to
grasp what Elmer believed so firmly. Others shook their heads in doubt.
They fancied they knew Matt Tubbs like a book. He was no coward, they
admitted such a fact, but as for him ever being able to subscribe to the
twelve cardinal principles of a scout, why it was absurd; impossible!
"Water will run up-hill before that miracle ever happens!" declared Toby
Jones, the boy who was forever dreaming about doing wonderful stunts
with a flying machine which he expected some day to invent.
"I have no particular use foh the gentleman, suh!" remarked Chatz
Maxfield, whose manners and ways of expressing himself easily betrayed
his Southern birth.
So the meeting progressed, and was finally brought to a conclusion. Then
there was considerable merriment as the scouts clustered about "Lil
Artha," the official photographer, as he passed around some scores of
splendidly executed prints. Quite a number of these were gems of art,
and represented natural scenery around the mountain lake where the camp
had been located. Others elicited roars of laughter, for Arthur had
snapped off some pictures that perpetuated scenes of a comical nature.
The boys were enjoying the treat heartily, laughing, bandying remarks,
poking fun at the victims who were now held up to public view, and
mingling with perfect freedom, as the meeting had been adjourned, when
something certainly not down on the bills came to pass.
It was as unexpected as a bolt of lightning from a clear sky. The
photographer of the troop was gathering his pictures together, and those
members who had kindly furnished the lanterns so that their temporary
meeting-place might be illuminated in a seemly manner, were starting to
secure their property, when, without any warning, there sounded a
tremendous crash.
"What's that?" cried half a dozen of the scouts, as they looked at one
another in dismay.
"I know!" shouted Jack Armitage, whose father owned the old smithy;
"we've been spied on by some sneak; and he fell down off that rotten
loft yonder. There he goes, fellows! After the spy!"
CHAPTER VI.
THE LITTLE RED BUTTON.
A SCENE of commotion immediately followed these startling words of Jack
Armitage. There was a rush for the exit, and in the confusion, just as
might have been expected, the scouts became wedged in the doorway, so
that there was a brief delay in gaining the open air.
Shouts outside presently told that some of the wiser ones had avoided
this combined rush, and sought the open air by the same means taken by
the unknown. They had just glimpsed some dim figure amid the cloud of
dust that followed the breaking down of the frail floor of the little
platform at the rear of the shop. It had vanished through some hole;
possibly a board or two had been previously loosened with the idea of a
hasty flight in case of discovery, to avoid unpleasant consequences.
Elmer and his chum, Mark Cummings, had not taken part in either the
crush at the door, or the swift passage through the rear opening.
"Well, what d'ye think of that?" demanded Mark, turning to his chum, as
the last of the jam at the door was broken, allowing the struggling
scouts a chance to get through.
Elmer was laughing.
"Some of those fellows will feel a little sore after that football
rush," he remarked; "you noticed that the wise ones chased after 'Lil
Artha.' He was quick to see that there would be a crush at the door, and
he went after the fellow, who lit out by the way of the back part of
the shop. Here, let's take a look and see."
Picking up a lantern, he led the way to where they discovered a hole in
the board wall of the place. Two of the shrunken boards had been lately
wrenched loose; a very easy task indeed, for the old place was pretty
near the point of ruin.
"Looks like he might have fixed it for use in case he wanted to vamoose
in a big hurry," said Mark, after they had examined the boards.
"Perhaps he did," Elmer remarked. "Did you get a look at the chap, Mark?
It just happened that some one stood between me and this part of the
shop, and
|
for one" is a
thing of the past.
The General Elections are dreadful times; nothing but canvassing goes
on night after night for weeks beforehand. Conversation is entirely
restricted to the coming event--if you mention a word about anything
apart from it, you are considered absolutely profane, and are treated
as a pariah for the next few days.
It is interesting, I admit, and the election day itself is positively
exciting. You cannot help catching the malady at times. I remember
once, when I was very little, and walking out with my governess,
tearing down a Liberal bill, in spite of all she said to the contrary.
True, it was on what she considered her own side, though I don't think
she knew enough to distinguish between the two; still her real
annoyance was occasioned more by the look of the thing. That a pupil
of hers should act in such a plebeian way, and in so public a place,
certainly must have been somewhat provoking? Anyhow, she gave me a bad
mark for disobedience, which affected me but little, as when I related
the story to my father later on he rewarded me with a shilling for my
prowess! Electioneering, you see, is not good for the morals!
How tired you get, too, of seeing the names of would-be members stuck
up all over the place. My brothers used to follow the Liberal
bill-sticker round, and as soon as he had turned his back pull the
placards down, or cover them up with their own. This was found out at
last, and the foe grew more cautious.
Then the extravagant promises made by the candidates, which they never
really intend to fulfil, and could not if they wished. It is like the
man in Church who, while singing--
"Were the whole realm of nature mine,
That were an offering far too small,"
was rubbing his finger along the rim of a threepenny bit to make sure
it was not a fourpenny!
On election days all mankind goes mad. Their excitement is so great
that they would scarcely know it did they forego their dinner. And
this, with men, proves an absorbing interest in the matter. Anything
placed above dinner, in their opinion, must be important indeed.
There is such a polite element abroad on polling day. Men are so
respectful and hurl such affectionate terms at one another. Even the
dogs are upset, and strut about in quite a different manner than on
ordinary days, so puffed out with vanity are they, on account of their
decorations. The members' wives and their friends are all taking part
in the scene too, bringing voters along in their carriages, and
shaking hands with everybody indiscriminately. I heard an old navvy
protesting once that "Lady ---- never troubled to shake 'ands with him
any other time, but was generally that 'orty she'd step over you as
soon as look at you."
Poor old men are dragged out _nolens volens_ to add their mite to the
public voice, and are sometimes so aged that they scarcely know what
their opinions are. I hope I shall not live to be very old. It is a
terrible thing when you make such a prolonged stay on this earth that
you have to be helped off it.
It is very curious too, how exceedingly disobliging old people are. I
know a family who have never worn anything brighter than grey for
years. "In case we have to go into mourning soon--our poor old aunt,
you know. It's so very sad!" and they squeeze a tear out from
somewhere, but whether on account of their relative's illness, or her
prolonged life, is open to opinion. The old lady is flourishing still,
and the family is as soberly clothed as ever. When she has been dead
a few months what rainbows they will become, to make up for lost time!
"A disappointing man," I have heard a dutiful nephew term his uncle.
True, he (the uncle, I mean) is ninety-four, and therefore old enough
to know better than to rally so many times. But after all, he does
nothing, runs into no danger, is tended as carefully as a new-born
baby; I should not at all wonder if he still continued "disappointing"
and took a new lease of life for seven years. But I am digressing, and
must return to politics.
I went to a Primrose meeting once and the experience was not so happy
as to make me wish to try it again.
It amused me, certainly. The conclusion I eventually arrived at, when
I left, was that the chief element in the Primrose League was
gratitude! This virtue seemed to be the point round which all the
speakers rallied.
First the secretary rose, ran off a quantity of statistics, as to what
had been done by the great League, what it was going to do, and how
many converts had been induced to join, which was exceedingly
uninteresting, I think, but which elicited loud applause from the rest
of the audience. Then some resolution was passed, at which if you
agreed you were begged "to signify the same in the usual way." After
which those who thought differently were asked to show their feelings
in the same fashion. I held my hand up here, but I suppose the ruling
councillor did not expect any opposition, for he never even looked
round to see, but gabbled off by rote, "On the contrary? carried
unanimously!" and my amiable attempt at running counter to the rest
was not even noticed!
Then the ruling councillor gave way to Mr. ---- (here a sickly smile
was directed at the great man), who had so very kindly come to speak
to us this evening, who would, he felt sure, quite enchant us with
his--er--great eloquence (another leer to his right).
The great man then came forward, and with a superior smile on his
countenance waited until the applause which greeted his entrance had
ceased, and then began. He commenced somewhat softly, detailing all
the advantages of the Primrose League: what it had done for England,
the fear it arouses in the heart of the Liberal faction, how it will
raise the country to a summit it never before has reached! No! and
never would have reached had it not been for this flourishing, this
powerful League! &c., &c., &c. His voice gradually grew louder and
louder until, with beating his hands on the table, stamping violently
over the sins of the Radicals, and perspiring vehemently in the
effort, he presented anything but a pleasing spectacle.
Of course animation like this brought down the house. The applause
nearly deafened me, and I was quite glad when he drew near the end of
his most tedious speech. He concluded by calming down very suddenly,
returned to his original tones, and thanking his audience for his
exceedingly kind reception, retired to his seat looking, as Mr.
Mantalini would say, a "dem'd damp, moist, unpleasant body."
Then up rose the ruling councillor, and called us all to pass a vote
of thanks to the "gifted orator." Someone seconded it, and the great
man came forward again to thank us for thanking him. A sort of "So
glad, I'm glad, you're glad" business, it seemed to me.
Then the ladies were thanked for being present: "Such great aids, and
such an _important_ element in the League," with a snigger, and what
he confidently hoped was a fascinating smile, but which made him
resemble a very placid cow with the corners of its mouth turned up.
Such a mouth, too! The poor man could have whispered in his own ear
had he wished. Then someone returned thanks for the ladies. The ruling
councillor was thanked, and thanked his thankers back again, and after
a few more people had exhibited their great faculty for gratitude the
meeting broke up--the only moment at which I felt inclined to applaud.
I do not wish to disparage my own "side" by the foregoing remarks, not
caring in any way to emulate Balaam. It is not only the members of the
Primrose League who are so anxious to praise each other. It is the
case at nearly every meeting you go to. It is a weakness of human
nature. We know that if we laud our friend he will sing an eulogy on
us the next minute, so it is only natural we should do it, after all.
"The fault is not in our stars,
But in ourselves, that we are underlings."
CHAPTER IV.
ON AFTERNOON TEA.
"The Muses' friend, Tea, does our fancy aid,
Repress the vapors which the head invade,
And keeps the palace of the soul serene."
How I do love tea! I don't deny it, it is as necessary to me as
smoking is to men.
I have heard a lady accused by her doctor of being a "tea-drunkard"!
"Tea picks you up for a little time," he said, "and you feel a great
deal better after you have had a cup. But it is a stimulant, the
effect of which does not last very long, and all the while it is
ruining your nerves and constitution. I daresay it is difficult to
give up--the poor man finds the same with his spirits. You are no
better than he!"
It is rather a come down, is it not? Somehow, when you are drinking
tea, you feel so very temperate. Well, at least, the above reflection
makes you sympathize with the inebriates, if it does nothing else;
and I am afraid it does nothing else with me. In spite of the warning,
I continue to take my favorite beverage as strong and as frequently as
ever, and so I suppose must look forward to a cranky nervous old age.
It is curious to notice how men are invading our precincts now-a-days.
They used to scoff at such a meal as afternoon tea, and now most of
them take it as regularly as they stream out of the trains on Saturday
afternoons with pink papers under their arms--such elevating
literature! Indeed there is quite a fuss if they have to go without
it--the tea I mean, not the paper.
It is strange too, because they dislike it so, if we trespass on their
preserves, _e.g._, their outcry on ladies smoking: which is
exceedingly unfair, for we have no equivalent for the fragrant weed.
Still I agree with the men in a way, for nothing looks worse than a
girl smoking in public, though a cigarette now and then with a brother
does, I think, no harm, provided it does not grow into a habit.
My brother once gave me a cigarette and bet me a shilling that I would
not smoke it through. It was so hard that if I had bent it, it would
have snapped in two. He had only just found it in a corner of a
cupboard where it had lain for years and years. But oh, the strength
of that cigarette! It took me hours to get through, for it would not
draw a bit. Nevertheless, with the incentive of a shilling to urge me
on, I continued "faint but pursuing" and eventually won the bet. I
would not do it again for ten times the amount.
But I should be talking about tea, not smoking; and tea has other
baneful influences besides destroying the digestion. I think that
afternoon tea is the time that breeds more gossip and scandal than
any other hour in the day.
As Young exclaims:--
"Tea! How I tremble at thy fatal stream!
As Lethe dreadful to the love of fame.
What devastations on thy bank are seen,
What shades of mighty names that once have been!
A hecatomb of characters supplies
Thy painted alters' daily sacrifice!"
Acquaintances drop in. They have all the latest doings of the
neighborhood at their fingers' ends, and in a quarter of an hour have
picked everyone of their most intimate friends to pieces, nor do they
leave them a shred of character.
Why do we feel such a relish in running down our friends and
relations--the latter especially? _I_ quite enjoy it, though I should
never do so outside my own family; thus my words never come round to
their ears. It is a necessity to relieve your feelings occasionally,
and your family is a good, safe receptacle.
For those who have a taste for speaking spitefully of their neighbors,
I can suggest an amusing game which was, I believe, started in Oxford.
It is called Photograph whist, and is played by four. Two or three
dozen photographs are dealt round, and each person plays one, he who
plays the ugliest portrait taking the trick. The more hideous the
photograph, the greater its value as a trump! I have played the game
with a man who always keeps his brother to the end, and then brings
him out with enormous success, the said brother never failing to
overtrump any other card in the pack! So you see it is a most amiable
game altogether. You must only be careful not to spread your doings
abroad, or no one will present you with their portraits ever again.
There is no sin so bad as being found out. You can say anything as
long as you are not discovered to be the originator. But if your words
against a person ever happen to get round to him or her (of course
added to, and made almost unrecognizable in their progress) you make
an enemy for life. At least, this is so as a rule. Personally, I never
care what people say against me, so long as it is not true. But if
they only keep to the truth, then it is aggravating. You cannot deny
it! You cannot "tremble with indignation, and fling the words back in
their faces," as the slandered heroine always does in the modern
novel. You must simply submit to the accusation.
A man I know was saying all round the place a little while ago, that
my sisters and I "were all good looking until we opened our mouths."
Of course we heard of it, and have never forgiven him for his "damning
praise." But it is true. We always admit the fact. We know we show our
teeth too much when we laugh and talk. It was impossible to disclaim
such a statement. If he had said that we squinted, not a syllable
would have been pronounced against him. Our eyes are all exceptionally
good, and would bear any detrimental remarks. But no, he kept to the
truth, and consequently has suffered ever since, for ways of revenge
have been found which were thoroughly successful. He is the ugliest
man I ever met too, and should therefore have been the last to offend.
In spite of the tea you are invariably given on such occasions, I
think calls--formal calls--are some of the most dreadful experiences
Mrs. Grundy obliges you to undergo. I dislike them immensely, and
always get out of them if possible. I hope servants do not afterwards
record the expression of my countenance when they tell me their
mistress is "out." It is radiant with an unholy joy!
These dreadful "at home" days, too, are so provoking. If you know a
dozen people in a neighborhood, you can only call on one at a time.
They all have different days! This may seem slightly impossible; but
it is not indeed. While one lady's house is open to visitors on the
first and third Wednesdays in the month, another is on view on the
second and fourth, and so on. Not two people agree!
Small talk, I think, is never so small as on these occasions. The poor
weather is thorougly worn out, a few mutual friends are picked to
pieces, and of course there is a discussion about dress. Sometimes you
hear some sad account of the lady's second cousin's daughter, and you
have immediately to clothe your countenance in a sober garb. You must
look grieved, and all the while not caring one straw if the cousin's
daughter has fits or gets insane, or anything else she cares to do.
You have never heard of her before, and therefore have not the
slightest interest in her eccentricities. I always feel so terribly
inclined to laugh, just because I ought to be doing the other thing.
People are so fond of talking about their troubles and griefs. The
greater the sorrow, the greater the discussion. They call up tears to
their eyes, as if the subject were too sacred to approach. But such
tears are kept for the purpose. They come at their bidding, and fall
as naturally into their place as if the exhibition had been practiced
beforehand. It is a positive enjoyment to such people to detail their
grievances.
With the lower classes, this, so to speak, gloating over your losses
is even more apparent. One comparatively well-to-do woman I know,
seems to have a monopoly of funerals. There is always some relation
dead, and off she goes with an important air, draped from head to foot
in black; the picture of "loathed melancholy" outwardly; inwardly,
glowing with pride; while all her neighbors stand outside their doors,
literally consumed with jealousy at her good fortune! And then the
terrible moment of her return, when you are obliged, whether you will
or not, to listen to the whole account, the description, the progress,
and finally the interment of "the corpse"! I hope, however dead I may
be one day, that I shall never be described as "a corpse"! There is
something so horrible in the word, I always think. It makes you even
more dead than you are. It cuts you so absolutely off from the living.
Then there are those tiresome people who talk of nothing but their
own families. The mother from whom you hear all the ailments of her
children if they are young, all the conquests of her daughters if they
are old. The sisters, to prevent the accusation of vanity, do not
praise themselves, but arrive at the same end by lauding up each
other! These "mutual admiration" families, as Wilkie Collins so aptly
terms them, are families to be shunned.
You do not very often come across men on these "at home" days. If they
are in the house, they wisely avoid the drawing-room; and if you ever
do meet one, he is sure to be a very milk-and-water young man--one who
delights in small talk and small matters; or else a curate.
I met one of the former class the other day. He was a dreadful
specimen! A large head, a bland smile, a vacant stare, and an enormous
capacity for eating!
He came and sat by me when I first arrived; but when he made a slip of
the tongue, and I brought it to his notice kindly, but firmly, he went
away and sulked for the rest of the afternoon.
He was talking about the recent muzzling order, and added, in quick
little tones, "They are talking about muzzling cats, I see."
"But cats do not bite," I objected.
"No," in mild surprise at my ignorance; "but they scratch."
"And do they intend to muzzle their paws?" I asked, smiling; adding a
suggestion that two pairs of goloshes apiece would answer the purpose
admirably, besides having the combined advantage of keeping the poor
things from rheumatism!
But he did not smile. He saw nothing funny in what he had said. He
thought I was laughing at him, and so left me at the very first
opportunity, and went and sat by himself at the tea table. I could not
very well see what he was doing, for his back was turned; howbeit it
was a very eloquent back--a back which appeared absorbed in bread and
butter and cakes! He must have cleared the table, I should think,
before he had finished!
It certainly is not nice to be caught up suddenly and made to appear
foolish. If you ever make a mistake, the best way is to confess it at
once, to tell the tale yourself. It sounds very different from your
lips than from those of your dearest friends. People laugh, but it is
a laugh that lacks the sting it would have if someone else told it at
your expense.
I remember making a woeful slip when I was taken over a cotton mill.
The man who was conducting us pointed to what looked like a heap of
dirty wool, and explained that it was the raw material. "And is that
just as it comes off the sheep's back?" I asked, unthinkingly. If a
thunderbolt had fallen in our midst the guide could not have been more
astonished. "Cotton, Miss!" he said, with grave surprise, "_Cotton_ is
a plant!" I inquired for no further information in that cotton mill,
but I told the story myself when I reached home, joining in the
laughter that followed as heartily as any of my audience.
Curates are more the rule than the exception at the five o'clock meal.
Somehow, you always connect the two. Afternoon tea without a curate
sounds an anomaly, a something incomplete.
I have had great experience in curates. Ours is a large parish, and
many clerical helps are needed. Large, small, nice, objectionable,
ugly, handsome--I have met specimens of each and all, and have come
to the conclusion that the last kind is the worst. How rarely do you
meet a good-looking man who thinks of anything but his appearance. It
is strange, for the more lovely a woman is the less apparently
conscious she is of her beauty. At any rate, she does not go about
with an expression which seems to say, "I am that which is 'a joy
forever'--admire me!"
The "pale young curate" type is perhaps the most general. This poor
thing is so depressingly shy--I say depressingly, because his shyness
affects his company. You try to draw him out. You ask question after
question, and have to supply the answers yourself, only obtaining, by
way of reward, despairing upward glances, that are by no means an
encouragement to proceed.
The most fatal effect of this shyness, however, lies in the fact that
he dare not get up to go! He sits toying with his hat, he picks up his
umbrella three or four times, and lets it drop again; finally,
starting up with a rush in the middle of a conversation, he hurries
out, shaking hands all round with everyone but his hostess!
Would it be a very heinous breach of etiquette, if after an hour and a
half of this curate's company, one should suggest diffidently that it
was time to go?
In strong contrast, there is the bold, dashing man, who only comes
when he knows all the daughters are at home, not so much because it
gives him pleasure to see them, as because he would not deprive them
of the pleasure of talking to him. He has a faith in himself that
removes mountains; no lady's heart can beat regularly in his presence,
according to his confident opinion.
So on the whole I do not think afternoon tea is so nice abroad as it
is at home. It is not so pleasant with many as with a chosen few. I am
selfish, I am afraid, but I must confess I enjoy mine most with the
sole company of a roaring fire, a very easy chair, and a novel!
CHAPTER V.
ON DRESS.
I do not know who was the originator of the remark, but it has often
been said, and is generally admitted, that women do not dress to
please the men, but to outdo one another.
I think just the same might be said of men in their turn. It is after
all this spirit of competition which helps to make the world go round.
It is innate in man, and woman too, to always try to outrun each
other.
With clothes it is undoubtedly the case. The ancient Briton must have
vied with his neighbor in different designs with the woad plant. An
unusual curve, an uncommon pattern, caused, I daresay, as much
excitement then as the fashions of our own day.
I often wonder how they will manage some points in the histories for
the coming generation. In most of these books you see illustrations
and descriptions of the dress of the period, the costume of the reign.
How, oh historians! can you show forth those of Victorian times? Fifty
years have passed already! There were four seasons in each of those
fifty years! Two hundred illustrations must be shown in order to give
a correct idea of the dress of the time! Perhaps it might be more
satisfactory to devote a volume exclusively to the subject.
If only we did not run on so quickly! We seem to get faster every
year. In a very little time, what we wear one day will be quite out of
date the next! When we arrive at this climax, there will be a sudden
convulsion of nature, I should think, and we shall return once more to
the more simple garb of the aborigines. What an amount of trouble it
would save us! No worrying because the dressmaker has not sent our
gowns home in time! No sending them back to be altered! No
dressmaker's or tailor's bills; or at the least, very small ones; for
"woad" could not ruin us _very_ much.
So on the whole it would be well perhaps if this revolution did occur.
Some such convulsion as geologists declare has already frequently
befallen our earth; and, as they prophesy, is shortly coming again.
I do not like talking to these scientific men. They make you feel so
infinitesimally small. They go back such a long, long way. They make
out that from the Creation (which by the way they do not admit, only
considering it another great change in the world springing from
natural causes), from the Creation until now, is the space of a moment
on the great clock of time, is a mere "parenthesis in eternity."
It is not nice to feel such a nonentity. What are our lives, our
little lives in comparison? We, who each consider ourselves the one
person upon the earth, the hero or heroine in the great drama: all the
rest mere by-characters. We do not care to be considered of such
little consequence; only puppets appearing on the stage for one moment
and taken off the next. We are like the clergyman in the small island
off the North of Scotland, who prayed for the inhabitants "of Great
Cumbray and Little Cumbray and the neighboring islands of Great
Britain and Ireland!" On our small piece of land, we yet consider
ourselves the centre of the universe.
It is to be hoped if this revolution occurs, after all, that the
climate will change likewise. We should require something more besides
blue paint in most of our English winters!
Perhaps we take too much thought for what we shall put on. They say
that nothing but the prevailing and forthcoming fashions fill the
feminine mind. It is true sometimes, I daresay, and yet I always agree
with our immortal bard in thinking that "Self-love is not so vile a
thing as self-neglect."
It is decidedly better to think too much than too little. It is a duty
to your country and your nation to look your best, no matter who is
likely to see you.
Of course it can be overdone, _e.g._, the lady who insisted on her
bonnet being trimmed on the right because that was the side presented
to the congregation! And she, I am afraid, is only a type of many.
There is no reason why this should be the rule; yet nearly everyone
seems to bring out their new clothes on Sunday, and exhibit them in
Church. I suppose it is because they meet so many friends there, and
with laudable unselfishness wish them all equally to enjoy the sight.
"What's the good of your going to church?" a man said to me once; "you
only go to show off your gown and look about to see who has a new
bonnet and who has not! Now, when _I_ go," he went on in a superior
way, "I don't notice a single thing anyone has on!"
"No," I answered quietly, "but you could tell me exactly how many
pretty girls were amongst the congregation, and describe their
features accurately!" And he not only forbore to deny the accusation,
but admitted it with pride! No girl, he assured me, with any pretence
to good looks, ever escaped _his_ notice.
Which was the worse, I wonder; he or I? At least I did not glory in my
misdeeds.
"_Il faut souffrir pour être belle_;" and I _have_ suffered sometimes.
How often I used to burn myself when I first began to curl my hair!
This is such an arduous task, too, with me, for my hair is, as my old
nurse used to call it, "like a yard o' pumpwater" (I never went to her
when I wanted a compliment). It certainly is straight, and I find it a
matter of great difficulty to give it the appearance of natural
curls. But "practice makes perfect," they say, so I still persevere,
hoping that it may come right some day. I have to be so careful in
damp and rainy weather. It is such a shock to look at yourself after a
day's outing, to find your "fringe" hanging in straight lines all down
your forehead, an arrangement that is so particularly unbecoming. You
begin to wonder at what time during the day it commenced to unbend,
and if you have had that melancholy, damp appearance many hours.
Perhaps it is as well that you did not know before, for it could not
have been rectified; you cannot bring a pair of tongs and a
spirit-lamp out of your pocket and begin operations in public! Still
it is exceedingly aggravating if you think you have been making an
impression, and you return home to confront such a dejected-looking
spectacle as you find in your mirror.
I am wandering again. Let me get back to my subject--Dress. To insure
a good fit you must have your gown so tight that it is impossible to
raise your arms. You are obliged to walk about stiffly, with all the
appearance of a trussed fowl. If you wish to put on your hat you must
first unbutton your bodice! It is particularly awkward, too, in
Church: you scarcely have the power to hold your book at seeing
distance. But what do such trifles matter? You look as if you had been
melted and poured into your gown. What are a few discomforts, more or
less, when you have procured an effect such as that?
I always like to look as tall as possible. Five feet four is not a
very great height; so, to give the appearance of another inch I have
my skirts made as long as possible; that is to say, they just don't
sweep the pavement, and that is all. But, oh! the trouble of that
extra inch! Unfortunately I have no carriage, my present pecuniary
condition does not permit me the luxury of hansoms, and I always avoid
an omnibus, where you have fat old men sitting nearly on the top of
you, wet umbrellas streaming on to your boots, squalling babies, and
disputes with the conductor continuing most of the way--not to speak
of the time you have to wait while so many roll by "full inside!" So
on muddy days, when I take my walks, the amount of distress I have to
undergo on account of the length of my gown is inconceivable. I grow
weary with holding it up, and have to stop in the middle of the street
to change hands, and when you have an umbrella as well, and sometimes
a small parcel besides, this performance is anything but a momentary
matter. You drop your gown, the umbrella changes hands, and the parcel
generally falls in the mud! While picking it up, four impatient, wet,
mackintoshed pedestrians knock against you, and go off uttering
imprecations on your head. And when you are once again comfortably
settled, your satisfaction does not last long. Your left hand tires as
soon as your right, and the scene has all to be acted over again.
There is a great deal of "_savoir faire_" in holding up. Your gown
must be high enough to quite clear the ground, but then comes the
danger of holding it too high. There has been no license yet granted
for the exhibition of ankles in the great metropolis either by Mrs.
Grundy or the County Councils; therefore "holding up" becomes a very
delicate performance.
Though we do not dress only to please the men, I always prefer their
criticisms on a costume to those of my own sex. You can never tell if
the latter speak the truth. They may be jealous, and run it down from
spite; they may want to gain something from you, and so call yours "a
perfection of a gown, and suits you admirably, my dear!" disliking it
exceedingly in their inmost hearts.
But a man never gives his approbation unless he really means what he
says, and he is not difficult to please as a rule. So long as the
costume is neat and well-fitting, he does not care about anything
else. It is the _tout ensemble_ he thinks of, not the thousand and one
details that go to make up the whole.
I wonder why so many men dislike large hats! It is a pity, for they
are so very becoming to some faces, and give a picturesque effect
altogether. Perhaps this last is a reason for their disapproval. They
never like their womankind to attract attention.
The most unpardonable sin one woman can commit against another, is to
copy her clothes and bring the style out as her own idea. It is
intensely irritating! If she admits she has copied or asks your leave
beforehand, it is a different matter. You are even gratified then,
for "imitation is the sincerest flattery." But to have your ideas
stolen and brought out in such a way as to convey the impression that
you are the imitator, to say the least, arouses murderous intentions
in your heart!
There are times, too, when you receive a shock to your vanity; times
when you are quite satisfied with your appearance, and find to your
dismay that everyone is not of the same opinion.
I remember once when I was dining out and feeling very pleased with my
_tout ensemble_, I was disillusioned in a way that not only upset my
self-confidence, but my gravity at the same time. To heighten the
general effect, I had stuck a patch near my mouth. (Oh, the minds of
the last century! From whose fertile brain did it emanate, I wonder,
the fact that a piece of black plaster on the face, should be so
eminently becoming!) Imagine my horror when the maid, an old servant I
knew very well, took me aside and whispered confidentially, "Oh, Miss!
you've got _such_ a big smut on your chin!"
Clothes are altogether a great nuisance, I think. How tired you get of
the regular routine of the morning toilet; always the same, never any
variety. Why are we not born, like dogs, with nice cosy rugs all over
us, so that we should just have to get out of bed in the morning,
shake ourselves, and be ready at once to go down to breakfast and do
the business of the day?
"Ah well! God knows what's best for us all," as an old charwoman said
to me, years ago, when she was remarking on how I had grown. I never
saw the application of the remark, and do not think I ever shall.
Whether my growth was a subject to deplore, and she tried to comfort
me, or not, I cannot say; but she was evidently proud of the remark,
for she repeated it three times!
CHAPTER VI.
ON CHRISTMAS.
It is such a prickly time. Not only everything but everybody is
positively bristling with prickles. Go where you will, you cannot
avoid these pointed, jagged edges. You come across them everywhere,
and have to suffer accordingly.
To begin with, there is the holly. Now you could not find anything
lovelier in the way of foliage than holly, only such a little
suffices. At Christmas time you are literally saturated with it. In
every house you enter, in everything you eat, at every step you take,
nothing but holly, holly, holly.
Then there are the Church decorations, begun generally a week
beforehand. All the ladies of the place assemble in the vestry,
attracted there by divers reasons. Some, by the desire to have a
finger in every pie; some, because it is an opportunity to meet the
curates; and some, but a very few, from real love of the work. I
cannot understand these latter, I must confess. It is the most
disagreeable work I have ever undertaken. Such
|
countries of the Land of Oz.
This fairyland is so big, however, that all of it is not yet known to
its girl Ruler, and it is said that in some far parts of the country, in
forests and mountain fastnesses, in hidden valleys and thick jungles,
are people and beasts that know as little about Ozma as she knows of
them. Still, these unknown subjects are not nearly so numerous as the
known inhabitants of Oz, who occupy all the countries near to the
Emerald City. Indeed, I’m sure it will not be long until all parts of
the fairyland of Oz are explored and their peoples made acquainted with
their Ruler, for in Ozma’s palace are several of her friends who are so
curious that they are constantly discovering new and extraordinary
places and inhabitants.
One of the most frequent discoverers of these hidden places in Oz is a
little Kansas girl named Dorothy, who is Ozma’s dearest friend and lives
in luxurious rooms in the Royal Palace. Dorothy is, indeed, a Princess
of Oz, but she does not like to be called a princess, and because she is
simple and sweet and does not pretend to be anything but an ordinary
little girl, she is called just “Dorothy” by everybody and is the most
popular person, next to Ozma, in all the Land of Oz.
[Illustration]
One morning Dorothy crossed the hall of the palace and knocked on the
door of another girl named Trot, also a guest and friend of Ozma. When
told to enter, Dorothy found that Trot had company, an old sailor-man
with one wooden leg and one meat leg, who was sitting by the open window
puffing smoke from a corn-cob pipe. This sailor-man was named Cap’n
Bill, and he had accompanied Trot to the Land of Oz and was her oldest
and most faithful comrade and friend. Dorothy liked Cap’n Bill, too, and
after she had greeted him, she said to Trot:
“You know, Ozma’s birthday is next month, and I’ve been wondering what I
can give her as a birthday present. She’s so good to us all that we
certainly ought to remember her birthday.”
“That’s true,” agreed Trot. “I’ve been wondering, too, what I could give
Ozma. It’s pretty hard to decide, ’cause she’s got already all she
wants, and as she’s a fairy and knows a lot about magic, she could
satisfy any wish.”
“I know,” returned Dorothy, “but that isn’t the point. It isn’t that
Ozma _needs_ anything, but that it will please her to know we’ve
remembered her birthday. But what shall we give her?”
Trot shook her head in despair.
“I’ve tried to think and I can’t,” she declared.
“It’s the same way with me,” said Dorothy.
“I know one thing that ’ud please her,” remarked Cap’n Bill, turning his
round face with its fringe of whiskers toward the two girls and staring
at them with his big, light-blue eyes wide open.
“What is it, Cap’n Bill?”
“It’s an Enchanted Flower,” said he. “It’s a pretty plant that stands in
a golden flower-pot an’ grows all sorts o’ flowers, one after another.
One minute a fine rose buds an’ blooms, an’ then a tulip, an’ next a
chrys—chrys—”
“—anthemum,” said Dorothy, helping him.
“That’s it; and next a dahlia, an’ then a daffydil, an’ on all through
the range o’ posies. Jus’ as soon as one fades away, another comes, of a
different sort, an’ the perfume from ’em is mighty snifty, an’ they
keeps bloomin’ night and day, year in an’ year out.”
“That’s wonderful!” exclaimed Dorothy. “I think Ozma would like it.”
“But where is the Magic Flower, and how can we get it?” asked Trot.
“Dun’no, zac’ly,” slowly replied Cap’n Bill. “The Glass Cat tol’ me
about it only yesterday, an’ said it was in some lonely place up at the
nor’east o’ here. The Glass Cat goes travelin’ all around Oz, you know,
an’ the little critter sees a lot o’ things no one else does.”
“That’s true,” said Dorothy, thoughtfully. “Northeast of here must be in
the Munchkin Country, and perhaps a good way off, so let’s ask the Glass
Cat to tell us how to get to the Magic Flower.”
So the two girls, with Cap’n Bill stumping along on his wooden leg after
them, went out into the garden, and after some time spent in searching,
they found the Glass Cat curled up in the sunshine beside a bush, fast
asleep.
[Illustration]
The Glass Cat is one of the most curious creatures in all Oz. It was
made by a famous magician named Dr. Pipt before Ozma had forbidden her
subjects to work magic. Dr. Pipt had made the Glass Cat to catch mice,
but the Cat refused to catch mice and was considered more curious than
useful.
This astonishing cat was made all of glass and was so clear and
transparent that you could see through it as easily as through a window.
In the top of its head, however, was a mass of delicate pink balls which
looked like jewels but were intended for brains. It had a heart made of
a blood-red ruby. The eyes were two large emeralds. But, aside from
these colors, all the rest of the animal was of clear glass, and it had
a spun-glass tail that was really beautiful.
“Here, wake up,” said Cap’n Bill. “We want to talk to you.”
Slowly the Glass Cat got upon its feet, yawned and then looked at the
three who stood before it.
“How dare you disturb me?” it asked in a peevish voice. “You ought to be
ashamed of yourselves.”
“Never mind that,” returned the Sailor. “Do you remember tellin’ me
yesterday ’bout a Magic Flower in a Gold Pot?”
“Do you think I’m a fool? Look at my brains—you can see ’em work. Of
course I remember!” said the cat.
“Well, where can we find it?”
“You can’t. It’s none of your business, anyhow. Go away and let me
sleep,” advised the Glass Cat.
“Now, see here,” said Dorothy; “we want the Magic Flower to give to Ozma
on her birthday. You’d be glad to please Ozma, wouldn’t you?”
“I’m not sure,” replied the creature. “Why should I want to please
anybody?”
[Illustration]
“You’ve got a heart, ’cause I can see it inside of you,” said Trot.
“Yes; it’s a pretty heart, and I’m fond of it,” said the cat, twisting
around to view its own body. “But it’s made from a ruby, and it’s hard
as nails.”
“Aren’t you good for _any_thing?” asked Trot.
“Yes, I’m pretty to look at, and that’s more than can be said of you,”
retorted the creature.
Trot laughed at this, and Dorothy, who understood the Glass Cat pretty
well, said soothingly:
“You are indeed beautiful, and if you can tell Cap’n Bill where to find
the Magic Flower, all the people in Oz will praise your cleverness. The
Flower will belong to Ozma, but everyone will know the Glass Cat
discovered it.”
This was the kind of praise the crystal creature liked.
“Well,” it said, while the pink brains rolled around, “I found the Magic
Flower way up in the north of the Munchkin Country where few people live
or ever go. There’s a river there that flows through a forest, and in
the middle of the river in the middle of the forest there is a small
island on which stands the gold pot in which grows the Magic Flower.”
“How did you get to the island?” asked Dorothy. “Glass cats can’t swim.”
“No, but I’m not afraid of water,” was the reply. “I just walked across
the river on the bottom.”
“Under the water?” exclaimed Trot.
The cat gave her a scornful look.
“How could I walk _over_ the water on the _bottom_ of the river? If you
were transparent, anyone could see _your_ brains were not working. But
I’m sure you could never find the place alone. It has always been hidden
from the Oz people.”
[Illustration]
“But you, with your fine pink brains, could find it again, I s’pose,”
remarked Dorothy.
“Yes; and if you want that Magic Flower for Ozma, I’ll go with you and
show you the way.”
“That’s lovely of you!” declared Dorothy. “Trot and Cap’n Bill will go
with you, for this is to be their birthday present to Ozma. While you’re
gone I’ll have to find something else to give her.”
“All right. Come on, then, Cap’n,” said the Glass Cat, starting to move
away.
“Wait a minute,” begged Trot. “How long will we be gone?”
“Oh, about a week.”
“Then I’ll put some things in a basket to take with us,” said the girl,
and ran into the palace to make her preparations for the journey.
[Illustration]
Ozma’s Birthday Presents
CHAPTER 6
When Cap’n Bill and Trot and the Glass Cat had started for the hidden
island in the far-off river to get the Magic Flower, Dorothy wondered
again what she could give Ozma on her birthday. She met the Patchwork
Girl and said:
“What are you going to give Ozma for a birthday present?”
“I’ve written a song for her,” answered the strange Patchwork Girl, who
went by the name of “Scraps,” and who, though stuffed with cotton, had a
fair assortment of mixed brains. “It’s a splendid song and the chorus
runs this way:
“I am crazy;
You’re a daisy,
Ozma dear;
I’m demented;
You’re contented,
Ozma dear;
I am patched and gay and glary;
You’re a sweet and lovely fairy;
May your birthdays all be happy,
Ozma dear!”
“How do you like it, Dorothy?” inquired the Patchwork Girl.
“Is it good poetry, Scraps?” asked Dorothy, doubtfully.
“It’s as good as any ordinary song,” was the reply. “I have given it a
dandy title, too. I shall call the song: ‘When Ozma Has a Birthday,
Everybody’s Sure to Be Gay, for She Cannot Help the Fact That She Was
Born.’”
“That’s a pretty long title, Scraps,” said Dorothy.
“That makes it stylish,” replied the Patchwork Girl, turning a
somersault and alighting on one stuffed foot. “Now-a-days the titles are
sometimes longer than the songs.”
[Illustration]
Dorothy left her and walked slowly toward the palace, where she met the
Tin Woodman just going up the front steps.
“What are you going to give Ozma on her birthday?” she asked.
“It’s a secret, but I’ll tell you,” replied the Tin Woodman, who was
Emperor of the Winkies. “I am having my people make Ozma a lovely girdle
set with beautiful tin nuggets. Each tin nugget will be surrounded by a
circle of emeralds, just to set it off to good advantage. The clasp of
the girdle will be pure tin! Won’t that be fine?”
“I’m sure she’ll like it,” said Dorothy. “Do you know what _I_ can give
her?”
“I haven’t the slightest idea, Dorothy. It took me three months to think
of my own present for Ozma.”
The girl walked thoughtfully around to the back of the palace, and
presently came upon the famous Scarecrow of Oz, who was having two of
the palace servants stuff his legs with fresh straw.
“What are you going to give Ozma on her birthday?” asked Dorothy.
“I want to surprise her,” answered the Scarecrow.
“I won’t tell,” promised Dorothy.
“Well, I’m having some straw slippers made for her—all straw, mind you,
and braided very artistically. Ozma has always admired my straw filling,
so I’m sure she’ll be pleased with these lovely straw slippers.”
“Ozma will be pleased with anything her loving friends give her,” said
the girl. “What _I’m_ worried about, Scarecrow, is what to give Ozma
that she hasn’t got already.”
“That’s what worried me, until I thought of the slippers,” said the
Scarecrow. “You’ll have to _think_, Dorothy; that’s the only way to get
a good idea. If I hadn’t such wonderful brains, I’d never have thought
of those straw foot-decorations.”
[Illustration]
Dorothy left him and went to her room, where she sat down and tried to
think hard. A Pink Kitten was curled up on the window-sill and Dorothy
asked her:
“What can I give Ozma for her birthday present?”
“Oh, give her some milk,” replied the Pink Kitten; “that’s the nicest
thing I know of.”
A fuzzy little black dog had squatted down at Dorothy’s feet and now
looked up at her with intelligent eyes.
“Tell me, Toto,” said the girl; “what would Ozma like best for a
birthday present?”
The little black dog wagged his tail.
“Your love,” said he. “Ozma wants to be loved more than anything else.”
“But I already love her, Toto!”
“Then tell her you love her twice as much as you ever did before.”
“That wouldn’t be true,” objected Dorothy, “for I’ve always loved her as
much as I could, and, really, Toto, I want to give Ozma some _present_,
’cause everyone else will give her a present.”
“Let me see,” said Toto. “How would it be to give her that useless Pink
Kitten?”
“No, Toto; that wouldn’t do.”
“Then six kisses.”
“No; that’s no present.”
“Well, I guess you’ll have to figure it out for yourself, Dorothy,” said
the little dog. “To _my_ notion you’re more particular than Ozma will
be.”
Dorothy decided that if anyone could help her it would be Glinda the
Good, the wonderful Sorceress of Oz who was Ozma’s faithful subject and
friend. But Glinda’s castle was in the Quadling Country and quite a
journey from the Emerald City.
[Illustration]
So the little girl went to Ozma and asked permission to use the Wooden
Sawhorse and the royal Red Wagon to pay a visit to Glinda, and the girl
Ruler kissed Princess Dorothy and graciously granted permission.
The Wooden Sawhorse was one of the most remarkable creatures in Oz. Its
body was a small log and its legs were limbs of trees stuck in the body.
Its eyes were knots, its mouth was sawed in the end of the log and its
ears were two chips. A small branch had been left at the rear end of the
log to serve as a tail.
Ozma herself, during one of her early adventures, had brought this
wooden horse to life, and so she was much attached to the queer animal
and had shod the bottoms of its wooden legs with plates of gold so they
would not wear out. The sawhorse was a swift and willing traveler, and
though it could talk if need arose, it seldom said anything unless
spoken to. When the Sawhorse was harnessed to the Red Wagon there were
no reins to guide him because all that was needed was to tell him where
to go.
Dorothy now told him to go to Glinda’s Castle and the Sawhorse carried
her there with marvelous speed.
“Glinda,” said Dorothy, when she had been greeted by the Sorceress, who
was tall and stately, with handsome and dignified features and dressed
in a splendid and becoming gown, “what are you going to give Ozma for a
birthday present?”
The Sorceress smiled and answered:
“Come into my patio and I will show you.”
[Illustration]
So they entered a place that was surrounded by the wings of the great
castle but had no roof, and was filled with flowers and fountains and
exquisite statuary and many settees and chairs of polished marble or
filigree gold. Here there were gathered fifty beautiful young girls,
Glinda’s handmaids, who had been selected from all parts of the Land of
Oz on account of their wit and beauty and sweet dispositions. It was a
great honor to be made one of Glinda’s handmaidens.
When Dorothy followed the Sorceress into this delightful patio all the
fifty girls were busily weaving, and their shuttles were filled with a
sparkling green spun glass such as the little girl had never seen
before.
“What is it, Glinda?” she asked.
“One of my recent discoveries,” explained the Sorceress. “I have found a
way to make threads from emeralds, by softening the stones and then
spinning them into long, silken strands. With these emerald threads we
are weaving cloth to make Ozma a splendid court gown for her birthday.
You will notice that the threads have all the beautiful glitter and
luster of the emeralds from which they are made, and so Ozma’s new dress
will be the most magnificent the world has ever seen, and quite fitting
for our lovely Ruler of the Fairyland of Oz.”
Dorothy’s eyes were fairly dazed by the brilliance of the emerald cloth,
some of which the girls had already woven.
“I’ve never seen _any_thing so beautiful!” she said, with a sigh. “But
tell me, Glinda, what can _I_ give our lovely Ozma on her birthday?”
The good Sorceress considered this question for a long time before she
replied. Finally she said:
“Of course there will be a grand feast at the Royal Palace on Ozma’s
birthday, and all our friends will be present. So I suggest that you
make a fine big birthday cake for Ozma, and surround it with candles.”
“Oh, just a _cake_!” exclaimed Dorothy, in disappointment.
“Nothing is nicer for a birthday,” said the Sorceress.
“How many candles should there be on the cake?” asked the girl.
“Just a row of them,” replied Glinda, “for no one knows how old Ozma is,
although she appears to us to be just a young girl—as fresh and fair as
if she had lived but a few years.”
“A cake doesn’t seem like much of a present,” Dorothy asserted.
“Make it a surprise cake,” suggested the Sorceress. “Don’t you remember
the four and twenty blackbirds that were baked in a pie? Well, you need
not use live blackbirds in your cake, but you could have some surprise
of a different sort.”
“Like what?” questioned Dorothy, eagerly.
“If I told you, it wouldn’t be _your_ present to Ozma, but _mine_,”
answered the Sorceress, with a smile. “Think it over, my dear, and I am
sure you can originate a surprise that will add greatly to the joy and
merriment of Ozma’s birthday banquet.”
Dorothy thanked her friend and entered the Red Wagon and told the
Sawhorse to take her back home to the palace in the Emerald City.
On the way she thought the matter over seriously of making a surprise
birthday cake and finally decided what to do.
As soon as she reached home, she went to the Wizard of Oz, who had a
room fitted up in one of the high towers of the palace, where he studied
magic so as to be able to perform such wizardry as Ozma commanded him to
do for the welfare of her subjects.
The Wizard and Dorothy were firm friends and had enjoyed many strange
adventures together. He was a little man with a bald head and sharp eyes
and a round, jolly face, and because he was neither haughty nor proud he
had become a great favorite with the Oz people.
“Wizard,” said Dorothy, “I want you to help me fix up a present for
Ozma’s birthday.”
“I’ll be glad to do anything for you and for Ozma,” he answered. “What’s
on your mind, Dorothy?”
“I’m going to make a great cake, with frosting and candles, and all
that, you know.”
“Very good,” said the Wizard.
“In the center of this cake I’m going to leave a hollow place, with just
a roof of the frosting over it,” continued the girl.
[Illustration]
“Very good,” repeated the Wizard, nodding his bald head.
“In that hollow place,” said Dorothy, “I want to hide a lot of monkeys
about three inches high, and after the cake is placed on the banquet
table, I want the monkeys to break through the frosting and dance around
on the table-cloth. Then, I want each monkey to cut out a piece of cake
and hand it to a guest.”
“Mercy me!” cried the little Wizard, as he chuckled with laughter. “Is
that _all_ you want, Dorothy?”
“Almost,” said she. “Can you think of anything more the little monkeys
can do, Wizard?”
“Not just now,” he replied. “But where will you get such tiny monkeys?”
“That’s where you’re to help me,” said Dorothy. “In some of those wild
forests in the Gillikin Country are lots of monkeys.”
“Big ones,” said the Wizard.
“Well, you and I will go there, and we’ll get some of the big monkeys,
and you will make them small—just three inches high—by means of your
magic, and we’ll put the little monkeys all in a basket and bring them
home with us. Then you’ll train them to dance—up here in your room,
where no one can see them—and on Ozma’s birthday we’ll put ’em into the
cake and they’ll know by that time just what to do.”
The Wizard looked at Dorothy with admiring approval, and chuckled again.
“That’s really clever, my dear,” he said, “and I see no reason why we
can’t do it, just the way you say, if only we can get the wild monkeys
to agree to it.”
“Do you think they’ll object?” asked the girl.
“Yes; but perhaps we can argue them into it. Anyhow, it’s worth trying,
and I’ll help you if you’ll agree to let this Surprise Cake be a present
to Ozma from you and me together. I’ve been wondering what _I_ could
give Ozma, and as I’ve got to train the monkeys as well as make them
small, I think you ought to make me your partner.”
“Of course,” said Dorothy; “I’ll be glad to do so.”
“Then, it’s a bargain,” declared the Wizard. “We must go to seek those
monkeys at once, however, for it will take time to train them and we’ll
have to travel a good way to the Gillikin forests where they live.”
“I’m ready to go any time,” agreed Dorothy. “Shall we ask Ozma to let us
take the Sawhorse?”
The Wizard did not answer that at once. He took time to think of the
suggestion.
“No,” he answered at length, “the Red Wagon couldn’t get through the
thick forests and there’s some danger to us in going into the wild
places to search for monkeys. So I propose we take the Cowardly Lion and
the Hungry Tiger. We can ride on their backs as well as in the Red
Wagon, and if there is danger to us from other beasts, these two
friendly champions will protect us from all harm.”
“That’s a splendid idea!” exclaimed Dorothy. “Let’s go now and ask the
Hungry Tiger and the Cowardly Lion if they will help us. Shall we ask
Ozma if we can go?”
“I think not,” said the Wizard, getting his hat and his black bag of
magic tools. “This is to be a surprise for her birthday, and so she
mustn’t know where we’re going. We’ll just leave word, in case Ozma
inquires for us, that we’ll be back in a few days.”
[Illustration]
The Forest of Gugu
CHAPTER 7
In the central western part of the Gillikin Country is a great tangle of
trees called Gugu Forest. It is the biggest forest in all Oz and
stretches miles and miles in every direction—north, south, east and
west. Adjoining it on the east side is a range of rugged mountains
covered with underbrush and small twisted trees. You can find this place
by looking at the Map of the Land of Oz.
Gugu Forest is the home of most of the wild beasts that inhabit Oz.
These are seldom disturbed in their leafy haunts because there is no
reason why Oz people should go there, except on rare occasions, and most
parts of the forest have never been seen by any eyes but the eyes of the
beasts who make their home there. The biggest beasts inhabit the great
forest, while the smaller ones live mostly in the mountain underbrush at
the east.
Now, you must know that there are laws in the forests, as well as in
every other place, and these laws are made by the beasts themselves, and
are necessary to keep them from fighting and tearing one another to
pieces. In Gugu Forest there is a King—an enormous yellow leopard called
“Gugu”—after whom the forest is named. And this King has three other
beasts to advise him in keeping the laws and maintaining order—Bru the
Bear, Loo the Unicorn and Rango the Gray Ape—who are known as the King’s
Counselors. All these are fierce and ferocious beasts, and hold their
high offices because they are more intelligent and more feared than
their fellows.
Since Oz became a fairyland, no man, woman or child ever dies in that
land nor is anyone ever sick. Likewise the beasts of the forests never
die, so that long years add to their cunning and wisdom, as well as to
their size and strength. It is possible for beasts—or even people—to be
destroyed, but the task is so difficult that it is seldom attempted.
Because it is free from sickness and death is one reason why Oz is a
fairyland, but it is doubtful whether those who come to Oz from the
outside world, as Dorothy and Button-Bright and Trot and Cap’n Bill and
the Wizard did, will live forever or cannot be injured. Even Ozma is not
sure about this, and so the guests of Ozma from other lands are always
carefully protected from any danger, so as to be on the safe side.
In spite of the laws of the forests there are often fights among the
beasts; some of them have lost an eye or an ear or even had a leg torn
off. The King and the King’s Counselors always punish those who start a
fight, but so fierce is the nature of some beasts that they will at
times fight in spite of laws and punishment.
Over this vast, wild Forest of Gugu flew two eagles, one morning, and
near the center of the jungle the eagles alighted on a branch of a tall
tree.
“Here is the place for us to begin our work,” said one, who was Ruggedo,
the Nome.
“Do many beasts live here?” asked Kiki Aru, the other eagle.
“The forest is full of them,” said the Nome. “There are enough beasts
right here to enable us to conquer the people of Oz, if we can get them
to consent to join us. To do that, we must go among them and tell them
our plans, so we must now decide on what shapes we had better assume
while in the forest.”
“I suppose we must take the shapes of beasts?” said Kiki.
“Of course. But that requires some thought. All kinds of beasts live
here, and a yellow leopard is King. If we become leopards, the King will
be jealous of us. If we take the forms of some of the other beasts, we
shall not command proper respect.”
“I wonder if the beasts will attack us?” asked Kiki.
“I’m a Nome, and immortal, so nothing can hurt me,” replied Ruggedo.
“I was born in the Land of Oz, so nothing can hurt me,” said Kiki.
“But, in order to carry out our plans, we must win the favor of all the
animals of the forest.”
“Then what shall we do?” asked Kiki.
“Let us mix the shapes of several beasts, so we will not look like any
one of them,” proposed the wily old Nome. “Let us have the heads of
lions, the bodies of monkeys, the wings of eagles and the tails of wild
asses, with knobs of gold on the end of them instead of bunches of
hair.”
“Won’t that make a queer combination?” inquired Kiki.
“The queerer the better,” declared Ruggedo.
“All right,” said Kiki. “You stay here, and I’ll fly away to another
tree and transform us both, and then we’ll climb down our trees and meet
in the forest.”
“No,” said the Nome, “we mustn’t separate. You must transform us while
we are together.”
“I won’t do that,” asserted Kiki, firmly. “You’re trying to get my
secret, and I won’t let you.”
The eyes of the other eagle flashed angrily, but Ruggedo did not dare
insist. If he offended this boy, he might have to remain an eagle always
and he wouldn’t like that. Some day he hoped to be able to learn the
secret word of the magical transformations, but just now he must let
Kiki have his own way.
“All right,” he said gruffly; “do as you please.”
So Kiki flew to a tree that was far enough distant so that Ruggedo could
not overhear him and said: “I want Ruggedo, the Nome, and myself to have
the heads of lions, the bodies of monkeys, the wings of eagles and the
tails of wild asses, with knobs of gold on the ends of them instead of
bunches of hair—Pyrzqxgl!”
He pronounced the magic word in the proper manner and at once his form
changed to the one he had described. He spread his eagle’s wings and
finding they were strong enough to support his monkey body and lion head
he flew swiftly to the tree where he had left Ruggedo. The Nome was also
transformed and was climbing down the tree because the branches all
around him were so thickly entwined that there was no room between them
to fly.
Kiki quickly joined his comrade and it did not take them long to reach
the ground.
The Li-Mon-Eags Make Trouble
CHAPTER 8
There had been trouble in the Forest of Gugu that morning. Chipo the
Wild Boar had bitten the tail off Arx the Giraffe while the latter had
his head among the leaves of a tree, eating his breakfast. Arx kicked
with his heels and struck Tirrip, the great Kangaroo, who had a new baby
in her pouch. Tirrip knew it was the Wild Boar’s fault, so she knocked
him over with one powerful blow and then ran away to escape Chipo’s
sharp tusks. In the chase that followed a giant porcupine stuck fifty
sharp quills into the Boar and a chimpanzee in a tree threw a cocoanut
at the porcupine that jammed its head into its body.
All this was against the Laws of the Forest, and when the excitement was
over, Gugu the Leopard King called his royal Counselors together to
decide how best to punish the offenders.
The four lords of the forest were holding solemn council in a small
clearing when they saw two strange beasts approaching them—beasts the
like of which they had never seen before.
Not one of the four, however, relaxed his dignity or showed by a
movement that he was startled. The great Leopard crouched at full length
upon a fallen tree-trunk. Bru the Bear sat on his haunches before the
King; Rango the Gray Ape stood with his muscular arms folded, and Loo
the Unicorn reclined, much as a horse does, between his
fellow-councillors. With one consent they remained silent, eyeing with
steadfast looks the intruders, who were making their way into their
forest domain.
“Well met, Brothers!” said one of the strange beasts, coming to a halt
beside the group, while his comrade with hesitation lagged behind.
“We are not brothers,” returned the Gray Ape, sternly. “Who are you, and
how came you in the forest of Gugu?”
[Illustration]
“We are two Li-Mon-Eags,” said Ruggedo, inventing the name. “Our home is
in Sky Island, and we have come to earth to warn the forest beasts that
the people of Oz are about to make war upon them and enslave them, so
that they will become beasts of burden forever after and obey only the
will of their two-legged masters.”
A low roar of anger arose from the Council of Beasts.
“_Who’s_ going to do that?” asked Loo the Unicorn, in a high, squeaky
voice, at the same time rising to his feet.
“The people of Oz,” said Ruggedo.
“But what will _we_ be doing?” inquired the Unicorn.
“That’s what I’ve come to talk to you about.”
“You needn’t talk! We’ll fight the Oz people!” screamed the Unicorn.
“We’ll smash ’em; we’ll trample ’em; we’ll gore ’em; we’ll—”
“Silence!” growled Gugu the King, and Loo obeyed, although still
trembling with wrath. The cold, steady gaze of the Leopard wandered over
the two strange beasts. “The people of Oz,” said he, “have not been our
friends; they have not been our enemies. They have let us alone, and we
have let them alone. There is no reason for war between us. They have no
slaves. They could not use us as slaves if they should conquer us. I
think you are telling us lies, you strange Li-Mon-Eag—you mixed-up beast
who are neither one thing nor another.”
“Oh, on my word, it’s the truth!” protested the Nome in the beast’s
shape. “I wouldn’t lie for the world; I—”
“Silence!” again growled Gugu the King; and, somehow, even Ruggedo was
abashed and obeyed the edict.
“What do you say, Bru?” asked the king, turning to the great Bear, who
had until now said nothing.
“How does the Mixed Beast know that what he says is true?” asked the
Bear.
“Why, I can fly, you know, having the wings of an Eagle,” explained the
Nome. “I and my comrade yonder,” turning to Kiki, “flew to a grove in
Oz, and there we heard the people telling how they will make many ropes
to snare you beasts, and then they will surround this forest, and all
other forests, and make you prisoners. So we came here to warn you, for
being beasts ourselves, although we live in the sky, we are your
friends.”
The Leopard’s lip curled and showed his enormous teeth, sharp as
needles. He turned to the Gray Ape.
“What do _you_ think, Rango?” he asked.
“Send these mixed beasts away, your Majesty,” replied the Gray Ape.
“They are mischief-makers.”
“Don’t do that—don’t do that!” cried the Unicorn, nervously. “The
stranger said he would tell us what to do. Let him tell us, then. Are we
fools, not to heed a warning?”
Gugu the King turned to Ruggedo.
“Speak, Stranger,” he commanded.
“Well,” said the Nome, “it’s this way: The Land of Oz is a fine country.
The people of Oz have many good things—houses with soft beds, all sorts
of nice-tasting food, pretty clothes, lovely jewels, and many other
things that beasts know nothing of. Here in the dark forests the poor
beasts have hard work to get enough to eat and to find a bed to rest in.
But the beasts are better than the people, and why should they not have
all the good things the people have? So I propose that before the Oz
people have the time to make all those ropes to snare you with, that all
we beasts get together and march against the Oz people and capture them.
Then the beasts will become the masters and the people their slaves.”
“What good would that do us?” asked Bru the Bear.
“It would save you from slavery, for one thing, and you could enjoy all
the fine things the Oz people have.”
“Beasts wouldn’t know what to do with the things people use,” said the
Gray Ape.
“But this is only part of my plan,” insisted the Nome. “Listen to the
rest of it. We two Li-Mon-Eags are powerful magicians. When you have
conquered the Oz people we will transform them all into beasts, and send
them to the forests to live, and we will transform all the beasts into
people, so they can enjoy all the wonderful delights of the Emerald
City.”
For a moment no beast spoke. Then the King said: “Prove
|
in order the whole
mass of material for this history, and without her constant help and
watchful criticism, its completion would have been impossible.
[Illustration: H. G. Wells]
SCHEME OF CONTENTS
BOOK I
THE MAKING OF OUR WORLD
PAGE
CHAPTER I. THE EARTH IN SPACE AND TIME 3
CHAPTER II. THE RECORD OF THE ROCKS
§ 1. The first living things 7
§ 2. How old is the world? 13
CHAPTER III. NATURAL SELECTION AND THE CHANGES OF SPECIES 16
CHAPTER IV. THE INVASION OF THE DRY LAND BY LIFE
§ 1. Life and water 23
§ 2. The earliest animals 25
CHAPTER V. CHANGES IN THE WORLD’S CLIMATE
§ 1. Why life must change continually 29
§ 2. The sun a steadfast star 34
§ 3. Changes from within the earth 35
§ 4. Life may control change 36
CHAPTER VI. THE AGE OF REPTILES
§ 1. The age of lowland life 38
§ 2. Flying dragons 43
§ 3. The first birds 43
§ 4. An age of hardship and death 44
§ 5. The first appearance of fur and feathers 47
CHAPTER VII. THE AGE OF MAMMALS
§ 1. A new age of life 51
§ 2. Tradition comes into the world 52
§ 3. An age of brain growth 56
§ 4. The world grows hard again 57
§ 5. Chronology of the Ice Age 59
BOOK II
THE MAKING OF MEN
CHAPTER VIII. THE ANCESTRY OF MAN
§ 1. Man descended from a walking ape 62
§ 2. First traces of man-like creatures 68
§ 3. The Heidelberg sub-man 69
§ 4. The Piltdown sub-man 70
§ 5. The riddle of the Piltdown remains 72
CHAPTER IX. THE NEANDERTHAL MEN, AN EXTINCT RACE. (THE
EARLY PALÆOLITHIC AGE)
§ 1. The world 50,000 years ago 75
§ 2. The daily life of the first men 79
§ 3. The last Palæolithic men 84
CHAPTER X. THE LATER POSTGLACIAL PALÆOLITHIC MEN, THE FIRST
TRUE MEN. (LATER PALÆOLITHIC AGE)
§ 1. The coming of men like ourselves 86
§ 2. Subdivision of the Later Palæolithic 95
§ 3. The earliest true men were clever savages 98
§ 4. Hunters give place to herdsmen 101
§ 5. No sub-men in America 102
CHAPTER XI. NEOLITHIC MAN IN EUROPE
§ 1. The age of cultivation begins 104
§ 2. Where did the Neolithic culture arise? 108
§ 3. Everyday Neolithic life 109
§ 4. How did sowing begin? 116
§ 5. Primitive trade 118
§ 6. The flooding of the Mediterranean Valley 118
CHAPTER XII. EARLY THOUGHT
§ 1. Primitive philosophy 122
§ 2. The Old Man in religion 125
§ 3. Fear and hope in religion 126
§ 4. Stars and seasons 127
§ 5. Story-telling and myth-making 129
§ 6. Complex origins of religion 130
CHAPTER XIII. THE RACES OF MANKIND
§ 1. Is mankind still differentiating? 136
§ 2. The main races of mankind 140
§ 3. Was there an Alpine race? 142
§ 4. The Heliolithic culture of the Brunet peoples 146
§ 5. How existing races may be related to each other 148
CHAPTER XIV. THE LANGUAGES OF MANKIND
§ 1. No one primitive language 150
§ 2. The Aryan languages 151
§ 3. The Semitic languages 153
§ 4. The Hamitic languages 154
§ 5. The Ural-Altaic languages 156
§ 6. The Chinese languages 157
§ 7. Other language groups 157
§ 8. Submerged and lost languages 161
§ 9. How languages may be related 163
BOOK III
THE DAWN OF HISTORY
CHAPTER XV. THE ARYAN-SPEAKING PEOPLES IN PREHISTORIC TIMES
§ 1. The spreading of the Aryan-speakers 167
§ 2. Primitive Aryan life 169
§ 3. Early Aryan daily life 176
CHAPTER XVI. THE FIRST CIVILIZATIONS
§ 1. Early cities and early nomads 183
§ 2A. The riddle of the Sumerians 188
§ 2B. The empire of Sargon the First 191
§ 2C. The empire of Hammurabi 191
§ 2D. The Assyrians and their empire 192
§ 2E. The Chaldean empire 194
§ 3. The early history of Egypt 195
§ 4. The early civilization of India 201
§ 5. The early history of China 201
§ 6. While the civilizations were growing 206
CHAPTER XVII. SEA PEOPLES AND TRADING PEOPLES
§ 1. The earliest ships and sailors 209
§ 2. The Ægean cities before history 213
§ 3. The first voyages of exploration 217
§ 4. Early traders 218
§ 5. Early travellers 220
CHAPTER XVIII. WRITING
§ 1. Picture writing 223
§ 2. Syllable writing 227
§ 3. Alphabet writing 228
§ 4. The place of writing in human life 229
CHAPTER XIX. GODS AND STARS, PRIESTS AND KINGS
§ 1. Nomadic and settled religion 232
§ 2. The priest comes into history 234
§ 3. Priests and the stars 238
§ 4. Priests and the dawn of learning 240
§ 5. King against priests 241
§ 6. How Bel-Marduk struggled against the kings 245
§ 7. The god-kings of Egypt 248
§ 8. Shi Hwang-ti destroys the books 252
CHAPTER XX. SERFS, SLAVES, SOCIAL CLASSES, AND FREE INDIVIDUALS
§ 1. The common man in ancient times 254
§ 2. The earliest slaves 256
§ 3. The first “independent” persons 259
§ 4. Social classes three thousand years ago 262
§ 5. Classes hardening into castes 266
§ 6. Caste in India 268
§ 7. The system of the Mandarins 270
§ 8. A summary of five thousand years 272
BOOK IV
JUDEA, GREECE, AND INDIA
CHAPTER XXI. THE HEBREW SCRIPTURES AND THE PROPHETS
§ 1. The place of the Israelites in history 277
§ 2. Saul, David, and Solomon 286
§ 3. The Jews a people of mixed origin 292
§ 4. The importance of the Hebrew prophets 294
CHAPTER XXII. THE GREEKS AND THE PERSIANS
§ 1. The Hellenic peoples 298
§ 2. Distinctive features of the Hellenic civilization 304
§ 3. Monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy in Greece 307
§ 4. The kingdom of Lydia 315
§ 5. The rise of the Persians in the East 316
§ 6. The story of Crœsus 320
§ 7. Darius invades Russia 326
§ 8. The battle of Marathon 332
§ 9. Thermopylæ and Salamis 334
§ 10. Platæa and Mycale 340
CHAPTER XXIII. GREEK THOUGHT AND LITERATURE
§ 1. The Athens of Pericles 343
§ 2. Socrates 350
§ 3. What was the quality of the common Athenians? 352
§ 4. Greek tragedy and comedy 354
§ 5. Plato and the Academy 355
§ 6. Aristotle and the Lyceum 357
§ 7. Philosophy becomes unworldly 359
§ 8. The quality and limitations of Greek thought 360
CHAPTER XXIV. THE CAREER OF ALEXANDER THE GREAT
§ 1. Philip of Macedonia 367
§ 2. The murder of King Philip 373
§ 3. Alexander’s first conquests 377
§ 4. The wanderings of Alexander 385
§ 5. Was Alexander indeed great? 389
§ 6. The successors of Alexander 395
§ 7. Pergamum a refuge of culture 396
§ 8. Alexander as a portent of world unity 397
CHAPTER XXV. SCIENCE AND RELIGION AT ALEXANDRIA
§ 1. The science of Alexandria 401
§ 2. Philosophy of Alexandria 410
§ 3. Alexandria as a factory of religions 410
CHAPTER XXVI. THE RISE AND SPREAD OF BUDDHISM
§ 1. The story of Gautama 415
§ 2. Teaching and legend in conflict 421
§ 3. The gospel of Gautama Buddha 422
§ 4. Buddhism and Asoka 426
§ 5. Two great Chinese teachers 433
§ 6. The corruptions of Buddhism 438
§ 7. The present range of Buddhism 440
BOOK V
THE RISE AND COLLAPSE OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE
CHAPTER XXVII. THE TWO WESTERN REPUBLICS
§ 1. The beginnings of the Latins 445
§ 2. A new sort of state 454
§ 3. The Carthaginian republic of rich men 466
§ 4. The First Punic War 467
§ 5. Cato the Elder and the spirit of Cato 471
§ 6. The Second Punic War 475
§ 7. The Third Punic War 480
§ 8. How the Punic War undermined Roman liberty 485
§ 9. Comparison of the Roman republic with a modern state 486
CHAPTER XXVIII. FROM TIBERIUS GRACCHUS TO THE GOD EMPEROR
IN ROME
§ 1. The science of thwarting the common man 493
§ 2. Finance in the Roman state 496
§ 3. The last years of republican politics 499
§ 4. The era of the adventurer generals 505
§ 5. Caius Julius Cæsar and his death 509
§ 6. The end of the republic 513
§ 7. Why the Roman republic failed 516
CHAPTER XXIX. THE CÆSARS BETWEEN THE SEA AND THE GREAT
PLAINS OF THE OLD WORLD
§ 1. A short catalogue of emperors 52
§ 2. Roman civilization at its zenith 529
§ 3. Limitations of the Roman mind 539
§ 4. The stir of the great plains 541
§ 5. The Western (true Roman) Empire crumples up 552
§ 6. The Eastern (revived Hellenic) Empire 560
BOOK VI
CHRISTIANITY AND ISLAM
CHAPTER XXX. THE BEGINNINGS, THE RISE, AND THE DIVISIONS
OF CHRISTIANITY
§ 1. Judea at the Christian era 569
§ 2. The teachings of Jesus of Nazareth 573
§ 3. The universal religions 582
§ 4. The crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth 584
§ 5. Doctrines added to the teachings of Jesus 586
§ 6. The struggles and persecutions of Christianity 594
§ 7. Constantine the Great 598
§ 8. The establishment of official Christianity 601
§ 9. The map of Europe, A.D. 500 605
§ 10. The salvation of learning by Christianity 609
CHAPTER XXXI. SEVEN CENTURIES IN ASIA (CIRCA 50 B.C. TO A.D. 650)
§ 1. Justinian the Great 614
§ 2. The Sassanid Empire in Persia 616
§ 3. The decay of Syria under the Sassanids 619
§ 4. The first message from Islam 623
§ 5. Zoroaster and Mani 624
§ 6. Hunnish peoples in Central Asia and India 627
§ 7. The great age of China 630
§ 8. Intellectual fetters of China 635
§ 9. The travels of Yuan Chwang 642
LIST OF MAPS AND ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
Life in the Early Palæozoic 11
Time-chart from Earliest Life to 40,000,000 Years Ago 14
Life in the Later Palæozoic Age 19
Australian Lung Fish 26
Some Reptiles of the Late Palæozoic Age 27
Astronomical Variations Affecting Climate 33
Some Mesozoic Reptiles 40
Later Mesozoic Reptiles 42
Pterodactyls and Archæopteryx 45
Hesperornis 48
Some Oligocene Mammals 53
Miocene Mammals 58
Time-diagram of the Glacial Ages 60
Early Pleistocene Animals, Contemporary with Earliest Man 64
The Sub-Man Pithecanthropus 65
The Riddle of the Piltdown Sub-Man 71
Map of Europe 50,000 Years Ago 77
Neanderthal Man 78
Early Stone Implements 81
Australia and the Western Pacific in the Glacial Age 82
Cro-magnon Man 87
Europe and Western Asia in the Later Palæolithic Age 89
Reindeer Age Articles 90
A Reindeer Age Masterpiece 93
Reindeer Age Engravings and Carvings 94
Diagram of the Estimated Duration of the True Human Periods 97
Neolithic Implements 107
Restoration of a Lake Dwelling 111
Pottery from Lake Dwellings 112
Hut Urns 115
A Menhir of the Neolithic Period 128
Bronze Age Implements 132
Diagram Showing the Duration of the Neolithic Period 133
Heads of Australoid Types 139
Bushwoman 141
Negro Types 142
Mongolian Types 143
Caucasian Types 144
Map of Europe, Asia, Africa 15,000 Years Ago 145
The Swastika 147
Relationship of Human Races (Diagrammatic Summary) 149
Possible Development of Languages 155
Racial Types (after Champollion) 163
Combat between Menelaus and Hector 176
Archaic Horses and Chariots 178
The Cradle of Western Civilization 185
Sumerian Warriors in Phalanx 189
Assyrian Warrior (_temp._ Sargon II) 193
Time-chart 6000 B.C. to A.D. 196
The Cradle of Chinese Civilization (Map) 202
Boats on Nile about 2500 B.C. 211
Egyptian Ship on Red Sea, 1250 B.C. 212
Ægean Civilization (Map) 214
A Votary of the Snake Goddess 215
American Indian Picture-Writing 225
Egyptian Gods--Set, Anubis, Typhon, Bes 236
Egyptian Gods--Thoth-lunus, Hathor, Chnemu 239
An Assyrian King and His Chief Minister 243
Pharaoh Chephren 248
Pharaoh Rameses III as Osiris (Sarcophagus relief) 249
Pharaoh Akhnaton 251
Egyptian Peasants (Pyramid Age) 257
Brawl among Egyptian Boatmen (Pyramid Age) 260
Egyptian Social Types (From Tombs) 261
The Land of the Hebrews 280
Aryan-speaking Peoples 1000-500 B.C. (Map) 301
Hellenic Races 1000-800 B.C. (Map) 302
Greek Sea Fight, 550 B.C. 303
Rowers in an Athenian Warship, 400 B.C. 306
Scythian Types 319
Median and Second Babylonian Empires (in Nebuchadnezzar’s Reign) 321
The Empire of Darius 329
Wars of the Greeks and Persians (Map) 333
Athenian Foot-soldier 334
Persian Body-guard (from Frieze at Susa) 338
The World According to Herodotus 341
Athene of the Parthenon 348
Philip of Macedon 368
Growth of Macedonia under Philip 371
Macedonian Warrior (bas-relief from Pella) 373
Campaigns of Alexander the Great 381
Alexander the Great 389
Break-up of Alexander’s Empire 393
Seleucus I 395
Later State of Alexander’s Empire 398
The World According to Eratosthenes, 200 B.C. 405
The Known World, about 250 B.C. 406
Isis and Horus 413
Serapis 414
The Rise of Buddhism 419
Hariti 428
Chinese Image of Kuan-yin 429
The Spread of Buddhism 432
Indian Gods--Vishnu, Brahma, Siva 437
Indian Gods--Krishna, Kali, Ganesa 439
The Western Mediterranean, 800-600 B.C. 446
Early Latium 447
Burning the Dead: Etruscan Ceremony 449
Statuette of a Gaul 450
Roman Power after the Samnite Wars 451
Samnite Warriors 452
Italy after 275 B.C. 453
Roman Coin Celebrating the Victory over Pyrrhus 455
Mercury 457
Carthaginian Coins 468
Roman _As_ 471
Rome and its Alliances, 150 B.C. 481
Gladiators 489
Roman Power, 50 B.C. 506
Julius Cæsar 512
Roman Empire at Death of Augustus 518
Roman Empire in Time of Trajan 524
Asia and Europe: Life of the Period (Map) 544
Central Asia, 200-100 B.C. 547
Tracks of Migrating and Raiding Peoples, 1-700 A.D. 555
Eastern Roman Empire 561
Constantinople (Maps to show value of its position) 563
Galilee 571
Map of Europe, 500 A.D. 608
The Eastern Empire and the Sassanids 620
Asia Minor, Syria, and Mesopotamia 622
Ephthalite Coin 629
Chinese Empire, Tang Dynasty 633
Yuan Chwang’s Route from China to India 643
BOOK I
THE MAKING OF OUR WORLD
THE OUTLINE OF HISTORY
I
THE EARTH IN SPACE AND TIME
The earth on which we live is a spinning globe. Vast though it seems to
us, it is a mere speck of matter in the greater vastness of space.
Space is, for the most part, emptiness. At great intervals there are in
this emptiness flaring centres of heat and light, the “fixed stars.”
They are all moving about in space, notwithstanding that they are called
fixed stars, but for a long time men did not realize their motion. They
are so vast and at such tremendous distances that their motion is not
perceived. Only in the course of many thousands of years is it
appreciable. These fixed stars are so far off that, for all their
immensity, they seem to be, even when we look at them through the most
powerful telescopes, mere points of light, brighter or less bright. A
few, however, when we turn a telescope upon them, are seen to be whirls
and clouds of shining vapour which we call nebulæ. They are so far off
that a movement of millions of miles would be imperceptible.
One star, however, is so near to us that it is like a great ball of
flame. This one is the sun. The sun is itself in its nature like a fixed
star, but it differs from the other fixed stars in appearance because it
is beyond comparison nearer than they are; and because it is nearer men
have been able to learn something of its nature. Its mean distance from
the earth is ninety-three million miles. It is a mass of flaming matter,
having a diameter of 866,000 miles. Its bulk is a million and a quarter
times the bulk of our earth.
These are difficult figures for the imagination. If a bullet fired from
a Maxim gun at the sun kept its muzzle velocity unimpaired, it would
take seven years to reach the sun. And yet we say the sun is near,
measured by the scale of the stars. If the earth were a small ball, one
inch in diameter, the sun would be a globe of nine feet diameter; it
would fill a small bedroom. It is spinning round on its axis, but since
it is an incandescent fluid, its polar regions do not travel with the
same velocity as its equator, the surface of which rotates in about
twenty-five days. The surface visible to us consists of clouds of
incandescent metallic vapour. At what lies below we can only guess. So
hot is the sun’s atmosphere that iron, nickel, copper, and tin are
present in it in a gaseous state. About it at great distances circle not
only our earth, but certain kindred bodies called the planets. These
shine in the sky because they reflect the light of the sun; they are
near enough for us to note their movements quite easily. Night by night
their positions change with regard to the fixed stars.
It is well to understand how empty space is. If, as we have said, the
sun were a ball nine feet across, our earth would, in proportion, be the
size of a one-inch ball, and at a distance of 323 yards from the sun.
The moon would be a speck the size of a small pea, thirty inches from
the earth. Nearer to the sun than the earth would be two other very
similar specks, the planets Mercury and Venus, at a distance of 125 and
250 yards respectively. Beyond the earth would come the planets Mars,
Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune, at distances of 500, 1806, 3000,
6000, and 9500 yards respectively. There would also be a certain number
of very much smaller specks, flying about amongst these planets, more
particularly a number called the asteroids circling between Mars and
Jupiter, and occasionally a little puff of more or less luminous vapour
and dust would drift into the system from the almost limitless emptiness
beyond. Such a puff is what we call a comet. _All the rest of the space
about us and around us and for unfathomable distances beyond is cold,
lifeless, and void._ The nearest fixed star to us, _on this minute
scale_, be it remembered,--the earth as a one-inch ball, and the moon a
little pea--would be over 40,000 miles away.
The science that tells of these things and how men have come to know
about them is Astronomy, and to books of astronomy the reader must go to
learn more about the sun and stars. The science and description of the
world on which we live are called respectively Geology and Geography.
The diameter of our world is a little under 8000 miles. Its surface is
rough; the more projecting parts of the roughness are mountains, and in
the hollows of its surface there is a film of water, the oceans and
seas. This film of water is about five miles thick at its deepest
part--that is to say, the deepest oceans have a depth of five miles.
This is very little in comparison with the bulk of the world.
About this sphere is a thin covering of air, the atmosphere. As we
ascend in a balloon or go up a mountain from the level of the sea-shore
the air is continually less dense, until at last it becomes so thin that
it cannot support life. At a height of twenty miles there is scarcely
any air at all--not one hundredth part of the density of air at the
surface of the sea. The highest point to which a bird can fly is about
four miles up--the condor, it is said, can struggle up to that; but most
small birds and insects which are carried up by aeroplanes or balloons
drop off insensible at a much lower level, and the greatest height to
which any mountaineer has ever climbed is under five miles. Men have
flown in aeroplanes to a height of over four miles, and balloons with
men in them have reached very nearly seven miles, but at the cost of
considerable physical suffering. Small experimental balloons, containing
not men, but recording instruments, have gone as high as twenty-two
miles.
It is in the upper few hundred feet of the crust of the earth, in the
sea, and in the lower levels of the air below four miles that life is
found. We do not know of any life at all except in these films of air
and water upon our planet. So far as we know, all the rest of space is
as yet without life. Scientific men have discussed the possibility of
life, or of some process of a similar kind, occurring upon such kindred
bodies as the planets Venus and Mars. But they point merely to
questionable possibilities.
Astronomers and geologists and those who study physics have been able to
tell us something of the origin and history of the earth. They consider
that, vast ages ago, the sun was a spinning, flaring mass of matter,
not yet concentrated into a compact centre of heat and light,
considerably larger than it is now, and spinning very much faster, and
that as it whirled, a series of fragments detached themselves from it,
which became the planets. Our earth is one of these planets. The flaring
mass that was the material of the earth broke as it spun into two
masses, a larger, the earth itself, and a smaller, which is now the
dead, still moon. Astronomers give us convincing reasons for supposing
that sun and earth and moon and all that system were then whirling about
at a speed much greater than the speed at which they are moving to-day,
and that at first our earth was a flaming thing upon which no life could
live. The way in which they have reached these conclusions is by a very
beautiful and interesting series of observations and reasoning, too long
and elaborate for us to deal with here. But they oblige us to believe
that the sun, incandescent though it is, is now much cooler than it was,
and that it spins more slowly now than it did, and that it continues to
cool and slow down. And they also show that the rate at which the earth
spins is diminishing and continues to diminish--that is to say, that our
day is growing longer and longer, and that the heat at the centre of the
earth wastes slowly. There was a time when the day was not a half and
not a third of what it is to-day; when a blazing hot sun, much greater
than it is now, must have moved visibly--had there been an eye to mark
it--from its rise to its setting across the skies. There will be a time
when the day will be as long as a year is now, and the cooling sun,
shorn of its beams, will hang motionless in the heavens.
It must have been in days of a much hotter sun, a far swifter day and
night, high tides, great heat, tremendous storms and earthquakes, that
life, of which we are a part, began upon the world. The moon also was
nearer and brighter in those days and had a changing face.[3]
II
THE RECORD OF THE ROCKS
§ 1. _The First Living Things._ § 2. _How Old Is the World?_
§ 1
We do not know how life began upon the earth.[4]
Biologists, that is to say, students of life, have made guesses about
these beginnings, but we will not discuss them here. Let us only note
that they all agree that life began where the tides of those swift days
spread and receded over the steaming beaches of mud and sand.
The atmosphere was much denser then, usually great cloud masses obscured
the sun, frequent storms darkened the heavens. The land of those days,
upheaved by violent volcanic forces, was a barren land, without
vegetation, without soil. The almost incessant rain-storms swept down
upon it, and rivers and torrents carried great loads of sediment out to
sea, to become muds that hardened later into slates and shales, and
sands that became sandstones. The geologists have studied the whole
accumulation of these sediments as it remains to-day, from those of the
earliest ages to the most recent. Of course the oldest deposits are the
most distorted and changed and worn, and in them there is now no certain
trace to be found of life at all. Probably the earliest forms of life
were small and soft, leaving no evidence of their existence behind them.
It was only when some of these living things developed skeletons and
shells of lime and such-like hard material that they left fossil
vestiges after they died, and so put themselves on record for
examination.
The literature of geology is very largely an account of the fossils that
are found in the rocks, and of the order in which layers after layers of
rocks lie one on another. The very oldest rocks must have been formed
before there was any sea at all, when the earth was too hot for a sea to
exist, and when the water that is now sea was an atmosphere of steam
mixed with the air. Its higher levels were dense with clouds, from which
a hot rain fell towards the rocks below, to be converted again into
steam long before it reached their incandescence. Below this steam
atmosphere the molten world-stuff solidified as the first rocks. These
first rocks must have solidified as a cake over glowing liquid material
beneath, much as cooling lava does. They must have appeared first as
crusts and clinkers. They must have been constantly remelted and
recrystallized before any thickness of them became permanently solid.
The name of Fundamental Gneiss is given to a great underlying system of
crystalline rocks which probably formed age by age as this hot youth of
the world drew to its close. The scenery of the world in the days when
the Fundamental Gneiss was formed must have been more like the interior
of a furnace than anything else to be found upon earth at the present
time.
After long ages the steam in the atmosphere began also to condense and
fall right down to earth, pouring at last over these warm primordial
rocks in rivulets of hot water and gathering in depressions as pools and
lakes and the first seas. Into those seas the streams that poured over
the rocks brought with them dust and particles to form a sediment, and
this sediment accumulated in layers, or as geologists call them,
_strata_, and formed the first Sedimentary Rocks. Those earliest
sedimentary rocks sank into depressions and were covered by others; they
were bent, tilted up, and torn by great volcanic disturbances and by
tidal strains that swept through the rocky crust of the earth. We find
these first sedimentary rocks still coming to the surface of the land
here and there, either not covered by later strata or exposed after vast
ages of concealment by the wearing off of the rock that covered them
later--there are great surfaces of them in Canada especially; they are
cleft and bent, partially remelted, recrystallized, hardened and
compressed, but recognizable for what they are. And they contain no
single certain trace of life at all. They are frequently called _Azoic_
(lifeless) Rocks. But since in some of these earliest sedimentary rocks
a substance called graphite (black lead) occurs, and also red and black
oxide of iron, and since it is asserted that these substances need the
activity of living things for their production, which may or may not be
the case, some geologists prefer to call these earliest sedimentary
rocks _Archæozoic_ (primordial life). They suppose that the first life
was soft living matter that had no shells or skeletons or any such
structure that could remain as a recognizable fossil after its death,
and that its chemical influence caused the deposition of graphite and
iron oxide. This is pure guessing, of course, and there is at least an
equal probability that in the time of formation of the Azoic Rocks, life
had not yet begun.
Long ago there were found in certain of these ancient first-formed rocks
in Canada, curious striped masses, and thin layers of white and green
mineral substance which Sir William Dawson considered were fossil
vestiges, the walls or coverings of some very simple sort of living
thing which has now vanished from the earth. He called these markings
_Eozoon Canadense_ (the Canadian dawn-animal). There has been much
discussion and controversy over this Eozoon, but to-day it is agreed
that Eozoon is nothing more than a crystalline marking. Mixed minerals
will often intercrystallize in blobs or branching shapes that are very
suggestive of simple plant or animal forms. Any one who has made a lead
tree in his schooldays, or lit those queer indoor fireworks known as
serpents’ eggs, which unfold like a long snake, or who has seen the
curious markings often found in quartz crystals, or noted the tree-like
pattern on old stone-ware beer mugs, will realize how closely non-living
matter can sometimes mock the shapes of living things.
Overlying or overlapping these Azoic or Archæozoic rocks come others,
manifestly also very ancient and worn, which do contain traces of life.
These first remains are of the simplest description; they are the
vestiges of simple plants, called algæ, or marks like the tracks made by
worms in the sea mud. There are also the skeletons of the microscopic
creatures called Radiolaria. This second series of rocks is called the
Proterozoic (beginning of life) series, and marks a long age in the
world’s history. Lying over and above the Proterozoic rocks is a third
series, which is found to contain a considerable number and variety of
traces of living things. First comes the evidence of a diversity of
shellfish, crabs, and such-like crawling things, worms, seaweeds, and
the like; then of a multitude of fishes and of the beginnings of land
plants and land creatures. These rocks are called the Palæozoic (ancient
life) rocks. They mark a vast era, during which life was slowly
spreading, increasing, and developing in the seas of our world. Through
long ages, through the earliest Palæozoic time, it was no more than a
proliferation of such swimming and creeping things in the water. There
were creatures called trilobites; they were crawling things like big sea
woodlice that were probably related to the American king-crab of to-day.
There were also sea-scorpions, the prefects of that early world. The
individuals of certain species of these were nine feet long. These were
the very highest sorts of life. There were abundant different sorts of
an order of shellfish called brachi
|
for military operations. Owing to her central geographical position,
Germany is able at all times to dispatch forces from the heart of her
Empire to the various fronts; from Russia to the French Front, and
_vice versa_. To these interior lines is due the facility with which
she has quickly concentrated large masses of troops at any desired
point, notably on the Roumanian front at the end of 1916.
When she had firmly consolidated her Western Front she rapidly
collected all her available forces on the Eastern Front in an effort to
crush the Russians.
When, in February, 1916, the Germans launched the gigantic attack
against Verdun, it was with a twofold strategic purpose: 1st. To pierce
the French line between right wing and centre and resume the march on
Paris. 2d. In case of a partial success, to strengthen themselves by
the occupation of Verdun, with a view to preventing the French armies
from reaching the right bank of the Meuse, while at the same time
guarding their own left wing and their communications with Metz, should
circumstances ever force them to withdraw behind the Meuse.
During the autumn of 1915 the French attempted to avail themselves of
the comparative weakness of the Germans due to their campaign against
Russia. A favourable issue would have taken them to Vouziers-Rethel,
and very possibly have caused all the German lines to be withdrawn from
around Rheims and Soissons.
We might vary these examples. Quite recently, the British troops have
resumed the attack planned in 1915 by the French in Artois. They will
gradually free the North of France and Flanders.
TACTICS. Let us now consider tactical operations as they are conducted
on the battlefield. The formidable field entrenchments constructed by
the Germans have compelled both combatants to transform their artillery
and to change the armament of their infantry.
The manner in which the different arms are employed on the battlefield
has changed but little.
The field artillery has been enormously developed and it has been
necessary to constantly increase the power of the cannons and
howitzers. We shall later on discuss this subject more fully.
The definition of tactics as given by General Pétain, the French
Generalissimo, in the course of his lectures at the “École de Guerre”
has not been modified by the creation of these improved weapons. He
said: “The Artillery conquers the positions, the Infantry occupies
them.”
We will take for example a quite recent military feat which strikingly
establishes the distinction between the strategical and the tactical
operations.
On the 22d day of last October (1917), the French Army in the North,
east of Soissons, scored one of the most important successes of the
year. This operation, carried out on a nine-mile front, was essentially
tactical. It had for object the capture of very important positions
forming a salient in the French lines, which furnished the Germans with
facilities for an offensive return to Soissons. The capture by the
French of _Vaudesson-Allemant_ and the _Malmaison fort_ eliminated the
salient, opened the road to Laon, and exposed the German lines on the
Ailette to an enfilading fire.
This tactical operation was evidently a part of a vast strategical
plan matured by the French and British Commanders-in-Chief. The general
purpose of these operations aims at forcing the Germans to abandon the
North of Belgium and to retreat in France. All the tactical operations
being carried on in Flanders, on the Aisne, in Champagne and Lorraine,
are parts of this single plan and have the same object in view.
[Illustration: BATTLE FIELD OF THE FRENCH OFFENSIVE OF THE 22d OCTOBER,
1917.]
The rapid campaign just conducted by Marshal von Mackensen against the
Italians in the Julian Alps, like that he led in 1916 in the Dobrutcha
and Roumania, are evidences that the old principles of war, and
especially those practised by Napoleon, are still fully adhered to by
the German armies.
=2. Violation of the laws of warfare. Influence of science.= We must
acknowledge that, although the Germans had hoped in 1914 for a quick
victory gained by a few overwhelming blows, they had also, during their
forty-four years military preparation, provided for the possibility
of a check, and had equipped themselves with a mighty artillery which
enabled them to hold the Western Front while fighting against Russia.
France had to make great efforts to complete her armament in 1915.
Germany had already accomplished this in a great measure before the war
commenced.
It was reserved for German science, if not to render war more bloody
(the weapons used in 1914 sufficiently fulfilled this purpose), to
violate all the laws of warfare enacted by all the Governments, even by
the German Government itself.
German science has given birth to gigantic cannon which no law forbids
(we shall speak of these further on), but German science will bear,
in the judgment of History, the responsibility of having added to
the horrors of war an unprecedented ferocity and savagery by the
introduction of asphyxiating gases, tear-producing gases, and burning
liquids.
But we may add that Germany in her turn already suffers greatly herself
from her inventions; the Allies having been compelled to adopt and use
similar and often much improved weapons.
=3. Fighting units.= The fighting units are composed of a variable
number of tactical units. The tactical unit is the Division, the
composition of which will hereafter be described. It includes infantry,
cavalry, artillery, and engineers. It ought to possess also, and we
hope it will soon, a special service of aviation.
A group of two or three and sometimes four Divisions constitutes an
Army Corps. The union of three, four, or five Army Corps forms an
Army. In this war, two or three armies placed under one Command form
an Army Group. Four or five of these Army Groups exist on the French
Front. The general organization of the British differs but little from
that of the French armies. Whatever difference there may be exists
rather in the organization of the rear than in that of the front. The
British occupying a much shorter front, dispose of a proportionately
larger number of men. Though the bulk of their forces have been but a
short time in France, they have received from their women workers very
intelligent and valuable assistance, and, having at their disposal
larger appropriations of money, have been able to do much more than
France towards perfecting the organization at the rear.
The Army Corps and the Division must be organized so as to be entirely
and under all circumstances self-sufficient. They may, however, rely
upon any reserve forces that the surrounding armies may place at their
disposal, according to the work assigned to them.
A GLANCE AT THE NORMAL COMPOSITION OF A DIVISION
The real fighting unit is the Division. We purposely do not call it
a Division of infantry. The Division forms a whole by itself. It is
composed of all the different arms in the proportions that have been
deemed necessary to the efficiency of the whole body.
INFANTRY. Besides its Staff, which is the voice of the Command,
a Division normally includes two brigades of infantry of two
regiments each. The necessities of the present war have compelled the
belligerents to reduce to three regiments many of their Divisions, and
only the crack Divisions selected for attack have been kept up to four
regiments.
ARTILLERY. Each Division includes, under the command of a colonel:
1st. One regiment of field artillery with three groups, each of three
batteries each of four 75 mm. cannon;
2d. One regiment of heavy artillery with one group of 155 mm.
quick-firing cannon;
3d. One battery of trench guns, the number and the size of which vary.
ENGINEERS. A French Division includes one half battalion of sappers
and miners, which is not sufficient; two battalions at least ought to
be attached to it. The rapidity and solidity with which the German
entrenchments are constructed is due to the great number of engineer
battalions which our enemy possesses.
CAVALRY. A Division also includes two squadrons of cavalry. In the
trenches they are dismounted and used as connection-agents (_agents de
liaison_). Their duties will be considered at another point.
AVIATORS. A Division ought to possess its own aviation corps; planes
for reconnoitring, planes for directing the fire of artillery and the
movements of infantry, and swift battle-planes without the protection
of which all other flying-machines are exposed to great dangers.
We cannot insist enough on the necessity for the American Army to be
uncompromising concerning the perfect organization of its aviation.
Reasons which we lack space to discuss have so far prevented the French
section of aviation from having the complete general organization it
ought to have.
SUPPLY. All the services for the supply of munitions, and for the
repair and renewal of material, are centralized in a divisional Park.
To the supply of munitions we shall devote a special chapter.
The supply of provisions is entrusted in a Division to a sub-commissary
of stores. The Commissariat Department is part of the general service
at the Army base, and its study would lead us beyond the limits
assigned to this exposé.
MEDICAL DEPARTMENT. Every Division has its own medical department.
On this point, too, we shall abstain from entering into details.
Let us however remark that the medical service is still susceptible
of much improvement. In spite of continuous improvements in its
organization, in spite of the generous assistance of our Allies, of
neutral countries, and particularly of our American friends, the recent
engagements have proven:
1st. The insufficiency of the means at hand for rapidly collecting the
wounded on the battlefield;
2d. The insufficiency, near the battlefield, of large field hospitals
for the operations that cannot be delayed;
3d. The lack of special hospitals just out of range of the enemy’s
guns, where the severely wounded (_grands blessés_), and particularly
the abdominal cases, can remain as long as necessary. It is generally
acknowledged that those who have been wounded in the abdomen require
immediate surgical aid, and cannot be removed to a distance without
undue risk. Such dangerously injured men should therefore be provided
with “Rest hospitals,” where they can remain until able to be
transported to the base.
The transportation of the wounded should be the object of a very
close study. The trains for the transfer of the grave cases should be
further improved, their speed increased, and their appointments so
arranged as to allow the wounds to be dressed during the trip. Many
cases of gangrene would thus be avoided.
This is said without prejudice to the wonderful improvements which have
been made during the last three years. The devoted service rendered to
France by her military Medical Corps cannot be too highly praised.
American army surgeons, who have benefited by the vast experience and
wonderful skill of Dr. Alexis Carrel at the War Demonstration Hospital
in New York, will be able to do more for the relief of suffering and
the saving of life than their ablest French confrères could accomplish
three years ago.
THE COMMAND. The characteristic qualities of a “Chief” in the present
war must be:
1st. A very great physical endurance to render possible a great
activity. The General commanding a Division must actually see with
his own eyes every detail of the enemy’s positions. He must acquaint
himself with the nature of the ground occupied by his adversary as well
as with the strength of the latter’s defences. Such inspections will
often take him to the trenches, where his presence will keep up the
spirits of his men better than any exhortation written at a distance.
2d. The Chief must take in the situation at a glance. He must be
composed, and a man of prompt decision. Only on a thorough knowledge
of all the facts will he base his final dispositions for a fight. We
are of opinion that, especially in the present war, when a decision
has been taken or an order given, it is always advisable not to modify
these except in details of execution which cannot interfere with the
operation as a whole.
3d. During the battle, the Division General should establish his post
of command at a spot whence he may, if possible, see the ground where
his troops are engaged. He should, in any case, be where he can keep in
touch as long as possible with the generals or colonels of the infantry
under his command, and with his artillery and his information section.
4th. The Chief of any unit in war time is responsible for the physical
and moral condition of his troops. He will keep their spirit at a
high level if he proves to be as strict with himself as with his
subordinates. In all circumstances, he should treat them with justice
and kindness, but should be pitiless to bad soldiers.
He should by frequent personal inspections make sure that his troops
have good food, shoes, and clothing, and that their small arms and
artillery are perfectly kept, whatever the weather may be.
Some commanders of infantry Divisions, during the present war, have
neglected to take as good care of their artillery as of their infantry.
This is a mistake to be avoided. There are no more infantry Divisions.
Our Divisions are composed of all arms, each having a special utility,
and all must, without any discrimination, receive the care and
supervision of their Chief.
THE STAFFS. The unit commanders need the assistance of officers
thoroughly imbued with their thoughts, able to express and transmit
them faithfully.
_Chief of Staff._ In every unit we have a general or superior officer,
called “Chief of Staff.” In a Division taken as a unit, this officer
is entrusted with the direction of all the divisional services and the
services at headquarters. He is responsible to his commander for the
perfect working of all these services, and also for the wording and
prompt transmission of all orders.
While the task of inspecting the troops (especially the fighting
troops) rests with the General, the Chief of Staff should more
particularly inspect the non-combatant services and personnel, namely,
the Health, Supply, Treasury, and Post Office Departments.
_Staff-Officers._ It would be a great mistake to divide the
staff-officers otherwise than into two very distinct classes:
1st. Staff-Officers proper, who are the direct assistants of the Chief;
2d. Office Staff, entrusted with all the clerical work, except that
concerning the preparation and conduct of the operations, and the
report thereon.
The latter need not possess military science. They can efficiently
fulfil their duties if, as civilians, they have been trained to prepare
written reports, and they need not possess the physical endurance
necessary to the staff-officers proper.
To be efficient, a staff-officer needs to possess military science,
judgment, tact, physical strength, great activity, bravery, and
self-abnegation.
By adhering to the above classification, the American Army will have
no trouble in forming excellent staffs. In fact, it will not have
to triumph over a routine that three years of war has not entirely
eliminated from our old European armies. Too often we injudiciously
employ for tasks unfamiliar or unsuited to them officers capable of
rendering much greater services elsewhere.
The staff-officer will be efficient if he performs the following
briefly stated duties:
The staff-officer must complete by a minute reconnoitring the
inspections previously made by the General himself. He should never
hesitate to go to the very first lines, and it will be often necessary
for him to go under the protection of patrols of infantry, and
ascertain in person to what extent the first lines of the enemy have
been destroyed, how much damage has been done to the wire entanglements
and defences, etc.
The staff-officer must be a perfectly trained aërial observer. He
should also be competent to detect on the different photographs
furnished by the aviators the least damage done to the enemy’s works by
the successive projectiles. This task, which must be accomplished most
conscientiously, requires excellent eyesight.
We do not hesitate to say that, in the present war, it would be
criminal insanity to deliver an attack without being sure that the
enemy’s wire defences have been sufficiently damaged; at least to
such an extent as will allow the infantry to pass through them.
A staff-officer should not at this most important juncture trust
implicitly to the information furnished him in reports from the first
lines or found in the photographs taken by the aviation, but he ought
to go and see for himself and report minutely to his Chief.
These are dangerous missions: hence the need of having staff-officers
in reserve. It has been repeatedly proved that officers who have
not been trained at the Ecole d’Etat Major (staff school), but are
experienced and efficient men, quickly become excellent substitute
staff-officers.
Their principal duties may be summed up as follows:
Keep their Chief informed before, during, and after an operation.
Their office work ought to be limited to the writing of orders and
reports concerning the operations. This is easy of accomplishment when
the commander has a comprehensive grasp of the situation, and gives his
staff clear and concise orders, which they have only to put into effect
in due form.
The staff-officer must also act as an intelligence officer. As close to
the General’s headquarters as possible, a staff-officer must establish
a centre of information, where he will keep a force of men and all
the equipment that will enable him to keep in constant communication
with his General, with the infantry, the artillery, the captive
balloons, all the services of the aviation, etc. When a reconnoitring
aviator returns with some important information, unless he has been
able to communicate it by wireless, he lands as near as possible to
the intelligence bureau, gives to the staff-officer in charge an
account of what he has seen, and flies off. The staff-officer transmits
immediately to the proper quarter the information he has just received,
and it is his duty in all important cases to make sure that his message
has reached its proper destination. If telephonic communication has
been interrupted by any accident of battle, he must despatch some of
the estafettes, dispatch-runners, or carrier-pigeons at his disposal.
CHAPTER II
AVIATION
1. Its military beginnings. Its increasing importance.
2. Its use and scope.
3. Different kinds of aircraft. Battle-planes. Bombing-planes.
Observation--or scout-planes. Employment of scout-planes
for the direction of artillery-fire and the movements of
infantry. Aviation during a battle.
4. Hydroplanes.
5. Balloons, Zeppelins.
=1. Its military beginnings, its increasing importance.= At the
beginning of the war, Germany alone possessed a military flying corps.
She was the only nation who desired war. She was the only one prepared,
in this as in other respects. Her foresight was duly rewarded.
Though still few, her aviators found themselves the masters of the air.
They made themselves very useful to the German Command by observations
that enabled them to locate the principal French forces. They rendered
also great services to their artillery during the actual fighting. A
German machine, while clumsily flying some 3000 feet above the French
batteries, would send up a rocket, and a few minutes afterwards 150 mm.
shells would begin to fall on the spot thus indicated.
If, at the time, the Germans had been as expert as they are now in
pointing their guns, these air-directed bombardments would have had
more efficacious results, but even as it was, they invariably produced
a deplorable impression on the morale of the troops who felt themselves
at the mercy of a shell-fire which the French artillery could not
return for want of howitzers.
Aviation had developed itself mostly among the civilians in France.
Overnight, as it were, our civilians became military aviators. They
showed great bravery and a few at once proved themselves remarkable.
Their machines, though speedy, as speed was reckoned in those days,
were in many ways inadequate for the purposes of war, but they were
none the less extremely effective.
Since 1914, all the belligerents have, with more or less success,
considerably developed the scope of their aviation.
In France there was too much indecision as to what types should be
adopted.
The production of standardized machines encountered serious
difficulties. Construction was slow. Factories either lacked machinery
entirely or were insufficiently supplied with it.
Till the autumn of 1915, Germany retained the supremacy in the air.
From that time on the situation gradually altered in favor of France,
and since the arrival of a large contingent of British machines, the
Allies have maintained a marked superiority on the Western Front. When
the American air-corps has added its strength to the French the end of
the German aviation will be close at hand.
It is well nevertheless to note that the Germans, fearing the advent
of the American airmen, are now making a powerful effort to double the
number of their planes; and, aided by a careful study of the Allies’
machines which have fallen in their lines, are busy constructing more
and more formidable examples. The Allies, in the meantime, are daily
improving their own, and the Americans have lately had the occasion to
see that Italy, one of the most recent aviation recruits, has nearly
reached perfection in aircraft construction.
In order to render promptly the anticipated aid, the United States
should, at the beginning at least, adopt thoroughly tested types of
aircraft, of easy control in the air; and should construct several
standardized motors.
After trial _on the French front_ some types may have to be modified,
but only after the American aviation corps has made sure that, in any
event, it will have a sufficient number of aircraft in France while
awaiting the arrival of the new models.
Airplane construction has been hitherto, and will continue to be,
constantly progressive. An improvement much needed is a device for the
protection of the gasoline tank, which on most of the existing types is
too vulnerable and too frequently set on fire. Very often the Germans
aim at the tanks rather than at the pilot, as the former are easier to
hit and the result is the same.
=2. Use and scope of aviation.= Our opinion is that during the present
war no real success can be obtained without the help of numerous
and daring aviators. During the days preceding an attack (in the
trench war) or in order to hide the movements of the troops (in the
open field) it is of the utmost necessity to maintain the supremacy
in the air. The enemy’s aviation must be entirely blinded. Not one
enemy machine must pass over the lines. The captive balloons must be
destroyed. In brief, the aviation must be powerful enough to prevent
the enemy from having any knowledge of our preparations, and above
all from ascertaining the exact point whence the main attack will be
launched.
Besides the work it will have to do on the front (with which we will
deal hereafter) the aviation of bombardment will, during the period
of preparation, have to make numerous raids on the enemy’s rear, hurl
destruction upon the aerodromes, and into the camps of the staff and
reserves, blow up the important ammunition and food stores, attack the
trains, destroy the railway lines, especially at the junctions, set the
stations on fire, and attack all detachments and convoys on the roads.
Briefly, the aviation should, during the preparation for an attack
supplement at the rear the disorder created at the front by a prolonged
bombardment. If these desiderata are complied with by sufficiently
numerous and powerful aircraft, the enemy will find themselves in
evident inferiority at the moment of attack.
=3. Different kinds of aircraft.= There are several kinds of airplanes:
BATTLE-PLANES. The importance of the fighting aviation far exceeds that
of the other kinds, owing to the fact that whatever their mission, the
latter cannot keep the air either on the front or during the raids back
of the enemy lines unless they are protected against the attacks of the
opponent’s aircraft by a sufficient number of lighter, swifter, and
more easily manœuvred battle-planes. The organization of the fighting
aviation ought, therefore, to claim the principal and most careful
consideration of the commanding officer in charge of all the different
services of the flying corps.
Fighting machines must be very numerous, and piloted by cool, competent
aviators, masters of their machines and possessing what, in France, our
soldiers call “Cran”; _i. e._, Pluck.
At the present moment there is an obvious tendency to abandon
monoplanes in favour of small, very handy biplanes flying 220
kilometres an hour. Our renowned “aces,” such as the late Captain
Guynemer and so many others, have, until now, fought single-handed,
piloting and shooting at the same time. We are returning to the idea
of placing two men on these fighting machines.
Some of these are already fitted with two very light and extremely
accurate machine-guns, the front one being fixed so as to shoot through
the screw. This result has been obtained by the use of a device so
marvellously accurate that the ball at its exit from the barrel of
the gun never hits the blades of the screw speeding at more than one
thousand five hundred revolutions a minute.
For a long time, our French aviators operated separately, but the
Germans having taken the habit of flying in groups, our aviators, in
most cases, fly now in squadrillas so as to be able to help one another.
The battle-plane aviators fly at great heights, hiding themselves
behind the clouds, and, when they see an enemy machine below them, they
drop on it with all speed and attempt, while keeping above it, to shoot
it down.
When they are attacked, they try to rise and gain the advantage of
position. Their tactics, in brief, consist in getting as much as
possible out of an enemy’s range, and in attaining such a position as
will enable them to reach him.
Some of these fights last ten, some fifteen minutes.
When the weather allows flights, there ought always to be several
battle-planes in the air to protect the other kinds of airplanes.
One must lay down as a rule, and we here repeat the opinion expressed
by famous aviators, that every attack, whether by a single machine or
by a squadrilla, must always be carried out with the utmost vigour. The
Germans seem, indeed, to have received orders to fly away whenever they
feel themselves inferior.
An important function of the battle-planes is to escort and protect the
scouting or raiding squadrons during their operations, so as to allow
the latter to fulfil their mission without having to guard against any
possible attack of the enemy.
During these expeditions the battle-plane is to the other airplanes
what the destroyers are to the ships they convoy. In order that they
may afford efficient protection to the ships, the destroyers must
be very fast and manageable; likewise the chasing airplanes must of
necessity be more rapid and manageable than those they are sent to
protect.
BOMBING-PLANES. The number of machines composing a squadrilla of
bombardment varies. Several squadrillas often start together to
accomplish a mission, forming an aërial army. The machines thus
detailed must be able to carry a heavy load of ammunition, also a
provision of gasoline sufficient to allow them to remain a long time in
the air.
To realize the progress made in the construction of such machines one
has but to remember that, on the 15th of last October, an Italian
airplane carrying a great weight in addition to its supply of gasoline,
covered the distance from Turin to the English coast in ten hours.
The Italians have now at Washington a machine carrying twelve
persons. All the Powers are building large airplanes intended to make
bombardments more and more deadly.
At first, ordinary bombs were dropped from airplanes, but they are now
supplied with special bombs filled with the most powerful explosives
known (winged torpedoes), and also incendiary and asphyxiating
projectiles. Special devices have been constructed which increase the
accuracy of the aim, when dropping bombs.
These bombing-planes are armed with quick-firing guns, but are less
handy and manageable than the battle-plane, whose protection,
therefore, they require.
We are confident that our American friends will develop to the extreme
limit their aviation of bombardment, and will train a great number of
their aviators for long-distance flights by night or day. Very many
of the most important military establishments in western Germany are
within reach of our blows. Up to now the insufficiency of our material
has been the sole reason of the failure of our aviation to attempt
the destruction of her plants at Essen, Cologne, Manheim, Metz, etc.
Certain expeditions have proved that all these places are within the
reach of fairly good machines piloted by well-trained aviators.
What would become of the Essen works the day that 1200 or 1500
airplanes attacked them in groups of 30 or 40, following each other
at ten-minute intervals; some bombarding the works with high-power
torpedoes, others with incendiary bombs, others with suffocating
projectiles, utterly demoralizing the workmen and spreading terror in
their midst?
Certainly there would be losses, for the Germans have surrounded their
works with numerous anti-aircraft guns, but would the more or less
complete destruction of the Essen works be too dearly bought by the
loss of a number of machines? Moreover we do not believe that a raid on
their big plants, if well prepared and well carried out, would be very
costly.
The use of aviation to destroy the enemy’s munition plants will, in our
opinion, greatly hasten the end of the war, and spare a large number of
lives.
If the war lasts, the long-distance aviation will have to be employed
very extensively during the summer to set fire indiscriminately to
the harvest in the enemy’s country, and even in the territory which
they occupy as invaders, since there is no reason to spare the invaded
sections as long as the natives are not allowed to have their share of
the crops. Furthermore, devices will have to be invented to facilitate
this work of destruction.
It is materially impossible to give the bombing-machines a speed equal
to that of the battle-planes. Great importance however must be attached
to the choice of motors and to obtaining the greatest speed possible.
All these machines have two propellers and some are provided with three
motors.
The first bombing expeditions were undertaken during the first months
of the war. From the very beginning, the Germans realized that
airplanes could go far and strike dangerous blows. Paris was bombarded
as early as September, 1914. In time, and as the machines were
improved, the bombardments became more disastrous. In the course of the
first half of 1915, British aviators dropped bombs on Friedrichshaven,
the Zeppelin station on the Lake of Constance; French aviators attacked
Stuttgart and Carlsruhe; and since the beginning of 1917, the Germans
have multiplied their raids on London and the coasts of England.
We believe that bombing aviation, for purely military purposes, will
assume an ever-increasing importance in the war.
OBSERVATION OR SCOUT-PLANES. On the French Front the old types of
reconnoitring machines are being replaced as quickly as possible. They
were too slow and not easy to control in case of an attack.
The services rendered by the reconnoitring airplanes are of the
greatest importance. Their observations supply the Command with
accurate information concerning everything that is taking place within
the enemy’s lines; the condition of his front; the movements of troops
in his rear; thus enabling the Chief to foresee his intentions and foil
his plans.
In addition to reports of what they observe during their flights, the
pilots obtain aërial photographs. This very important adjunct of our
modern armies has been considerably improved.
Photos taken at an altitude of 2500 and 3000 metres (8000 to 10,000
feet) reproduce so accurately the configuration of the land with every
object on it, that trained officers are able to observe in them the
smallest changes that have been made. With this object in view they
compare together several photos of the same place taken at different
dates.
We include in our volume some aërial photographs of the German lines in
the Aisne sector taken at the end of December, 1916, in January, 1917,
and in April and May, 1917. The first show merely the enemy’s works
before the French bombardment. The pictures taken in April of the same
ground give an excellent idea of the progressive effect of the French
artillery, and the last photographs, taken during the attacks of the
5th and 6th of May, show the final result of the tremendous shell-fire.
In order to compare the changes effected from time to time, it is
necessary to use a magnifying-glass, and to note successively each
observation on a large-scale map called a “directing map.” This minute,
painstaking method alone will enable the Staff to form an idea of the
effect of the artillery, and the progressive demolition of the works
and trenches of the enemy. Later on we will see that the observations
reported by the reconnoitring aviation influence in a great measure the
dispositions taken for attack.
The British attach, and rightly so, such importance to a strictly
accurate record of the effects of their fire, that they are not
satisfied with the usual charts, but construct for their principal
staffs large-scale relief-maps including both their own and the German
lines, works, and batteries, as revealed to them by photographs taken
from airplanes and captive balloons. Officers of the General Staff are
specially entrusted with the duty of recording on this relief-map all
damage and destruction as fast as it is reported. When the order of
attack is given, the British chiefs, knowing as far as it is possible
what works they will find destroyed, and what points will offer a more
or less stubborn resistance, make their dispositions accordingly.
No attack is possible if the Command is not daily informed by the
photographic section. Even after a continuous bombardment it is more
prudent to defer an attack if during the preceding days the weather has
been so bad as to prevent the use of the aërial cameras.
USE OF SCOUT-PLANES TO DIRECT ARTILLERY FIRE. Special and sufficiently
numerous squadrillas must be reserved for the exclusive use of the
artillery, and more particularly for that of the heavy artillery in
order to supply them with the proper range.
At times, captive balloons can help the heavy artillery in this
respect, the gunners preferring them to airplanes; but these balloons
are not always sufficiently numerous and cannot always see far enough.
The guiding airplane informs the batteries to which it is assigned of
the effect of their shell-fire by means of wireless telegraphy, which
has the advantage of not being interrupted by the terrific noise of the
bombardment, whereas telephonic communication with a captive balloon is
impossible without the use of special “hearing masks.”
Different kinds of rockets can also be employed for indicating the
range under certain circumstances.
USE OF SCOUT-PLANES TO DIRECT THE MOVEMENTS OF INFANTRY. The
squadrillas of a Division are provided with devices for guiding the
movements of infantry.
Their duties are manifold. At all times they are kept hovering over the
first lines to watch the enemy and give warning of all unusual moves.
During an assault their principal duty is to secure the indispensable
unity of action between the infantry and the field artillery. As we
will explain further on, every attack made by the infantry is screened
by a terrific barrage fire that advances about one hundred yards ahead
of the first wave. In order that such a barrage may continue to be
properly effective it must progress at the same speed as the infantry.
For this purpose scout-planes are equipped with a special rocket, that
signals, “Increase the range.” Each rocket sent calls for an increase
of one hundred metres in the range.
During the fight the duties of the aviator as watchdog of the infantry
do not cease. He has to observe the slightest moves of the enemy,
and he is usually able to warn his commanders of the preparation of
counter-attacks, of their direction, and of their strength.
The services rendered by the guiding aviation to the artillery and
infantry are obviously of capital importance. Its mission, if properly
executed, is extremely hard and laborious, hence the necessity, in the
future, of increasing the number and efficiency of these squadrillas as
much as possible. In order that they may operate successfully they must
be closely protected by powerful battle-planes, unless the latter have
already cleared the region of enemy machines and left them the mastery
of the air.
AVIATION DURING BATTLES. Since the battle of the Somme, the British
and French aviation has taken, day by day, a more and more direct part
in the actual fighting. The Germans, whose aircraft were originally
employed only for scouting purposes, were not slow in imitating them.
During all the recent Franco-British offensives, machines of all types
|
him
the very day when he has his feet securely set on the ladder whose apex
is a brilliant political career. His struggles between duty to his
mother and obligations to his country, his desire not to offend
convention or outrage morality, his love for his cousin Eleana, tame for
him but consuming to her, unhappily married to a Sicilian roué brute and
baron, are narrated in a way that seduces even the casual reader. Indeed
it is wonderfully done, and attention is sustained to the end, virtue
being finally rewarded.
"The Saint" is a psychological study of abnormal religious development.
It presented forcibly the necessity for reform of the Vatican and
ecclesiastical customs and beliefs. When it was put on the Index it
caused its illustrious author, a fervent believer and an exemplary
communicant, much pain and remorse. "Leila" continued the history of the
leading character of "The Saint." It is said that the author hoped it
would make amends for the offense that the latter had given, but it was
also put on the Index.
He wrote a volume of poetry, and many of his verses are redolent of
music and charm, such as "Ultima Rosa" ("The Last Rose") and "Amorum."
He has been more widely read in this country than any Italian writer of
fiction save D'Annunzio. He raised one slab to his memory which will
resist more than granite--"Piccolo Mondo Antico." It will be preserved
by time, and cherished for the same reason that one keeps and lauds a
marvellous picture of wife or mother, brother or sweetheart, because it
is a bit of perfection and because the owner loves it.
An extraordinary figure in Italian literature of yesterday and of the
period under discussion, was Olindo Guerrini (1845-1916), for many years
director of the University Library at Bologna. In 1878 he published a
volume entitled "Postuma" which purported to be the work of one Lorenzo
Stecchetti which caused prudish Italy to shiver, prurient Italy to
shake, and literary Italy to be enormously diverted. The "Postuma" went
through thirty-two editions in forty years, but one should not inquire
too closely the reason for this. When critics discovered that the author
was alive they assailed his immodest verses, and his responses "Nova
Polemica" added to his literary reputation. But it was not until he
published his prose writings that he displayed his real literary
stature.
"Postuma" is still read, that the reader may find something recent to
compare with the conduct of Messalina rather than for its literary
qualities. "Rime," which has no panoplied display of the author's libido
but many charming idyls, reminiscences, and vignettes is much read
to-day. Such poems as "Il Guado" ("The Ford") and "Nell' Aria" are as
redolent of sentiment and ingenuous experiences that lead to thrills as
a rose is redolent of perfume. Every schoolgirl can quote the last two
lines of the latter:
"Ed io che intesi quel che non dicevi
M'innamorai di te perchè tacevi."
Other poems such as "Congedo" ("Leave-taking") and "Wienerblut," after
the waltz of Johann Strauss, had great popularity at the time and were
praised by his contemporaries, but to-day it is difficult to find great
merit in them. Were one called upon to make specific comment upon his
poetry, he would have to point out the very obvious influence of Byron,
De Musset, and Heine, and to say that Guerrini in no way is comparable
with any of them. Much has been written about him as the index of the
revolt against the corrupt romanticism of the third romantic period in
Italy. He was the uncompromising foe of cant and hypocrisy in literature
and the stanch defender of realism.
Giuseppe Lipparini, an eminently fair critic, gives him a higher rating
as a writer of prose than of poetry. These include "Vita di Giulio
Cesare Croce" ("Life of Julius Cæsar Croce"), a monograph on Francesco
Patuzio, and "Bibliografia per ridere" ("The Laugher's Library").
Although there were countless poets of this period, two or three should
be mentioned, more because of the effect they had upon the public taste,
perhaps one might say public education, than for the intrinsic merit of
their writings; and of these may be mentioned Vittorio Betteloni
(1840-1910), the son of a romantic poet. His writings may be said to
have popularized the public protest against the romanticism of the third
romantic period. He also made known to many of his countrymen the poetry
of Byron and of Goethe in faithful poetic translations.
Brief mention is here made of two literary men of affairs in Italy, the
purpose being more to call attention to a type of individual who is more
often found in Italy than in any other country--the versatile,
many-sided, cultivated man of affairs who has also distinctive literary
talent.
Enrico Panzacchi (1841-1904) published a volume of lyrics, fluid,
harmonious, transparent, treating of homely, every-day subjects which
appealed very much to the public. He first became known as a writer of
seductive romances, then as an accomplished musician, afterward as a
lyric poet, then as a critic of literature, æsthetics, and philosophy.
He taught the philosophy and history of art; he was the secretary of the
Academy of Belle Arti at Bologna, for many years a deputy in Parliament,
and at one time undersecretary of state and an orator of great renown.
His reputation as a poet depends largely upon "Cor Sincerum," published
in 1902. In his versatility he reminds of Remy de Gourmont, although his
literary productions were incomparably less numerous, but in temper of
mind, literary equipment, æsthetic appetite, and general virtuosity they
are brothers.
The other is Ferdinando Martini, a governor of one of Italy's colonies,
a minister of public instruction, a deputy of long service, a poet, an
essayist, a biographer, and a traveller, the Italian Admirable Crichton.
He was born in Monsummano in 1841, and for forty-five years was without
interruption in the Chamber of Deputies. He went under in the last
election. He has published many books and articles, amongst which may be
mentioned "Nell' Africa Italiana" ("In African Italy"), but the casual
reader will get most pleasurable contact with him from "Pagine
Raccolte." He is an excellent example of the cultured man in public life
in Italy. His prose integrates the aroma of the classics, while at the
same time his sympathies and interests bring his subjects up to the
minute. His writings have a pragmatic as well as an æsthetic quality.
None of them has the air of preachings. He knows how to be profound
without being heavy and learned without being pedantic. For him
literature has not been an æsthetic exercise or a statement of human
rights and human needs. Prospective admirers should not study too
closely his political career.
Death has claimed nearly all of the conspicuous figures of literature in
the period of the risorgimento. One who had a strange tenacity of life,
which he but recently yielded, was Salvatore Farina, whose first
romances, "Un Segreto" ("A Secret") and "Due Amori" ("Two Loves"), were
published more than fifty years ago. He was, perhaps, the truly
representative writer of the Piccolo Borghese in the generation that
followed Italy's unity. In the fifty or more volumes that he published
(the last of which appeared in 1912 and was called the "Second Book of
the Lovers") he portrayed a variety of romanticism which was the
outgrowth of the struggle between the drab and commonplace realities of
life and the fantastic dreams of simple-minded persons who thought that
life would be ideal if it could be fashioned after their own plans. He
was the novelist of sickly sentiment, the most slavish disciple that
Samuel Richardson ever had. Students of Italian literature will read his
two reminiscent volumes called "La mia Giornata," the first published in
1910, the second in 1913, to get a picture of the literary doings of one
of the grayest and most uncertain periods of modern Italian literature.
He is mentioned here merely to note the tremendous popularity which his
writings had, and to call attention to the fact that they left no
impression upon the times and that the type of novel which they
represent has practically now disappeared the world over.
CHAPTER II
LITERARY ITALY
(CONTINUED)
Among the interesting literary figures of the old school still living is
Renato Fucini, whose pen-name is Neri Tanfucio. He is now nearly eighty
years old, and for some years has been living in a small town not far
from Florence, writing his recollections. In college he studied civil
engineering, but he soon forsook it and secured employment in the office
of the Municipal Art Direction in Florence. Later he taught Italian in
the technical school at Pistoia and after that was several years an
inspector of rural schools. It was during these years of wandering
through Tuscany that he got the intimate knowledge of its simple,
industrial, pleasure-loving people, peasant and poacher, landlord and
inspector, teacher and pupil, that he has embodied in his stories and in
his burlesque, tragic, and sentimental verses.
His fame rests on his dialect poetry ("Poesie"), chiefly in sonnet form,
in which he depicts the virtues and vices, the licenses and inhibitions,
the hopes and the despairs, of his fellow Tuscans, at the same time
embodying delightful descriptions of their charming, romantic land; and
a few small volumes of prose, all little masterpieces--"Napoli a occhio
nudo" ("Naples to the Naked Eye," letters written to a friend about that
enchanting city two generations ago when it was still plunged in the
misery of its protracted predatory misrule and the majority of its
inhabitants were reduced to a deplorable state); "All' Aria Aperta" ("In
the Open Air"), scenes and incidents of life among the common people of
Tuscany; and "Le Veglie di Neri" ("Fireside Evenings of Neri"), which
showed him a man of heart and of mind supremely capable of transforming
the messages of the former by the latter in such a way as to make great
appeal to his fellow beings. His books can be read to-day with the same
pleasure that they were read half a century ago, and the pictures which
are painted, particularly in the former, are as vivid as the day they
were first put on the canvas.
Fucini is a type that is indigenous to central Italy, by nature a lover
of the fields, the forest, the brooks, he was compelled from earliest
infancy to earn his living, and he seemed to be content with a bare
sustenance, getting pleasure from his wanderings and from books. He did
on foot and more intimately what Signore Panzini has done on a bicycle
or on way trains. As an inspector of country schools he was obliged to
visit countless villages and hamlets, and there he found in the habits,
customs, and conduct of their inhabitants material for comment and
reflections such as most people find in new countries and large cities.
His descriptions of them found sympathetic response in the hearts of
many who see in the lives of these simple yet sophisticated people the
romance of bygone days.
Fucini has not cut a great figure in Italian letters, but any one who
would get a familiarity with the literature of the early days of Italian
unity, or who is in search of diversion and delight should not neglect
him. He is a sympathetic figure, whether wandering through Tuscany,
bending over a table in the Riccardi Library, or awaiting his cue at
Empoli.
A writer of this period to whom posterity is likely to give a high
rating is Alfredo Oriani, who died in 1907. His fame will finally rest
on his fiction rather than on his historical contributions. Though "La
lotta politica in Italia" ("The Political Struggle in Italy"), from 486
to 1877 in three volumes, is a creditable performance, it is not based
on personal research. Malignant-minded critics have occupied themselves
with proving him a pilferer, but the work is done with such consummate
literary skill that he has put the reading world under obligations to
him.
His first books, "Memorie inutili" ("Useless Memories"), "Sullo Scoglio"
("On the Reefs"), and "Al di la, no" ("The Next World, No"), revealed
such unbridled license of morbid tendencies that even Italians could not
stomach them. He appeared to them a romanticist after the manner of
Guerrazzi, addicted to the Macabre, subject to satanic inspiration,
bombastic, and rhetorical.
When Oriani took up a second phase of his writing in the period from
1880 to 1890 the reading public still continued to mistrust him.
Although he brought his spirit to a more stable equilibrium, he carried
upon himself the stigma that clung to him in consequence of his previous
books, and such productions as "Il Nemico" ("The Enemy"), "Incenso e
Mirra" ("Incense and Myrrh"), "Fino a Dogali" ("Up to Dogal"),
"Matrimonio e divorzio" ("Marriage and Divorce"), did not absolve him
from previous sins.
His turgid style was more objected to than his taints and his themes,
and his aggressiveness and political arrogances found greater opposition
than his early decadent manner and his late negations in religious
matters. He was accused of being a plagiarist. His greatest work "Lotta
Politica" was characterized by a critic, L. Ambrosina, to be wholly
devoid of originality. His "Momo" was called an imitation of
Turgénieff's "A Neighbor's Bread." His "L'Invincibile" was derived from
"Andrea Cornelis" of Paul Bourget, and the "Ultimi Barbari" ("The Last
Barbarians") from Verga's "Pagliacci" and the "Cavalleria Rusticana."
Thus beset, Oriani, despairing of recognition, gathered his strength for
a final flight and strove to reach heights never reached before, and he
wrote "The Political Struggle," "Holocaust," and "Ideal Revolts."
"The Holocaust" is a study of mother and daughter. The mother has, from
leading a wayward life, been able to keep body and soul together until
middle age has effaced her charms. Reduced to hunger and rags, she
decides to sacrifice her fifteen-year-old daughter and offers her to the
first stranger whom she encounters walking beside the Arno one evening;
she takes him to her contemptible rooms where the emaciated and ragged
child awaits, in ignorance of her mission, the mother.
The young man of the self-made and aggressive type primed with animal
spirits hesitates to be the instrument of the mother's monstrous
designs, and hurls himself from the house when he realizes the
situation, leaving the contents of his purse with the crushed little
flower. The inhuman mother and a friend even more saturated in iniquity
spend the money in an improvised banquet and plan how they shall take
the child to the home of a well-known procuress. Their object is
realized when this is accomplished and the mother receives a small sum
of money, but the child, not having been cut out for the life, soon
escapes. A narrative of her experiences, a picture of her suffering, the
conflict between filial love and justifiable resentment, is set forth in
page after page of psychological analysis. From the violence of the
encounter flow simultaneously mortal disease and pregnancy. The former
gives the author an opportunity to depict the child mind in rebellion
against both bodily and spiritual salvation. The ministrations of the
church are done with great finesse, kindliness, and skill, and give much
satisfaction to believers. This may be the author's votive offering to
the church, or it may reflect a new illumination of his soul. When the
heroine dies the mother realizes her sin in having borne the child and
in having betrayed her.
It would be difficult to imagine anything more disagreeable than the
story. The only thing that can be said is that it is well told, but what
does it advantage one to read it? As Henry James said, no one is
compelled to admire any particular sort of writing, but surely there
must be compulsion to make one write them. And as Flaubert, whom Oriani
probably called master, wrote: "Such books are false; nature is not like
that."
Oriani lived a singularly isolated life, having little contact with his
fellow workers and little recognition. But he was a thinker and
idealist, and it is unfortunate that he did not choose more attractive
media to present his thought and project his aspirations. Only after his
death did he begin to get any measure of appreciation. The four wars
against Austria, the final charge against the Alps, foreseen and invoked
by Oriani, were the conditions of his recognition by the Italian people.
The most widely read of all Italian writers of this period was Edmondo
de Amicis (1846-1908). His books, "Bozzetti Militari" ("Military Life"),
which appeared shortly after his period of service in the army, and the
book for boys entitled "Cuore" ("Heart"), had a tremendous sale and
still have. They were also widely read outside of Italy. He wrote many
books of travel, some poetry, literary portraits, and short stories.
However, he made no particular impression upon the literary period of
his time.
Guido Mazzoni, born in 1859, was, and perhaps still is, professor at the
University of Florence. He has been for many years secretary of the
Crusca and senator of the realm. His critical work is "L'Ottocento." His
poetry is of the familiar variety. "Sewing-machine" is one of them. He
is an excellent example of the culture of the Italians, but he has made
no lasting impression upon Italian letters. He is best known in this
country from Papini's gibes at him and at the Crusca. His recent
contributions, "The Lament of Achilles" and "Con Gli Alpini" ("With the
Alpini"), are of the eminently respectable, commendable, poet-laureate
variety, called forth by valorous deeds of Italy's soldier sons.
Nothing shows the flight from romanticism to realism that took place at
the end of the nineteenth century so clearly as its stage literature.
The dominating figure of that period was Giuseppe Giacosa. He was not
alone the most prolific contributor to the literature of the theatre,
but a man who early excited and kept the admiration and affection of
fellow artists. He can truthfully be called the literary mirror of that
period in Italy.
The lamp of enthusiasm was flickering when he first put secure steps
upon the literary road, but it lighted him to a great success in "Una
Partita a Scacchi" ("A Game of Chess"). Then the car of realism came
along with a rush, as if it would carry everything in its wake, and he
threw a great bouquet into the tonneau in the shape of "Surrender at
Discretion." But his ear was always to the ground, and, when he sensed
the advent of a new literary period and learned of the existence of
readers that did not know just what they wanted but thought they would
like to have the truth, the naked truth of life as depicted in fiction,
he wrote "Sad Loves." But the Veristic period did not last long, and
Giacosa took leave of it without a tear. Pascoli and D'Annunzio had not
only entered idealistic realism in the literary race, but they were
shouting in the most vociferous way for the latter especially to win.
When Giacosa became fully cognizant of the favorite colors he was quick
to make his entry with "As the Leaves" and "Il Più Forte" ("The
Stronger").
The play to which he owed his first success, "A Game of Chess," had a
remarkable career in Italy, and it still makes leading appeal to
extravagant youth and romantic maturity, who see, in the lovely Iolande
or in the dashing Fernando, prototypes who solve perplexing problems of
life with an ease and readiness that is soul-satisfying. They also see
in their experiences the smouldering or dying embers of their own
passions, whose articulate breathings cause them to glow consumingly and
pleasantly.
Its success turned the author from law, which he despised, to
literature, which he adored.
His next play, "Il Trionfe d'Amore" ("The Triumph of Love"), was along
the same lines: life without sorrow or strife save such as make
pleasure--which bulks large in life--sweeter. Within a few years Giacosa
began to depict life as it really was, is, or should be, and the first
indication of it was "Il Conte rosso" ("The Red Count"), and for a
decade he gave himself to the production of historical plays none of
which can be used to-day as a wreath on the monument to his memory. It
was not until he wrote "Resa a Discrezione" ("Surrender at Discretion"),
that he came into the field which he finally tilled so profitably,
holding up to the contemptuous, scornful gaze of the people the useless,
iniquitous, pernicious existences of a certain class, the noble. In this
he did the same thing that he had done in his masterpiece, "As the
Leaves." But here he portrayed flesh and blood confronted with problems
conditioned by life, called chance. Instead of desperation and whetted
appetite for sensuous appeasement, we see latent character budding and
flowering under the stimulus of adversity; virtue which does not lose
its aroma from enforced tarry in putrid milieu; the deadly sins, rooted
in ancestral emotions and nurtured by environment displayed in the
conduct of human beings of our acquaintance and our intimacy; we see the
exaltation and the deprecation of viciousness just as we see it and
accomplish it in real life. The literary features of the lines, the
crispness and naturalness of the dialogue, the fidelity with which he
reflected the handling of problems likely to confront any one show the
finished artist.
Giacosa was a conspicuous literary figure of yesterday's Italy, friend
of poets and philosopher, journalist, essayist, lecturer, man of the
world, mirror of one side of its mental and emotional activity.
Next to Verga the Verists found their chief exponent in Luigi Capuana, a
Sicilian born in 1839 and still living. He wrote romances, short
stories, plays, and criticisms, none of which save the latter had great
vogue, though one of his plays, "Malia" ("Enchantment"), gave such
offense to Mrs. Grundy that it had great popularity. Like Verga he knows
his countrymen and women, particularly their emotional reactions and the
conduct conditioned by it, by their inheritancy, and by their
environment. Many of his short stories are gems of construction and of
narrative. For instance, "Passa l'Amore," in "Il buon Pastore" ("The
Good Pastor"), is a masterly delineation of the struggle between what is
usually called good and evil in the person of a saintly old priest. Love
had been an abstract conception for the good pastor until he essayed to
reclaim a lamb who had been driven from the fold by the efforts of a
cruel father intensively to prepare her for sacrifice at the hands of
Cavalier Ferro. Perhaps if Capuana had not been content with merely
interesting and diverting the public, as he counselled Bracco to be, and
had tried to teach them and lead them he would have greater renown. As
it is he is one of the best short-story writers of Italy, a discerning,
trustworthy critic, who has written an interesting volume of studies in
contemporary literature, and several plays, the last of which, "Il
Paraninfo" ("The Best-man"), has recently been published. Nevertheless
he must be considered a writer whose potentialities were but partially
realized.
Two realistic writers of the end of the nineteenth century must be
mentioned, though their work scarcely merits discussion and to do so may
be unjust to others. They are Gerolamo Rovetta and Marco Praga. Although
the former wrote criticisms, interpretations, and romances, some of
which had much success, the contributions by which he is best known are
his plays. Rovetta studied contemporary life and depicted it for the
stage. His first success, the one upon which his reputation as a man of
letters most solidly rests, "La Trilogia di Dorina" ("Dorina's
Trilogy"), presents the public pie, upper and lower crust and middle,
quite as Zola might have made it. His favorite theme was that man is but
a reaction to his environment, expounded particularly in "I Disonesti"
("Dishonest Men"), though his greatest popular success was
"Romanticismo" ("Romanticism"), which was a contribution to "idealistic
reaction" which would turn us from ugly verities of life. It has been
said by competent authorities to be a faithful presentation of public
and private sentiment existing in northern Italy previous to her
deliverance from tyrannical Austria.
Marco Praga is the son of Emilio Praga, who was the best-known Bohemian
poet of Italy in his day (1839-1875), but who abandoned writing to teach
dramatic literature in the Conservatory of Music in Milan. He professes
to be the dramatic mirror held up to life and to tell the truth as he
sees it, that he cannot be persuaded to camouflage it, and that when it
is depicted on the stage it shall amuse rather than distress. That is
what makes his most successful plays, such as "Le Vergini" ("The
Virgins") and "La Moglie Ideale" ("The Ideal Wife"), depressing reading.
Such conduct as they depict and such exchange of thought and sentiment
as they report undoubtedly exist, but the less one knows of it and comes
in contact with it the happier he or she is likely to be. If adultery
could only be made a virtue for a few years, it would lose its
attractiveness and many writers would have to earn their living.
At the end of the nineteenth century Italy had three women poets of much
distinction, one of whom, Ada Negri, had and still has great popularity.
Her last book of poems, "Il libro Di Mara" ("The Book of Mara"), has
shown that she still has the capacity to put into verse dramatically and
lyrically the most delicate and the most dominant notes of love as she
or as those she has loved has experienced it. She was born in a little
village of Lombardy in 1870. Her mother worked in a factory, and she
herself was for some years a teacher in the elementary schools; so she
had first-hand knowledge of the shut-in life of those whose repressions
and aspirations she sung and published in _L'Illustrazione Popolare_ of
Milan. In these she set forth with great sincerity and with stirring
lyric quality the sordid sufferings and sorrows of the toiling masses.
These poems and others were published under the titles of "Fatality" and
"The Tempest" in 1892 and 1894. Two years later a radical change in her
social and spiritual environment was brought about by her marriage to
Signor Garlanda, and soon she sang of it in a volume called "Maternity,"
which does for that state what her previous volumes had done for human
pain and human poverty. "Dal Profondo" ("From the Depths") was but a
continuation of these sentiments, tinctured with philosophical and
socialistic knowledge that had been displayed for other purpose in "The
Tempest." After this came a volume entitled "Esilio" ("Exile"), which
reflected the same thoughts and sentiments in Swiss light. She has
written two prose works, a series of short stories entitled "Le
Solitarie" and "Orazioni" ("Orisons"). She glorifies purity, idealizes
it, and sings its adoration.
In the closing years of the century there was published in Milan a
volume of lyrics by one Annie Vivanti, which was praised intemperately
by Carducci and by the _Nuova Antologia_. She had some fiction to her
credit which dealt chiefly with the life of the stage, but her advent
into the world of letters was like a shooting star; nothing was known of
her origin save that she was said to have been born in London, and there
was some mystery about her career. In her poetry there was a true lyric
wail, especially in "Destino" ("Destiny"), "Non Sarà mai" ("It Can Never
Be"), that appealed tremendously to the public mind. Had she been
productive she might have been compared to Ella Wheeler Wilcox. After
her marriage to Mr. Chartres, a London journalist, she became better
known as the mother of a child-wonder violinist. Amongst her romances
the one which had greatest popularity was entitled "I Divoratori" ("The
Devourers"). It is obviously the story of her life and of her daughter's
career, the record of filial shortcomings steeped in wormwood.
The third of these interesting writers, half Armenian, half Italian, was
Vittoria Aganoor, who was born in Padua in 1855. In 1900 she published a
volume called "Leggenda Eterna" ("Eternal Legend"), which showed her to
be a sincere, impassioned artist with a pronounced leaning toward the
sentimental. She died in London in the spring of 1910, after a surgical
operation, and a few hours later her husband, Guido Pompili, killed
himself. Her best-known poems are "Il Canto dell' Ironia" ("The Song of
Irony"), "La vecchia Anima sogna... " ("The Old Soul Dreams"), "Mamà,
sei tu?" ("Mother, Is It Thou?"). A complete volume of her poetry was
published in 1912.
Italians are astonished when women make a great stir in the world. They
have had no Jeanne d'Arc or Florence Nightingale. Their historic women
have been mostly mystics who would punish the flesh that they might
become spiritually pure, but the generation that is now passing has had
five women, four at least of whom will have to be discussed by any
historian of the intellectual movement in the latter half of the
nineteenth century. They are Matilde Serao, Grazia Deledda, Maria
Montessori, Eusapia Palladino, and Eleanora Duse, and most space will be
given to Duse.
Matilde Serao is the Marie Corelli of Italy with one important
qualification. She has not been obliged to subscribe to the rigors of
convention. She has spoken with great frankness about whole sides of
life which Miss Corelli knows, but about which she has been compelled to
be silent. Not that the romances of Matilde Serao are in any sense
pornographic, but she has painted her subjects so vividly and registered
her sensations and impressions so sumptuously that they are considered
very improper by Mrs. Grundy. She was in turn school-teacher,
telegraphist, journalist, publisher, author, but throughout her writings
she has kept the note of the journalist who has made a careful study of
Zola and of Flaubert. Her thought is spontaneous, her expression facile,
as she depicts the emotions and "feelings" of her Neapolitan characters,
clad in rags or royal raiment, living in hovel or in palace.
Her most successful books were "La Storia di un Monaco," "Il Ventre di
Napoli" ("The Belly of Naples"), "Il Paese della Cuccagna" ("The Land of
the Cockaigne"), and "Terno secco" in which the social, economic, and
political world of Naples is revealed. With the third of those
enumerated she tried to do for lottery-gambling in Naples what Charles
Dickens did for the private schools of England. Regrettably her efforts
did not have a similar result.
In her Neapolitan stories the local color is not a mere background, but
the very marrow of their being, with the result that it is almost
impossible to reproduce it adequately in translation. Her later books
were always pictures of the professional lover in different
environments. He loves with fury and usually for a short time only. His
amatory conduct has no ancillæ of Anglo-Saxon love-making. It is taurine
and satyric. He does not always kill after the embrace, but one gathers
from his conduct that he would like to do so. Time has tempered Matilde
Serao's erotic literary coefficient and her last books are cool, more
serene, and less interesting. One of her last books, "Ella non rispose,"
has recently been translated into English under the title of "Souls
Divided."
Grazia Deledda has done for her native island of Sardinia that which
Signora Serao did for Naples, but to a great extent she kept lubricity
out of her writings. In her "Il Vecchio della Montagna" ("The Old Man of
the Mountain"), "La Via del Male" ("Road to Evil"), "Cenere" ("Ashes"),
"Nostalgia," "L'Incendio nell' Uliveto" ("The Burning in the Olive
Grove"), and many others, she depicted with wondrous accuracy the life,
feelings, struggles, ambitions, infirmities of the Sardinians, and
painted their sordid surroundings and glorious scenery. She did for that
wonderful island, so strangely neglected by the mother country, what
Mary Wilkins did for New England. Her imagination was never so vivid nor
was her eye so penetrating as that of her Neapolitan sister, nor has she
known the voluptuous side of life, seamy or embroidered, but she has
known how to put down in a way that engrosses the reader's attention the
pitiable and pathetic plights that circumstance and passion force upon
the people with whom she lives. The display of their passions and
sorrows are apparently as familiar to her as the landscapes.
Unfortunately, however, she does for them that which she does for the
latter. She idealizes them or, better said, she strains them through her
imagination. In other words, instead of recording them as they are she
records them as they should be. Her novels give the impression of being
photographic until you read Verga. Not that the breath of insincerity
which Croce said was the curse of Italy's modern writers comes from her.
She is most sincere, but her characters are sandman manikins into whose
nostrils she has breathed the breath of life. She makes her characters
do what she might do if she were one of them.
Whether she is tugging at the end of her intellectual tether or not
remains to be seen, but her recent work has not the spontaneity and
imaginativeness of her earlier books and she is almost obsessed with
describing landscapes, the advent and departure of the sun, and
stage-settings generally. Her last story, "The Burning in the Olive
Grove," is a conflict between the present and the past, and turns upon a
marriage of convention. It gives the author the opportunity to depict
the imperious eighty-three-year-old grandmother, her useless brother,
the farm lassie whose worldly success in marrying into a family above
her station she owes to her beauty, and a pillar of feminine virtue who
would live her own life in her own way despite the schemings of the
grandmother of feudalistic behavior. The scene is filled with character
studies which she likes so well: the old soldier of Garibaldi's legion,
his lame son whom the heroine loves, and virtuous heroic peasantry.
Several of Grazia Deledda's novels have been translated into English,
but they have not had great success. She is one of the last of the
realistic idealizers. The most her admirers can hope that the future
will do for her is that it will suggest to those in search of Sardinian
color that they should consult her writings. Neither the psychologist
nor the literary craftsman will disturb her literary remains.
The most promising successor of these women
|
my was
sacrificing so much.
At best he was the poor imitation of a King. Being the son of a mad
father and a weak mother he inherited such tendencies as made him
utterly unfit to cope with the perils of the time, or to give to the
Maid who had come to his relief such assistance as he should have given.
"Never did a King lose his kingdom so gaily," said one of his soldiers,
and although he was momentarily roused by the Maid's noble courage and
purpose, yet he still found it far easier to loiter through days of ease
in his château, than with prompt resolution to turn to the task in hand.
Had Charles the Dauphin been the man that Jeanne d'Arc would have had
him be, the history of the Maid of France would have been a different
one. But even his thrill at being aided to claim his throne, was not
strong enough to fire him with the proper spirit, and he continued to
waste long days in idle ease, while Jeanne was fretting her heart out
waiting for him to decide to let her start to raise the siege of
Orléans. But delay she must, and she whiled away the tedious days by
practising with crossbow and sword in the meadows near Chinon, and
although she refused to wear a woman's dress until she had accomplished
her mission, yet she was both graceful and beautiful in her knight's
costume, which she now wore in place of the simple page's suit in which
she had ridden to Chinon, and many admiring eyes watched her as she rode
up and down in the green meadows, alert and graceful in every movement.
And although he was wasting precious moments in deciding whether to
allow her to raise the siege of Orléans or not, the Dauphin spoke often
and intimately with her, as with a friend to whom he was deeply
attached, and Jeanne was treated with all possible deference both by
those of high and low degree. The young Duc d'Alençon, a noble and loyal
courtier, was so deeply won by her sweetness and charm that his wife
invited her to spend a few days at their home, the Abbey of St. Florent
les-Saumur, while waiting for the decision of the Dauphin. That little
visit was a bright spot in the long dark story of the Maid's fulfilment
of her mission, for there, with those whose every word and act spoke of
kindred ideals and lofty aims, the Maid unbent to the level of care-free
normal girlhood, and ever after that there was a close comradeship
between the Duc and Jeanne.
At last the Dauphin came to a decision. To Poitiers, Jeanne must go, and
there be examined by the French Parliament, and by the most learned men
in the kingdom, to prove that she was capable of achieving that which
she wished to attempt. When Jeanne heard this she cried out impatiently,
"To Poitiers? In God's name I know I shall have my hands full, but the
saints will aid me. Let us be off!" which showed that the Maid, for all
her saintliness had also a very normal human degree of impatience to do
as she had planned, and who can blame her?
To Poitiers she went, and there as everywhere the people loved her for
her goodness, her enthusiasm for the rescue of France, and for her
unassuming piety. For long weary weeks, she was cross-examined by the
cleverest men who could be found for the task, but ever her keen wit was
able to bring her safely through the quagmires and pitfalls they laid
for her to fall into; then at last it was announced that "in
consideration of the great necessity and peril of Orléans, the King
would make use of her help, and she should go in honourable fashion to
the aid of Orléans."
So back again to Chinon went Jeanne, overflowing with eagerness and
hope, looking, it is said, like a handsome, enthusiastic boy in her
page's suit, full of the joy of living, happy in the thought of hard
work ahead, then on at last she went, with her escort of both soldiers
and cavalry officers, to the accomplishing of her second duty. By the
King's orders she was dressed this time in a suit of fine steel armour
which was well suited to the lithe grace of her slim young figure, and
over her armour she wore a "hûque" as the slashed coats worn by knights
were called. She had her pick of a horse from the royal stables, and
even he was decked with a steel headpiece and a high peaked saddle.
Jeanne, de Metz and Bertrand de Poulengy, her faithful followers, were
also fitted with special armour, which was very costly and handsome.
The sword Jeanne carried was one which had been found under the altar of
the church of St. Catherine of Fierbois, around which many legends of
miracles clustered, but to Jeanne it was at best only a weapon, and she
said she should never make use of it. Her great white standard was the
thing she loved, and even when she was in the thick of the battle, she
always carried it, with its painted figure of God throned on clouds
holding the world in his hands, while kneeling angels on either side
presented lilies, and above were the words, "Jhesus, Maria." On the
other side of the banner was a shield with the arms of France, supported
by two angels. She had also a smaller banner with a white dove on azure
ground, holding in his beak a scroll with the words, "In the name of the
King of Heaven."
With her great white banner floating high in the carrying wind, her
sword scabbard of cloth-of-gold, glittering in the sunlight, and the
armour of her men-at-arms gleaming in its new splendour, the Maid set
out for Orléans, preceded by a company of priests singing the _Veni
Creator_ as they marched.
Jeanne's plan of entry into Orléans was a very simple one. She desired
to march right in under the great forts defending the besieged city, to
flout the enemy, and cheer the desperate citizens by her daring. But the
captains of her army, although they had sworn to obey her every command,
were seasoned veterans in the art of war, and had no intention of
carrying out any plan of campaign laid out by a girl of seventeen, so
they wilfully disregarded her plan, and by so doing delayed their entry
into the city for weary hours, and in the end were obliged to enter in
the very way planned by their young Commander. When at last, at night,
attended by troops of torch bearers, Jeanne went into Orléans sitting
proudly erect on her great white horse, and the people of the city saw
first the Maid who had come to their relief, they could but wonder at
sight of her girlish figure, in its shining armour, and the radiant
young face carried inspiration and comfort to their wearied hearts. So
eager were they to touch her or her horse that in crowding near, a torch
touched her banner, and set it on fire, but wheeling around lightly, she
crushed out the flame, as though she had long been an expert in such
deeds. Then she and her company went to the Cathedral of St. Croix to
return thanks for having entered the city, and afterwards were lodged
for the night at the house of the Duc's treasurer, where Jeanne shared
the room of her host's nine-year-old daughter and slept as sweetly and
soundly as the child herself.
Then followed fifteen days of hard fighting, for the enemy manfully
resisted the onslaught of Jeanne's army, but at last, the English,
vanquished, were obliged to retreat, telling marvellous tales of the
Maid who was less than an angel, more than a soldier, and only a girl
who had done this thing.
The attack on the city had begun at six in the morning and lasted for
thirteen hours, and was indeed a marvellous assault on both sides. A
hundred times the English mounted the walls, and a hundred times were
thrown back into the moat, and the Maid with her floating banner, was
everywhere at once, encouraging her men with the ringing cry, "Fear not.
The place is yours!" Then she received a wound in her shoulder above the
breast, and at the first flash of severe pain, like any other girl, she
shivered with fear, and hot tears came, while they carried her off the
field and dressed the wound. After that she was obliged to entrust her
standard to a faithful man, but she still inspired and comforted her
army from the position to which she had been carried, and as the sounds
of battle deepened, above the tumult rang out her clear voice of ringing
command,--then came victory and the retreat of the enemy. Orléans was
delivered from the hands of the English. France still held "the key to
the Loire," and the Maid of France had gained one of the fifteen battles
of the world.
The bells of Orléans rang out victoriously, while all the citizens in
all the churches chanted _Te Deums_ and sang praises of the wonderful
Maid who had saved France.
In all the records of history no other girl ever reached such a height
of glory as did Jeanne that day, and yet instead of revelling in the
praise showered on her, and in her popularity, when the battle was over,
she went to bed and to sleep like a tired child, and when the people saw
how exhausted she was, they stood guard over the house where she slept,
and would allow no traffic to disturb her rest. And from that day to
this, the eighth of May has ever been "Jeanne d'Arc's Day" in Orléans.
Jeanne had now fulfilled her second task. She had raised the siege of
Orléans. Now for the third. Forward to the Dauphin's crowning at
Rheims,--forward to the anointing of the rightful Sovereign of
France!--that was her one thought and cry. But the Dauphin himself was
in no such hurry to save his kingdom, now that the distress of the
moment had been allayed. However, he met the Maid at Tours soon
afterwards, and not only sang her praises for what she had done, but
also acting on an impulse, his eyes lit with sudden fire, suddenly rose,
and raising his sword aloft, brought it down slowly on Jeanne's
shoulder, saying, that in so doing he joined her, her family, her kin
and her descendants to the nobility of France, adding "Rise, Jeanne
d'Arc, now and henceforth surnamed DU LIS, in grateful acknowledgment of
the good blow you have struck for the lilies of France, and they and the
royal crown and your own victorious sword shall be grouped in your
escutcheon, and be and remain the symbol of your high nobility for
ever."
Great indeed was this honour, with all that it meant to the family of
Jeanne, and she received it with fitting appreciation, but it was not
what she craved; yet still the King loitered and lingered in his
château, giving heed to the arguments of his counsellors,--who for
reasons of their own, desired to thwart the plans of the Maid--rather
than to her whose Voices told her that the Dauphin should set out at
once for Rheims, while the French army was still hot with the enthusiasm
of victory. At last seeing it was useless to wait any longer, Jeanne and
her men were obliged to press on without any definite news of when or
where they would be joined by the Dauphin, and three days later, after
raising the siege of Orléans, her army took Jargeau, a town twelve miles
from Orléans, and then marched back to Orléans to be received as
conquering heroes.
D'Alençon was given six casks of wine, the Maid four, and the town
council ordered a robe and hûque for Jeanne of green and crimson, the
Orléans colours. Her hûque was of green satin, and embroidered with the
Orléans emblem,--the nettle,--and doubtless this offering was acceptable
to the girl who with all her qualities of generalship never lost her
feminine liking for pretty clothes.
By the taking of Jargeau the southern sweep of the Loire for fifty miles
was wiped clear of English fortresses, but the enemy still held
Beaugency and Meung, a few miles downstream, and to their capture Jeanne
and her forces now set out. Then with a still greater prize in view,
they marched on towards Pâtay, a town between Meung and Rouvray, where
they found the forces of the English massed, in consequence of which
Jeanne called together her men for a council of war.
"What is to be done now?" asked d'Alençon, with deep concern.
"Have all of you good spurs?" she cried.
"How is that? Shall we run away?"
"Nay, in the name of God--after them! It is the English who will not
defend themselves and shall be beaten. You must have good spurs to
follow them. Our victory is certain," she exclaimed and added with that
quick vision which was always the inspiration of her forces, "The gentle
King shall have to-day the greatest victory he has ever had!"
And true indeed was her prediction, for the battle of Pâtay was a great
victory, and set the seal of assurance on the work commenced at Orléans.
The English rout was complete. Their leaders fled and four thousand men
were either killed or captured, and as in every battle, Jeanne's
flaming courage and enthusiasm spurred her men on to victory, even
though because of a wound in her foot she was not able to lead her
forces, with her great white banner floating before them as usual. But
she was none the less the inspiration of the day, and was also able to
show a woman's tender pity and care for those of the enemy who were
wounded and in their need of loving ministration turned to the gentle
girl as to an angel sent from heaven.
News of the French victories flew like wildfire over all the country.
Three fortified towns taken, a great army of the enemy disorganised and
put to flight, the whole country almost to the gates of Paris cleared of
the enemy in a single brilliant week's campaign, and all through the
commands, the inspiration, the invincible courage, the Vision of a
slender slip of a girl! It seemed incredible except to those who had
been with her through so many crucial tests, who had proved the fibre of
her mental, physical and spiritual force, and reverenced her as one
truly inspired by God's own voice.
After the capture of Pâtay back again to Orléans went the victorious
army, and there were no bounds now to the enthusiasm expressed for the
Maid who had done such marvellous things. It was supposed that the
Dauphin would surely meet the victors at Orléans, but he was enjoying
himself elsewhere, and Jeanne, cruelly impatient, set off to meet him at
St. Bênoit, on the Loire, where again she begged him to help in the
great work on hand, and again was met with cold inaction, but
notwithstanding this, the Maid with her dauntless purpose left the
Court, still repeating, "By my staff, I _will_ lead the gentle King
Charles and his company safely, and he shall be consecrated at Rheims!"
showing that all the human weakness, which she could not have failed to
see in the Dauphin, did not deter her in the accomplishing of a purpose
which she felt she owed to France.
Across the Loire went the Maid and her men, and then as if impelled by
some impulse, on the twenty-ninth of June, the Dauphin suddenly followed
her on to Champagne. To Trôyes went the army now, headed by no less
formidable personage than the King-to-be and the Maid, and to one homage
was paid because of his royal lineage, and to the other honour because
of her marvellous achievements and gracious personality. Never once did
Jeanne's martial spirit fail, or her belief in her vision weaken: even
the Dauphin was a better and stronger man while under the spell of her
wonder-working personality, and ever his reverence for her grew, seeing
her exquisite personal purity, although surrounded by men and under
circumstances which made purity difficult; and her great piety, her more
than human achievement and her flaming spirit, gave him food for as much
serious thought as he ever devoted to anything.
"Work, and God will work," was Jeanne's motto, and faithfully did she
live it out, working for the King as he never would have done either for
himself or for anyone else, and on the morning of Saturday, July
sixteenth, the Maid and the Dauphin together rode into the city of
Jeanne's vision.
At nine o'clock in the morning, on Sunday, July seventeenth, the great
cathedral of Rheims was filled to its doors for the crowning of the
King. The deep-toned organ and a great choir filled the Cathedral with
music as the Abbot entered, carrying a vial of sacred oil for the
anointing; then came the Archbishop and his canons, followed by five
great lords, stately figures indeed, each carrying his banner, and each
riding a richly caparisoned horse. Down the length of the aisle made for
them, to the choir they rode, then as the Archbishop dismissed them,
each made a deep bow till the plumes of his hat touched his horse's
neck, and then each wheeling his steed around, they passed out as they
had come.
There was a deep hush through all the vast Cathedral, one could have
heard a dropped pin in all that surging mass of people, then came the
peals of four silver trumpets. Jeanne, the Maid of France, and Charles
the Dauphin, stood framed in the pointed archway of the great west door.
Slowly they advanced up the long aisle, the organ pealing its welcome,
the people shouting their applause, and behind the two figures came a
stately array of royal personages and church dignitaries, and then,
standing before the altar, the solemn Coronation ceremony began, while
beside the King, during the long prayers and anthems and sermons, stood
Jeanne, with her beloved standard in her hand. The King took the oath,
was anointed with the sacred oil, then came the bearer of the crown, and
kneeling, offered it. For one moment the King hesitated,--was it because
of a thought of his unworthiness, or because of the great
responsibilities wearing it would impose? At all events, hesitate he
did, then he caught Jeanne's eyes, beaming with all the pride and joy of
her inspired nature, and Charles took up the crown and placed it on his
head, while choir and organ and people made the vast building resound
and echo with music and with shouts. Jeanne alone stood as though
transfixed, then sinking on her knees she said:
"Now, oh, gentle King, now, is accomplished the will of God, who decreed
that I should raise the siege of Orléans, and bring you to the city of
Rheims for your consecration, thereby showing that you are the true
King, and that to you the realm of France should belong."
And at sight of her, so young and human in her beauty, so inspired in
that which she had done, many wept for very enthusiasm, and all hearts
honoured her.
With gracious words the King lifted her up, and there before that vast
assemblage of nobles he made her the equal of a count in rank, appointed
a household and officers for her according to her dignity, and begged
her to name some wish which he could fulfil.
Jeanne was on her knees again in a moment at his words, "You have saved
the throne, ask what you will."
With sweet simplicity she pleaded, "Oh, gentle King, I ask only that the
taxes of Domrémy, now so impoverished by war, be remitted."
On hearing her request, the King seemed momentarily bewildered by so
great unselfishness, then he exclaimed:
"She has won a kingdom, and crowned a King, and all she asks and all she
will take, is this poor grace, and even this is for others. And it is
well. Her act being proportioned to the dignity of one who carries in
her head and heart riches which outvalue any King could give and though
he gave his all. She shall have her way. Now therefore it is decreed
that from this day, Domrémy, natal village of Jeanne d'Arc, Deliverer of
France, called the Maid of Orléans, is freed from all taxation for
ever."
At this the silver horns blew a long blast, and from that day, for three
hundred and sixty years was the little village of Jeanne's birth without
taxation, because of her deeds of valour.
On went the ceremony to an imposing finish, when the procession with
Jeanne and the King at its head marched out of the Cathedral with all
possible pomp and solemnity, and the great day on which Jeanne had
fulfilled the third and greatest of those achievements to which her
voices had called her, was over. She had led the King to his
crowning,--and as the people of Rheims gazed on her in her silver mail,
glittering as if in a more than earthly light, carrying the white
standard embellished with the emblems of her belief, it seemed as though
the Maid in her purity, and her consecration to France was set apart
from all other human beings, not less for what she was, than for what
she had done--and never was warrior or woman more fitly reverenced.
Jeanne, the peasant maid of Domrémy, led by her vision, had marshalled
her forces like a seasoned veteran, and with them had raised the siege
of Orléans,--had led the King to his crowning, and yet instead of
longing for more conquests, still further glory, in a later conversation
with a faithful friend, she only exclaimed:
"Ah, if it might but please God to let me put off this steel raiment,
and go back to my father and my mother, and tend my sheep again with my
sisters and brothers who would be so glad to see me!"
Only that, poor child, but it could not be. Never again was she to go
back to her simple life, but it is said that old Jacques d'Arc and
Durand Laxart came to Rheims to gladden the Maid's heart with a sight of
their familiar faces, and to see for themselves this child of Jacques's
who had won so great renown.
And at that time also, two of her brothers are known to have been in the
army, of which she must needs be still the head, as the King gave a
shameful example of never commanding it in person. Seeing that she must
still be Commander-in-chief; immediately after the Coronation, Jeanne
called a council of war, and made a stirring appeal for an immediate
march on Paris. This was resisted with most strenuous and wily arguments
for delay, to all of which the Maid cried impatiently, "We have but to
march--on the instant--and the English strongholds, as you call them,
along the way are ours. Paris is ours. France is ours. Give the word,
Oh, my King, command your servant!"
Even in the face of her ringing appeal there was more arguing and more
resisting, but finally, thrilled by Jeanne's final plea the King rose
and drawing his sword, took it by the blade and strode up to Jeanne,
delivering the hilt into her hand, saying:
"There, the King surrenders. Carry it to Paris!" And to Paris Jeanne
might go, but the tide of success had turned, and although on the
fourteenth day of August the French army marched into Compiègne and
hauled down the English flag, and on the twenty-sixth camped under the
very walls of Paris, yet now the King hung back and was afraid to give
his consent to storming the city. Seven long days were wasted, giving
the enemy time to make ready to defend their strongholds, and to plan
their campaign. Then the French army was allowed to attack, and Jeanne
and her men worked and fought like heroes, and Jeanne was everywhere at
once, in the lead, as usual with her standard floating high, even while
smoke enveloped the army in dense clouds, and missiles fell like rain.
She was hurt, but refused to retire, and the battle-light flamed in her
eyes as her warrior-spirit thrilled to the deeds of the moment.
"I will take Paris now or never!" she cried, and at last she had to be
carried away by force, still insisting that the city would be theirs in
the morning, which would have been so, but for the treachery of him for
whom Jeanne had given her young strength in such consecrated service.
The Maid was defeated by her own King, who because of political reasons
declared the campaign ended, and made a truce with the English in which
he agreed to leave Paris unmolested and go back again to the Loire.
History offers no more pathetic and yet inspiring sight than Jeanne,
broken by the terrible news, still sure that victory would be hers if
but allowed to follow her voices--yet checkmated by the royal pawn whose
pleasure it was to disband the noble army of heroes who had fought so
nobly for the cause of France.
When Jeanne saw the strength of the Dauphin's purpose, she hung up her
armour and begged the King to now dismiss her from the army, and allow
her to go home, but this he refused to do. The truce he had made did not
embrace all France, and he would have need of her inspiring presence and
her valuable counsel--in truth it seemed that he and his chief
counsellors were afraid of allowing her out of their sight, for fear of
what she might achieve without their knowledge.
For some eight months longer, in accord with his desire, Jeanne, still
sure of her divine mission to work for France, loyally drifted from
place to place with the King and his counsellors, heart-sick and
homesick, occupying her many leisure hours with planning vast imaginary
sieges and campaigns.
At last, on the twenty-fourth of May, 1430, with a handful of men, she
was allowed to throw herself into Compiègne, which was being besieged by
the Burgundians, and there after bravely fighting and rallying her men
for a third attack, the English came up behind and fell upon their rear,
and the fleeing men streamed into the boulevard, while last of all came
the Maid, doing deeds of valour beyond the nature of woman, so it is
said, and for the last time, as never again should Jeanne bear arms. Her
men had fled. She was separated from her people; and surrounded, but
still defiant, was seized by her cape, dragged from her horse, and borne
away a prisoner, while after her followed the victors, roaring their mad
joy over the capture of such a prize.
Like wildfire the awful tidings spread. The Maid of Orléans taken by the
English? Jeanne a prisoner? Could such things be?
Alas, yes. The Maid who had delivered France was in the hands of the
enemy, because, at the climax of her victory, when all France was in her
grip, the chance had been lost by the folly of that King whom she had
led to his crowning.
After six months of captivity she was sold, yes sold, for ten thousand
crowns, that royal Maid--sold to John of Luxembourg, the only bidder for
her noble self. Truth which is sometimes stranger than fiction, offers
no parallel to this. Not a single effort was put forth by the King, or
his counsellors, or by any loyal Frenchman to rescue or to ransom
Jeanne. No trouble was taken to redeem the girl who, foe and friend
alike agreed, had saved the day for France, and who was the greatest
soldier of them all, when she was allowed to have her way.
Ten thousand crowns was the price of Jeanne's brave spirit, and her
purchaser doubtless meant to hold on to her until he could make money on
his prisoner, but, oh the shame, the infamy of it, Charles, the King of
France,--led to his crowning day by a Maid's own hand,--offered not one
sou for her ransoming!
To linger on this part of Jeanne's life is torture to others, as it was
to her. In December she was carried to Rouen, the headquarters of the
English army, heavily fettered; was flung into a gloomy prison, from
which she attempted escape, but vainly, and finally was tried as a
sorceress and a heretic, and never a sound of help or deliverance from
the King or the nation.
Her trial was long, and she was exposed to every form of brutality,
thinly veiled under the guise of justice. Day after day her simple heart
was tortured by the questions of learned men, whose aim was to make her
condemn herself, but this they could never do, for every probing
resulted in the same calm statements. Finally one was sent to draw from
her under the seal of the confessional, her sacred confidences, which
were then rudely desecrated. She was found guilty of sacrilege,
profanation, disobedience to the church, pride and idolatry, and her
heavenly visions were said to be illusions of the devil. She was then
tortured by a series of ignominies, insults, threats, and promises
until, bewildered and half crazed by confinement, in agony of mind and
body, she blindly assented to everything they asked her, was sentenced
to perpetual imprisonment, and forced to put on a woman's dress which
she had repeatedly declared she would never do so long as she was thrown
entirely in the company of men. But she was forced to obey the bidding
of her persecutors, and then followed such degradation and insults as
are almost beyond belief, and then, oh the shame of it, she was
condemned to die by burning, on the tenth of May, 1431! Though worn with
suffering and sorrow, she faced this crowning injustice with the
dauntless courage which had ever been hers on the field of battle, and
died with the Cross held high before her eyes and the name of Jesus on
her lips.
The peasant girl of Domrémy, the warrior of Orléans, the King's saviour
at Rheims, the martyr whose death left a great ineffaceable stain on the
honour both of France and of England, twenty-five years later was
cleared of all the charges under which she was put to death, and in our
own time has been canonised by a tardy act of the church of Rome, and
to-day Jeanne d'Arc, Maid of France, nay, Maid of the World stands out
on the pages of history as one inspired by God, and God alone. To her
remains, as Kossuth has said, "the unique distinction of having been the
only person of either sex who ever held supreme command of the military
forces of a nation at the age of seventeen."
VICTORIA:
A Girl Queen of England
IN the early years of the nineteenth century, frequenters of that part
of London near the beautiful Kensington Palace and the still more
beautiful gardens bearing its name, used to enjoy almost daily glimpses
of a round-faced, red-cheeked child whose blue eyes were so bright with
health and happiness that it was a pleasure to watch her.
Sometimes the little girl was seen accompanied by a party of older
persons, and riding a donkey with a gay harness of blue ribbons, and it
was noticeable that she always had a merry greeting for those who spoke
to her in passing. At other times she would be walking, with her hand
holding tight the hand of a little playmate, or on other days she was
wheeled in a small carriage over the gravel walks of the shady Gardens,
followed by an older girl who would sometimes stop the carriage and let
a stranger kiss the blue-eyed occupant of the carriage. On pleasant days
this same little girl could frequently be seen in a simple white dress
and big shade hat, watering the plants in the beds of Kensington Palace,
and the blue-eyed child was no other than the Princess Victoria
Alexandrina, daughter of the Duke and Duchess of Kent, the child who was
one day to become Queen of England.
In fancying one's self a Queen-to-be, there is never any place given to
the prosaic duties of ordinary life, but Princess Victoria's child-life
at Kensington was a very simple one such as any little girl with a
sensible mother might have had.
At eight o'clock daily the Duchess had breakfast, and the Princess had
hers at the same time, at a small table near her mother, then came an
hour's drive or walk, and from ten to twelve lessons with the Duchess
herself, after which Victoria amused herself in the suite of rooms which
extended around the two sides of the palace, where she kept most of her
toys. Then after a plain dinner came lessons again until four o'clock,
after which came another walk or donkey ride in the Gardens, a simple
supper, a romp with her nurse, whose name being Brock, Victoria called
her "dear Boppy." In fact, so secluded a life did the young Princess
lead that, except for those glimpses of her in the Gardens, she was
almost unknown to all but intimate family friends; and King George the
Fourth, called by Victoria her "Uncle King," sometimes expressed his
displeasure that the child was not allowed to be present more often at
his court. But the Duchess had her own ideas about that matter, and as
they were not at all flattering to the court manners and customs of the
day, she wisely continued to keep her little girl out of such an
atmosphere, though in fear lest the King should carry out his threat of
taking the child away from her, to bring her up in gloomy Windsor
Castle, unless she was allowed to go there more often,--which threat his
kingly power would allow him to carry out, if he so chose. But
fortunately he never did as he threatened, and Victoria remained at
Kensington with her mother, where with her half-sister and brother, the
Princess Féodore and Prince Charles of Leiningen, the four formed a
family group so loyal and so loving that nothing ever loosened the bond
between them.
Although Victoria knew herself to be a Royal Highness, she was yet
ignorant that some day she would be ruler of Great Britain, and she
continued to do simple things as unconsciously as other girls might with
a far different future. She was very enthusiastic over anything which
took her fancy, and one day at a milliner's saw a hat which was exactly
what she wanted. With eager enthusiasm she waited until it was trimmed,
and then exclaimed, "Oh, I will take it with me!" and was soon seen
hurrying towards Kensington with the precious hat in her hand. And this
was a real flesh and blood Princess, heir to the throne of England!
The monotony of life at Kensington was broken by frequent trips to
various parts of England, and visits to friends and relations, but the
Duchess felt her responsibility to the English people in bringing up the
future Queen, so keenly that she never took the risk of a trip to the
continent with Victoria, because of the long journey and the change of
climate. But the Princess thoroughly enjoyed what visits she did make,
and evidently was an attractive guest, even as a child, for when she and
her mother visited King George, her grandmother wrote to the Duchess:
"The little monkey must have pleased and amused his Majesty. She is such
a pretty, clever child!"
At another time when visiting at Wentworth House, Yorkshire, Victoria
amused herself by running around the big garden with its tangle of
shrubberies. One wet morning when the ground was very slippery, she
ventured to run down a treacherous bit of ground from the terrace, and
the gardener, who did not know who she was then, called out, "Be
careful, Miss, it's slape!" a Yorkshire word for slippery. But the
Princess had no intention of being stopped, so she merely turned her
head as she ran, and asked, "What's slape?" As she spoke, her feet flew
from under her and she came down with a thud. The gardener as he helped
her to
|
We often dine for
the poor, and we sometimes dance for the afflicted, the widow, and the
orphan.
Moreover, a most important ethnographical consideration seems to give a
serious interest to the diet of a people, if it be true, as we are
convinced it is, and as we shall probably one day endeavour to
demonstrate, that the manners of individuals, their idiosyncrasies,
inclinations, and intellectual habits, are modified, to a certain
extent, as taste, climate, and circumstances may determine the nature of
their food; an assertion which might be supported by irrefragable
proofs, and would show the justness of the aphorism: “Tell me what thou
eatest, and I will tell thee who thou art.”
[Illustration: _Pl. B_
VICTUA
_or_
THE GODDESS OF GASTRONOMY
]
I.
AGRICULTURE
Every nation has attributed the origin of agriculture to some beneficent
Deity. The Egyptians bestowed this honour on Osiris, the Greeks on Ceres
and Triptolemus, the Latins on Saturn, or on their king Janus, whom, in
gratitude, they placed among the gods. All nations, however, agree that,
whoever introduced among them this happy and beneficial discovery, has
been most useful to man by elevating his mind to a state of sociability
and civilization.[I-1]
Many learned men have made laborious researches in order to discover,
not only the name of the inventor of agriculture, but the country and
the century in which he lived; some, however, have failed in their
inquiry. And why? Because they have forgotten, in their investigation,
the only book which could give them positive information on the birth of
society, and the first development of human industry. We read in the
Book of Genesis that: “The Lord God took the man, and put him into the
garden of Eden, to dress it and to keep it”[I-2] And, after having
related his fatal disobedience, the sacred historian adds: “Therefore
the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground
from whence he was taken.”[I-3]
Would it be possible to adduce a more ancient and sublime authority?
If it be asked why we take Moses as our guide, instead of dating the
origin of human society from those remote periods which are lost in the
night of ages, we invoke one of the most worthy masters of human
science--the illustrious Cuvier--who says:--
“No western nation can produce an uninterrupted chronology of more than
three thousand years. Not one of them has any record of connected facts
which bears the stamp of probability anterior to that time, nor even for
two or three centuries after. The Greeks acknowledge that they learned
the art of writing from the Phœnicians thirty or thirty-four
centuries ago; and for a long time after that period their history is
filled with fables, in which they only go back three hundred years to
establish the cradle of their existence as a nation. Of the history of
western Asia we have only a few contradictory extracts, which embrace,
in an unconnected form, about twenty centuries. The first profane
historian with whom we are acquainted by works extant is Herodotus, and
his antiquity does not reach _two thousand three hundred years_. The
historians consulted by him had written less than _a century_ previous;
and we are enabled to judge what kind of historians they were by the
extravagances handed down to us as extracts from Aristæus, Proconesus,
and some others. Before them they had only poets; and Homer, the master
and eternal model of the west, lived only _two thousand seven hundred_,
or _two thousand eight hundred, years ago_. One single nation has
transmitted to us annals, written in prose, before the time of Cyrus: it
is the Jewish nation. That part of the Old Testament called the
_Pentateuch_ has existed in its present form at least ever since the
schism of Jeroboam, as the Samaritans receive it equally with the Jews,
that is to say, that it has assuredly existed more than _two thousand
eight hundred_ years. There is no reason for not attributing the Book of
Genesis to Moses, which would carry us back _five hundred_ years more,
or _thirty-three centuries_; and it is only necessary to read it in
order to perceive that it is, in part, a compilation of fragments from
antecedent works: wherefore, no one can have the least doubt of its
being the oldest book now possessed by the western nations.”[I-4]
The descendants of our first parents--and, first of all, the Hebrew
people, who, as a nation historically considered, must occupy our
foremost attention--devoted all their energy to agricultural labour.
The chief of the tribe of Judah as well as the youngest son of the tribe
of Benjamin followed the plough, and gathered corn in the fields. Gideon
was thrashing and winnowing his corn, when an angel revealed to him that
he should be the deliverer of Israel;[I-5] Ruth was gleaning when Boaz
saw her for the first time;[I-6] King Saul was driving his team of oxen
in the ploughed field, when some of his court came and apprized him that
the city of Jabesh was in danger;[I-7] and Elisha was called away to
prophesy while at work with one of his father’s ploughs.[I-8] We could
multiply these incidents without end, to prove what extraordinary
interest the Jews took in agricultural occupations.
Moses regarded agriculture as the first of all arts, and he enjoined the
Hebrews to apply themselves to it in preference to any other: it was to
the free and pure air of the fields, to the strengthening, healthy, and
laborious country life, that he called their first attention. The sages
of Greece and Rome held the same opinion: in those republics the
tradesman was but an obscure individual, while the tiller of the soil
was considered as a distinguished citizen. The urban tribes yielded
precedence to the rustics, and this latter class supplied the nation
with its generals and its magistrates.[I-9] Our present ideas on this
point have materially changed with the times, and our modern Cincinnati
very seldom return to the field to terminate the furrow they have
commenced. The Israelites did not possess this excessive delicacy: they
preserved the taste for agriculture with which their great legislator,
Moses, had inspired them, and which the distribution of land naturally
tended to strengthen. No one, in fact, was allowed to possess enough
ground to tempt him to neglect the smallest portion; nor had any one the
right to dispossess the Hebrew of his father’s field,--even he himself
was forbidden to alienate for ever land from his family.[I-10] This wise
disposition did not escape the notice of an ancient heathen
author,[I-11] and various states of Greece adopted the same plan;
amongst others, the Locrians, Athenians, and Spartans, who did not allow
their fathers’ inheritance to be sold.[I-12]
The plan which we have adopted for our guidance in this work hardly
justifies us in casting more than a glance at the Mosaic legislation; we
shall, therefore, pass over all those prescriptions, all those memorable
prohibitions, which the reader must have so often admired in the Books
of Leviticus and Deuteronomy, and content ourselves with observing that
Moses knew how to find in agriculture an infallible means of developing
the industry of his people, and that, by imposing the necessity of
giving rest to the land every seventh year,[I-13] he obliged them, by
the generality of this repose, to have stores in reserve; and
consequently to employ every means of preserving portions of the grain,
fruit, wines, and oil which they had gathered in the course of the six
years preceding.
Ancient casuists of this nation enter into the most minute details on
tillage and sowing, and also on the gathering of olives, on the tithes
which were paid to the priests, and the portion set aside for the poor.
They also mention some species of excellent wheat, barley, rice, figs,
dates, &c., which were gathered in Judea.[I-14]
The soil of this delicious country was astonishingly fertile,[I-15] the
operation of tillage was easy, and the cattle here supplied a greater
abundance of milk than anywhere else;[I-16] we will just remark that
even the names of several localities indicate some of these advantages.
For instance, Capernaum signified a beautiful country town; Gennesareth,
the garden of the groves; Bethsaida, the house of plenty; Nam was
indebted for its sweet name to the beauty of its situation; and Magdela,
on the borders of the sea of Galilee, to its site, and the happy life of
its inhabitants.
Next to the Hebrews, in agriculture, came the Egyptians, a strange and
fantastical people, who raised the imperishable pyramids, the statue of
Memnon, and the lighthouse of Alexandria, and who yet prayed religiously
every morning to their goddess--a _radish_, or their gods--_leek_ and
_onion_.[I-17] Whatever there may be of folly and rare industry in this
mixture, we cannot but agree that the art of agriculture was very
ancient in Egypt, as the father of the faithful--Abraham--retired into
that country at a time of famine;[I-18] and, later, the sons of Jacob
went there also to purchase corn.[I-19]
We know that the Romans called this province the granary of the empire,
and that they drew from it every year twenty million bushels of
corn.[I-20] If we are to believe the Egyptians, Osiris, son of Jupiter
(and hence a demi-god of good family), taught them the art of tilling
the ground by aid of the plough.[I-21] This instrument, we may easily
believe, was much less complicated than ours of the present day; there
is no doubt that in the beginning, and for a great length of time
afterwards,
DESCRIPTION OF PLATE No. I.
No. 1. Represents an Egyptian labourer tilling the ground with a
pickaxe of a simple form; drawn at Thebes, by Mons. Nectoul, member
of the commission of the French expedition in Egypt, from paintings
in the subterranean vaults of Minich.
No. 2. Is a sketch of the plough, which a great number of Egyptian
figures hold as an attribute; this was taken from the subterranean
vault of Eileithya; it represents the plough guided by a labourer,
and drawn by oxen tied by the horns, and whipped by a second
labourer, whilst a third, placed by the side of the oxen, throws
before them the seeds which are to be covered by the ploughed
earth.
No. 3. A basket to carry the seeds. On the tombs of the kings of
Thebes is seen painted a sower, with a basket like this, an
attribute which is seen hanging on the back of the divinity Osiris.
No. 4. Represents an Egyptian with a sickle, much like in shape to
a scythe; and Denon, of the French expedition, proved that corn was
also cut with a scythe.
[Illustration: _Pl. 1_]
it was nothing but a long piece of wood without joint, and bent in such
manner that one end went into the ground, whilst the other served to
yoke the oxen;[I-22] for it was always these animals which drew the
plough, although Homer seems to give the preference to mules.[I-23]
The Greeks, clever imitators of the Egyptians, pretended that Ceres
taught them the art of sowing, reaping, and grinding corn; they made her
goddess of harvest, and applied themselves to the labour of agriculture
with that rare and persevering ability which always characterised these
people, and consequently was often the cause of many things being
attributed to them which they only borrowed from other nations.[I-24]
The Romans, future rulers of the world, understood from the first that
the earth claimed their nursing care; and Romulus instituted an order of
priesthood for no other object than the advancement of this useful art.
It was composed of the twelve sons of his nurse, all invested with a
sacerdotal character, who were commanded to offer to Heaven vows and
sacrifices in order to obtain an abundant harvest. They were called
_Arvales_ brothers;[I-25] one of them dying, the king took his place,
and continued to fulfil his duty for the rest of his life.[I-26]
In the palmy days of the republic, the conquerors of the universe passed
from the army or the senate to their fields;[I-27] Seranus was sowing
when called to command the Roman troops, and Quintus Cincinnatus was
ploughing when a deputation came and informed him that he was appointed
dictator.
Everything in the conduct of the Romans gives evidence of their great
veneration for agriculture. They called the rich, _locupletes_, that is,
persons who were possessors of a farm or country seat (_locus_); their
first money was stamped with a sheep or an ox, the symbol of abundance:
they called it _pecunia_, from _pecus_ (flock). The public treasure was
designated _pascua_, because the Roman domain consisted, at the
beginning, only of pasturage.
After the taking of Carthage, the books of the libraries were
distributed to the allied princes of the republic, but the senate
reserved the twenty-eight books of Mago on agriculture.[I-28]
We shall briefly point out the principal processes of this art in use
among the Greeks and Romans, or at least those which appear to us most
deserving of interest. Like us, the ancients divided the land in
furrows, whose legal length (if we may so term it) was one hundred and
thirty feet.[I-29] Oxen were never allowed to stop while tracing a
furrow, but on arriving at the end they rested a short time; and when
their task was over they were cleaned with the greatest care, and their
mouths washed with wine.[I-30] The ground being well prepared and fit to
receive the seed, the grain was spread on the even surface of the
furrows, and then covered over.[I-31]
The primitive plough, already mentioned, was of extreme simplicity. It
had no wheels, but was merely furnished with a handle, to enable the
ploughman to direct it according to his judgment; neither was there any
iron or other metal in its construction. They afterwards made a plough
of two pieces, one of a certain length to put the oxen to, and the other
was shorter to go in the ground; it was similar, in shape, to an anchor.
Such was the style of plough which the Greeks used.[I-32] They also very
often employed a sort of fork, with three or four prongs, for the same
purpose.[I-33] Pliny gives credit to the Gauls for the invention of the
plough mounted on wheels. The Anglo-Norman plough had no wheels;[I-34]
the ploughman guided it with one hand, and carried a stick in the other
to break the clods.
The Greeks and Romans had not, perhaps, the celebrated guano of our
days, though we would not positively assert it; but they knew of a great
variety of manures, all well adapted to the various soils they wished to
improve. Sometimes they made use of marl, a sort of fat clay;[I-35] and
frequently manure from pigeons, blackbirds, and thrushes, which were
fattened in aviaries[I-36] for the benefit of Roman epicures. Certain
plants, they thought, required a light layer of ashes, which they
obtained from roots and brushwood;[I-37] others succeeded best,
according to their dictum, on land where sheep, goats, &c., had grazed
for a long time.[I-38]
DESCRIPTION OF PLATE No. II.
Nos. 1 & 2. Greek and Roman plough, made of several pieces; the
first taken from the “Miscelan. Erudit.” of Spon, the second from
an engraved stone in the gallery of Florence.
No. 3. Plough, made of one crooked piece of wood, turned once or
twice.
No. 4. Plough, as used by the Gauls, furnished with wheels.
When the harvest season arrived, they joyfully prepared to cut the corn,
with instruments varying in form according to the locality or the fancy
of the master. In one place they adopted the plain sickle,[I-39] in
another that with teeth.[I-40] Sometimes they mowed the corn, as they
did the meadows, with a scythe;[I-41] or else they plucked off the ears
with a kind of fork, armed with five teeth.[I-42] A short time after the
harvest, the operation of thrashing generally began. Heavy chariots,
armed with
[Illustration: _Pl. 2_]
pointed teeth, crushed the ears: Varro calls this machine the
“Carthaginian chariot.”[I-43] Strabo asserts that the ancient Britons
carried the corn into a large covered area, or barn, where they thrashed
it; adding that, without this precaution, the rain and damp would have
spoiled the grain.[I-44] At all events, this kind of thrashing in barns,
with flails and sticks, was not unknown to other countries; Pliny speaks
of it,[I-45] and Columella describes it;[I-46] we may add that the
Egyptians were also very probably acquainted with this method, since the
Jews, who had submitted to their power, employed it themselves.[I-47]
When the corn had been thrashed, winnowed, and put into baskets very
similar to our own of the present day,[I-48] they immediately studied
the best means of preserving it: some preferred granaries exposed to a
mild temperature, others had extensive edifices with thick brick walls
without openings, except one hole only, in the roof, to admit light and
air.
The Spaniards, Africans, and Cappadocians, dug deep ditches, from which
they excluded all moisture; they covered the bottom and lined the sides
with straw, then put in the grain, and covered it up. The ancients were
of opinion that corn in the ear could, by this means, be preserved a
great number of years.[I-49]
If it is desirable to keep corn for any length of time, choose the
finest and best grown. After having worked it, make a pile as high as
the ceiling will permit. Cover with a layer of quicklime, powdered, of
about three inches thick; then, with a watering-pot, moisten this lime,
which forms a crust with the corn. The outside seeds bud, and shoot
forth a stalk, which perishes in winter. This corn is only to be touched
when necessity requires it. At Sedan, a warehouse has been seen, hewed
out of the rock and tolerably damp, in which there had been a
considerable pile of corn for the last hundred and ten years. It was
covered with a crust a foot thick, on which persons might walk without
bending or breaking it in the slightest degree.
Marshal Vauban proposed eating corn in soup, without being ground; it
was boiled during two or three hours in water, and when the grains had
burst, a little salt, butter, or milk, was added. This food is very
nice, not unwholesome, and might be employed when flour is scarce,
heated, or half-rotten.--DUTOUR.
The Chinese instituted a ceremony which had for its base to honour the
profession of agriculture: every year, at the time of ploughing the
fields, the emperor with all his court paid a visit to his country
residence near Pekin, and then marked out several furrows with his
plough.
In 1793, the National Convention of France instituted also a similar
fête; and the president of the local administration of his county was to
mark out a furrow.
In 1848 a grand republican procession took place through Paris, to the
Champ de Mars, wherein agriculture played a prominent part.
The first treatise on agriculture was printed in 1538; and its
importance has been so much felt from that period, that there are now in
France more than one hundred and twenty societies of agriculture, who
distribute prizes to encourage discoveries for the improvement of this
science.
We have, in our days, the Royal Agricultural Society of England, which
also awards prizes;[V] and through such institutions all information can
be obtained on the successive progresses made in that indispensable art,
which may be said to have arrived to such a degree of perfection, that
future generations may find some difficulty in improving upon it. One
great evidence of which is, the immense number of samples of
agricultural produce, machines, and implements of husbandry, which great
and the glorious Exhibition of 1851 has ushered to the world.
DESCRIPTION OF PLATE No. III.
No. 1. Is the plain sickle. No. 2. Another, with teeth.
No. 3. A scythe, very similar to those now in use.
No. 4. A spade; its handle is supplied with a double crossbar,
fixed at a little distance off the spade, to support the foot; it
is still so used in Italy and the southern parts of France.
No. 5. A pickaxe, as it was found engraved on the various
sarcophagi; the pick end was sometimes flattened, and then called
pick-axe.
Nos. 6 and 7. The mattocks; the first was drawn from an engraved
stone in the “Monuments Antiq.” of Winckelmann.
No. 2 A. Represents a plough, composed according to the “Georgics”
of Virgil.
Previous to the arrival of the Romans, the ancient Britons paid but
little attention to agriculture. Their intestine discords left them
scarcely any leisure to cultivate their fields, or apply themselves to
the improvement of an art which flourishes only in peaceful times. They
reared a great number of cattle; but their chief corn was barley, of
which they made their favourite drink. They put the grain in the ear
into barns, and beat it out as they wanted it. Those inhabitants of the
island who were the least civilized subsisted solely on milk and the
flesh of animals,
[Illustration: _Pl. 3_]
which they had learned to master by their skill.[I-50] But the people of
this nation, for which Heaven had in reserve such a brilliant destiny,
knew how to endure hunger, cold, and fatigue, without a murmur. A Briton
passed entire days immersed to the neck in the stagnant waters of a
marsh; a few roots sufficed for his nourishment, and, if we are to
believe Dio, his frugal habits enabled him to appease the craving of his
stomach with an aliment composed of ingredients no longer known, and of
which he took each time, at long intervals, a quantity not exceeding in
size that of a bean.[I-51]
Let us add that the art of gardening was known rather early in Great
Britain, and that marl was employed to manure the land.[I-52]
The Anglo-Saxons employed themselves diligently in the cultivation of
the soil; they established farms, sowed grain, and reared cattle. The
fleece of their sheep furnished them with precious wool, which they
spun, and then converted into sumptuous clothing.[I-53]
Strutt gives us a curious detail of rural occupations at that epoch. We
will cite the original text:
“January exhibits the husbandman in the fields at plough, while his
attendant, diligently following, is sowing the grain.
“February. The grain being put into the earth, the next care was to
prune their trees, crop their vines, and place them in order.
“March. Then we follow them into the garden, where the industrious
labourer is digging up the ground, and sowing the vegetables for the
ensuing season.
“April. Now, taking leave of the laborious husbandman, we see the
nobleman regaling with his friends, and passing the pleasant month in
carousings, banquetings, and music.
“May brings the lord into the field to examine his flock, and
superintend the shearing of the sheep.
“June. With this month comes the gladsome time of harvest. Here are some
cutting down the corn, while it is, by others, bound up in sheaves and
laid into the carts, to be conveyed to the barns and granaries; in the
meantime they are spirited up to their labours by the shrill sound of
the enlivening horn.
“July. Here we find them employed in lopping the trees and felling of
timber, &c.
“August. In this month they cut down the barley with which they made
their old and best beloved drink (ale).
“September. Here we find the lord, attended by his huntsmen, pursuing
and chasing the wild boars in the woods and forests.
“October. And here he is amusing himself with the exercise of that old
and noble pastime, hawking.
“November. This month returns us again to the labourers, who are here
heating and preparing their utensils.
“December. In this last month we find them thrashing out the grain,
while some winnow or rather sift it, to free it from the chaff, and
others carry it out in large baskets to the granaries. In the meantime,
the steward keeps an account of the quantity, by means of an indented or
notched stick.”[I-54]
Agriculture was always protected with paternal solicitude by a prince,
whose name will ever remind us of the sanguinary day of Saint
Bartholomew. Here is a textual passage from the edict issued by Charles
IX., the 18th October, 1571.
“We have commanded and ordained, and do hereby command and ordain, that
no man engaged in the cultivation of land, by himself, his servants, and
his family, with intent to raise grain and fruit necessary for the
sustenance of men and beasts, shall be liable to the process of
execution for debt, nor on any account whatsoever, neither in his own
person, nor his bed, horses, mares, mules, asses, oxen, cows, pigs,
goats, sheep, poultry, ploughs, carts, waggons, harrows, barrows, nor
any other species or kind of cattle or goods serving in the said tillage
and occupation. * * * The said husbandmen being under our protection and
safeguard, seeing that we have so placed them and do place them by these
presents.”[I-55]
II.
CEREALS.
The nomenclature which the Romans have left us of their various kinds of
corn is so obscure and uncertain, that some modern writers are
continually contradicting each other, and, by these means, have raised
doubts which render our task more difficult, instead of enlightening us
on the subject.
We shall do all in our power to avoid the censure which we take the
liberty of passing upon them.
“_Triticum_,” wheat, or corn; “_Blé_,” from the ancient Latin word
“_Bladus_,” which signifies fruit or seed. The botanist Michaux has
discovered in Persia, on a mountain four days’ journey from Hamadan, the
place where wheat (a species known as _spelt_, from the Latin _spelta_)
is indigenous to the soil, from which we may presume that wheat has its
origin in that country, or some part of Asia not far from Persia. This
grain was more cultivated formerly than it is now; nevertheless, it is
still gathered in Italy, Switzerland, Alsace, in the Limousin and in
Picardy, to make bread, with spelt, a greater quantity of leaven, and,
above all, a little salt. This bread is white, light, savoury, and keeps
moist for several days.--PARMENTIER.
_Robus_, a variety of corn heavier than triticum, and remarkable for its
brilliant polish.
Every year, on the 25th of April, an appeal was made to the god Robigus,
to prevent the mildew from corrupting this fine specimen of corn. This
festival was founded by the great king, Numa Pompilius.[II-1]
_Siligo_, a beautiful quality of wheat, of great whiteness, but lighter
in weight than the preceding kind.[II-2]
_Trimestre_, a kind of siligo, sown in Spring, and which was ready for
reaping three months afterwards.
_Granea_, the grain merely deprived of its husk: it was boiled in water,
to which milk was added.[II-3]
_Hordeum_, barley.[II-4] The flour of this corn was the food of the
Jewish soldiers.[II-5] It was, with the Athenians, a favourite dish, but
among the Romans an ignominious food. Augustus threatened the cohorts
that, should they not fight bravely, he would punish every tenth man
with death, and give the remainder barley for food.[II-6] This corn was
certainly in use among the Egyptians in the time of Moses, since one of
the plagues which afflicted that people was the loss of the barley in
the ear before it came to maturity.[II-7]
_Panicum_, panic grass.[II-8] Certain inhabitants of Thrace and of the
borders of the Euxine, or Black Sea, preferred this to all other
food.[II-9]
_Millium_, millet, was used for making excellent cakes.[II-10]
_Secale_, rye.[II-11] Pliny thinks this grain detestable, and only good
to appease extreme hunger.[II-12]
_Avena_, oats.[II-13] Virgil had but very little esteem for this
grain.[II-14] The Romans cut it in the spring for the cattle to eat
green; and the Germans, in the time of Pliny, took great care in its
cultivation, and made a pulp of it which they thought excellent.[II-15]
_Oryza_, rice. Pliny[II-16] and Dioscorides[II-17] class it with the
wheats; whereas Galen, on the contrary, places it among vegetables.
Rice was rather scarce in Greece at the time when Theophrastus lived: it
had lately been brought from India, 286 years before Christ.
The ancients considered it most nutritious and fattening.[II-18]
_Zea_, spelt, or rice wheat,[II-19] equally esteemed by Greeks and
Latins.[II-20]
_Sesamum_, sesame. Pliny classes this among the seeds sown in
March,[II-21] and Columella places it among the vegetables.[II-22] The
Romans knew how to prepare this corn in a manner at once wholesome and
agreeable. They made it into very dainty cakes, which were served at
dessert,[II-23] whence sprang the saying _sesame cakes_, which was
applied to those sweet and flattering expressions called honied words
(in French, _paroles sucrées_).[II-24]
A people so restless and unmanageable as were the Greeks and Romans,
when pressed by hunger, required that the greatest care should be
exercised for the supply of corn, and the easy sale of this precious
provision. Hence nothing could be wiser than their regulations on this
subject.
One of the laws of the twelve tables punished with death the individual
who had premeditatedly set fire to his neighbour’s corn; and inflicted a
fine or the whip on any one who caused so great a calamity by his
imprudence.[II-25]
In Greece, a special magistrate, the “_Sitocome_,” was charged with the
inspection of the corn; and various officers, such as the _sitones_, the
_sitophylaces_, and the _sitologes_, were appointed to watch over its
purchase.
And lastly, public distributors, under the names of _siturches_ and
_sitometres_, were exclusively occupied with the allotment of
corn;[II-26] they prevented any one from purchasing a greater quantity
than was actually necessary for his wants. The law forbad the delivery
of more than fifty measures to one individual.[II-27] The Roman
government was so convinced that abundance of bread was one of the best
means of maintaining public tranquillity,[II-28] that Julius Cæsar
created two prætors, and two ediles or magistrates, to preside over the
purchase, conveyance, storing, and gratuitous distribution of
wheat.[II-29] For we know that this people of kings, powerful but
frivolous, and careless of the morrow, submitted to the incredible
follies of their rulers on the sole condition of being well fed and
amused by them.[II-30] In the time of Demosthenes the common price of
wheat in Greece was about 3_s._ 11_d._ the four bushels.[II-31] In Rome,
during the republic, wheat was distributed to 60,000 persons.[II-32]
Julius Cæsar desired that 320,000 plebeians should enjoy this bounty;
but this number was afterwards reduced to 150,000,[II-33] or perhaps,
according to Cassius, to 160,000.[II-34] Augustus fed, at first, 200,000
citizens, then only 120,000.[II-35] Nero, who always went to extremes
either in good or evil, gave corn throughout the empire to 220,000 idle
people, including the soldiers of the prætorian guard.[II-36] Adrian
added to this list all the children of the poor: the boys to the age of
18, and the girls to that of 14. Finally, this liberality, more politic
than generous, and so foreign to our present manners, was carried, under
the Emperor Severus, to 75,000 bushels per day.[II-37] The bushel
weighed twenty pounds of twelve ounces each.[II-38]
The Greeks esteemed highly the corn of Bœotia, Thrace, and Pontus.
The Romans preferred that of Lombardy, the present duchy of Spoletta,
Sicily, Sardinia, and a part of Gaul. Sardinia, Sicily, and Corsica,
supplied them every year with 800,000 bushels of twenty-one pounds
weight, which made them call those islands “the sweet nurses of
Rome.”[II-39] Africa furnished 40,000,000 of bushels; Egypt 20,000,000,
and the remainder came from Greece, Asia, Syria, Gaul, and Spain.[II-40]
The erudite are not agreed as to the aboriginal country of corn: some
say it is Egypt, others Tartary, and the learned Bailly, as well as the
traveller Pallas, affirm that it grows spontaneously in Siberia. Be that
as it may, the Phocians brought it to Marseilles before the Romans had
penetrated into Gaul. The Gauls ate the corn cooked, or bruised in a
mortar; they did not know for a long time how to make fermented bread.
The Chinese attribute to Chin-Nong, the second of the nine emperors of
China who preceded the establishment of the dynasties (more than 2,207
years B.C.), the discovery of corn, rice, and other cereals.
We find in the Black Book of the Exchequer, that in the reign of Henry
I., when they reduced the victuals (for the king’s household) to the
estimate of money, a measure of wheat to make bread for the service of
one hundred men, one day, was valued only at one shilling.[II-41]
But in the reign of Henry III., about the 43rd year, the price was
mounted up to fifteen and twenty shillings a quarter.[II-42]
The ancients, as well as the modern
|
hand with the
accumulator upon which the positive electricity is stored, while the
negative electricity is “run off” by a brass chain leading from the
negative accumulator to the ground. If the process were reversed, the
positive accumulator, being connected with the ground, and the patient
with the negative one seen at the top of the machine, he would be
taking “an electro-negative bath;” for we make him, as it were, a part
of each accumulator as the case may be; its accumulated electricity
passes to him and he becomes _charged_. If the air were perfectly dry
he would continue (as he is insulated) in this charged condition, but
owing to its contained moisture the electricity rapidly leaves him, and
to maintain the charge it is necessary that the plate of the machine
should be kept in constant rotation. Indeed, the escape of electricity
is so rapid that to get the best action we must have a fire in the
room, and before use well rub the plate, the insulating supports, the
legs of the stool, and all the glass parts of the apparatus with a warm
and dry piece of flannel. This is of importance, and however dry the
day, should as a rule never be neglected.
By smearing the inside of the cushions of the machine with a little
paste, composed of an alloy of mercury and tin (technically known as
“amalgam”), mixed with a little tallow, the amount of electricity is
much increased, but care should be taken not to smear the cushions
with too much, which had better be bought ready prepared. A piece
about the size of a small grape for each of the cushions will be
enough, and no more need be added for two or three weeks. Always scrape
off old amalgam before adding new. The cushions should be screwed
sufficiently tight to slightly “grip” the plate, and if it is found
that notwithstanding having rubbed the glass of the apparatus as
above directed, the instrument is not supplying a sufficient quantity
of electricity, remove the cushions and warm them thoroughly. _It
is impossible to be too careful that everything is warm, clean, and
dry_, for the great obstacle that exists against the extended use of
Franklinism is found in this difficulty sometimes present, from neglect
of the above precautions, in getting efficient action. But even on a
foggy day the instrument, _with proper care_, may be made to act well.
The operator should also remember that dust must be sedulously guarded
against. A few drops of petroleum may be sprinkled upon the table, and
their vapour condensing upon the machine will aid in protecting it
against moisture.[5]
There will also be needed two or three lengths of brass chain, or of
copper wire, and a stool about 4 feet by 2 feet, with four glass balls
or legs. A stool of this size admits of a chair being placed upon it,
as in Fig. 3, and it will be also useful for certain applications of
voltaism, which will be mentioned later on. Four glass jars are also
needed with which to insulate an ordinary couch.
[Illustration: FIG. 5. Improved Dischargers and Connecting Rod. FIG.
5_a_.]
A chair, insulated by being screwed to a glass platform, as in Fig.
5_a_, _running on castors_, is an improvement upon the old-fashioned
glass-legged stool.
[SN: Franklinization by Sparks.]
In Fig. 3, the electricity is escaping from all points of the skin,
but if it is desired to localize somewhat this escape along the course
of certain nerve branches, or otherwise, but to avoid shock, a brush
may be slowly passed by the operator almost, but not quite, in contact
with the skin. A series of rapid and successive reunions of the
electricity with each bristle of the brush takes place, generating a
current of cold air perceptible to the patient. I habitually use for
this application an ordinary clothes-brush. If while in connection with
the conductor any object (the knuckles will do) is brought sufficiently
near to the patient for his contained electricity to overcome the
resistance of the intervening stratum of air, he is “_discharged_” with
a spark. This is _Franklinization by sparks_, and is accompanied by a
certain slight amount of “shock.”
In Fig. 5, improved “dischargers,” and a convenient metallic connecting
rod are shown.
The ball terminations of the dischargers should vary in size, for
within certain limits, the larger the ball the more intense the spark;
with the pointed end the spark is very small; with the discharger
terminating in many small metallic points still smaller, and with a
similar discharger made of wood, a luminous glow alone results, and no
spark.[6]
I shall discuss, in my third Lecture, the therapeutic values of
Franklinism.
VOLTAISM OR GALVANISM.
[SN: Voltaism.]
The Voltaic current is a _continuous_ current. Unless artificially
interrupted, the electricity flows in an unbroken stream until the
battery is exhausted. The current will gradually lessen in power until
it ceases, but there will be no break in it, and no change in its
direction, which is uniformly from the positive to the negative pole.
[SN: Points of distinction between the Voltaic and Faradaic Currents.]
It is important to recollect these points, for they constitute the
chief physical distinction between the Voltaic and the Faradaic--or,
as it is sometimes called, the Induced current. This latter is not,
strictly speaking, a “_current_,” but a rapid discharge or succession
of momentary shocks, each perfectly distinct in itself, and separated
by an appreciable interval of time from its fellows.
[SN: Voltaic Cells.]
In electrization, a source of electricity is of course necessary, and
this is furnished by a cell or cells, with contained elements and
chemicals; and, until a few years ago, it was impossible to get a
_portable_ cell that remained always in order and ready for use.[7]
[SN: Requisites of a Portable Battery.]
The requisites of a portable battery are that it should be really
portable, always ready for use, and little liable to get out of
order. Such batteries may be divided into two classes: firstly,
those in which the elements are either lowered into the exciting
fluid or the fluid is lifted to them, as in the instruments of
Stöhrer, Weiss, and almost all other makers; and, secondly, those in
which the elements remain immovable in their cells, and of these the
Leclanché, the Gaiffe-Clamond, and the chloride of silver, are to be
generally preferred to any of the first-named construction, for they
admit of the cells being so nearly sealed up that no fluid can be
spilt by any movement except turning the battery quite upside down;
while the somewhat common accident with batteries of the first-named
construction--viz., destruction of the plates by leaving them in the
acid, with its anything but agreeable result of a considerable expense
to replace them, is obviously impossible. The only disadvantage they
possess is that when exhausted it is necessary to send them to the
maker to be recharged, _while the owner can keep the first-named
variety in order himself_.
Efficient cells are, however, but a first step to the perfection of
electrical apparatus, and the mechanism by which the current is brought
into use and graduated, and the general accessories of the instrument,
are of at least equal importance. The instruments which I am about to
describe, have been designed by myself, and may be obtained from Mr.
Hawksley, Surgical Instrument Maker, Oxford Street. It is claimed for
them that they place at the service of the busy practitioner a battery
that with ordinary care (and no instrument will remain in order
without this) may be kept upon his consulting-room table, always as
available to his service as his stethoscope or ophthalmoscope.
Three kinds of batteries are constructed:--A Voltaic battery, with any
required number of cells, from 15 to 100; a Faradaic battery; and a
Combined battery, uniting both Voltaic and Faradaic currents.
[Illustration: FIG. 6. 40-Cell Voltaic Battery.
A. Guard preventing the lid being shut, unless the needle of the dial
points to “0”, and the instrument is out of action.
B. Cells shown by the removal of the compartment, H, for sponges and
accessories.
C. Bolt to secure the element board, which moves upon the hinges, D.
D, D. Hinges of element board.
E. Dial plate regulating the strength of the current. The needle, when
the battery is not in use, should cover the stud, “0,” seen to its left.
F. Commutator of the poles. The poles, N and P, are seen through holes
cut in the element board.
G. Key by which the current can be shut “off” or “on,” without change
of position of the conductors. It can also be used by vibrating it
backwards and forwards as an “interrupter.”
I, I. Binding screws, to which are attached the conducting wires and
sponge-holders, &c.]
[SN: The Voltaic Battery.]
_The Voltaic Battery_ (see Fig. 6, p. 20) has its cells arranged in the
interior of a mahogany case, and in use they are hidden from view and
from danger, but I now partially expose them by removal of the tray
for holding the sponges and accessories. Their connecting wires are
brought across the under surface of the element board, which is made
to move upon hinges that, when necessary, the cells may be examined,
but at other times this element board is held in position by a bolt,
and it should never be needlessly disturbed. These wires conduct the
current through the graduating dial, and the position of the needle of
this dial determines from how many of the cells the electricity shall
be allowed to reach the binding screws, and from them, by way of the
conductors, sponge-holders, or electrodes, the body of the patient,[8]
or whether it shall be entirely shut off, as is the case when the
battery is not in use, and when the needle stands at “0” (Fig. 7).
When the needle points to any stud numbered on the dial, the number
of cells marked on that stud are brought into action, and the needle
is made just wide enough to touch one of the studs before it breaks
contact with the preceding one, and thus the current may be increased
or decreased in power without shock, and while the electrodes are
held applied to the patient; but if it were not so made a series of
painful shocks would be communicated whenever the current was increased
or decreased. Should the needle, from forgetfulness, be left when
out of use in any other position than at “0,” a guard upon the lid
of the instrument prevents its being shut, and the operator has his
attention called to his inadvertence. A Voltaic alternative, or change
of direction of the current, is sometimes required in treatment, and
the commutator of the poles enables this to be accomplished without
alteration in the position of the conductors. By pushing forwards or
backwards the handle which moves a lever working below the element
board the current is instantly reversed, and the alternation of the
letters “P” and “N” seen through holes cut in the element board
indicates at once not only that there has been a change of poles,
but which pole is at the moment negative or positive; whereas in all
previous instruments, when the poles have been changed, there has
either been no letter marking them, or this letter has really been
wrong, and one has had to remember this; and under such circumstances,
and examining patients in rapid succession, momentary confusion of
the poles was very liable to occur, even to a practised operator. A
key enables the current to be shut off or on without removal of the
conductors. Dirt is a non-conductor of electricity, and the studs
of the dial must be kept clean with emery paper or plate-powder, as
also the under surface of the needle, key, and binding screws, which
unscrew to admit of removal. In the daily use of a battery the chief
work is usually thrown upon the first half (say in a battery of forty
cells, upon the first twenty-five), and various arrangements have
been added to batteries by ingenious instrument-makers to enable the
operator to vary his selection of the cells to be brought into use, and
thus to relieve the first half of his battery, or, in other words, to
equalize its work. But this unequal work question is more a theoretical
than a practical evil; for if the initial cells grow weaker a greater
number can be placed in use. I have carefully studied all the proposed
modifications, and have found in all of them the remedy worse than the
disease, unless the graduating dial be doubled (an original suggestion
of my own), so that the initial cells of one week may be made the
terminal cells of the next.
[Illustration: FIG. 7. Graduating dial with needle at “0”.]
When desired batteries can be constructed with this double dial (Fig.
8), but it adds to the complexity of the instrument, and I do not
myself use it.
[Illustration: FIG. 8. New form of Graduating Dial.]
In Fig. 9 a similar battery is shown to that just described; but the
elements consist of carbon and zinc, and are lifted into and out of
a bichromate solution. As it can be recharged by the owner without
the necessity of sending it to the maker, it is especially suited for
country and colonial practitioners.
[Illustration: FIG. 9. 40-Cell Voltaic Battery with zinc and carbon
elements, and lifting apparatus.]
[SN: Essentials of a Medical Voltaic Battery.]
To recapitulate. The essentials of a medical Voltaic battery are--
_a._ A constant supply of electricity of sufficient quantity and
quality.
_b._ A means by which this electricity may be administered in measured
doses.
_c._ A means by which the direction of its current may be changed.
_d._ A means by which it may be instantly discontinued.
FARADISM.
[SN: The Faradaic Current.]
The Faradaic, induced, interrupted, or electro-magnetic current, is
the third form of electricity employed in medicine. Faraday, as you
will recollect, discovered, that if two metallic wires were so fixed
as to be parallel and close to each other, but not to touch; and that
if then a current of Voltaic electricity were sent along the first
wire, another current appeared in the second. This _secondary_ or
_induced_ current, as it is called in contradistinction to the current,
the _primary_ or _inducing_ current sent along the first wire is only
momentary, but it appears again for a moment when the first current
ceases, but in a reverse direction. It is most convenient to wind
these two wires round two reels, so as to form separate coils, and to
place the primary within the secondary coil. Each single turn of the
primary then acts not only on the parallel turn of the secondary wire,
but on all the turns near it, and the power of such an apparatus is
much greater than that which would be obtained by the same lengths of
wire running side by side in a straight line. Our two coils being thus
arranged, we pass through our primary wire a succession of electrical
currents, and in practice this is accomplished by connecting its
extremities with a battery supplying a continuous current, which by an
ingenious mechanism we frequently break or interrupt.
[Illustration: FIG. 10. Faradaic Battery.
A. Cells shown by the removal of the compartment.
B. For conductors and accessories.
D. Screw regulating the pressure of a spring which modifies the
vibration of the hammer, E.
E. Hammer vibrating between the electro-magnet, F, and the point of a
platinized needle regulated by the screw, G.
F. Bundle of iron wires rendered an electro-magnet by the passage of
the Voltaic current from the cells, A, through the primary coil, K,
within which this bundle of wires is inserted.
G. Screw regulating position of a platinized needle.
H. The graduator, a stem to which is attached the movable secondary
coil, L. The front part of the case has been cut away in the engraving,
to show the construction of the induction apparatus.
I, I. Binding screws for attachment of the conducting wires, &c.
K. The primary coil, fixed upon a pedestal. In the figure, the
secondary coil, L, is wholly withdrawn from the action of the primary,
and its strength of current depending entirely upon the extent to
which it covers the primary, it is evident that the height which the
graduator, H, stands above the element board will exactly indicate this
strength.
L. Movable secondary coil.
M, M. Binding screws for attachment of the pedal rheotome, N, for
slow interruption. These interruptions are made by the pressure of
the operator’s foot upon the spring, P, but in practice they are very
seldom wanted, and the fittings are only added to the instrument when
specially ordered.
O. A spring retaining the secondary coil, L, in any desired position.]
[SN: The Faradaic Battery.]
_The Faradaic Battery._--In Fig. 10 (see p. 29), a Faradaic battery,
worked by two Leclanché cells, is shown; but I find it better to employ
either one or two ordinary bichromate cells instead of the Leclanché,
as the former can be kept in order by the operator himself without
much trouble. The primary coil is fixed upon a pedestal, the secondary
is movable, and can be lifted over or thrust away from the primary.
The degree of action in the secondary coil being proportionate to the
extent to which it is brought under the influence of the primary, this
arrangement admits of the most perfect graduation of the current; and
it has been for some time in use in all well-constructed instruments.
The innovation I have made consists in limiting the primary coil to
its legitimate purpose of induction, and rendering the secondary alone
available for application to a patient. I have been long satisfied
that therapeutically the distinction between the primary and secondary
coil entirely consists in the greater tension of the current of the
secondary coil enabling it to penetrate easily several thicknesses
of muscle, but there is no therapeutic indication that cannot be
fulfilled by this secondary coil; and at its lowest power I have
frequently applied it to the conjunctiva. The rapidity of vibration
of the interrupting hammer is varied by increasing or decreasing the
distance between the point of the needle and the electro-magnet by
the protrusion or retraction of the screw, of which the needle forms
the end--that is, by increasing or decreasing the space through which
the hammer passes in its vibration, and also by altering the pressure
of its spring, but there is seldom therapeutic need for change of
vibration; and unless this exists it is better _not to alter the
adjustment so long as the instrument acts well_.[9] After considerable
use the point of the needle, and the exact spot of the platinum disk of
the hammer against which this needle impinges, become oxidized, causing
weakening or stoppage of the current. This platinum disk has been
constructed to rotate, and a hole has been drilled in its circumference
(Fig. 11). By inserting a little lever furnished with the instrument
into this hole, the slightest twist given to the disk is sufficient to
bring a new surface of platinum into contact with the needle point.
This will usually be all that is required, but, if not, the needle can
be unscrewed, and its point cleaned with emery paper. When in course of
time the disk becomes dotted over with spots of oxidation, the screw
fixing the hammer in position must be unscrewed, the hammer lifted out,
and its surface similarly cleaned.
[Illustration: FIG. 11. The Platinum Disk and Lever.]
Induction currents are also produced in coils of wire by the action
upon them under certain conditions of a permanent magnet--as in the
ordinary rotary magneto-electric machine--but these machines may be
discarded from our consideration, for they are uncertain in action,
painful in application, and do not admit of exact graduation.
An apparatus in which both currents are combined is extremely
convenient if it is so constructed that either the Voltaic or Faradaic
current can be brought to the same terminals, thus avoiding the
trouble of changing the conductors--a point of the greatest possible
convenience when examining patients for diagnostic purposes by both
forms of electricity, either in succession or alternately.
[SN: The Hospital Combined Battery.]
In the _Hospital Combined Battery_ (see Fig. 12), constructed from
my designs, the two currents are thus united, and its details are
precisely similar to those of the separate batteries, with the
exception of the Dial being furnished with an additional stud lettered
_Coil_. When the needle points to this stud the current from the
Faradaic coil is brought into action; when it points to the numbered
studs, the cells numbered thereon as in my Voltaic instrument, and
when it points to “0,” both currents are shut off.
[Illustration: FIG. 12. Hospital Combined Battery.
A. Guard block.
K. Tray for holding accessories.
E. Dial plate.
C. Bolt securing element board.
G. Key for interrupting current.
M. Hammer.
F. Commutator of the poles.
I, I. Binding screws for conducting wires.
L, L. Hinges of element board.
H. Graduator of coil.
N. Electro-magnet.
R. Screw regulating position of needle.
D. Screw regulating spring of hammer.
]
Other instruments, such as those of Stöhrer and Weiss, are excellent,
and were unsurpassed until the invention and improvement of the
Leclanché and other cells. But I might talk upon instruments for hours
without exhausting the list; and I have felt obliged to limit myself
to a description of those I believe best fitted to our requirements;
but it, of course, must be understood that my further _observations
will apply equally to currents of electricity furnished by any properly
constructed and reliable apparatus_.
[SN: Accessories of the Battery.]
We have now brought the electricity to the terminals of our battery,
and we must next consider the best means of conveying it to the
sponges, conductors, or, as they are generally termed, rheophores or
current carriers, by which it is finally applied to our patient. [SN:
Conducting Cords.] Our first necessary accessory is a conducting cord
or wire, and it is of the first importance that this should really
be what it is called--“_a conductor_”--for any fault or break of
connection in it will, of course, nullify the best and most perfect
battery. It must also be sufficiently pliable, and be insulated by
being coated with some non-conducting material that the electricity
may not escape from it to any conducting substance with which it
may accidentally come into contact. The conducting cords sold by
instrument-makers are sometimes not insulated at all, and then they are
quite useless, but they are more commonly composed of several strands
of metallic wire of about the diameter of sewing thread, the whole
enclosed in some silken or woollen material, and nothing can be better
than these latter when quite new. Their disadvantages are that they
become frayed after a little use, and are liable to be constantly out
of order, causing interruptions in the current, while they will only
fit one kind of machine. I have had endless trouble with them; and
for some years I have used nothing but thin copper wire, coated with
gutta percha in the same way as that known as “telegraph wire.” This is
perfectly insulated, sufficiently pliable for all practical purposes;
it is cheap, and can be made to fit any sort of connection. Its one
disadvantage is, that it is liable to break at the point where it is
received into the terminals of the battery, or the screw socket of
the rheophore. Should this happen, all that is necessary is to scrape
off the gutta percha coating with a pocket knife for an inch from the
broken end, by which we get practically a new conducting cord.
We have now considered fully the birth and parentage of medical
electricity, and we have conducted it to within almost a hair’s
breadth of our patient. The various methods of applying it will be
considered in our next Lecture, which I trust, Gentlemen, to render
more interesting; but the dry details we have been discussing are, I
assure you, essential as a secure foundation for a practically useful
survey of electro-therapeutics.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] See “Vital Motion as a Mode of Physical Motion.” By C. B.
Radcliffe, M.D. Macmillan.
[2] See Mr. Netten Radcliffe upon the differential reaction of voltaic
and induced currents of electricity. Note to page 331, vol. i., of
Bazire’s translation of Trousseau’s “Clinical Medicine.” Hardwicke.
[3] This observation, made in 1873, requires some qualification now
(1886). At several of the great medical schools, though not at all,
electrical treatment has been transferred from the hospital porter to
some member of the hospital staff; and at more than one a systematic
course of lectures upon electro-therapeutics has been delivered.
[4] I speak feelingly upon this matter, for from an early period of
my electrical experience I have suffered much from batteries--from
instruments “striking work” at the most inconvenient moment--from
spilling of corrosive acid upon fingers and clothing, to the detriment
of both, and of temper too, I fear.
[5] So long ago as 1870, I was in the habit (at the suggestion of Dr.
Radcliffe) of employing at an Institution for Resident Patients, a
method of “charging” a patient which I believe to be unique.
[SN: _Unique method of charging a patient._]
During dry summer weather the patient reclined upon a couch in the
gardens insulated by glass supports, and a sort of lightning conductor
was improvised by attaching a 30-feet salmon-rod to the foot of the
couch, a piece of ordinary “telegraph wire” being carried up the rod,
its insulation being removed from about a foot which projected above
the top of the rod.
Upon a fairly warm and dry day the patient became “charged” and sparks
could be drawn from him as from a patient in ordinary connection with a
Franklinic machine in rotation.
Upon more than one occasion in those ancient Static days, an attempt
was made to insulate a patient for a whole night, and to maintain
the charge by a relay of “rotating nurses;” but the _human machines
failed_, and suitable gas engines were not then available; hence the
procedure related above was, if conducted for three or four hours on a
dry summer afternoon, a by no means bad substitute for a close room and
a rotating Static machine. In New York, in winter, when the rooms are
covered with thick carpets, and when the atmosphere is dry, it has been
known that on shaking hands with a visitor, not only has the “shock,”
which under similar circumstances occasionally occurs in England, been
felt, but that a spark has passed; and children have been known to
slide over the carpet towards each other and exchange sparks by way
of sport. _The influence of atmospheric and other ordinary electrical
conditions has been far too little studied by electro-therapeutists._
[6] The Carré Machine can be obtained from Mr. Groves, 89 Bolsover
Street; the Fly Wheel from Messrs. Hovenden and Co., Great Marlborough
Street; and the Gas Engine from Messrs. Andrew and Co., Engineers,
Stockport.
[7] Currents of electricity from large fixed batteries are most marked
in their curative effects; but patients are not always movable!
[8] _The Galvanometer as an aid to the Dosage of Electricity._--The
dose of voltaic electricity is made up of two factors, (_a_) the
strength of the current and (_b_), the time during which it is applied
to the patient. [SN: The Galvanometer as an aid to the Dosage of
Electricity.] The strength of the current is directly dependent upon
the number of cells employed, but, unfortunately, cells of dissimilar
construction evolve currents of very unequal strength; while cells
that have been freshly charged are more powerful than similar ones
that have been partly exhausted by use; and, therefore, to speak of
a current from “so many cells,” though, practically, a convenient
method of dosage, fails to convey any _exact_ idea of a measured and
unvarying quantity. It is a comforting theory to electro-therapeutists
that a galvanometer will enable them to administer their doses of
electricity with as much exactitude as we daily prescribe so many
grains, or so many minims of ordinary medicines; but, like some other
theories which save us much trouble, when adopted as theories _only_,
it fails us in practice (at least according to my experience), and
chiefly so, because a galvanometer can be usefully employed only when
it is included in the circuit of a continuous current, as, _e.g._,
in aneurismal electro-puncture; and, I believe, I am within the
mark in saying that electrizations, which even admit of its useful
employment, are indicated in barely 5 per cent. of ordinary cases in
electro-therapeutics; and that it is of no practical utility, where
we most want aid, in measuring, not the current which leaves the
battery terminals, but that which, after overcoming the very variable
resistance of the human skin, really reaches the underlying muscular
and nervous tissues, which, in 95 per cent. of our cases, we desire to
influence, not by a constant, but by an interrupted Voltaic current;
and the amount which really reaches these tissues depends largely upon
the condition of the patient’s skin, and, I may also add, upon the
kind and shape of the conductor, and its degree of moisture, &c.; and
the operator will do well to graduate his dose of electricity by a
consideration only of the three factors, number of cells, effect upon
himself, and effect upon his patient, discarding entirely the use of
any merely mechanical aids to graduation.
I am induced to speak thus strongly because men of scientific
reputation have advocated the habitual use of the galvanometer, not
alone by medical men trained to precision of observation, but by
private patients as “_enabling them to carry on the treatment at home
with all the accuracy desirable!_” The prospect of the ordinary patient
provided with a battery, the use of which he is complicating by a
galvanometer, is anything but reassuring to those physicians who not
only prescribe electricity, but are themselves habituated in applying
it--which, by the way, is a very different thing--and who have had
frequent experience of the manner in which patients misunderstand,
or fail in correctly carrying out, the most explicit directions.
Electricity will be left in the hands of specialists, and necessarily
do but a tithe of the good it is capable of affecting, until the
mass of the profession can be induced to master the few preliminary
details essential to its successful application, and I fear that the
suggestions that have been made--suggestions which I believe to be
entirely without foundation--that there exist practical difficulties to
its dosage, will tend to postpone rather than to accelerate its more
extended use.
Should any of you desire to use a galvanometer, that patented by
Sprague, of Birmingham, is the one most adapted for use in medicine.
Electricity is a force, and as with other forces it has its standard
of measurement. In mechanics we know that the power sufficient to
raise one pound to the height of one foot is the basis of measurement.
Similarly in electricity the unit of measurement is the force which
will raise one gramme to the height of one metre, and the standard
multiple of this was called a “British Association Unit,” or shortly, a
“B.A.” unit, and it is now called an “_Ohm_” when used to measure the
resistance offered to the current, and a “_Veber_” when used to measure
the strength of the current itself. The ordinary galvanometer is
founded on the principle that a magnetic compass needle has a tendency
to place itself at right angles to a current of electricity, and the
degree to which the needle is deflected is a measure of the quantity
of electricity, but the angle of deflection is not proportionate to
the current strength, and it differs in different galvanometers; but
in “Sprague’s Galvanometer” the dial is divided, not into degrees,
but into divisions of thousandths of _Vebers_--divisions which were
obtained by noting the deflections given by the needle with currents
of known strength. I am indebted to Mr. Sprague for his courtesy in
endeavouring to so modify his galvanometer as to render it available as
a graduator of doses of interrupted Voltaic electricity, but although
he has not succeeded in doing this, he has constructed for me an
instrument which, supposing that a battery be partially exhausted,
will indicate with precision the absolute strength of, say, twelve
of its cells as compared with twelve newly-charged cells, and also
the condition of each individual cell, points often of much practical
convenience in an Hospital Electrical Room.
[9] A little care is needed to regulate the vibrating needle. The
spring should but _barely touch_ the hammer, the adjustment being
almost entirely regulated by the protrusion or retraction of the needle
by the action of its screw; and the _slightest twist_ of this screw
will be sufficient. When the vibration is uneven or stops, and careful
manipulation of the needle fails to re-establish it, remove the needle
and clean its point as directed in the text.
LECTURE II. METHODS OF APPLYING ELECTRICITY.
GENTLEMEN,
[SN: Résumé of First Lecture.]
In our first Lecture we studied the different kinds of electricity
employed in medicine, and the construction and management of batteries.
I reminded you that we made use of three kinds of electricity;
firstly, of friction or static electricity, _Franklinism_; secondly,
of the electricity of chemical action, _Voltaism_, or _Galvanism_;
and, thirdly, of induced electricity, _Faradism_:--that there had
been certain difficulties in the employment of Franklinism, but
that these difficulties no longer existed; that Voltaic electricity
was electricity in motion, or current electricity, but that
while its current (unless artificially interrupted) was always
_continuous_--flowing, that is, in an unbroken stream--and from the
positive to the negative pole, until the battery was exhausted--it by
no means followed that it was _constant_, that is, that it did not vary
appreciably in power during application; that only batteries supplying
a fairly constant current were fitted for medical use, and that all
others should be rejected. We then considered different batteries,
both fixed and portable; that while large fixed low tension batteries
were unquestionably superior in their therapeutic effects, patients
unfortunately were not always movable, and that a portable battery
became, therefore, a _sine quâ non_; that portable batteries might
be conveniently divided into two classes, one in which electricity
was generated by the elements being immersed in an exciting fluid
only during actual use, and being taken out of the fluid immediately
after use; and the second that in which no removal of the elements was
necessary; that the Voltaic current was graduated into doses by some
arrangement determining the number of cells to be employed in each
case, but that this method, while practically useful and sufficient,
failed to convey an exact idea of a measured and unvarying quantity
of electricity; and that it had been contended that by the use of a
galvanometer, doses of electricity might be as accurately administered
as so many grains or minims of ordinary medicines, but that, perfect
as the theory might be, I had personally failed to obtain help in
practice from a galvanometer; that next in importance to a method of
dosage, was it to be able to instantly change the direction of the
current, or to at once turn it “off” or “on,” in addition, of course,
to the fundamental requisite of a continuous supply of electricity of
sufficient quality and quantity.
We next considered the induced or _Faradaic_ current, so-called,
which I reminded you is not a current at all, but a rapid discharge
or succession of those momentary shocks, each perfectly distinct in
itself, and separated by an appreciable interval of time from its
fellows, which Faraday discovered to be generated or induced by a
Voltaic current flowing along a wire in other wires parallel to, but
separated from, the first wire; that by winding the two wires upon two
movable reels and introducing one within the
|
, struggling there with his
live burden in the seething water!
He had dashed into the ocean, which was dark, but warm with tropical
heat, and had succeeded, in spite of the heavy seas then running, in
reaching Muriel, who clung to him now with all the fierce clinging of
despair, and impeded his movement through that swirling water. More than
that, he saw the white life-belts that the sailors flung toward him; they
were well and aptly flung, in the inspiration of the moment, to allow for
the sea itself carrying them on the crest of its waves toward the two
drowning creatures. Felix saw them distinctly, and making a great lunge
as they passed, in spite of Muriel's struggles, which sadly hampered his
movements, he managed to clutch at no less than three before the great
billow, rolling on, carried them off on its top forever away from him.
Two of these he slipped hastily over Muriel's shoulders; the other he
put, as best he might, round his own waist; and then, for the first time,
still clinging close to his companion's arm, and buffeted about wildly by
that running sea, he was able to look about him in alarm for a moment,
and realize more or less what had actually happened.
By this time the Australasian was a quarter of a mile away in front of
them, and her lights were beginning to become stationary as she slowly
slowed and reversed engines. Then, from the summit of a great wave, Felix
was dimly aware of a boat being lowered--for he saw a separate light
gleaming across the sea--a search was being made in the black night,
alas, how hopelessly! The light hovered about for many, many minutes,
revealed to him now here, now there, searching in vain to find him, as
wave after wave raised him time and again on its irresistible summit. The
men in the boat were doing their best, no doubt; but what chance of
finding any one on a dark night like that, in an angry sea, and with no
clue to guide them toward the two struggling castaways? Current and wind
had things all their own way. As a matter of fact, the light never came
near the castaways at all; and after half an hour's ineffectual search,
which seemed to Felix a whole long lifetime, it returned slowly toward
the steamer from which it came--and left those two alone on the dark
Pacific.
"There wasn't a chance of picking 'em up," the captain said, with
philosophic calm, as the men clambered on board again, and the
Australasian got under way once more for the port of Honolulu. "I knew
there wasn't a chance; but in common humanity one was bound to make some
show of trying to save 'em. He was a brave fellow to go after her, though
it was no good of course. He couldn't even find her, at night, and with
such a sea as that running."
And even as he spoke, Felix Thurstan, rising once more on the crest of a
much smaller billow--for somehow the waves were getting incredibly
smaller as he drifted on to leeward--felt his heart sink within him as he
observed to his dismay that the Australasian must be steaming ahead once
more, by the movement of her lights, and that they two were indeed
abandoned to their fate on the open surface of that vast and trackless
ocean.
CHAPTER II.
THE TEMPLE OF THE DEITY.
While these things were happening on the sea close by, a very different
scene indeed was being enacted meanwhile, beneath those waving palms, on
the island of Boupari. It was strange, to be sure, as Felix Thurstan had
said, that such unspeakable heathen orgies should be taking place within
sight of a passing Christian English steamer. But if only he had known or
reflected to what sort of land he was trying now to struggle ashore with
Muriel, he might well have doubted whether it were not better to let her
perish where she was, in the pure clear ocean, rather than to submit an
English girl to the possibility of undergoing such horrible heathen rites
and ceremonies.
For on the island of Boupari it was high feast with the worshippers of
their god that night. The sun had turned on the Tropic of Capricorn at
noon, and was making his way northward, toward the equator once more;
and his votaries, as was their wont, had all come forth to do him honor
in due season, and to pay their respects, in the inmost and sacredest
grove on the island, to his incarnate representative, the living spirit
of trees and fruits and vegetation, the very high god, the divine
Tu-Kila-Kila!
Early in the evening, as soon as the sun's rim had disappeared beneath
the ocean, a strange noise boomed forth from the central shrine of
Boupari. Those who heard it clapped their hands to their ears and ran
hastily forward. It was a noise like distant rumbling thunder, or the
whir of some great English mill or factory; and at its sound every woman
on the island threw herself on the ground prostrate, with her face in the
dust, and waited there reverently till the audible voice of the god had
once more subsided. For no woman knew how that sound was produced. Only
the grown men, initiated into the mysteries of the shrine when they came
of age at the tattooing ceremony, were aware that the strange, buzzing,
whirring noise was nothing more or less than the cry of the bull-roarer.
A bull-roarer, as many English schoolboys know, is merely a piece of
oblong wood, pointed at either end, and fastened by a leather thong at
one corner. But when whirled round the head by practised priestly hands,
it produces a low rumbling noise like the wheels of a distant carriage,
growing gradually louder and clearer, from moment to moment, till at last
it waxes itself into a frightful din, or bursts into perfect peals of
imitation thunder. Then it decreases again once more, as gradually as it
rose, becoming fainter and ever fainter, like thunder as it recedes, till
the horrible bellowing, as of supernatural bulls, dies away in the end,
by slow degrees, into low and soft and imperceptible murmurs.
But when the savage hears the distant humming of the bull-roarer, at
whatever distance, he knows that the mysteries of his god are in full
swing, and he hurries forward in haste, leaving his work or his pleasure,
and running, naked as he stands, to take his share in the worship, lest
the anger of heaven should burst forth in devouring flames to consume
him. But the women, knowing themselves unworthy to face the dread
presence of the high god in his wrath, rush wildly from the spot, and,
flinging themselves down at full length, with their mouths to the dust,
wait patiently till the voice of their deity is no longer audible.
And as the bull-roarer on Boupari rang out with wild echoes from the
coral caverns in the central grove that evening, Tu-Kila-Kila, their god,
rose slowly from his place, and stood out from his hut, a deity revealed,
before his reverential worshippers.
As he rose, a hushed whisper ran wave-like through the dense throng of
dusky forms that bent low, like corn beneath the wind, before him,
"Tu-Kila-Kila rises! He rises to speak! Hush! for the voice of the mighty
man-god!"
The god, looking around him superciliously with a cynical air of
contempt, stood forward with a firm and elastic step before his silent
worshippers. He was a stalwart savage, in the very prime of life, tall,
lithe, and active. His figure was that of a man well used to command;
but his face, though handsome, was visibly marked by every external sign
of cruelty, lust, and extreme bloodthirstiness. One might have said,
merely to look at him, he was a being debased by all forms of brutal and
hateful self-indulgence. A baleful light burned in his keen gray eyes.
His lips were thick, full, purple, and wistful.
"My people may look upon me," he said, in a strangely affable
voice, standing forward and smiling with a curious half-cruel,
half-compassionate smile upon his awe-struck followers. "On every day
of the sun's course but this, none save the ministers dedicated to the
service of Tu-Kila-Kila dare gaze unhurt upon his sacred person. If
any other did, the light from his holy eyes would wither them up, and
the glow of his glorious countenance would scorch them to ashes." He
raised his two hands, palm outward, in front of him. "So all the year
round," he went on, "Tu-Kila-Kila, who loves his people, and sends
them the earlier and the later rain in the wet season, and makes their
yams and their taro grow, and causes his sun to shine upon them
freely--all the year round Tu-Kila-Kila, your god, sits shut up in his
own house among the skeletons of those whom he has killed and eaten, or
walks in his walled paddock, where his bread-fruit ripens and his
plantains spring--himself, and the ministers that his tribesmen have
given him."
At the sound of their mystic deity's voice the savages, bending lower
still till their foreheads touched the ground, repeated in chorus, to the
clapping of hands, like some solemn litany: "Tu-Kila-Kila speaks true.
Our lord is merciful. He sends down his showers upon our crops and
fields. He causes his sun to shine brightly over us. He makes our pigs
and our slaves bring forth their increase. Tu-Kila-Kila is good. His
people praise him."
The god took another step forward, the divine mantle of red feathers
glowing in the sunset on his dusky shoulders, and smiled once more that
hateful gracious smile of his. He was standing near the open door of his
wattled hut, overshadowed by the huge spreading arms of a gigantic
banyan-tree. Through the open door of the hut it was possible to catch
just a passing glimpse of an awful sight within. On the beams of the
house, and on the boughs of the trees behind it, human skeletons, half
covered with dry flesh, hung in ghastly array, their skulls turned
downward. They were the skeletons of the victims Tu-Kila-Kila, their
prince, had slain and eaten; they were the trophies of the cannibal
man-god's hateful prowess.
Tu-Kila-Kila raised his right hand erect and spoke again. "I am a great
god," he said, slowly. "I am very powerful. I make the sun to shine, and
the yams to grow. I am the spirit of plants. Without me there would be
nothing for you all to eat or drink in Boupari. If I were to grow old and
die, the sun would fade away in the heavens overhead; the bread-fruit
trees would wither and cease to bear on earth; all fruits would come to
an end and die at once; all rivers would stop forthwith from running."
His worshippers bowed down in acquiescence with awestruck faces. "It is
true," they answered, in the same slow sing-song of assent as before.
"Tu-Kila-Kila is the greatest of gods. We owe to him everything. We hang
upon his favor."
Tu-Kila-Kila started back, laughed, and showed his pearly white teeth.
They were beautiful and regular, like the teeth of a tiger, a strong
young tiger. "But I need more sacrifices than all the other gods," he
went on, melodiously, like one who plays with consummate skill upon some
difficult instrument. "I am greedy; I am thirsty; I am a hungry god. You
must not stint me. I claim more human victims than all the other gods
beside. If you want your crops to grow, and your rivers to run, the
fields to yield you game, and the sea fish--this is what I ask: give me
victims, victims! That is our compact. Tu-Kila-Kila calls you."
The men bowed down once more and repeated humbly, "You shall have victims
as you will, great god; only give us yam and taro and bread-fruit, and
cause not your bright light, the sun, to grow dark in heaven over us."
"Cut yourselves," Tu-Kila-Kila cried, in a peremptory voice, clapping his
hands thrice. "I am thirsting for blood. I want your free-will offering."
As he spoke, every man, as by a set ritual, took from a little skin
wallet at his side a sharp flake of coral-stone, and, drawing it
deliberately across his breast in a deep red gash, caused the blood to
flow out freely over his chest and long grass waistband. Then, having
done so, they never strove for a moment to stanch the wound, but let
the red drops fall as they would on to the dust at their feet, without
seeming even to be conscious at all of the fact that they were flowing.
Tu-Kila-Kila smiled once more, a ghastly self-satisfied smile of
unquestioned power. "It is well," he went on. "My people love me. They
know my strength, how I can wither them up. They give me their blood to
drink freely. So I will be merciful to them. I will make my sun shine and
my rain drop from heaven. And instead of taking _all_, I will choose one
victim." He paused, and glanced along their line significantly.
"Choose, Tu-Kila-Kila," the men answered, without a moment's hesitation.
"We are all your meat. Choose which one you will take of us."
Tu-Kila-Kila walked with a leisurely tread down the lines and surveyed
the men critically. They were all drawn up in rows, one behind the other,
according to tribes and families; and the god walked along each row,
examining them with a curious and interested eye, as a farmer examines
sheep fit for the market. Now and then, he felt a leg or an arm with his
finger and thumb, and hesitated a second. It was an important matter,
this choosing a victim. As he passed, a close observer might have noted
that each man trembled visibly while the god's eye was upon him, and
looked after him askance with a terrified sidelong gaze as he passed on
to his neighbor. But not one savage gave any overt sign or token of his
terror or his reluctance. On the contrary, as Tu-Kila-Kila passed along
the line with lazy, cruel deliberateness, the men kept chanting aloud
without one tremor in their voices, "We are all your meat. Choose which
one you will take of us."
On a sudden, Tu-Kila-Kila turned sharply round, and, darting a rapid
glance toward a row he had already passed several minutes before, he
exclaimed, with an air of unexpected inspiration, "Tu-Kila-Kila has
chosen. He takes Maloa."
The man upon whose shoulder the god laid his heavy hand as he spoke stood
forth from the crowd without a moment's hesitation. If anger or fear was
in his heart at all, it could not be detected in his voice or his
features. He bowed his head with seeming satisfaction, and answered
humbly, "What Tu-Kila-Kila says must need be done. This is a great honor.
He is a mighty god. We poor men must obey him. We are proud to be taken
up and made one with divinity."
Tu-Kila-Kila raised in his hand a large stone axe of some polished green
material, closely resembling jade, which lay on a block by the door, and
tried its edge with his finger, in an abstracted manner. "Bind him!" he
said, quietly, turning round to his votaries. And the men, each glad to
have escaped his own fate, bound their comrade willingly with green ropes
of plantain fibre.
"Crown him with flowers!" Tu-Kila-Kila said; and a female attendant,
absolved from the terror of the bull-roarer by the god's command, brought
forward a great garland of crimson hibiscus, which she flung around the
victim's neck and shoulders.
"Lay his head on the sacred stone block of our fathers," Tu-Kila-Kila
went on, in an easy tone of command, waving his hand gracefully. And the
men, moving forward, laid their comrade, face downward, on a huge flat
block of polished greenstone, which lay like an altar in front of the
hut with the mouldering skeletons.
"It is well," Tu-Kila-Kila murmured once more, half aloud. "You have
given me the free-will offering. Now for the trespass! Where is the
woman who dared to approach too near the temple-home of the divine
Tu-Kila-Kila? Bring the criminal forward!"
The men divided, and made a lane down their middle. Then one of them, a
minister of the man-god's shrine, led up by the hand, all trembling and
shrinking with supernatural terror in every muscle, a well-formed young
girl of eighteen or twenty. Her naked bronze limbs were shapely and
lissome; but her eyes were swollen and red with tears, and her face
strongly distorted with awe for the man-god. When she stood at last
before Tu-Kila-Kila's dreaded face, she flung herself on the ground in an
agony of fear.
"Oh, mercy, great God!" she cried, in a feeble voice. "I have sinned, I
have sinned. Mercy, mercy!"
Tu-Kila-Kila smiled as before, a smile of imperial pride. No ray of pity
gleamed from those steel-gray eyes. "Does Tu-Kila-Kila show mercy?" he
asked, in a mocking voice. "Does he pardon his suppliants? Does he
forgive trespasses? Is he not a god, and must not his wrath be appeased?
She, being a woman, and not a wife sealed to Tu-Kila-Kila, has dared to
look from afar upon his sacred home. She has spied the mysteries.
Therefore she must die. My people, bind her."
In a second, without more ado, while the poor trembling girl writhed and
groaned in her agony before their eyes, that mob of wild savages, let
loose to torture and slay, fell upon her with hideous shouts, and bound
her, as they had bound their comrade before, with coarse native ropes of
twisted plantain fibre.
"Lay her head on the stone," Tu-Kila-Kila said, grimly. And his votaries
obeyed him.
"Now light the sacred fire to make our feast, before I slay the victims,"
the god said, in a gloating voice, running his finger again along the
edge of his huge hatchet.
As he spoke, two men, holding in their hands hollow bamboos with coals of
fire concealed within, which they kept aglow meanwhile by waving them up
and down rapidly in the air, laid these primitive matches to the base of
a great pyramidal pile of wood and palm-leaves, ready prepared beforehand
in the yard of the temple. In a second, the dry fuel, catching the sparks
instantly, blazed up to heaven with a wild outburst of flame. Great red
tongues of fire licked up the mouldering mass of leaves and twigs, and
caught at once at the trunks of palm and li wood within. A huge
conflagration reddened the sky at once like lightning. The effect was
magical. The glow transfigured the whole island for miles. It was, in
fact, the blaze that Felix Thurstan had noted and remarked upon as he
stood that evening on the silent deck of the Australasian.
Tu-Kila-Kila gazed at it with horrid childish glee. "A fine fire!" he
said, gayly. "A fire worthy of a god. It will serve me well. Tu-Kila-Kila
will have a good oven to roast his meal in."
Then he turned toward the sea, and held up his hand once more for
silence. As he did so, an answering light upon its surface attracted his
eye for a moment's space. It was a bright red light, mixed with white and
green ones; in point of fact, the Australasian was passing. Tu-Kila-Kila
pointed toward it solemnly with his plump, brown fore-finger. "See," he
said, drawing himself up and looking preternaturally wise; "your god is
great. I am sending some of this fire across the sea to where my sun has
set, to aid and reinforce it. That is to keep up the fire of the sun,
lest ever at any time it should fade and fail you. While Tu-Kila-Kila
lives the sun will burn bright. If Tu-Kila-Kila were to die it would be
night forever."
His votaries, following their god's fore-finger as it pointed, all turned
to look in the direction he indicated with blank surprise and
astonishment. Such a sight had never met their eyes before, for the
Australasian was the very first steamer to take the eastward route,
through the dangerous and tortuous Boupari Channel. So their awe and
surprise at the unwonted sight knew no bounds. Fire on the ocean!
Miraculous light on the waves! Their god must, indeed, be a mighty deity
if he could send flames like that careering over the sea! Surely the sun
was safe in the hands of a potentate who could thus visibly reinforce it
with red light, and white! In their astonishment and awe, they stood with
their long hair falling down over their foreheads, and their hands held
up to their eyes that they might gaze the farther across the dim, dark
ocean. The borrowed light of their bonfire was moving, slowly moving over
the watery sea. Fire and water were mixing and mingling on friendly
terms. Impossible! Incredible! Marvellous! Miraculous! They prostrated
themselves in their terror at Tu-Kila-Kila's feet. "Oh, great god," they
cried, in awe-struck tones, "your power is too vast! Spare us, spare us,
spare us!"
As for Tu-Kila-Kila himself, he was not astonished at all. Strange as it
sounds to us, he really believed in his heart what he said. Profoundly
convinced of his own godhead, and abjectly superstitious as any of his
own votaries, he absolutely accepted as a fact his own suggestion, that
the light he saw was the reflection of that his men had kindled. The
interpretation he had put upon it seemed to him a perfectly natural and
just one. His worshippers, indeed, mere men that they were, might be
terrified at the sight; but why should he, a god, take any special notice
of it?
He accepted his own superiority as implicitly as our European nobles and
rulers accept theirs. He had no doubts himself, and he considered those
who had little better than criminals.
By and by, a smaller light detached itself by slow degrees from the
greater ones. The others stood still, and halted in mid-ocean. The lesser
light made as if it would come in the direction of Boupari. In point of
fact, the gig had put out in search of Felix and Muriel.
Tu-Kila-Kila interpreted the facts at once, however, in his own way.
"See," he said, pointing with his plump forefinger once more, and
encouraging with his words his terrified followers, "I am sending back a
light again from the sun to my island. I am doing my work well. I am
taking care of my people. Fear not for your future. In the light is yet
another victim. A man and a woman will come to Boupari from the sun, to
make up for the man and woman whom we eat in our feast to-night. Give me
plenty of victims, and you will have plenty of yam. Make haste, then;
kill, eat; let us feast Tu-Kila-Kila! To-morrow the man and woman I have
sent from the sun will come ashore on the reef, and reach Boupari."
At the words, he stepped forward and raised that heavy tomahawk. With
one blow each he brained the two bound and defenceless victims on the
altar-stone of his fathers. The rest, a European hand shrinks from
revealing. The orgy was too horrible even for description.
And that was the land toward which, that moment, Felix Thurstan was
struggling, with all his might, to carry Muriel Ellis, from the myriad
clasping arms of a comparatively gentle and merciful ocean!
CHAPTER III.
LAND; BUT WHAT LAND?
As the last glimmering lights of the Australasian died away to seaward,
Felix Thurstan knew in his despair there was nothing for it now but to
strike out boldly, if he could, for the shore of the island.
By this time the breakers had subsided greatly. Not, indeed, that the sea
itself was really going down. On the contrary, a brisk wind was rising
sharper from the east, and the waves on the open Pacific were growing
each moment higher and loppier. But the huge mountain of water that
washed Muriel Ellis overboard was not a regular ordinary wave; it was
that far more powerful and dangerous mass, a shoal-water breaker. The
Australasian had passed at that instant over a submerged coral-bar, quite
deep enough, indeed, to let her cross its top without the slightest
danger of grazing, but still raised so high toward the surface as to
produce a considerable constant ground-swell, which broke in windy
weather into huge sheets of surf, like the one that had just struck and
washed over the Australasian, carrying Muriel with it. The very same
cause that produced the breakers, however, bore Felix on their summit
rapidly landward; and once he had got well beyond the region of the bar
that begot them, he found himself soon, to his intense relief, in
comparatively calm shoal water.
Muriel Ellis, for her part, was faint with terror and with the
buffeting of the waves; but she still floated by his side, upheld by the
life-belts. He had been able, by immense efforts, to keep unseparated
from her amid the rending surf of the breakers. Now that they found
themselves in easier waters for a while, Felix began to strike out
vigorously through the darkness for the shore. Holding up his companion
with one hand, and swimming with all his might in the direction where a
vague white line of surf, lit up by the red glare-of some fire far
inland, made him suspect the nearest land to lie, he almost thought he
had succeeded at last, after a long hour of struggle, in feeling his
feet, after all, on a firm coral bottom.
At the very moment he did so, and touched the ground underneath, another
great wave, curling resistlessly behind him, caught him up on its crest,
whirled him heavenward like a cork, and then dashed him down once more, a
passive burden, on some soft and yielding substance, which he conjectured
at once to be a beach of finely powdered coral fragments. As he touched
this beach for an instant, the undertow of that vast dashing breaker
sucked him back with its ebb again, a helpless, breathless creature; and
then the succeeding wave rolled him over like a ball, upon the beach as
before, in quick succession. Four times the back-current sucked him under
with its wild pull in the self-same way, and four times the return wave
flung him up upon the beach again like a fragment of sea-weed. With
frantic efforts Felix tried at first to cling still to Muriel--to save
her from the irresistible force of that roaring surf--to snatch her from
the open jaws of death by sheer struggling dint of thews and muscle. He
might as well have tried to stem Niagara. The great waves, curling
irresistibly in huge curves landward, caught either of them up by turns
on their arched summits, and twisted them about remorselessly, raising
them now aloft on their foaming crest, beating them back now prone in
their hollow trough, and flinging them fiercely at last with pitiless
energy against the soft beach of coral. If the beach had been hard, they
must infallibly have been ground to powder or beaten to jelly by the
colossal force of those gigantic blows. Fortunately it was yielding,
smooth, and clay-like, and received them almost as a layer of moist
plaster of Paris might have done, or they would have stood no chance at
all for their lives in that desperate battle with the blind and frantic
forces of unrelenting nature.
No man who has not himself seen the surf break on one of these
far-southern coral shores can form any idea in his own mind of the terror
and horror of the situation. The water, as it reaches the beach, rears
itself aloft for a second into a huge upright wall, which, advancing
slowly, curls over at last in a hollow circle, and pounds down upon the
sand or reef with all the crushing force of some enormous sledge-hammer.
But after the fourth assault, Felix felt himself flung up high and dry by
the wave, as one may sometimes see a bit of light reed or pith flung up
some distance ahead by an advancing tide on the beach in England. In an
instant he steadied himself and staggered to his feet. Torn and bruised
as he was by the pummelling of the billows, he looked eagerly into the
water in search of his companion. The next wave flung up Muriel, as the
last had flung himself. He bent over her with a panting heart as she lay
there, insensible, on the long white shore. Alive or dead? that was now
the question.
Raising her hastily in his arms, with her clothes all clinging wet and
close about her, Felix carried her over the narrow strip of tidal beach,
above high-water level, and laid her gently down on a soft green bank of
short tropical herbage, close to the edge of the coral. Then he bent over
her once more, and listened eagerly at her heart. It still beat with
faint pulses--beat--beat--beat. Felix throbbed with joy. She was alive!
alive! He was not quite alone, then, on that unknown island!
And strange as it seemed, it was only a little more than two short hours
since they had stood and looked out across the open sea over the bulwarks
of the Australasian together!
But Felix had no time to moralize just then. The moment was clearly
one for action. Fortunately, he happened to carry three useful things
in his pocket when he jumped overboard after Muriel. The first was a
pocket-knife; the second was a flask with a little whiskey in it; and the
third, perhaps the most important of all, a small metal box of wax vesta
matches. Pouring a little whiskey into the cup of the flask, he held it
eagerly to Muriel's lips. The fainting girl swallowed it automatically.
Then Felix, stooping down, tried the matches against the box. They were
unfortunately wet, but half an hour's exposure, he knew, on sun-warmed
stones, in that hot, tropical air, would soon restore them again. So he
opened the box and laid them carefully out on a flat white slab of coral.
After that, he had time to consider exactly where they were, and what
their chances in life, if any, might now amount to.
Pitch dark as it was, he had no difficulty in deciding at once by the
general look of things that they had reached a fringing reef, such as he
was already familiar with in the Marquesas and elsewhere. The reef was no
doubt circular, and it enclosed within itself a second or central island,
divided from it by a shallow lagoon of calm, still water. He walked some
yards inland. From where he now stood, on the summit of the ridge, he
could look either way, and by the faint reflected light of the stars, or
the glare of the great pyre that burned on the central island, he could
see down on one side to the ocean, with its fierce white pounding surf,
and on the other to the lagoon, reflecting the stars overhead, and
motionless as a mill-pond. Between them lay the low raised ridge of
coral, covered with tall stems of cocoanut palms, and interspersed here
and there, as far as his eye could judge, with little rectangular clumps
of plantain and taro.
But what alarmed Felix most was the fire that blazed so brightly to
heaven on the central island; for he knew too well that meant--there were
_men_ on the place; the land was inhabited.
The cocoanuts and taro told the same doubtful tale. From the way they
grew, even in that dim starlight, Felix recognized at once they had all
been planted.
Still, he didn't hesitate to do what he thought best for Muriel's relief
for all that. Collecting a few sticks and fragments of palm-branches from
the jungle about, he piled them into a heap, and waited patiently for his
matches to dry. As soon as they were ready--and the warmth of the stone
made them quickly inflammable--he struck a match on the box, and
proceeded to light his fire by Muriel's side. As her clothes grew warmer,
the poor girl opened her eyes at last, and, gazing around her, exclaimed,
in blank terror, "Oh, Mr. Thurstan, where are we? What does all this
mean? Where have we got to? On a desert island?"
"No, _not_ on a desert island," Felix answered, shortly; "I'm afraid it's
a great deal worse than that. To tell you the truth, I'm afraid it's
inhabited."
At that moment, by the hot embers of the great sacrificial pyre on the
central hill, two of the savage temple-attendants, calling their god's
attention to a sudden blaze of flame upon the fringing reef, pointed with
their dark forefingers and called out in surprise, "See, see, a fire on
the barrier! A fire! A fire! What can it mean? There are no men of our
people over there to-night. Have war-canoes arrived? Has some enemy
landed?"
Tu-Kila-Kila leaned back, drained his cocoanut cup of intoxicating kava,
and surveyed the unwonted apparition on the reef long and carefully. "It
is nothing," he said at last, in his most deliberate manner, stroking his
cheeks and chin contentedly with that plump round hand of his. "It is
only the victims; the new victims I promised you. Korong! Korong! They
have come ashore with their light from my home in the sun. They have
brought fire afresh--holy fire to Boupari."
Three or four of the savages leaped up in fierce joy, and bowed before
him as he spoke, with eager faces. "Oh, Tu-Kila-Kila!" the eldest among
them said, making a profound reverence, "shall we swim across to the reef
and fetch them home to your house? Shall we take over our canoes and
bring back your victims!"
The god motioned them back with one outstretched palm. His eyes were
flushed and his look lazy. "Not to-night, my people," he said;
readjusting the garland of flowers round his neck, and giving a careless
glance at the well-picked bones that a few hours before had been two
trembling fellow creatures. "Tu-Kila-Kila has feasted his fill for this
evening. Your god is full; his heart is happy. I have eaten human flesh;
I have drunk of the juice of the kava. Am I not a great deity? Can I not
do as I will? I frown, and the heavens thunder; I gnash my teeth, and the
earth trembles. What is it to me if fresh victims come, or if they come
not? Can I not make with a nod as many as I will of them?" He took up two
fresh finger-bones, clean gnawed of their flesh, and knocked them
together in a wild tune, carelessly. "If Tu-Kila-Kila chooses," he went
on, tapping his chest with conscious pride, "he can knock these bones
together--so--and bid them live again. Is it not I who cause women and
beasts to bring forth their young? Is
|
of his eldest girl, a man of twice her age, the
grim and saturnine Bartholde, by birth seigneur of an estate near
Lozère, where, however, he lived only on sufferance, for the title had
been abated after the persecutions following the Edict of Nantes, and
though Bartholde was rich, he had abandoned both title and the display
that belonged to it.
His was just such an alliance as the stately reserved manufacturer might
have been supposed to choose for his eldest daughter, and, indeed, after
they were married he would go and stay for days together at his
son-in-law's house--a place less gloomy for him now that the light had
gone out of his own; for Sara, having pleaded in vain, fled with her
lover to the north and there they were married. After this they hoped
and believed that the old man would relent. He never relented, or at
least never to their knowledge. As his sweet fair daughter knelt to him,
her golden hair streaming about her, her hands held up in supplication,
he denounced her in words taken from Holy Scripture, and would have
struck her but that the young husband stood with earnest eyes and folded
arms, he having knelt in vain, or, as he said, bent his pride to his
love for his sweet wife's sake.
So Sara Dufarge went out cursed, undowered, and an orphan, from the old
house, and Père Dormeur was left desolate indeed.
Yet amidst the gloom that settled on his life, and the hard unyielding
determination which resisted any attempts on the part of her sister to
bring him to receive his disowned daughter again, the manufacturer had
frequent struggles with his pride and obstinacy. They were scarcely
acknowledged even to himself. He thought he could trample the
suggestions of nature under foot, and he succeeded in so far as to
suffer in silence, and to make no sign of yielding, nor of admitting
the possibility of foregoing his resentful purpose.
He had much to occupy his thoughts at that time, for there were rumours
of renewed persecutions of the Protestants by command of bishops and
clergy. Not contented with refusing them the legal registration of
marriage and the certificate of death, it was said that a general
confiscation of property was ordered, and that recantation or death by
fire and sword might once more be the doom of the sectaries. Anton
Dormeur was frequently at Alais with Bartholde, and the people there
whispered that it would go hard with the manufacturer when the dragoons
came. He had already made some preparations, however. Always in
communication with the refugees who had settled in Spitalfields and
Coventry, he held money in England. This was pretty well understood; but
what few people knew was, that for weeks before the blow fell he had had
a ship ready, and that some of his most valuable effects and merchandise
were stowed among the cargo. This very cup was hidden away in a case,
surrounded by silk brocade and velvet, clothes, and lace. For days the
vessel swung with the tide, waiting for Anton Dormeur, who sought to
bring his daughter Mathilde and her husband, with their child, to be his
companions in flight. But Bartholde delayed, loath to part from the
farms and land that were his birthright. He and his little boy--the
first and only child--were on a visit to the old lonely house and its
grave master, when a messenger, his horse covered with blood and foam,
came thundering at the door, with the fearful intelligence that the
alarm was ringing at Alais, and that the persecutions of the Protestants
had begun.
Bartholde was in the saddle in a minute.
"Stay for nothing, but bring my daughter. Come on straight for your
lives to Saint Jean," cried the old man. "There will be post-horses
there, and I will order relays along the road where the people know me.
Meantime I will take the boy; he will be safe with me."
They never met again in this world. Bartholde died fighting on his own
threshold; his wife, the beautiful Mathilde, perished, perhaps, in the
flames. At all events, a wild figure was seen at an upper window just
before the great leaden roof of the château curled and fell. Fire and
sword spread in a widening circle round that district; the house of
Anton Dormeur was sacked. Achille Dufarge and his wife, the lovely Sara,
were in Paris, where no word reached them till long after, and then only
by a stranger, an old workman of the factory in Languedoc; so the months
went by, and then came the awful revolution that put an end to the royal
family, and enthroned the guillotine. Then the revolution passed out of
the hands of men, and the destinies of France seemed to be in the
keeping of murderers like Robespierre and Couthon. By that time the old
man and his grandson were in England; the boy having grown to be a tall
and handsome youth.
* * * * *
On the door-posts of a tall gaunt-looking house in a street of that
strange part of London lying between Spitalfields and Norton Folgate,
and known as "The Liberty of the Old Artillery Ground," might be seen
the words "A. Dormeur, Silk Manufacturer."
It was a dim-looking place enough, where the yellow blinds were nearly
always drawn over the front windows, and the summer's dust collected in
the corners of the high flight of steps, and was blown round and round
in little eddies, along with bits of string and snippings of patterns or
shreds of silk and cotton. The front door stood open every day from ten
till five, to give buyers access to the warehouse, in which Anton
Dormeur--old, withered, slightly bent, and with a set look upon his face
which even his rare smile failed to disturb--unrolled pieces of silk,
made bargains, examined with a critical eye and with the aid of a
magnifying glass the fabrics brought in by the weavers, and in fact
carried on his trade as though he had for ever been separated from the
tragedy which befel him in Languedoc nearly fourteen years before.
And yet that heavy affliction darkened his mind as he rolled and
unrolled his silks, or carefully matched the skeins that came from the
dyers. The sun was shining through the windows, the lower panes of which
were dulled in order to obtain a clear high light; but the cloud upon
his puckered brow was not lifted. Hour by hour the warehouse clock
ticked away the afternoon. Customers departed; the sound of the scale
and the clatter of reels and bobbins, in another warehouse beyond the
long passage, had ceased since midday.
Presently some passing thought too bitter for absolute self-control,
crossed the old man's mind, and he bowed down his gray head for a moment
upon his folded hands; but the next instant glanced round with the
half-startled look of a man who fears he has betrayed himself. He was
busy over his patterns again as he noted that a young man at the other
end of the room was regarding him with a wistful, pitying look.
"Come, Antoine," he said, "you have had a long day's work, and we dined
early; it is time you had finished your ledger for the day. Come and
help me put up these pieces, and then get you into the fresh air. Would
that I could make the old house more cheerful for thee, boy; but
remember it is all thine own one day, and do not add to the sorrows of
the past, anxiety for the future!"
The young man had come to his side--a slender, handsome fellow, with an
olive cheek, curling hair, and a dark eye both frank and fearless.
"And you, grandpère," he said, touching the old man's hand; "why will
not you go out and seek some change from your dull life? What sorrow is
it that seems to press so hard on you to-day, and why do you think it
necessary to give me words of warning? What shadow has come between us?"
"What shadow!" echoed the old man, peering at him from under his bent
brows. "None of my throwing, boy; but do you forget what day it is? A
dark anniversary for me, if not for you; and I scarcely thought you
would have let it pass without a thought. Nay, I need not wish its
darkness to lie on you for ever either; but, Antoine, remember you are
all I have left. In my silent, lonely life, and this dull house--and I
always a reserved and seeming loveless man--you may well pine for
something more, some lighter, gayer time, and ever brood over the means
to find it. But remember, my son, that you are by birth above the paltry
pleasures of the herd; that you can come to me and ask for money if you
covet some pastime that befits you; that you need conceal nothing from
me--have no friend that I may not know also."
Antoine's face flushed for a moment. It was seldom, indeed, that his
grandfather spoke in a voice so tender and so yearning. Almost
insensibly his arm stole round the old man's neck.
"What is it?" he said again. "What have I done?"
"I accuse you of nothing, lad," replied his grandfather, gently
disengaging himself. "I thought perhaps your tastes may have needed more
money. You do not gamble, Antoine; you are never out late, for I can
hear you come in, and the sound of your violin penetrates to my room, so
that I know when you are at home. I don't expect you to be always with
me; I would not have it so; but when you want money--"
"Grandfather," said the young man hastily, "I know not what you mean.
Have I ever asked for more than the allowance you make me? Do I
complain? Except for the two or three bills that you have paid for me of
your own free-will, do I exceed your bounty?"
"Talk not of bounty, boy," said the elder, flushing in his turn.
"Antoine, could you read my heart you would see that all I desire is to
show to you the love that the world would give me no credit for, that my
own children even, thy--thy mother, Antoine, and--and Sara--ah! leave me
just now, my dear; I am surely growing old and childish, but I have
still enough of the old manhood left not to wish even my grandson to
witness my weakness. Leave me, boy, and let us meet at supper in my
room. I shall go out presently to see old Pierre, and, if I can, to
bring him home with me. Poor old faithful Pierre!"
The young man slowly left the warehouse and ascended the stairs into the
house, when he shut himself in his own room, and flung himself into a
chair, in profound dejection.
He had scarcely done so when a man came from the upper warehouse, a room
whence silk--both warp and woof--was given out to the workpeople to be
wound on bobbins or spread into the web before it was fixed in the loom.
After every such operation this silk was brought back to be reweighed,
and only when the piece was finished in a woven fabric did it find its
way into the lower warehouse, there to be measured and inspected. Access
was gained to this upper warehouse by a door in a back street, inscribed
with the words "A. Dormeur. Weavers' Entrance." And thence the
workpeople, of whom there were many each day waiting their turn, went
across a paved yard and into a passage terminating in a kind of square
lobby, at the bottom of the deep well which lighted the gloomy staircase
by a glazed window from the roof of the house.
Close to this lobby was a sliding panel, opening on a counter where the
great scales hung for weighing the silk; and here weavers and winders
gave in or took out their work from the "scale-foreman," whose name was
Bashley--one of those bad men who, with a bullying pretence of candour
and honesty, contrive to impose even on the victims over whom they
tyrannize, and at the same time, as it were, wrest from their superiors
the acknowledgment that they are "rough diamonds."
By a horrible fiction it is often thought that such a man is "just fit
to deal with workpeople." The same opinion prevailed then, and thus
Bashley was able to get a character which obtained for him a place in
the warehouse of Anton Dormeur. He had been there for some twelve
months, in place of old Pierre Dobree--a faithful fellow who had joined
his old master in London after the calamities which drove them both from
France. Pierre had been in Paris, and had escaped to bring to his master
the awful intelligence that the daughter he had denounced was now beyond
his relentless anger; but the old man, having grown old and feeble, had
retired with a pension to the French Hospital which then stood in St.
Luke's, and was called La Providence: a refuge founded to receive poor
Protestant émigrés, mostly aged men and women, who had their little
rooms quaintly furnished with their own poor household goods; and who
walked daily in the quadrangle, laid out in beds and borders.
Bashley had been only fifteen months in Dormeur's service, and yet he
had come between the grandfather and Antoine, suggesting suspicions of
the young man's probity, but so artfully that while he only seemed to
hint at small blemishes, which he pointed out for the sake of the lad's
future welfare, he left so much to be inferred that the old man had
already a new trouble added to his load.
Bashley's insinuations, when analysed, came in effect to charging
Antoine with small peculations in order to increase the amount of his
allowance--to taking beforehand what he, of course, might consider would
be his own some day, as the scoundrel would have put it. Not only this,
but he hinted at low companions--at a secret love affair with a girl far
beneath him in station--of this he would, if necessary, furnish proof.
It was with a troubled heart that Anton Dormeur, having at last escaped
from a whispered conference with Bashley, locked up the warehouse, and
went slowly out towards Shoreditch on his way to the "Providence." Old
Pierre had been the early guide, philosopher, and friend of the little
orphan boy; and the keen-faced, pippin-skinned old Frenchman had the
courage of his convictions, and roundly swore many innocent French oaths
that afternoon, when his old employer, and present patron and friend,
paced with him along the path of the old quadrangle and told him his
suspicions.
"So, that man of blague, that Bashley, is at the bottom of this also,"
he said presently. "Why did you send me away, and take that liar,
that--that--ventrebleu--that hyena?"
"But what should it be true, Pierre? My heart is very heavy."
"I tell you it is not true."
"But about the girl? He said he could prove it. And yet the boy came
and rested his hand upon my shoulder to-day as if he were candour
itself."
"Let him prove it."
"He swears he will."
"What then?"
"What then! Do you, too, think it is possible, Dobree?"
"I think it is quite possible that Antoine may be in love, and in love
with one who is poor, but not ignoble--no, never--not ignoble."
There was a strange light in the old foreman's eyes, a strange look in
his face, as he said this, so that Anton Dormeur stopped him suddenly.
"Pierre, you know something of this," he cried. "You shall tell me--what
does it mean?"
"I am not sure that I can tell you," replied the old man thoughtfully.
"Still, you invite me to sup with you to-night. Antoine will be there?"
"Ah! there again. This man Bashley told me, as one proof of his
knowledge, that even to-night--this night that I have bidden him to meet
me--Antoine will not be at home; that he may stay away altogether to
avoid my questioning; that he will certainly disappoint me for the sake
of this girl with whom he has an engagement. How then?"
Pierre was silent for a moment; a troubled look puckered his face, then
a keen sudden gleam of surprise and intelligence seemed to shoot across
it. "You said supper at nine, did you not?" he said quietly.
"Yes--the nights are dark."
"Make it ten, nevertheless."
"Agreed, but why? and what is there working in your brain, Dobree?"
"Never mind, monsieur, but lend me one, two, three sovereigns."
"Pierre, you are extravagant. What can you want with them? There will be
no company; your dress is good enough."
"There will be Master Antoine, perhaps a lady, but that I cannot tell;
there may even be two ladies."
"Pierre, it is ill-jesting," said Dormeur, turning pale and with an
angry glance; "do you remember what day it is?"
"Good Heaven! Master, forgive me. I had quite another thought than of
the day; pardon me a thousand times--pardon me. I could cut out my
thoughtless tongue; and yet, believe me, I meant--never mind what I
meant."
They had reached the passage leading to Dobree's queer little
oak-panelled room, and as the door was open, both the old men entered;
Dormeur walking up to the mantel-piece, and fiddling about there with
some old china cups, and other little ornaments with which it was
adorned. Turned with its face to the wall was a small trumpery frame,
containing as it seemed some common-looking picture; and quite
absently, and as though he scarcely knew what he was doing, the old man
placed his fingers on it to turn it face outwards. Anton Dormeur gave a
low cry, and placed his hand upon his companion's arm.
"Where did you get this?" he said slowly, looking his old foreman in the
face. "It is not old, it cannot have been painted more than a year; and
yet, as a mere likeness from memory, it is wonderful. Who could have
done it?--not you, Pierre, that is impossible."
Dobree had recovered himself. "You know that I came from Paris," he
said, with his eyes cast down; "you know, too, how a picture may be
retouched and made to look like new."
"But you are deceiving me; this is no retouching; it is clumsy--coarse;
and, except in the evidence that the face itself must have been
beautiful, not a good likeness. You wonder I can talk so calmly of this,
a poor resemblance of the bright fair girl--of my Sara--mine
although--Dobree, tell me how you came by this."
"I will tell you to-night," muttered the old man; "I swear to you that I
will tell you to-night."
"And to-night I will show you a portrait on ivory, one that will make
you think you see her as you once knew her, Pierre: a picture I keep
among some relics, and look at often--oftener than you think, or anyone
in the world could guess. Good-bye--or rather till nine--no, ten
to-night, _au revoir_."
When his grandfather had left the house, Antoine, who was restless,
unhappy, and full of vague surmises, sat for some time with his head in
his hands, and at last only roused himself with an effort. It was
growing dusk already, for autumn had given place to winter, and the days
were short. There was still light enough, however, for him to see to
write a letter, and in a few lines he told his grandfather that he
should be with him at nine o'clock, and would then ask him to give him
back the confidence that once existed between them, or to charge him
with the fault that he had committed. He felt how vague this was, and
almost hesitated; but he carried the letter to the sitting-room,
nevertheless, and opening the door gently advanced towards the table.
It was a large barely furnished room, and yet not without evidence of
luxury, or at all events of ornament. The great carved chimney-piece was
surmounted by an old mirror with sconces containing candles; a leathern
chair was drawn up to the hearth; on the table itself was a silver
standish with writing materials, and a tall goblet of Venetian glass,
while some rare china stood on a cabinet near the window.
Antoine so rarely entered this room except at night, and to bear his
grandfather company for an hour or two before bed-time, that he
involuntarily glanced round it now in the fast-fading twilight. In that
moment he remarked that the door of the cabinet was unlocked--a
circumstance so unusual that he went towards it and looked inside to
note what might be the reason of such carelessness. Then seeing this
silver cup on the shelf, he carried it to the window, and looked
curiously at its contents. There was some reason for his doing so. In
that dim silent room--where only its master came daily, and the one
domestic who, with an old housekeeper, attended to the wants of Dormeur
and his grandson, and did a little dusting once a week--the silver cup
had become the receptacle of small trinkets, of coins, and quaint pieces
of jewellery.
It was a common custom for the old man to take it out of the cabinet
when his eyes were tired with reading, and to turn over these tarnished
treasures, some of which were in small morocco cases. To one of the
latter Antoine's attention was directed, for it lay open as though it
had been hastily placed there, and covered with a piece of torn
point-lace. Removing this the young man saw a portrait, the picture of a
face so sweet, and eyes so penetrating, that he uttered an involuntary
cry. It was a deeper feeling than mere surprise or admiration that
prompted it, however. His hand trembled as he replaced the miniature,
after gazing at it with an expression of mingled wonder and terror. At
that instant the watchman passed crying the first hour after dark; and,
carefully replacing the cup, he turned the key in the cabinet door and
hurried from the room.
Now all of my story that remains to tell took place in the next three
hours, after Antoine left the house with a strange sense of wonder and
confusion in his mind; so I must explain a little the situation of the
young man--the enmity of Bashley.
It had happened, then, some months before, that Bashley being away for a
day's holiday, Antoine took his place at the scale; for it was a slack
time, and few workpeople were there to be served. He believed he had
given out the last skein of silk, and had weighed the last bobbin, so
shutting the slide, and putting up the bar, he unlocked an inner door,
and went into the house and up the stairs. Pausing on the first landing,
as he frequently did, to look thoughtfully over the balustrade and down
the well-staircase, he became aware that one person yet remained quietly
seated on the bench below. As he uttered some slight exclamation at his
own negligence, a face was turned upward towards his own--a face of such
sweet, pure, girlish beauty that he held his breath lest it should be
bent from his searching gaze--as indeed it was, but not before the plain
straw bonnet had fallen backward and left a wealth of sunny hair glowing
beneath the light that shone down upon it. A confused sense of some
picture of an angel upon Jacob's ladder that he had seen in an old
family Bible came into Antoine's thoughts as he stood and looked; but in
another moment the girl had replaced her bonnet, and with her face bent
down sat waiting as before.
In a minute he was beside her.
"Pardon me," he said, with an involuntary bow; "I thought everyone had
gone. What is it that I can do for you?"
There was no embarrassment except that of modesty as she curtseyed
before him. She might have been a young duchess by the frankness with
which she met his look.
"I come from Marie Rondeau," she said, "who has sprained her foot and
cannot walk. Mr. Bashley said she might send for the money due to her if
she was still lame."
"Your name then is--" he inquired, pausing for her to fill up the
question by her answer.
"Sara Rondeau," she said simply; "it is for my aunt that I come. I live
with my aunt."
"And Bashley, does he--did he--has he visited you to bring you money?"
Already the lad felt a short jealous pang, but knew not what it was.
"He has been to measure our work, but not to bring money. My aunt comes
here herself."
But Bashley had been there, and the image of this young girl had roused
his sordid fancy. Is it a wonder that he soon began to hate his young
master?
Antoine felt the warm blood in his face as he wrapped in a paper the few
shillings that were due.
"Do not come again on such an errand," he said. "I will call and see if
your aunt is better, and will, if necessary, bring some more money
myself."
There is little need to say that Antoine kept his promise; that merry
bustling little Marie Rondeau (how unlike her niece she was, to be
sure!) was in a constant tremor when the little wicket-gate of her
garden clicked, and she, looking through the leaden casement of the
upper room, saw the young master coming along the little path, with its
two rows of oyster-shells dividing it from the gay plots of
gilliflowers, double-stocks, and sweet-williams. She trembled too for
the peace of the fair girl, who had too soon learned to know his
footstep, and to flush with pleasure at his approach.
Already trouble seemed to threaten them, for Bashley had warned her, and
in a coarse insolent way had said he meant to be Sara's sweetheart
himself--or they might seek work elsewhere.
One night, when Antoine entered the garden, he was surprised to find old
Pierre Dobree there.
"You must come no more yet, if you would spare this child from sorrow,"
he said, after talking long and earnestly. "Your new foreman watches
you, and already hints to your grandfather that you are engaged in some
mean intrigue. You bring evil where I would have you do good, Master
Antoine. Come no more, I entreat you."
"And Sara--does she wish that also?" said the young fellow, reddening.
"I have never spoken a word to her that could not be said before her
aunt. Why do you interpose, Peter Dobree?"
"Excuse me. The aunt is my cousin, the child my ward, and I know your
grandfather well. For a month you must not come, but trust me and give
me your word, and all may yet go well."
So it was a month since Antoine had been to the little house in Bethnal
Green--and in all that slack time neither Sara nor her aunt had been to
the warehouse for work or money.
But on that night, when Antoine was to sup with his grandfather, the
month's probation was at an end. Even had it not been, he would have
felt that he must break his promise, for on that very morning as he
stood at the door after the warehouse had been opened, a boy ran up and
placed a note in his hand--a mere slip of paper, on which was scrawled--
_"Will you never come again?--S. R."_
His sensitive nature was shocked at such a summons, and for the first
time he had a sharp pang of doubt whether he was not to be awakened from
a foolish dream. It was with a heavy heart that he bent his steps along
the narrow tangle of streets that lay between his house and the edge of
a great piece of waste ground known as Hare Street Fields, and even had
he been less preoccupied he might not have noticed that he was followed
by two men, who kept close to him in the shadows of the houses, and
walked as noiselessly as cats, and with the same stealthy tread.
Mrs. Rondeau was sitting in her lower room, sewing by the light of a
weaver's oil-lamp which hung from a string fastened to the mantel-piece.
The place was very bare. Few of the little ornaments that usually
decorate even a poor home remained, and the good woman's eyes were red
with recent crying. The loom in the upper part of the house was empty,
and so was the cupboard, or very nearly so.
"There goes the quarter," she said, as she heard the chiming of a
distant clock. "I wish I'd gone myself instead of sending the poor
child. What would Peter say if he knew--ah! and what would that old
flinty-hearted wretch say if _he_ knew! How I wish she would come, even
if she came back without the money!"
The night had set in gloomily enough, as Sara Rondeau went quickly
through the now almost deserted streets on her way to a dim shop, where
three golden balls hung to an iron bracket at the door, to show that a
pawnbroker's business was carried on within. It was not the first visit
she had made to this establishment, for the poor little household
ornaments, the loss of which had left her home so bleak and bare, were
now in the safekeeping of the proprietor; but still she shrank back as
she approached a dim side entrance in a narrow street, and drawing her
bonnet closer over her face, pushed open a baize door, and entered a
dark passage divided on one side into a row of narrow cells, separated
from each other by wooden partitions.
She made so little noise, and still kept so far back in the pervading
gloom, that her presence was unnoticed by a shabby-looking man, who was
just then engaged in earnest conversation with somebody in the next box.
Before she had spoken, and while she was yet in the shadow of the
partition, she thought she recognized the voice of the person who was
speaking as that of Bashley, and held her breath to listen, for a name
was mentioned which sent the blood back to her heart and made her feel
sick and faint.
"Well, as long as everything's safe," said the pawnbroker's assistant,
who leaned his elbows on the counter, so that his head was close to the
partition; "but we've got a good deal here now, you know, and if the
thing should be found out--."
"Yah! who's to find it out?" retorted Bashley; "I tell you everything's
ready, and the risk's mine. Old Dormeur's half childish; and as to the
young one, I tell you he's safe enough for a week, if I like to keep him
so. He'd an appointment to supper with the old man to-night, and he
won't keep it. If he's not on his way now to see the girl, he's tied up
neck and heels, by this time, and in a safe place out of harm's way. I
tell you I can be back here in an hour or two. You're too deep in now to
draw back; and besides, who can swear to raw silk? I shall go first, and
look after the girl; then I mean to call on the old man, and send him
out on a wild-goose chase. The rest's easy, for I've a key, and a light
cart at the back of the warehouse will bring the silk here in no time.
The game's in my hands now, and I shall play to win."
"But when the young one tells his version of the story?"
"How can he? He comes out without knowing where from; and if ever he
did, he's been in an empty house. A pretty story! No, no; if the old man
believes it, he won't face the disgrace, for he more than half suspects
his grandson as it is. Come now, will you or won't you?"
Sara Rondeau, crouching by the door, hears this with an undefined fear
which paralyses her for a moment, but leaves one thought in her troubled
mind.
Some foul plot is hatching against Antoine, and she is powerless to
hinder it. No--one thing she can do, if only she can creep back
unnoticed. She will use all her strength to reach Mr. Dormeur's house,
and tell him what she has heard.
It is a question of minutes. Walking backward and pressing slowly
against the noiseless door, she slips out again, and, like one pursued,
begins to run at her utmost speed through the darkened streets.
* * * * *
Anton Dormeur sits alone in the grim old house. Cook and housekeeper
have gone to market for the means of providing supper. Not a footfall
sounds in the street; only the wailing voice of the watchman calling the
hour at a distance breaks the dead silence, amidst which the old man can
hear the ticking of the gold repeater in his pocket, the tinkle of the
ashes that stir in the old wide grate, where a fire has been lighted,
and the gnawing of a mouse behind the wainscot. He sits with the silver
goblet beside him on the table, his knees towards the fire, his furrowed
face quivering as he bends it down over the miniature he has taken from
its case, the miniature of his younger daughter, dead and--no, not
unforgiven--dead and mourned for now, with a silent grief that speaks of
years of desolation and remorse.
The light of the shaded lamp falling on the picture in his hands seems
to expand its lineaments; the tears that gather in his eyes almost give
quivering motion to the face before him. A strange emotion masters him.
His temples seem to throb, his hands to shake. The sudden sound of a
light single knock at the street door sets his nerves ajar; the quiet
click of the lock--a pause of deadest silence--and then the light tread
of an uncertain foot upon the stairs make him tremble; yet he knows not
why--does not even ask himself the reason. There is a lamp outside upon
the landing, he knows--the light of it shines down into the hall--and
yet he cannot stir towards it. What superstition holds him? Even at the
moment that he starts up from his chair, the portrait still in his hand,
his highly-strung senses enable him to hear a rustle that sounds quite
close, and is followed by a low knocking at the door of the room itself.
In a voice of hope, of dread, of fear, he knows not what or which, he
hoarsely cries, "Come in."
In the mirror above his head he sees the room-door partly open, and
then--yes, then--either to his waking vision or in disordered fancy, the
living original of the picture stands with pale and earnest face in the
upright bar of light that streams in from the landing.
His daughter--not as he had last seen her, but with a difference
unaccountable if he had had time to think or strength to reason. His
daughter, with the past years rolled back to show her in her youth, and
yet with poor and scanty dress, and long fair hair tossed in confusion
on her shoulders, whence a battered bonnet hung.
He had no time to note all this at first. He only knew that his heart
seemed to be going out in some dumb movement towards this
apparition--that he sank again into his chair--that he felt a living
hand upon his shoulder--saw a frightened face looking into his. Then his
senses came back, and he heard the voice speak rapidly, and in French.
* * * * *
With swift steps, but without picking his way, taking the nearest road
rather by habit than with any observation, Antoine Dormeur traversed the
narrow streets leading to his destination. There were so few people
abroad that the way was clear enough, and yet there were some
apprentices or worklads on their way home; while in that neighbourhood,
just on the edge of Spitalfields, a lower colony of petty thieves and
receivers kept up the trade of two or three disreputable taverns, where
dogs,
|
under-teacher.
"Oh dear!" David caught his breath. "Another boy told me, sir."
"Who?"
David hesitated. "Must I tell, sir?" not trusting himself to look at
Joel.
"Certainly."
"Tom Beresford."
"Ugh!" Joel sprang from his chair. "He hadn't anything to do with it,
sir. Tom has been awfully good. He only told Dave."
"Go back to your chair, Joel," said Mr. Harrow. "Now, then, David, go
on. So you went out with Beresford to find Joel, eh?"
"Yes, sir," said David faintly.
"Any other boy?" asked the under-teacher quickly.
"No, sir."
"Well, then, Tom is waiting out there, I suppose, now." Mr. Harrow got
out of his chair.
"He didn't have anything to do with it, sir," cried Joel wildly, and
flying out of his chair again, "truly he didn't."
"I understand." Mr. Harrow nodded. "I'm going to bring him in. Now it
isn't necessary to tell you two boys not to do any talking while I'm
gone." With that he went over to a corner, took down a lantern, lighted
it, and passed out.
When he came back, both Joel and David knew quite well by Tom's face,
that the whole story was out; and Joel, who understood as well as any
one that Floyd Jenkins never by any possibility could be a favorite
with instructors, any more than with the boys, unless he changed his
whole tactics, groaned again at thought that he had made matters worse
for him.
"Now all three of you scatter to bed," was all the under-teacher said as
he came in with Tom. "No talking now; get up as softly as you can. Good
night."
IV OF VARIOUS THINGS
And the next day, the story which flew all over the yard, how that Joel
Pepper was "put into Coventry" last night, was overtaken and set right.
"Huh! there, now you see," cried Van Whitney, coming out of his rage. He
had cried so that his eyes were all swollen up, and he was a sight to
behold. Percy, too miserable to say anything, and wishing he could ever
cry when he felt badly, had slunk out of sight, to bear the trouble as
well as he might. Now he came up bright and smiling. "Yes, now you see,"
he cried triumphantly.
"Oh, I hope that mean beggar Jenk will be expelled." There appeared to
be but one voice about it.
"Well, he won't," said Van.
"Won't? Why not?" The boys crowded around him on the playground, all
games being deserted for this new excitement. "Why not, pray tell?"
"Of course he will," said one boy decidedly. "Dr. Marks never'll keep
him after this."
"Yes he will too," roared Van, glad he could tell the news first, but
awfully disappointed that it must be that Jenkins was to stay, "for Joel
got Dr. Marks to promise there shouldn't anything be done to Jenk. So
there now!"
"What, not after locking that door! That was the worst." The boys, two
or three of them, took up the cry, "'Twas beastly mean."
"Contemptible! Just like Jenk!" went all over the playground.
"Well, he isn't to go," repeated Van with a sigh; "and Joel says he was
as bad, because he went out at night to fight."
"Why, he had to; Jenk dared him. And he couldn't have it out in the
dormitory; you know he couldn't, Whitney," said one of the boys in
surprise.
"Oh dear! I know," said Van helplessly. "Well, Joel says it's no matter
that the racket was stolen out of his room, and--"
"No matter!" ejaculated the boys, a whole crowd of them swarming around
him, "well, if that isn't _monstrous_!"
"Oh, Joel's afraid that Dr. Marks will expel Jenk," Percy, very
uncomfortable to have Joel blamed, made haste to say. "Don't you see?"
"Well, he ought to be turned out," declared one boy decidedly. "Never
mind, we'll make it so hot for that Jenk, he'll want to go."
"No, you mustn't," declared Percy, now very much alarmed. "Oh, no, you
mustn't, Hobbs; because, if you do, Joel won't like it. Oh, he'll be so
angry! He won't like it a bit, I tell you," he kept saying.
The idea of Joel's not liking it, seemed to take all the fun out of the
thing; so Hobbs found himself saying, "Well, all right, I suppose we've
got to put up with the fellow then. But you know yourself, Whitney, he's
a mean cad."
There seemed to be but one opinion about that. But the fact remained
that Jenkins was still to be one of them, to be treated as well as they
could manage. And for the next few days, Joel had awfully hard work to
be go-between for all the crowd, and the boy who had made it hard for
him.
"You'll have to help me out, Tom," he said more than once in despair.
"Pretty hard lines," said Tom. Then the color flew all over his face. "I
suppose I really ought, for you know, Pepper, I told you I wanted at
first that you should lose your racket."
"Never mind that now, Tom," said Joel brightly, and sticking out his
brown hand. "You've been awfully good ever since."
"Had to," grunted Tom, hanging to the hand, "when I saw how mean the
beggar was."
"And but for you I should never have found the racket, at least not in
time." Joel shivered, remembering the close call he had had from losing
the game.
Tom shivered too, but for a different cause. "If I hadn't told him, I'd
always have hated myself," he thought.
"Well, Joe, I wouldn't after this give away a racket. Now you see if you
hadn't bestowed your old one on that ragamuffin in town, you wouldn't
have been in such a scrape." Tom tried to turn it off lightly.
"Oh, that made no difference," Joel made haste to say, "'cause I could
have borrowed another. But I'd got used to my new one. Besides,
Grandpapa sent it to me to practise with for this game, and I really
couldn't have done so well without it."
"Yes, I know--I know," said Tom remorsefully, "and that's what Jenk
knew, too, the beggar!"
"Well, it's all over now," said Joel merrily, "so say no more about it."
But it wasn't all over with Jenkins; and he resolved within himself to
pay Joel Pepper up sometime, after the boys had forgotten a little about
this last exploit, if they ever did.
And that afternoon Joel staid in, foregoing all the charms of a ball
game, to write Mamsie a complete account of the affair, making light of
the other boys' part in it, and praising up Tom Beresford to the skies.
"And oh, Mamsie," Joel wrote over and over, "Dave didn't have anything
to do with it--truly he didn't. And Mr. Harrow is just bully," he
wrote,--then scratched it out although it mussed the letter up
dreadfully--"he's fine, he is! And oh, I like Dr. Marks, ever so much, I
do"--till Mrs. Fisher had a tolerably good idea of the whole thing.
"I'm not sorry, Adoniram," she said, after Dr. Fisher had read the
letter at least twice, and then looked over his spectacles at her
keenly, "that I agreed with Mr. King that it was best that the boys
should go away to school."
"Now any other woman," exclaimed the little doctor admiringly, "would
have whimpered right out, and carried on dreadfully at the least sign of
trouble coming to her boy."
"No, I'm not a bit sorry," repeated Mrs. Fisher firmly, "for it's going
to be the making of Joel, to teach him to take care of himself. And I'd
trust him anywhere," she added proudly.
"So you may; so you may, my dear," declared the little doctor gaily.
"And I guess, if the truth were told, that Joel's part in this whole
scrape hasn't been such a very bad one after all."
Which came to be the general view when Dr. Marks' letter arrived, and
one from the under-instructor followed, setting things in the right
light. And although old Mr. King was for going off directly to interview
the master, with several separate and distinct complaints and
criticisms, he was at last persuaded to give up the trip and let matters
work their course under the proper guidance at the school.
"So, Polly, my child," he said on the following day, when the letters
were all in, "I believe I'll trust Dr. Marks, after all, to settle the
affair. He seems a very good sort of a man, on the whole, and I really
suppose he knows what to do with a lot of boys; though goodness me! how
he can, passes my comprehension. So I am not going."
"Oh Grandpapa!" exclaimed Polly, the color flooding her cheek, and she
seized his hand in a glad little way.
"Yes, I really see no necessity for going," went on the old gentleman,
much as if he were being urged out of his way to set forth; "so I shall
stay at home. Joel can take care of himself. I'd trust him anywhere," he
brought up, using the same words that Mother Fisher had employed.
"Wouldn't you, Grandpapa!" cried Polly with sparkling eyes, and clinging
to him.
"Yes, Polly, my child," said Grandpapa emphatically, "because, no matter
into what mischief Joe may get, he always owns up. Goodness me! Polly,
that boy can't go very far wrong, with such a mother as you've got."
Alexia Rhys, running through the wide hall, came upon the two. "Oh, beg
pardon, and may we girls have Polly?" all in the same breath.
"Get away with you," laughed old Mr. King, who had his own reasons for
liking Alexia, "that's the way you always do, trying to get Polly Pepper
away when we are having a good talk."
"Oh dear!" exclaimed Alexia, doing her best to curb her impatience, and
pinching her hands together, "we did so want--"
"I can't go now, Alexia," said Polly, still clinging to Mr. King's hand.
Grandpapa sent a keen glance over into Alexia's face. "I think you
better go, Polly," he said. "You and I will have our talk later."
"Oh goody!" cried Alexia, hopping up and down. And "Oh Grandpapa!"
reproachfully from Polly.
"Yes, Polly, it's best for you to go with the girls now," said old Mr.
King, gently relinquishing her hands, "so run along with you, child."
And he went into the library.
"Come right along," cried Alexia gustily, and pulling Polly down the
hall.
"There now, you see, you've dragged me away from Grandpapa," cried Polly
in a vexed way.
"Well, he said you were to go," cried Alexia, perfectly delighted at the
result. "Oh, we're to have such fun! You can't think, Polly Pepper."
"Of course he did, when you said the girls wanted me," said Polly, half
determined, even then, to run back. "I'd much rather have staid with
him, Alexia."
"Well, you can't, because he said you were to come; and besides, here
are the girls." And there they were on the back porch, six or eight of
them in a group.
"Oh Polly, Polly!" they cried, "are you coming--can you really go?"
swarming around her. "And do get your hat on," said Clem Forsythe "and
hurry up."
"Where are you going?" asked Polly.
"The idea! Alexia Rhys, you are a great one to send after her," cried
Sally Moore. "Not even to tell her where we are going, or what we want
her for!"
"Well, I got her here, and that is half of the battle," said Alexia, in
an injured way; "and my goodness me! Polly won't hardly speak to me now;
and you may go yourself after her next time, Sally Moore."
"There, girls, don't fight," said Clem sweetly. "Polly, we are going out
to Silvia Horne's. Mrs. Horne has just telephoned to see if we'll come
out to supper. Come, hurry up; we want to catch the next car. She says
she'll send somebody home with us."
"Yes, yes, do hurry," begged the girls, hopping up and down on anxious
feet.
"I must ask Mamsie," said Polly. "Oh, how perfectly splendid!" running
off with a glad remembrance of lessons all ready for the next day. "Now
how nice it is that Mamsie always made me get them the first thing," she
reflected as she sped along.
Mamsie said "yes," for she well knew that Mrs. Horne was a careful
person, and when she promised anything it was always well done. "But
brush your hair, Polly," she said, "it looks very untidy flying all over
your head."
So Polly rushed off to her own room; Alexia, who didn't dare to trust
her out of her sight, at her heels, to get in the way, and hinder
dreadfully by teasing Polly every minute to "hurry--we'll lose the
train."
"Where are you going, Polly?" asked Phronsie, hearing Alexia's voice;
and laying down her doll, she went into the blue and white room that was
Polly's very own. "Oh, may I go too?" as Polly ran to the closet to get
out her second-best hat.
"Oh dear me!" began Alexia.
"No, Pet," said Polly, her head in the closet. "Oh my goodness! where
_is_ that hat?"
"Oh dear!" exclaimed Alexia, wringing her hands, "we'll be late and
miss the train. Do hurry, Polly Pepper."
"I'll find it, Polly," said Phronsie, going to the closet and getting
down on her knees, to peer around.
"Oh, it wouldn't be on the floor, Phronsie," began Polly. "Oh dear me!
where _can_ it be?"
"Here it is," cried Alexia, "behind the bed." And running off, she
picked it up, and swung it over to Polly.
"Goodness me!" said Polly with a little laugh, "I remember now, I tossed
it on the bed, I thought. Well, I'm ready now, thank fortune," pinning
on her hat. "Good-bye, Pet."
"I am so very glad it is found, Polly," said Phronsie, getting up on
tiptoe to pull Polly's hat straight and get another kiss.
"Come on, Polly," called Alexia, flying over the stairs. "Yes, yes,
girls, she's coming! Oh dear me, Polly, we'll be late!"
V AT SILVIA HORNE'S
But they weren't--not a bit of it--and had ten minutes to spare as they
came rushing up to the station platform.
"Oh, look--look, girls." Polly Pepper pointed up to the clock, pushing
back the damp rings of hair from her forehead. "Oh dear me--I'm so hot!"
"And so am I," panted the other girls, dashing up. One of them sank down
on the upper step, and fanned herself in angry little puffs with her
hat, which she twitched off for that purpose.
"Just like you, Alexia," cried one when she could get her breath,
"you're always scaring us to death."
"Well, I'm sure I was scared myself, Clem," retorted Alexia, propping
herself against the wall. "Oh dear! I can't breathe; I guess I'm going
to die--whew, whew!"
As Alexia made this statement quite often on similar occasions, the
girls heard it with the air of an old acquaintance, and straightened
their coats and hats, and pulled themselves into shape generally.
"Oh my goodness, how you look, Sally! Your hat is all over your left
eye." Alexia deserted her wall, and ran over to pull it straight.
"You let me be," cried Sally crossly, and twitching away. "If it hadn't
been for you, my hat would have staid where I put it. I'll fix it
myself." She pulled out the long pin.
"Oh dear me! now the head has come off," she mourned.
"Oh my goodness! Your face looks the worst--isn't it sweet!" cried
Alexia coolly, who hadn't heard this last.
"Don't, Alexia," cried Polly, "she's lost her pin."
"Misery!" exclaimed Alexia, starting forward, "oh, where, where--"
"It isn't the pin," said Sally, holding that out, "but the head has
flown off." She jumped off from the step and began to peer anxiously
around in the dirt, all the girls crowding around and getting dreadfully
in the way.
"What pin was it, Sally?" asked Polly, poking into a tuft of grass
beneath the steps, "your blue one?"
"No; it was my best one--oh dear me!" Sally looked ready to cry, and
turned away so that the girls couldn't see her face.
"Not the one your aunt gave you, Sally!" exclaimed Clem.
"Yes--yes." Sally sniffed outright now. "Oh dear! I put it in
because--because--we were going to Silvia's--oh dear me!"
She gave up now, and sobbed outright.
"Don't cry, Sally," begged Polly, deserting her grass-tuft, to run over
to her. "We'll find it." Alexia was alternately picking frantically in
all the dust-heaps, and wringing her hands, one eye on the clock all the
while.
"Oh, no, you won't," whimpered Sally. "It flew right out of my hand, and
it's gone way off--I know it has--oh dear!" and she sobbed worse than
ever.
"Perhaps one of those old hens will pick it up," suggested Lucy Bennett,
pointing across the way to the station master's garden, where four or
five fowl were busily scratching.
"Oh--oh!" Sally gave a little scream at that, and threw herself into
Polly Pepper's arms. "My aunt's pin--and she told me--to be careful,
and she won't--won't ever give me anything else, and now those old hens
will eat it. Oh _dear_ me! what shall I do?"
"How can you, Lucy, say such perfectly dreadful things?" cried Polly.
"Don't cry, Sally. Girls, do keep on looking for it as hard as you can.
Sally, do stop."
But Sally was beyond stopping. "She told--told me only to wear it
Sundays, and with my best--best dress. Oh, do give me your handkerchief,
Polly. I've left mine home."
So Polly pulled out her clean handkerchief from her coat pocket, and
Sally wiped up her face, and cried all over it, till it was a damp
little wad; and the girls poked around, and searched frantically, and
Alexia, one eye on the clock, exclaimed, "Oh, girls, it's time for the
train. Oh misery me! what _shall_ we do?"
"And here it comes!" Lucy Bennett screamed.
"Stick on your hat, Sally, you've the pin part. Come, hurry up!" cried
the others. And they all huddled around her.
"Oh, I can't go," began Sally.
"You must," said Clem; "we've telephoned back to Mrs. Horne we're
coming. Do stick on your hat, Sally Moore."
Alexia was spinning around, saying over and over to herself, "I won't
stay back--I won't." Then, as the train slowly rounded the long curve
and the passengers emerged from the waiting-room, she rushed up to the
knot of girls. "Go along, Sally Moore, and I'll stay and hunt for your
old pin," just as some one twitched Sally's hat from her fingers and
clapped it on her head.
"Oh my goodness me!" Alexia gave a little scream, and nearly fell
backward. "Look--it's on your own head! Oh, girls, I shall die." She
pointed tragically up to the hat, then gave a sudden nip with her long
fingers, and brought out of a knot of ribbon, a gilt, twisted affair
with pink stones. "You had it all the time, Sally Moore," and she went
into peals of laughter.
"Well, do stop; everybody's looking," cried the rest of the girls, as
they raced off to the train, now at a dead stop. Sally, with her hat
crammed on her head at a worse angle than ever, only realized that she
had the ornament safely clutched in her hand.
"Oh, I can't help it," exclaimed Alexia gustily, and hurrying off to get
next to Polly. "Oh dear me!--whee--_whee_!" as they all plunged into the
train.
When they arrived at Edgewood, there was a carriage and a wagonette
drawn up by the little station, and out of the first jumped Silvia, and
following her, a tall, thin girl who seemed to have a good many
bracelets and jingling things.
"My cousin, Kathleen Briggs. She just came to-day," said Silvia, "while
I was at school, and so mother thought it would be nice to have you
girls out to supper, 'cause they're only going to stay till to-morrow.
Oh, it's so fine that you've come! Well, come and get in. Polly, you're
going in the carriage with Kathleen and me. Come on."
Alexia crowded up close behind.
"I'm going with Polly Pepper, this time," announced Sally, pushing in
between; "Alexia always gets her."
"Well, she's my very dearest friend," said Alexia coolly, and working
her long figure up close to Polly, as Silvia led her off, "so of course
I always must go with her."
"Well, so she is our very dearest friend, too, Alexia Rhys," declared
Clem, "and we're going to have her sometimes, ourselves." And there they
were in a dreadful state, and Silvia's cousin, the new girl, to see it
all!
She jingled her bracelets, and picked at the long chain dangling from
her neck, and stared at them all.
"Oh my goodness!" exclaimed Polly Pepper with very red cheeks. "Alexia,
don't--don't," she begged.
"Well, I don't care," said Alexia recklessly, "the girls are always
picking at me because I will keep next to you, Polly, and you're my very
dearest friend, and----"
"But Sally had such a fright about her pin," said Polly in a low tone.
Alexia was crowded up close and hugging her arm, so no one else heard.
"Well, that old pin dropped in the ribbon; she had it herself all the
time, oh dear!" Alexia nearly went off again at the remembrance.
"She felt badly, all the same," said Polly slowly. She didn't even
smile, and Alexia could feel that the arm was slipping away from her.
"Oh dear me!" she began, then she dropped Polly Pepper's arm. "Sally,
you may go next," she cried suddenly, and she skipped back into the
bunch of the other girls.
Polly sent her an approving little nod, and she didn't fail to smile
now. Alexia ran over to the wagonette, and hopped in, not daring to
trust herself to see Sally Moore's satisfaction ahead in the coveted
seat.
The other girls jumping in, the wagonette was soon filled, and away they
spun for the two miles over to the Hornes' beautiful place. And before
long, their respects having been paid to Mrs. Horne, the whole bevy was
up in Silvia's pretty pink and white room overlooking the lake.
"I think it's just too lovely for anything here, Silvia Horne,"
exclaimed Sally, whose spirits were quite recovered now. She had her
aunt's pin all safe, and she had ridden up next to Polly. "Oh girls, she
has a new pincushion and cover."
"Yes, a whole new set," said Silvia carelessly, as the girls rushed over
from the bed where they were laying their things, to see this new
acquisition to the beautiful room.
"Well, if I could have such perfectly exquisite things," breathed Alexia
as they all oh-ed and ah-ed over the pink ribbons and dainty lace, "I'd
be the very happiest girl."
Kathleen Briggs thrust her long figure in among the bevy. "That toilet
set is very pretty," she said indifferently and with quite a young-lady
air.
"Very pretty!" repeated Alexia, turning her pale eyes upon her in
astonishment, "well, I should think it was! It's too perfectly elegant
for anything!"
"Oh dear me!" Kathleen gave a little laugh. "It's just nothing to the
one I have on my toilet table at home. Besides, I shall bring home some
Oriental lace, and have a new one: I'm going around the world to-morrow,
you know."
"Oh my goodness!" exclaimed Alexia faintly. And the other girls fell
back, and stared respectfully.
"Yes," said Kathleen, delighted at the effect she had produced. "We
start to-morrow, and we don't know how long we shall be gone. Perhaps
two years. Papa says he'll stay if we want to; but mamma and I may get
tired and come home." She jingled her bracelets worse than ever.
"They've come to bid us good-bye, you see," said Silvia, to break the
uncomfortable silence.
"Oh yes," said Polly Pepper.
"Well, if you've got your things off, let's go out of doors," proposed
Silvia suddenly.
"Yes, do let's." The girls drew a long breath as they raced off.
"I think that Kathleen Briggs is too perfectly horrid for
anything"--Alexia got up close to Polly as they flew down the
stairs--"with her going round the world, and her sniffing at Silvia's
toilet set."
"Hush--hush!" whispered Polly, "she'll hear you."
"Well, I don't care; and she's going round the world to-morrow, so what
does it signify?" said Alexia. "Oh, don't go so fast, Polly. You most
made me tumble on my nose."
"Well, you mustn't come with me, then, if you don't keep up," said
Polly, with a merry little laugh, and hurrying on.
"I'm going to keep up," cried Alexia, dashing after, "but you go so
fast," she grumbled.
"We're going to have tea out on the lawn," announced Silvia in
satisfaction, as the bevy rushed out on the broad west piazza.
The maids were already busily setting three little tables, that were
growing quite pretty under their hands.
"There will be four at each table," said Silvia. "Polly's going to sit
with Kathleen and me, and one other girl--I don't know which one yet,"
she said slowly.
"Oh, choose me." Alexia worked her way along eagerly to the front. "I'm
her dearest friend--Polly's, I mean. So you ought to choose me."
"Well, I sha'n't," declared Silvia. "You crowded me awfully at Lucy
Bennett's party, and kept close to Polly Pepper all the time."
"Well, that's because you would keep Polly yourself. You crowded and
pushed horribly yourself, you know you did." Her long face was quite red
now.
"Well, I had to," declared Silvia coolly. "At any rate, you sha'n't have
Polly to-day, for I've quite decided. Clem, you shall have the other
seat at my table."
Clem hopped up and down and beat her hands together in glee. "There,
Alexia Rhys!" she cried in triumph. "Who's got Polly Pepper now, I'd
like to know!"
Alexia, much discomfited, fell back. "Well, I think that's a great way
to give a party," she said, "to get up a fight the first thing."
But Silvia and Kathleen had got Polly Pepper one on each side, and were
now racing down to the lake. "We're going to have a sail," called Silvia
over her shoulder, so they all followed, Alexia among the rest, with no
time for anything else. There was the steam launch waiting for them.
"Girls--girls!" Mrs. Horne called to them from the library, "wait a
moment. Mr. and Mrs. Briggs are going too."
"Oh bother!" began Silvia. Then the color flew into her face, for
Kathleen heard.
"I shall tell my mother what you said," she declared.
"Dear me! no, you mustn't," begged Silvia in alarm.
"Yes, I shall too." Kathleen's bracelets jingled worse than ever as she
shook them out.
"Well, I call that real hateful," broke out Silvia, a red spot on either
cheek, "you know I didn't mean it."
"Well, you said it. And if you think it's a bother to take my mother and
father out on your old launch, I sha'n't stop here and bring you
anything when I come home from around the world."
Silvia trembled. She very much wanted something from around the world.
So she put her arm about Kathleen. "Oh, make up now," she said. "They're
coming," as Mr. and Mrs. Briggs advanced down the path. "Promise you
won't tell," she begged.
"Yes, do," said Polly Pepper imploringly.
So Kathleen promised, and everything became quite serene, just in time
for Mr. and Mrs. Briggs to have the girls presented to them. And then
they all jumped into the steam launch, and the men sent her into the
lake, and everything was as merry as could be under the circumstances.
"I haven't got to go to school to-morrow," announced Silvia when they
were well off. "Isn't that too fine for anything, girls?"
"Dear me! I should say so," cried Alexia enviously. "How I wish I could
ever stay home! But aunt is so very dreadful, she makes me go every
single day."
"Well, I'm going to stay home to bid Kathleen good-bye, you know," said
Silvia.
"You see we are going around the world," announced Mrs. Briggs. She was
just like Kathleen as far as mother and daughter could be, and she had
more jingling things on, besides a long lace scarf that was catching in
everything; and she carried a white, fluffy parasol in her hand. "And
we've come to bid good-bye to our relatives before we start. Kathleen,
you shouldn't have come out on the water without your hat," for the
first time noticing her daughter's bare head.
"None of the girls have hats on," said Kathleen, shaking her long light
braids.
"Well, I don't see how their mothers can allow it," exclaimed Mrs.
Briggs, glancing around on the group, "but I sha'n't let you, Kathleen.
Dear me! you will ruin your skin. Now you must come under my parasol."
She moved up on the seat. "Here, come over here."
"Oh, I'm not going to," cried Kathleen with a grimace. "I can't see
anything under that old thing. Besides, I'm going to stay with the
girls."
"Yes, you must come under my parasol." A frown of real anxiety settled
on her mother's face. "You'll thank me by and by for saving your
complexion for you, Kathleen; so come over."
"No," said Kathleen, hanging back, and holding to Silvia's arm.
"There's your veil, you know." Mr. Briggs hadn't spoken before, but now
he edged up to his wife. "It's in my pocket."
"So it is," cried his wife joyfully, as Mr. Briggs pulled out a long
green tissue veil. "I am so glad I had you bring it. Now, Kathleen, tie
this all over your head; your father will bring it over to you. And next
time, do obey me, and wear your hat as I've always told you."
So Kathleen, not daring to hold back from this command, but grumbling at
every bit of the process, tied on the veil, and then sat up very cross
and stiff through the rest of the sail.
"I should rather never go around the world, if I'd got to be tied up
like an old green mummy every step," Alexia managed to whisper in
Polly's ear as they hopped out of the launch. And she was very sweet to
Kathleen after that, pitying her dreadfully.
VI THE ACCIDENT
"Oh dear me!" exclaimed Clem. They were all on the cars--the early
train--going home; the governess, a middle-aged person who looked after
the younger Horne children and who was going in to her sister's to pass
the night, taking care of the party. "Now I've got to sit up till all
hours when I get home, to get my lessons."
Polly Pepper gave a comfortable little wriggle under her coat. "Isn't it
nice Mamsie makes me get my lessons the first thing, before I play!" she
said to herself for about the fiftieth time.
"So have I," cried Lucy Bennett, echoing Clem's words.
"Well, I can't," cried Alexia with a flounce, "because my aunt won't let
me sit up after nine o'clock; that is, to study. So I have to get up
early in the morning. Oh dear!" with a grimace at the thought.
"So do I," said Amy Garrett. "Dear me! and I'm just as sleepy in the
morning as I can be."
Alexia yawned at the very memory of it. "Well, don't let's talk of it,"
she begged. "Seems as if Miss Salisbury's eyes were all over me now."
"I have Miss Anstice to-morrow," said Amy, "and it's the day for her
black silk gown."
"Horrors!" exclaimed Alexia; and, "How do you know she'll wear the black
silk gown to-morrow, Amy?" from the other girls.
"Because she said Professor Mills from the Institute is to be there
to-morrow," said Amy. "He gives the art lecture to our class. And you
know the black silk gown will surely go on."
"There's no help for you, you poor child," cried Alexia, exulting that
she never would be gathered into Miss Anstice's class, and that she just
hated art and all that sort of thing, despite the efforts of Miss
Salisbury's younger sister to get her interested. "Yes, that black silk
gown will surely be there. Look out now, Amy; all you girls will catch
it."
"Oh, I know it," said Amy with a sigh. "How I do wish I never'd got into
that class!"
"Well, you know I told you," said Alexia provokingly; "you'd much
better have taken my advice and kept out of her clutches."
"I wish I had," mourned Amy again.
"How Miss Anstice can be so horrid--she isn't a bit like Miss
Salisbury," said Alexia. "I don't see--"
"She isn't horrid," began Polly.
"Oh Polly!"
"Well, not always," said Polly.
"Well, she is anyway when she has company, and gets on that black silk
gown; just as stiff and cross and perky and horrid as can be."
"She wants you all to show off good," said Alexia. "Well, I'm glad
enough I'm not in any of her old classes. I just dote on Miss
Salisbury."
"Oh Alexia, you worry the life out of her almost," said Sally.
"Can't help it if I do," said Alexia sweetly. "I'm very fond of her. And
as for Mademoiselle, she's a dear. Oh, I love Mademoiselle, too."
"Well, she doesn't love you," cried Clem viciously. "Dear me! fancy one
of the teachers being fond of Alexia!"
"Oh, you
|
must leave the road on the
approach of a high-caste man and must call out to give warning of
their approach."... "The first point to observe is the predominance
throughout India of the influence of the traditional system of four
original castes. In every scheme of grouping the Brahman heads the
list. Then come the castes whom popular opinion accepts as the modern
representatives of the Kshatriyas; and these are followed by the
mercantile groups supposed to be akin to the Vaisyas. When we leave
the higher circles of the twice-born, the difficulty of finding a
uniform basis of classification becomes apparent. The ancient
designation Sudra finds no great favour in modern times, and we can
point to no group that is generally recognized as representing it. The
term is used in Bombay, Madras and Bengal to denote a considerable
number of castes of moderate respectability, the higher of whom are
considered 'clean' Sudras, while the precise status of the lower is a
question which lends itself to endless controversy."... In northern
and north-western India, on the other hand, "the grade next below the
twice-born rank is occupied by a number of castes from whose hands
Brahmans and members of the higher castes will take water and certain
kinds of sweetmeats. Below these again is rather an indeterminate
group from whom water is taken by some of the higher castes, not by
others. Further down, where the test of water no longer applies, the
status of the caste depends on the nature of its occupation and its
habits in respect of diet. There are castes whose touch defiles the
twice-born, but who do not commit the crowning enormity of eating
beef.... In western and southern India the idea that the social state
of a caste depends on whether Brahmans will take water and sweetmeats
from its members is unknown, for the higher castes will as a rule take
water only from persons of their own caste and sub-caste. In Madras
especially the idea of ceremonial pollution by the proximity of an
unclean caste has been developed with much elaboration. Thus the table
of social precedence attached to the Cochin report shows that while a
Nayar can pollute a man of a higher caste only by touching him, people
of the Kammalan group, including masons, blacksmiths, carpenters and
workers in leather, pollute at a distance of 24 ft., toddy-drawers at
36 ft., Pulayan or Cheruman cultivators at 48 ft., while in the case
of the Paraiyan (Pariahs) who eat beef the range of pollution is no
less than 64 ft."
In this bewildering maze of social grades and class distinctions, the
Brahman, as will have been seen, continues to hold the dominant
position, being respected and even worshipped by all the others. "The
more orthodox Sudras carry their veneration for the priestly class to
such a degree that they will not cross the shadow of a Brahman, and it
is not unusual for them to be under a vow not to eat any food in the
morning, before drinking _Bipracharanamrita_, i.e. water in which the
toe of a Brahman has been dipped. On the other hand, the pride of the
Brahmans is such that they do not bow to even the images of the gods
worshipped in a Sudra's house by Brahman priests" (Jog. Nath Bh.). There
are, however, not a few classes of Brahmans who, for various reasons,
have become degraded from their high station, and formed separate castes
with whom respectable Brahmans refuse to intermarry and consort. Chief
amongst these are the Brahmans who minister for "unclean" Sudras and
lower castes, including the makers and dealers in spirituous liquors; as
well as those who officiate at the great public shrines or places of
pilgrimage where they might be liable to accept forbidden gifts, and, as
a matter of fact, often amass considerable wealth; and those who
officiate as paid priests at cremations and funeral rites, when the
wearing apparel and bedding of the deceased are not unfrequently claimed
by them as their perquisites.
As regards the other two "twice-born" castes, several modern groups do
indeed claim to be their direct descendants, and in vindication of their
title make it a point to perform the _upanayana_ ceremony and to wear
the sacred thread. But though the Brahmans, too, will often acquiesce in
the reasonableness of such claims, it is probably only as a matter of
policy that they do so, whilst in reality they regard the other two
higher castes as having long since disappeared and been merged by
miscegenation in the Sudra mass. Hence, in the later classical Sanskrit
literature, the term _dvija_, or twice-born, is used simply as a synonym
for a Brahman. As regards the numerous groups included under the term of
Sudras, the distinction between "clean" and "unclean" Sudras is of
especial importance for the upper classes, inasmuch as only the
former--of whom nine distinct castes are usually recognized--are as a
rule considered fit for employment in household service.
Theology.
The picture thus presented by Hindu society--as made up of a confused
congeries of social groups of the most varied standing, each held
together and kept separate from others by a traditional body of
ceremonial rules and by the notion of social gradations being due to a
divinely instituted order of things--finds something like a counterpart
in the religious life of the people. As in the social sphere, so also in
the sphere of religious belief, we find the whole scale of types
represented from the lowest to the highest; and here as there, we meet
with the same failure of welding the confused mass into a well-ordered
whole. In their theory of a triple manifestation of an impersonal deity,
the Brahmanical theologians, as we have seen, had indeed elaborated a
doctrine which might have seemed to form a reasonable, authoritative
creed for a community already strongly imbued with pantheistic notions;
yet, at best, that creed could only appeal to the sympathies of a
comparatively limited portion of the people. Indeed, the sacerdotal
class themselves had made its universal acceptance an impossibility,
seeing that their laws, by which the relations of the classes were to be
regulated, aimed at permanently excluding the entire body of aboriginal
tribes from the religious life of their Aryan masters. They were to be
left for all time coming to their own traditional idolatrous notions and
practices. However, the two races could not, in the nature of things, be
permanently kept separate from each other. Indeed, even prior to the
definite establishment of the caste-system, the mingling of the lower
race with the upper classes, especially with the aristocratic landowners
and still more so with the yeomanry, had probably been going on to such
an extent as to have resulted in two fairly well-defined intermediate
types of colour between the priestly order and the servile race and to
have facilitated the ultimate division into four "colours" (_varna_). In
course of time the process of intermingling, as we have seen, assumed
such proportions that the priestly class, in their pride of blood, felt
naturally tempted to recognize, as of old, only two "colours," the Aryan
Brahman and the non-Aryan Sudra. Under these conditions the religious
practices of the lower race could hardly have failed in the long run to
tell seriously upon the spiritual life of the lay body of the
Brahmanical community. To what extent this may have been the case, our
limited knowledge of the early phases of the sectarian worship of the
people does not enable us to determine. But, on the other hand, the same
process of racial intermixture also tended to gradually draw the lower
race more or less under the influence of the Brahmanical forms of
worship, and thus contributed towards the shaping of the religious
system of modern Hinduism. The grossly idolatrous practices, however,
still so largely prevalent in the Dravidian South, show how superficial,
after all, that influence has been in those parts of India where the
admixture of Aryan blood has been so slight as to have practically had
no effect on the racial characteristics of the people. These present-day
practices, and the attitude of the Brahman towards them, help at all
events to explain the aversion with which the strange rites of the
subjected tribes were looked upon by the worshippers of the Vedic
pantheon. At the same time, in judging the apparently inhuman way in
which the Sudras were treated in the caste rules, one has always to bear
in mind the fact that the belief in metempsychosis was already universal
at the time, and seemed to afford the only rational explanation of the
apparent injustice involved in the unequal distribution of the good
things in this world; and that, if the Sudra was strictly excluded from
the religious rites and beliefs of the superior classes, this exclusion
in no way involved the question of his ultimate emancipation and his
union with the Infinite Spirit, which were as certain in his case as in
that of any other sentient being. What it did make impossible for him
was to attain that union immediately on the cessation of his present
life, as he would first have to pass through higher and purer stages of
mundane existence before reaching that goal; but in this respect he only
shared the lot of all but a very few of the saintliest in the higher
spheres of life, since the ordinary twice-born would be liable to sink,
after his present life, to grades yet lower than that of the Sudra.
To what extent the changes, which the religious belief of the Aryan
classes underwent in post-Vedic times, may have been due to aboriginal
influences is a question not easily answered, though the later creeds
offer only too many features in which one might feel inclined to suspect
influences of that kind. The literary documents, both in Sanskrit and
Pali, dating from about the time of Buddha onwards--particularly the two
epic poems, the _Mahabharata_ and _Ramayana_--still show us in the main
the _personnel_ of the old pantheon; but the character of the gods has
changed; they have become anthropomorphized and almost purely
mythological figures. A number of the chief gods, sometimes four, but
generally eight of them, now appear as _lokapalas_ or world-guardians,
having definite quarters or intermediate quarters of the compass
assigned to them as their special domains. One of them, Kubera, the god
of wealth, is a new figure; whilst another, Varuna, the most spiritual
and ethical of Vedic deities--the king of the gods and the universe; the
nightly, star-spangled firmament--has become the Indian Neptune, the god
of waters. Indra, their chief, is virtually a kind of superior raja,
residing in _svarga_, and as such is on visiting terms with earthly
kings, driving about in mid-air with his charioteer Matali. As might
happen to any earth-lord, Indra is actually defeated in battle by the
son of the demon-king of Lanka (Ceylon), and kept there a prisoner till
ransomed by Brahma and the gods conferring immortality on his conqueror.
A quaint figure in the pantheon of the heroic age is Hanuman, the
deified chief of monkeys--probably meant to represent the aboriginal
tribes of southern India--whose wonderful exploits as Rama's ally on the
expedition to Lanka Indian audiences will never weary of hearing
recounted. The Gandharvas figure already in the Veda, either as a single
divinity, or as a class of genii, conceived of as the body-guard of Soma
and as connected with the moon. In the later Vedic times they are
represented as being fond of, and dangerous to, women; the Apsaras,
apparently originally water-nymphs, being closely associated with them.
In the heroic age the Gandharvas have become the heavenly minstrels
plying their art at Indra's court, with the Apsaras as their wives or
mistresses. These fair damsels play, however, yet another part, and one
far from complimentary to the dignity of the gods. In the epics
considerable merit is attached to a life of seclusion and ascetic
practices by means of which man is considered capable of acquiring
supernatural powers equal or even superior to those of the gods--a
notion perhaps not unnaturally springing from the pantheistic
conception. Now, in cases of danger being threatened to their own
ascendancy by such practices, the gods as a rule proceed to employ the
usually successful expedient of despatching some lovely nymph to lure
the saintly men back to worldly pleasures. Seeing that the epic poems,
as repeated by professional reciters, either in their original Sanskrit
text, or in their vernacular versions, as well as dramatic compositions
based on them, form to this day the chief source of intellectual
enjoyment for most Hindus, the legendary matter contained in these
heroic poems, however marvellous and incredible it may appear, still
enters largely into the religious convictions of the people. "These
popular recitals from the Ramayan are done into Gujarati in easy,
flowing narrative verse... by Premanand, the sweetest of our bards.
They are read out by an intelligent Brahman to a mixed audience of all
classes and both sexes. It has a perceptible influence on the Hindu
character. I believe the remarkable freedom from infidelity which is to
be seen in most Hindu families, in spite of their strange gregarious
habits, can be traced to that influence; and little wonder" (B. M.
Malabari, _Gujarat and the Gujaratis_). Hence also the universal
reverence paid to serpents (_naga_) since those early days; though
whether it simply arose from the superstitious dread inspired by the
insidious reptile so fatal to man in India, or whether the verbal
coincidence with the name of the once-powerful non-Aryan tribe of Nagas
had something to do with it must remain doubtful. Indian myth represents
them as a race of demons sprung from Kadru, the wife of the sage
Kasyapa, with a jewel in their heads which gives them their sparkling
look; and inhabiting one of the seven beautiful worlds below the earth
(and above the hells), where they are ruled over by three chiefs or
kings, Sesha, Vasuki and Takshaka; their fair daughters often entering
into matrimonial alliances with men, like the mermaids of western
legend.
In addition to such essentially mythological conceptions, we meet in the
religious life of this period with an element of more serious aspect in
the two gods, on one or other of whom the religious fervour of the large
majority of Hindus has ever since concentrated itself, viz. Vishnu and
Siva. Both these divine figures have grown out of Vedic conceptions--the
genial Vishnu mainly out of a not very prominent solar deity of the same
name; whilst the stern Siva, i.e. the kind or gracious one--doubtless a
euphemistic name--has his prototype in the old fierce storm-god Rudra,
the "Roarer," with certain additional features derived from other
deities, especially Pushan, the guardian of flocks and bestower of
prosperity, worked up therewith. The exact process of the evolution of
the two deities and their advance in popular favour are still somewhat
obscure. In the epic poems which may be assumed to have taken their
final shape in the early centuries before and after the Christian era,
their popular character, so strikingly illustrated by their inclusion in
the Brahmanical triad, appears in full force; whilst their cult is
likewise attested by the coins and inscriptions of the early centuries
of our era. The co-ordination of the two gods in the Trimurti does not
by any means exclude a certain rivalry between them; but, on the
contrary, a supreme position as the true embodiment of the Divine Spirit
is claimed for each of them by their respective votaries, without,
however, an honourable, if subordinate, place being refused to the rival
deity, wherever the latter, as is not infrequently the case, is not
actually represented as merely another form of the favoured god. Whilst
at times a truly monotheistic fervour manifests itself in the adoration
of these two gods, the polytheistic instincts of the people did not fail
to extend the pantheon by groups of new deities in connexion with them.
Two of such new gods actually pass as the sons of Siva and his consort
Parvati, viz. Skanda--also called Kumara (the youth), Karttikeya, or
Subrahmanya (in the south)--the six-headed war-lord of the gods; and
Ganese, the lord (or leader) of Siva's troupes of attendants, being at
the same time the elephant-headed, paunch-bellied god of wisdom; whilst
a third, Kama (Kamadeva) or Kandarpa, the god of love, gets his popular
epithet of Ananga, "the bodiless," from his having once, in frolicsome
play, tried the power of his arrows upon Siva, whilst engaged in austere
practices, when a single glance from the third (forehead) eye of the
angry god reduced the mischievous urchin to ashes. For his chief
attendant, the great god (Mahadeva, Mahesvara) has already with him the
"holy" Nandi--presumably, though his shape is not specified, identical
in form as in name with Siva's sacred bull of later times, the
appropriate symbol of the god's reproductive power. But, in this
respect, we also meet in the epics with the first clear evidence of what
in after time became the prominent feature of the worship of Siva and
his consort all over India, viz. the feature represented by the _linga_,
or phallic symbol.
As regards Vishnu, the epic poems, including the supplement to the
Mahabharata, the Harivamsa, supply practically the entire framework of
legendary matter on which the later Vaishnava creeds are based. The
theory of Avataras which makes the deity--also variously called
Narayana, Purushottama, or Vasudeva--periodically assume some material
form in order to rescue the world from some great calamity, is fully
developed; the ten universally recognized "descents" being enumerated in
the larger poem. Though Siva, too, assumes various forms, the
incarnation theory is peculiarly characteristic of Vaishnavism; and the
fact that the principal hero of the Ramayana (Rama), and one of the
prominent warriors of the Mahabharata (Krishna) become in this way
identified with the supreme god, and remain to this day the chief
objects of the adoration of Vaishnava sectaries, naturally imparts to
these creeds a human interest and sympathetic aspect which is wholly
wanting in the worship of Siva. It is, however, unfortunately but too
true that in some of these creeds the devotional ardour has developed
features of a highly objectionable character.
Even granting the reasonableness of the triple manifestation of the
Divine Spirit, how is one to reconcile all these idolatrous practices,
this worship of countless gods and godlings, demons and spirits
indwelling in every imaginable object round about us, with the
pantheistic doctrine of the _Ekam Advitiyam_, "the One without a
Second"? The Indian theosophist would doubtless have little difficulty
in answering that question. For him there is only the One Absolute
Being, the one reality that is all in all; whilst all the phenomenal
existences and occurrences that crowd upon our senses are nothing more
than an illusion of the individual soul estranged for a time from its
divine source--an illusion only to be dispelled in the end by the
soul's fuller knowledge of its own true nature and its being one with
the eternal fountain of blissful being. But to the man of ordinary
understanding, unused to the rarefied atmosphere of abstract thought,
this conception of a transcendental, impersonal Spirit and the
unreality of the phenomenal world can have no meaning: what he
requires is a deity that stands in intimate relation to things
material and to all that affects man's life. Hence the exoteric theory
of manifestations of the Supreme Spirit; and that not only the
manifestations implied in the triad of gods representing the cardinal
processes of mundane existence--creation, preservation, and
destruction or regeneration--but even such as would tend to supply a
rational explanation for superstitious imaginings of every kind. For
"the Indian philosophy does not ignore or hold aloof from the religion
of the masses: it underlies, supports and interprets their polytheism.
This may be accounted the keystone of the fabric of Brahmanism, which
accepts and even encourages the rudest forms of idolatry, explaining
everything by giving it a higher meaning. It treats all the worships
as outward, visible signs of some spiritual truth, and is ready to
show how each particular image or rite is the symbol of some aspect of
universal divinity. The Hindus, like the pagans of antiquity, adore
natural objects and forces--a mountain, a river or an animal. The
Brahman holds all nature to be the vesture or cloak of indwelling,
divine energy, which inspires everything that produces awe or passes
man's understanding" (Sir Alfred C. Lyall, _Brahminism_).
Sectarianism.
During the early centuries of our era, whilst Buddhism, where
countenanced by the political rulers, was still holding its own by the
side of Brahmanism, sectarian belief in the Hindu gods seems to have
made steady progress. The caste-system, always calculated to favour
unity of religious practice within its social groups, must naturally
have contributed to the advance of sectarianism. Even greater was the
support it received later on from the Puranas, a class of poetical works
of a partly legendary, partly discursive and controversial character,
mainly composed in the interest of special deities, of which eighteen
principal (_maha-purana_) and as many secondary ones (_upa-purana_) are
recognized, the oldest of which may go back to about the 4th century of
our era. It was probably also during this period that the female element
was first definitely admitted to a prominent place amongst the divine
objects of sectarian worship, in the shape of the wives of the principal
gods viewed as their _sakti_, or female energy, theoretically identified
with the _Maya_, or cosmic Illusion, of the idealistic Vedanta, and the
_Prakriti_, or plastic matter, of the materialistic Sankhya philosophy,
as the primary source of mundane things. The connubial relations of the
deities may thus be considered "to typify the mystical union of the two
eternal principles, spirit and matter, for the production and
reproduction of the universe." But whilst this privilege of divine
worship was claimed for the consorts of all the gods, it is principally
to Siva's consort, in one or other of her numerous forms, that adoration
on an extensive scale came to be offered by a special sect of votaries,
the _Saktas_.
Sankara.
In the midst of these conflicting tendencies, an attempt was made, about
the latter part of the 8th century, by the distinguished Malabar
theologian and philosopher Sankara Acharya to restore the Brahmanical
creed to something like its pristine purity, and thus once more to bring
about a uniform system of orthodox Hindu belief. Though himself, like
most Brahmans, apparently by predilection a follower of Siva, his aim
was the revival of the doctrine of the Brahma as the one self-existent
Being and the sole cause of the universe; coupled with the recognition
of the practical worship of the orthodox pantheon, especially the gods
of the Trimurti, as manifestations of the supreme deity. The practical
result of his labours was the foundation of a new sect, the _Smartas_,
i.e. adherents of the _smriti_ or tradition, which has a numerous
following amongst southern Brahmans, and, whilst professing Sankara's
doctrines, is usually classed as one of the Saiva sects, its members
adopting the horizontal sectarial mark peculiar to Saivas, consisting in
their case of a triple line, the _tripundra_, prepared from the ashes of
burnt cow-dung and painted on the forehead. Sankara also founded four
Maths, or convents, for Brahmans; the chief one being that of Sringeri
in Mysore, the spiritual head (_Guru_) of which wields considerable
power, even that of excommunication, over the Saivas of southern India.
In northern India, the professed followers of Sankara are mainly limited
to certain classes of mendicants and ascetics, although the tenets of
this great Vedanta teacher may be said virtually to constitute the creed
of intelligent Brahmans generally.
Whilst Sankara's chief title to fame rests on his philosophical works,
as the upholder of the strict monistic theory of Vedanta, he doubtless
played an important part in the partial remodelling of the Hindu
system of belief at a time when Buddhism was rapidly losing ground in
India. Not that there is any evidence of Buddhists ever having been
actually persecuted by the Brahmans, or still less of Sankara himself
ever having done so; but the traditional belief in some personal god,
as the principal representative of an invisible, all-pervading deity,
would doubtless appeal more directly to the minds and hearts of the
people than the colourless ethical system promulgated by the Sakya
saint. Nor do Buddhist places of worship appear as a rule to have been
destroyed by Hindu sectaries, but they seem rather to have been taken
over by them for their own religious uses; at any rate there are to
this day not a few Hindu shrines, especially in Bengal, dedicated to
Dharmaraj, "the prince of righteousness," as the Buddha is commonly
styled. That the tenets and practices of so characteristic a faith as
Buddhism, so long prevalent in India, cannot but have left their marks
on Hindu life and belief may readily be assumed, though it is not so
easy to lay one's finger on the precise features that might seem to
betray such an influence. If the general tenderness towards animals,
based on the principle of _ahimsa_, or inflicting no injury on
sentient beings, be due to Buddhist teaching, that influence must have
made itself felt at a comparatively early period, seeing that
sentiments of a similar nature are repeatedly urged in the Code of
Manu. Thus, in v. 46-48, "He who does not willingly cause the pain of
confinement and death to living beings, but desires the good of all,
obtains endless bliss. He who injures no creature obtains without
effort what he thinks of, what he strives for, and what he fixes his
mind on. Flesh-meat cannot be procured without injury to animals, and
the slaughter of animals is not conducive to heavenly bliss: from
flesh-meat, therefore, let man abstain." Moreover, in view of the fact
that Jainism, which originated about the same time as Buddhism,
inculcates the same principle, even to an extravagant degree, it seems
by no means improbable that the spirit of kindliness towards living
beings generally was already widely diffused among the people when
these new doctrines were promulgated. To the same tendency doubtless
is due the gradual decline and ultimate discontinuance of animal
sacrifices by all sects except the extreme branch of
Sakti-worshippers. In this respect, the veneration shown to serpents
and monkeys has, however, to be viewed in a somewhat different light,
as having a mythical background; whilst quite a special significance
attaches to the sacred character assigned to the cow by all classes of
Hindus, even those who are not prepared to admit the claim of the
Brahman to the exalted position of the earthly god usually conceded to
him. In the Veda no tendency shows itself as yet towards rendering
divine honour to the cow; and though the importance assigned her in an
agricultural community is easily understood, still the exact process
of her deification and her identification with the mother earth in the
time of Manu and the epics requires further elucidation. An idealized
type of the useful quadruped--likewise often identified with the
earth--presents itself in the mythical Cow of Plenty, or "wish-cow"
(Kamadhenu, or Kamadugha, i.e. wish-milker), already appearing in the
Atharvaveda, and in epic times assigned to Indra, or identified with
Surabhi, "the fragrant," the sacred cow of the sage Vasishtha.
Possibly the growth of the legend of Krishna--his being reared at
Gokula (cow-station); his tender relations to the _gopis_, or
cow-herdesses, of Vrindavana; his epithets _Gopala_, "the cowherd,"
and _Govinda_, "cow-finder," actually explained as "recoverer of the
earth" in the great epic, and the _go-loka_, or "cow-world," assigned
to him as his heavenly abode--may have some connexion with the sacred
character ascribed to the cow from early times.
Worship.
Since the time of Sankara, or for more than a thousand years, the gods
Vishnu and Siva, or _Hari_ and _Hara_ as they are also commonly
called--with their wives, especially that of the latter god--have shared
between them the practical worship of the vast majority of Hindus. But,
though the people have thus been divided between two different religious
camps, sectarian animosity has upon the whole kept within reasonable
limits. In fact, the respectable Hindu, whilst owning special allegiance
to one of the two gods as his _ishta devata_ (favourite deity), will not
withhold his tribute of adoration from the other gods of the pantheon.
The high-caste Brahman will probably keep at his home a salagram stone,
the favourite symbol of Vishnu, as well as the characteristic emblems of
Siva and his consort, to both of which he will do reverence in the
morning; and when he visits some holy place of pilgrimage, he will not
fail to pay his homage at both the Saiva and the Vaishnava shrines
there. Indeed, "sectarian bigotry and exclusiveness are to be found
chiefly among the professional leaders of the modern brotherhoods and
their low-caste followers, who are taught to believe that theirs are the
only true gods, and that the rest do not deserve any reverence whatever"
(Jog. Nath). The same spirit of toleration shows itself in the
celebration of the numerous religious festivals. Whilst some of
these--e.g. the _Sankranti_ (called _Pongal_, i.e. "boiled rice," in the
south), which marks the entrance of the sun into the sign of Capricorn
and the beginning of its northward course (_uttarayana_) on the 1st day
of the month Magha (c. Jan. 12); the _Ganesa-caturthi_, or 4th day of
the light fortnight of Bhadra (August-September), considered the
birthday of Ganesa, the god of wisdom; and the _Holi_, the Indian
Saturnalia in the month of Phalguna (February to March)--have nothing of
a sectarian tendency about them; others again, which are of a distinctly
sectarian character--such as the _Krishna-janmashtami_, the birthday of
Krishna on the 8th day of the dark half of Bhadra, or (in the south) of
Sravana (July-August), the _Durga-puja_ and the _Dipavali_, or lamp
feast, celebrating Krishna's victory over the demon Narakasura, on the
last two days of Asvina (September-October)--are likewise observed and
heartily joined in by the whole community irrespective of sect. Widely
different, however, as is the character of the two leading gods are also
the modes of worship practised by their votaries.
_Siva_ has at all times been the favourite god of the Brahmans,[5] and
his worship is accordingly more widely extended than that of his rival,
especially in southern India. Indeed there is hardly a village in India
which cannot boast of a shrine dedicated to Siva, and containing the
emblem of his reproductive power; for almost the only form in which the
"Great God" is adored is the _Linga_, consisting usually of an upright
cylindrical block of marble or other stone, mostly resting on a circular
perforated slab. The mystic nature of these emblems seems, however, to
be but little understood by the common people; and, as H. H. Wilson
remarks, "notwithstanding the acknowledged purport of this worship, it
is but justice to state that it is unattended in Upper India by any
indecent or indelicate ceremonies, and it requires a rather lively
imagination to trace any resemblance in its symbols to the objects they
are supposed to represent." In spite, however, of its wide diffusion,
and the vast number of shrines dedicated to it, the worship of Siva has
never assumed a really popular character, especially in northern India,
being attended with scarcely any solemnity or display of emotional
spirit. The temple, which usually stands in the middle of a court, is as
a rule a building of very moderate dimensions, consisting either of a
single square chamber, surmounted by a pyramidal structure, or of a
chamber for the linga and a small vestibule. The worshipper, having
first circumambulated the shrine as often as he pleases, keeping it at
his right-hand side, steps up to the threshold of the sanctum, and
presents his offering of flowers or fruit, which the officiating priest
receives; he then prostrates himself, or merely lifts his hands--joined
so as to leave a hollow space between the palms--to his forehead,
muttering a short prayer, and takes his departure. Amongst the many
thousands of Lingas, twelve are usually regarded as of especial
sanctity, one of which, that of Somnath in Gujarat, where Siva is
worshipped as "the lord of Soma," was, however, shattered by Mahmud of
Ghazni; whilst another, representing Siva as _Visvesvara_, or "Lord of
the Universe," is the chief object of adoration at Benares, the great
centre of Siva-worship. The Saivas of southern India, on the other hand,
single out as peculiarly sacred five of their temples which are supposed
to enshrine as many characteristic aspects (linga) of the god in the
form of the five elements, the most holy of these being the shrine of
Chidambaram (i.e. "thought-ether") in S. Arcot, supposed to contain the
ether-linga. According to Pandit S. M. Natesa (_Hindu Feasts, Fasts and
Ceremonies_), "the several forms of the god Siva in these sacred shrines
are considered to be the bodies or casements of the soul whose natural
bases are the five elements--earth, water, fire, air and ether. The
apprehension of God in the last of these five as ether is, according to
the Saiva school of philosophy, the highest form of worship, for it is
not the worship of God in a tangible form, but the worship of what, to
ordinary minds, is vacuum, which nevertheless leads to the attainment of
a knowledge of the all-pervading without physical accessories in the
shape of any linga, which is, after all, an emblem. That this is the
case at Chidambaram is known to every Hindu, for if he ever asks the
priests to show him the God in the temple he is pointed to an
|
are able to
provide for them. And whilst the _Calling_ and _Duration_ of Parliaments
was _precarious_, it might indeed be an _Act of Imprudence_, tho not of
_Injustice_, for any _one Parliament_ to settle such a Sort of _Revenue_
for Life on the Prince: But at present, when all the World knows the
_utmost Extent_ of a Parliament's _possible_ Duration, it seems
disagreeable to Reason, and an Encroachment upon the Right of
_succeeding_ Parliaments (for the future) for any _one Parliament_ to do
that which _another_ cannot undo, or has not Power to do in its turn.
An Old _Whig_ is for chusing such Sort of _Representatives_ to serve in
Parliament, as have _Estates_ in the Kingdom; and those not fleeting
ones, which may be sent beyond Sea by Bills of Exchange by every
Pacquet-Boat, but fix'd and permanent. To which end, every Merchant,
Banker, or other money'd Man, who is ambitious of serving his Country as
a _Senator_, shou'd have also a competent, visible _Land Estate_, as a
Pledge to his _Electors_ that he intends to abide by them, and has the
same Interest with theirs in the publick Taxes, Gains and Losses. I have
heard and weigh'd the Arguments of those who, in Opposition to this,
urged the Unfitness of such, whose Lands were engaged in Debts and
Mortgages, to serve in Parliament, in comparison with the _mony'd Man_
who had no _Land:_ But those Arguments never convinced me.
No Man can be a sincere Lover of Liberty, that is not for increasing and
communicating that Blessing to all People; and therefore the giving or
restoring it not only to our Brethren of _Scotland_ and _Ireland_, but
even to _France_ it self (were it in our Power) is one of the principal
Articles of _Whiggism_. The Ease and Advantage which wou'd be gain'd by
_uniting_ our own Three Kingdoms upon equal Terms (for upon unequal it
wou'd be no _Union_) is so visible, that if we had not the Example of
those Masters of the World, the _Romans_, before our Eyes, one wou'd
wonder that our own Experience (in the Instance of uniting _Wales_ to
_England_) shou'd not convince us, that altho both Sides wou'd
incredibly gain by it, yet the rich and opulent Country, to which such
an Addition is made, wou'd be the greater Gainer. 'Tis so much more
desirable and _secure_ to govern by _Love_ and _common Interest_, than
by _Force_; to expect _Comfort_ and _Assistance_, in Times of Danger,
from our next Neighbours, than to find them at such a time a _heavy
Clog_ upon the Wheels of our Government, and be in dread lest they
should take that Occasion to shake off an uneasy Yoak: or to have as
much need of entertaining a _standing_ Army against our _Brethren_, as
against our known and inveterate _Enemies_; that certainly whoever can
oppose so publick and apparent Good, must be esteem'd either _ignorant_
to a strange Degree, or to have _other_ Designs in View, which he wou'd
willingly have brought to Light.
I look upon her Majesty's asserting the Liberties and Privileges of the
_Free Cities_ in _Germany_, an Action which will shine in History as
bright (at least) as her giving away her first Fruits and Tenths: To the
Merit of which last, some have assumingly enough ascribed all the
Successes she has hitherto been blessed with; as if _one Set of Men_
were the _peculiar_ Care of Providence and all others (even _Kings_ and
_Princes_) were no otherwise fit to be considered by _God Almighty_, or
Posterity, than according to their _Kindness_ to them. But it has been
generally represented so, where Priests are the Historians. From the
first Kings in the World down to these Days, many Instances might be
given of very wicked Princes, who have been extravagantly commended; and
many excellent ones, whose Memories lie overwhelmed with Loads of Curses
and Calumny, just as they proved Favourers or Discountenancers of
High-Church, without regard to their other Virtues or Vices: for
High-Church is to be found in all Religions and Sects, from the Pagan
down to the Presbyterian; and is equally detrimental in every one of
them.
A Genuine _Whig_ is for promoting a _general Naturalization_, upon the
firm Belief, that whoever comes to be incorporated into us, feels his
Share of all our Advantages and Disadvantages, and consequently can have
no Interest but that of the Publick; to which he will always be a
Support to the best of his Power, by his _Person, Substance_ and
_Advice_. And if it be a Truth (which few will make a Doubt of) that we
are not one _third_ Part peopled (though we are better so in Proportion
than any other Part of _Europe, Holland_ excepted) and that our Stock of
Men decreases daily thro our Wars, Plantations, and Sea-Voyages; that
the ordinary Course of Propagation (even in Times of continued Peace and
Health) cou'd not in many Ages supply us with the Numbers we want; that
the Security of Civil and Religious Liberty, and of Property, which thro
God's great Mercy is firmly establish'd among us, will invite new Comers
as fast as we can entertain them; that most of the rest of the World
groans under the Weight of _Tyranny_, which will cause all that have
Substance, and a Sense of Honour and Liberty, to fly to Places of
Shelter; which consequently would thoroughly people us with useful and
profitable Hands in a few Years. What should hinder us from an Act of
_General Naturalization_? Especially when we consider, that no _private_
Acts of that Kind are refused; but the Expence is so great, that few
attempt to procure them, and the Benefit which the Publick receives
thereby is inconsiderable.
Experience has shown us the Folly and Falsity of those plausible
Insinuations, that such a Naturalization would take the Bread out of
_Englishmen's_ Mouths. We are convinced, that the greater Number of
Workmen of one Trade there is in any Town, the more does that Town
thrive; the greater will be the _Demand_ of the Manufacture, and the
_Vent_ to foreign Parts, and the quicker _Circulation_ of the _Coin_.
The Consumption of the _Produce_ both of _Land_ and _Industry_ increases
visibly in Towns full of People; nay, the more shall every particular
industrious Person thrive in such a Place; tho indeed _Drones_ and
_Idlers_ will not find their Account, who wou'd fain support their own
and their Families superfluous Expences at their Neighbour's Cost; who
make one or two Day's Labour provide for four Days Extravagancies. And
this is the common Calamity of most of our _Corporation Towns_, whose
Inhabitants do all they can to discourage Plenty, Industry and
Population; and will not admit of Strangers but upon too hard Terms,
thro the false Notion, that they themselves, their Children and
Apprentices, have the only Right to squander their Town's Revenue, and
to get, at their own Rates, all that is to be gotten within their
Precincts, or in the Neighbourhood. And therefore such Towns (through
the Mischief arising by _Combinations_ and _By-Laws_) are at best at a
Stand; very few in a thriving Condition (and those are where the
_By-Laws_ are least _restrictive_) but _most_ throughout _England_ fall
to visible Decay, whilst new Villages _not_ incorporated, or more
liberal of their Privileges, grow up in their stead; till, in Process of
Time, the first Sort will become almost as desolate as _Old Sarum_, and
will as well deserve to lose their Right of sending Representatives to
Parliament. For certainly a _Waste_ or a _Desert_ has no Right to be
represented, nor by our original Constitution was ever intended to be:
yet I would by no means have those Deputies lost to the Commons, but
transferr'd to wiser, more industrious, and better peopled Places,
worthy (thro their Numbers and Wealth) of being represented.
A _Whig_ is against the raising or keeping up a _Standing Army_ in Time
of Peace: but with this Distinction, that if at any time an _Army_ (tho
even in Time of Peace) shou'd be necessary to the Support of this very
Maxim, a _Whig_ is not for being too hasty to destroy that which is to
be the Defender of his Liberty. I desire to be well understood. Suppose
then, that Persons, whose known Principle and Practice it has been
(during the Attempts for arbitrary Government) to plead for and promote
such an Army in Time of Peace, as wou'd be subservient to the Will of a
Tyrant, and contribute towards the enslaving the Nation; shou'd, under a
_legal Government_ (yet before the _Ferment_ of the People was appeas'd)
cry down a _Standing Army_ in Time of Peace: I shou'd shrewdly suspect,
that the Principles of such Persons are not changed, but that either
they like not the Hands that _Army_ is in, or the _Cause_ which it
espouses; and look upon it as an Obstruction to _another_ Sort of Army,
which they shou'd like _even in Time of Peace_. I say then, that altho
the Maxim in general be certainly _true_, yet a _Whig_ (without the just
Imputation of having deserted his Principles) may be for the _keeping_
up such a Standing Army even in Time of Peace, till the Nation have
recover'd its _Wits_ again, and chuses Representatives who are against
_Tyranny in any Hands whatsoever_; till the Enemies of our Liberties
want the Power of raising _another_ Army of _quite different
Sentiments_: for till that time, a _Whiggish_ Army is the _Guardian of
our Liberties_, and secures to us the Power of _disbanding its self_,
and prevents the raising of another of a _different Kidney_. As soon as
this is done effectually, by my Consent, no such thing as a mercenary
Soldier should subsist in _England_. And therefore The _arming_ and
_training_ of all the _Freeholders_ of _England_, as it is our undoubted
ancient Constitution, and consequently our Right; so it is the Opinion
of most _Whigs_, that it ought to be put in Practice. This wou'd put us
out of all Fear of foreign Invasions, or disappoint any such when
attempted: This wou'd soon take away the Necessity of maintaining
_Standing_ Armies of _Mercenaries_ in Time of Peace: This wou'd render
us a hundred times more formidable to our Neighbours than we are; and
secure effectually our Liberties against any _King_ that shou'd have a
mind to invade them at home, which perhaps was the Reason some of our
late _Kings_ were so averse to it: And whereas, as the Case now stands,
Ten Thousand disciplin'd Soldiers (once landed) might march without
_considerable_ Opposition from one End of _England_ to the other; were
our _Militia_ well regulated, and _Fire-Arms_ substituted in the Place
of _Bills, Bows_, and _Arrows_ (the Weapons in Use when our _training
Laws_ were in their Vigor, and for which our Laws are yet in Force) we
need not fear a Hundred Thousand Enemies, were it possible to land so
many among us. At every Mile's End, at every River and Pass, the Enemy
wou'd meet with fresh Armies, consisting of Men as well skill'd in
military Discipline as themselves; and more resolv'd to fight, because
they do it for Property: And the farther such an Enemy advanced into the
Country, the stronger and more resolved he wou'd find us; as _Hanibal_
did the _Romans_, when he encamped under the Walls of _Rome_, even after
such a Defeat as that at _Cannæ_. And why? Because they were all
_train'd_ Soldiers, they were all _Freemen_ that fought _pro aris &
focis_: and scorn'd to trust the Preservation of their Lives and
Fortunes to _Mercenaries_ or _Slaves_, tho never so able-body'd: They
thought Weapons became not the Hands of such as had nothing to lose, and
upon that Account were unfit Defenders of their Masters Properties; so
that they never tried the Experiment but in the _utmost Extremity_.
That this is not only practicable but easy, the modern Examples of the
_Swissers_ and _Swedes_ is an undeniable Indication. _Englishmen_ have
as much _Courage_, as great _Strength of Body_, and _Capacity of Mind_,
as any People in the Universe: And if our late _Monarchs_ had the
_enervating_ their free Subjects in View, that they might give a
Reputation to _Mercenaries_, who depended only on the _Prince_ for their
Pay (as 'tis plain they had) I know no Reason why their Example shou'd
be followed in the Days of _Liberty_, when there is no such Prospect.
The Preservation of the _Game_ is but a very slender Pretence for
omitting it. I hope no wise Man will put a _Hare_ or a _Partridge_ in
Balance with the _Safety_ and _Liberties_ of _Englishmen_; tho after
all, 'tis well known to Sportsmen, that Dogs, Snares, Nets, and such
silent Methods as are daily put in Practice, destroy the Game ten times
more than shooting with Guns.
If the restoring us to our Old Constitution in this Instance were ever
necessary, 'tis more eminently so at this time, when our next Neighbours
of _Scotland_ are by Law armed just in the manner we desire to be, and
the _Union_ between both Kingdoms not perfected. For the _Militia_, upon
the Foot it now stands, will be of little Use to us: 'tis generally
compos'd of Servants, and those not always the same, consequently not
well train'd; rather such as wink with both Eyes at their own firing a
Musket, and scarce know how to keep it clean, or to charge it aright. It
consists of People whose Reputation (especially the _Officers_) has been
industriously diminished, and their Persons, as well as their
Employment, rendred contemptible on purpose to enhance the Value of
those that serve for Pay; insomuch that few Gentlemen of Quality will
now a-days debase themselves so much, as to accept of a Company, or a
Regiment in the _Militia_. But for all this, I can never be persuaded
that a _Red Coat_, and _Three Pence_ a Day, infuses more Courage into
the poor _Swaggering Idler_, than the having a Wife and Children, and an
Estate to fight for, with good wholsome Fare in his Kitchen, wou'd into
a _Free-born_ Subject, provided the _Freeman_ were as well armed and
trained as the _Mercenary_.
I wou'd not have the _Officers_ and _Soldiers_ of our most Brave and
Honest _Army_ to mistake me. I am not arguing against them; for I am
convinced, as long as there is Work to do abroad, 'tis they (and not our
home dwelling _Freeholders_) are most proper for it. Our War must now be
an _Offensive_ War; and what I am pleading for, concerns only the bare
_Defensive_ Part. Most of our present Generals and Officers are fill'd
with the true Sprit of Liberty (a most rare thing) which demonstrates
the Felicity of her Majesty's Reign, and her standing upon a true
Bottom, beyond any other Instance that can be given; insomuch, that
considering how great and happy we have been under the Government of
_Queens_, I have sometimes doubted, whether an _Anti-Salick Law_ wou'd
be to our Disadvantage.
Most of these _Officers_ do expect, nay (so true do I take them to be to
their Country's Interest) do wish, whenever it shall please God to send
us such a Peace as may be relied upon both at home and abroad, to return
to the State of _peaceable Citizens_ again; but 'tis fit they should do
so, with such ample Rewards for their Blood and Labours, as shall
entirely satisfy them. And when they, or the Survivors of them, shall
return full of Honour and Scars home to their Relations, after the
Fatigues of so glorious a Service to their Country are ended; 'tis their
Country's Duty to make them easy, without laying a Necessity upon them
of striving for the Continuance of an _Army_ to avoid _starving_. The
_Romans_ used to content them by a Distribution of their Enemies Lands;
and I think their Example so good in every thing, that we could hardly
propose a better. _Oliver Cromwell_ did the like in _Ireland_, to which
we owe that Kingdom's being a Protestant Kingdom at this Day, and its
continuing subject to the Crown of _England_; but if it be too late to
think of this Method now, some other must be found out by the Wisdom of
_Parliament_, which shall fully answer the End.
These Officers and Soldiers thus settled and reduced to a _Civil State_,
wou'd, in a great measure, compose that invincible _Militia_ I am now
forecasting; and by reason of their Skill in military Affairs, wou'd
deserve the principal Posts and Commands in their respective Counties:
With this advantageous Change of their Condition, that whereas formerly
they fought for their Country only as _Soldiers_ of _Fortune_, now they
shou'd defend it as wise and valiant _Citizens_, as _Proprietors_ of the
Estates they fight for; and this will gain them the entire Trust and
Confidence of all the good People of _England_, who, whenever they come
to know their own Minds, do heartily hate _Slavery_. The Manner and
Times of assembling, with several other necessary Regulations, are only
proper for the _Legislative_ to fix and determine.
A right _Whig_ lays no Stress upon the _Illegitimacy_ of the _pretended
Prince_ of _Wales_; he goes upon another Principle than they, who carry
the _Right of Succession_ so far, as (upon that Score), to undo all
Mankind. He thinks no Prince fit to govern, whose Principle it must be
to _ruin_ the Constitution, as soon as he can acquire unjust Power to do
so. He judges it Nonsense for one to be the _Head of a Church_, or
_Defender of a Faith_, who thinks himself bound in Duty to overthrow it.
He never endeavours to justify his taking the Oaths to this Government,
or to quiet his Conscience, by supposing the young _Gentleman_ at _St.
Germains_ unlawfully begotten; since, 'tis certain, that according to
our Law he cannot be looked upon as such. He cannot satisfy himself with
any of the foolish Distinctions trump'd up of late Years to reconcile
base Interest with a Show of Religion; but deals upon the Square, and
plainly owns to the World, that he is not influenc'd by any particular
Spleen: but that the Exercise of an _Arbitrary, Illegal Power_ in the
Nation, so as to undermine the Constitution, wou'd incapacitate either
King _James_, King _William_, or any other, from being his _King_,
whenever the _Publick_ has a Power to hinder it.
As a necessary Consequence of this Opinion, a _Whig_ must be against
_punishing the Iniquity of the Fathers upon the Children_, as we do (not
only to the _Third_ and _Fourth Generation_, but) _for ever_: since our
gracious God has declared, that he will no more pursue such severe
Methods in his Justice, but that _the Soul that sinneth it shall die_.
'Tis very unreasonable, that frail Man, who has so often need of Mercy,
shou'd pretend to exercise higher Severities upon his
_Fellow-Creatures_, than that Fountain of Justice on his most wicked
_revolting Slaves_. To corrupt the Blood of a whole _Family_, and send
_all_ the Offspring a begging after the Father's Head is taken off,
seems a strange Piece of Severity, fit to be redressed in Parliament;
especially when we come to consider, for what Crime this has been
commonly done. When Subjects take Arms against their _Prince_, if their
Attempt succeeds, 'tis a _Revolution_; if not, 'tis call'd a
_Rebellion_: 'tis seldom consider'd, whether the first Motives be just
or unjust. Now is it not enough, in such Cases, for the prevailing Party
to hang or behead the _Offenders_, if they can catch them, without
extending the Punishment to _innocent Persons_ for _all Generations_ to
come?
The Sense of this made the late _Bill of Treasons_ (tho it reach'd not
so far as many wou'd have had it) a Favourite of the _Old Whigs_; they
thought it a very desirable one whenever it cou'd be compass'd, and
perhaps if not at that very Juncture, wou'd not have been obtained all:
'twas necessary for Two different Sorts of People to unite in this, in
order for a Majority, whose Weight shou'd be sufficient to enforce it.
And I think some _Whigs_ were very unjustly reproach'd by their
_Brethren_, as if by voting for this Bill, they wilfully exposed the
late _King's_ Person to the wicked Designs of his Enemies.
_Lastly_, The supporting of Parliamentary Credit, promoting of all
_publick Buildings_ and _Highways_, the making all _Rivers Navigable_
that are capable of it, employing the _Poor_, suppressing _Idlers_,
restraining _Monopolies_ upon Trade, maintaining the liberty of the
_Press_, the just _paying_ and _encouraging_ of all in the publick
Service, especially that best and usefullest Sort of People the
_Seamen_: These (joined to a firm Opinion, that we ought not to hearken
to any _Terms of Peace_ with the _French King_, till it be quite out of
his Power to hurt us, but rather to dye in Defence of our _own_ and the
_Liberties_ of _Europe_) are all of them Articles of my _Whiggish
Belief_, and I hope none of them are _heterodox_. And if all these
together amount to a _Commonwealthsman_, I shall never be asham'd of the
Name, tho given with a Design of fixing a Reproach upon me, and such as
think as I do.
Many People complain of the Poverty of the Nation, and the Weight of the
Taxes. Some do this without any ill Design, but others hope thereby to
become _popular_; and at the same time to _enforce a Peace_ with
_France_, before that Kingdom be reduced to too low a Pitch: fearing,
lest that _King_ shou'd be _disabled_ to accomplish their Scheme of
bringing in the _Pretender_, and assisting him.
Now altho 'tis acknowledg'd, that the _Taxes_ lye very heavy, and
_Money_ grows scarce; yet let the _Importance_ of our _War_ be
considered, together with the _Obstinacy, Perfidy_, and _Strength_ of
our Enemy, can we possibly carry on such a _diffusive_ War without
_Money_ in Proportion? Are the _Queen's_ Subjects more burden'd to
maintain the publick _Liberty_, than the _French_ King's are to confirm
their own _Slavery_? Not so much by three Parts in four, God be prais'd:
Besides, no true _Englishman_ will grudge to pay Taxes whilst he has a
Penny in his Purse, as long as he sees the Publick Money well laid out
for the great Ends for which 'tis given. And to the Honour of the Queen
and her Ministers it may be justly said, That since _England_ was a
Nation, never was the publick Money more frugally managed, or more
fitly apply'd. This is a further Mortification to those _Gentlemen_, who
have _Designs_ in View which they dare not own: For whatever may be, the
_plausible_ and _specious_ Reasons they give in publick, when they
exclaim against the Ministry; the hidden and true one is, that thro the
present prudent Administration, their so hopefully-laid Project is in
Danger of being blown quite up; and they begin to despair that they
shall bring in King _James_ the Third by the Means of Queen _Anne_, as I
verily believe they once had the Vanity to imagine.
INDEX
OF THE
CHAPTERS
* * * * *
CHAP. I.
_The State of_ Gaul _before it was reduced into the Form of a_ Roman
_Province_.
CHAP. II.
_Probable Conjectures concerning the Ancient Language of the_ Gauls.
CHAP. III.
_The State of_ Gaul, _after it was reduced into the Form of a Province
by the_ Romans.
CHAP. IV.
_Of the Original of the_ Franks, _who having possessed themselves of_
Gallia, _changed its Name into that of_ Francia, _or_ Francogallia.
CHAP. V.
_Of the Name of the_ Franks, _and their sundry Excursions; and what time
they first began to establish a Kingdom in_ Gallia.
CHAP. VI.
_Whether the Kingdom of_ Francogallia _was_ Hereditary _or_ Elective;
_and the Manner of making its_ Kings.
CHAP. VII.
_What Rule was observed concerning the_ Inheritance _of the Deceased
King, when he left more Children than one_.
CHAP. VIII.
_Of the_ Salick _Law, and what Right Women had in the Kings, their
Father's Inheritance_.
CHAP. IX.
_Of the Right of Wearing a large_ Head of Hair _peculiar to the_ Royal
Family.
CHAP. X.
_The_ Form _and_ Constitution _of the_ Francogallican _Government_.
CHAP. XI.
_Of the_ Sacred Authority _of the_ Publick Council.
CHAP. XII.
_Of the Kingly Officers, commonly called_ Mayors _of the_ Palace.
CHAP. XIII.
_Whether_ Pipin _was created King by the_ Pope, _or by the Authority of
the_ Francogallican _Council_.
CHAP. XIV.
_Of the_ Constable _and Peers of_ France.
CHAP. XV.
_Of the continued_ Authority _and Power of the_ Sacred Council, _during
the Reign of the_ Carlovingian _Family_.
CHAP. XVI.
_Of the_ Capevingian _Race, and the Manner of its obtaining the Kingdom
of_ Francogallia.
CHAP. XVII.
_Of the_ uninterrupted Authority _of the_ Publick Council, _during the_
Capevingian _Line_.
CHAP. XVIII.
_Of the Remarkable_ Authority _of the_ Council _against_ Lewis _the
Eleventh_.
CHAP. XIX.
_Of the Authority of the Assembly of the_ States, _concerning the most
important Affairs of Religion_.
CHAP. XX.
_Whether_ Women _are not as much debarr'd by the_ Francogallican
_Law from the_ Administration, _as from the_ Inheritance _of the
Kingdom_.
CHAP. XXI.
_Of the_ Juridical Parliaments _in_ France.
* * * * *
A
Short EXTRACT
OF THE
LIFE
OF
Francis Hotoman,
Taken out of Monsieur _Bayle's_ Hist. Dict. and other
Authors.
_Francis Hotoman_ (one of the most learned Lawyers of that Age) was Born
at _Paris_ the 23d of _August_, 1524. His Family was an Ancient and
Noble one, originally of _Breslaw_, the Capital of _Silesia_. _Lambert
Hotoman_, his Grandfather, bore Arms in the Service of _Lewis_ the 11th
of _France_, and married a rich Heiress at _Paris_, by whom he had 18
Children; the Eldest of which (_John Hotoman_) had so plentiful an
Estate, that he laid down the Ransom-Money for King _Francis_ the First,
taken at the Battel of _Pavia_: _Summo galliæ bono, summâ cum suâ
laude_, says _Neveletus_, _Peter Hotoman_ his 18th Child, and [Footnote:
_Maistre des Eaux & Forrests._] _Master of the Waters and Forests_ of
_France_ (afterwards a Counsellor in the Parliament of _Paris_) was
Father to _Francis_, the _Author_ of this Book. He sent his Son, at 15
Years of Age, to _Orleans_ to study the _Common Law_; which he did with
so great Applause, that at Three Years End he merited the Degree of
Doctor. His Father designing to surrender to him his Place of Counsellor
of _Parliament_, sent for him home: But the young Gentleman was soon
tired with the Chicane of the Bar, and plung'd himself deep in the
Studies of [Footnote: _Les belles Lettres._] _Humanity_ and the _Roman
Laws_; for which he had a wonderful Inclination. He happen'd to be a
frequent Spectator of the Protestants Sufferings, who, about that Time,
had their Tongues cut out, were otherwise tormented, and burnt for their
Religion. This made him curious to dive into those Opinions, which
inspired so much Constancy, Resignation and Contempt of Death; which
brought him by degrees to a liking of them, so that he turn'd
Protestant. And this put him in Disgrace with his father, who thereupon
disinherited him; which forced him at last to quit _France_, and to
retire to _Lausanne_ in _Swisserland_ by _Calvin_'s and _Beza_'s Advice;
where his great Merit and Piety promoted him to the Humanity-Professor's
Chair, which he accepted of for a Livelihood, having no Subsistance from
his Father. There he married a young _French_ Lady, who had fled her
Country upon the Score of Religion: He afterwards remov'd to
_Strasburg_, where he also had a Professor's Chair. The Fame of his
great Worth was so blown about, that he was invited by all the great
Princes to their several Countries, particularly by the _Landgrave_ of
_Hesse_, the _Duke_ of _Prussia_, and the _King_ of _Navarre_; and he
actually went to this last about the Beginning of the Troubles. Twice he
was sent as Ambassador from the Princes of the Blood of _France_, and
the Queen-Mother, to demand Assistance of the Emperor _Ferdinand:_ The
Speech that he made at the Diet of _Francfort_ is still extant.
Afterwards he returned to _Strasburg_; but _Jean de Monluc_, the Bishop
of _Valence_, over-persuaded him to accept of the Professorship of Civil
Law at _Valence_; of which he acquitted himself so well, that he very
much heighten'd the Reputation of that University. Here he received two
Invitations from _Margaret_ Dutchess of _Berry_, and Sister to _Henry_
the Second of _France_, and accepted a Professor's Chair at _Bourges_;
but continued in it no longer than five Months, by reason of the
intervening Troubles. Afterwards he returned to it, and was there at the
time of the great _Parisian_ Massacre, having much-a-do to escape with
his Life; but having once got out of _France_ (with a firm Resolution
never to return thither again) he took Sanctuary in the House of
_Calvin_ at _Geneva_, and publish'd Books against the Persecution, so
full of Spirit and good Reasoning, that the Heads of the contrary Party
made him great Offers in case he wou'd forbear Writing against them; but
he refused them all, and said, The Truth shou'd never be betray'd or
forsaken by him. _Neveletus_ says, "That his Reply to those that wou'd
have tempted him, was this: _Nunquam sibi propugnatam causam quæ iniqua
esset: Nunquam quæ jure & legibus niteretur desertam præmiorum spe vel
metu periculi._"--He afterwards went to _Basel_ in _Swisserland_, and
from thence (being driven away by the Plague) to _Mountbelliard_, where
he buried his Wife. He returned then to _Basel_ (after having refused a
Professor's Chair at _Leyden_) and there he died of a Dropsy in the 65th
Year of his Age, the 12th of _February_, 1590.
He writ a great many learned Books, which were all of them in great
Esteem; and among them an excellent Book _de Consolatione_. His
_Francogallia_ was his own Favourite; tho' blamed by several others, who
were of the contrary Opinion: Yet even these who wrote against him do
unanimously agree, that he had a World of Learning, and a profound
Erudition. He had a thorough Knowledge of the Civil Law, which he
managed with all the Eloquence imaginable; and was, without dispute, one
of the ablest Civilians that _France_ had ever produced: This is _Thuanus_
and _Barthius_'s Testimony of him. Mr. _Bayle_ indeed passes his Censure
of this Work in the Text of his Dictionary, in these Words: "_Sa
Francogallia dont il faisoit grand etat est celuy de tous ses ecrits que
l'on aprouve le moins:_"--and in his Commentary adds, "_C'est un Ouvrage
recommendable du costè de l'Erudition; mais tres indigne d'un
jurisconsulte Francois, si l'on en croit mesme plusieurs Protestants._"
I wou'd not do any Injury to so great a Man as Monsieur _Bayle_; but
every one that is acquainted with his Character, knows that he is more a
Friend to Tyranny and Tyrants, than seems to be consistent with so free
a Spirit. He has been extremely ill used, which sowres him to such a
degree, that it even perverts his Judgment in some measure; and he seems
resolved to be against Monsieur _Jurieu_, and that Party, in every
thing, right or wrong. Whoever reads his Works, may trace throughout all
Parts of them this Disposition of Mind, and see what sticks most at his
Heart. So that he not only loses no Occasion, but often forces one where
it seems improper and unseasonable, to vent his Resentments upon his
Enemies; who surely did themselves a great deal more wrong in making him
so, than they did him. 'Tis too true, that they did all they cou'd to
starve him; and this great Man was forced to write in haste for Bread;
which has been the Cause that some of his Works are shorter than he
design'd them; and consequently, that the World is deprived of
|
be had here.
We are to wait here till our positions are assigned to us by Mr.
Pierce, which will be done in a few days. He told me he wanted me to
take the most important one, which I suppose means Coffin's.[11] I am
to have W---- G---- for my clerk and assistant. He is a very
agreeable, quiet fellow, and works like a beaver, but like several
others, is too young to take charge of the organization of the labor
to good advantage.
There is something very sad about these fine deserted houses. Ours has
Egyptian marble mantels, gilt cornice and centre-piece in parlor, and
bath-room, with several wash-bowls set in different rooms. The
force-pump is broken and all the bowls and their marble slabs smashed
to get out the plated cocks, which the negroes thought pure silver.
Bureaus, commodes, and wardrobes are smashed in, as well as
door-panels, to get out the contents of the drawers and lockers, which
I suppose contained some wine and ale, judging by the broken bottles
lying about. The officers saved a good many pianos and other furniture
and stored it in the jail, for safe-keeping. But we kindle our fires
with chips of polished mahogany, and I am writing on my knees with a
piece of a flower-stand across them for a table, sitting on my camp
bedstead.
I am anxious to get to work, as I hope to in a few days. Mr.
Eustis[12] has gone to his plantation, a few miles distant on Ladies
Island, and Mr. Hooper is spending a few days with him. The latter is
to be Mr. Pierce's private secretary at present.
_Beaufort, March 10._ I can't tell until I get settled at my post what
to say about your coming on here. If my post should be exposed to any
of the rebels' scouting-parties you had better stay at home. I must
say it seems rather _near_ to live within rifle-shot of their
outposts, as some of the plantations are.
_March 11._ We had a visit from the Provost Marshal last evening. He
has had a good deal to do with the contrabands and came to give us
some advice about them. He thinks that rebel spies may come among us,
but don't apprehend any trouble, says we can govern the negroes easily
enough by firm and judicious treatment, and says the officers in
charge are very glad to have them taken off their hands.
_Hilton Head_,[13] _March 13._ This is a most desolate-looking place,
flat and sandy, and covered with camps and storehouses for a mile
along the river. A line of intrenchments encloses the whole, some
seven miles long, resting on the river at each end. There is a long
wharf just built out to deep water, at the end of which the _Atlantic_
is discharging. This is the general dépôt for stores for the whole
army on the Atlantic coast and the blockading fleet.
_March 14._ A fortnight has passed since I left Brookline, without my
being able to get at my work. This loafing about and waiting upon the
movements of Government officials is the hardest work I ever tried to
do.
If you can't come early in April you had better not come at all, for
it will be too hot for even me to live on the plantations later than
June 1. They say the planters never lived on the plantations in summer
months, though they were acclimated, for fear of fevers. Beaufort is
the healthiest place on these islands and their resort when leaving
their plantations. Yet, if H---- W---- will come with you, _and not
without_, and you think it will pay, come as soon as you can. I shall
probably be on Coffin's plantation then, about fifteen miles east of
Beaufort, on St. Helena Island, coast of St. Helena Sound. This
plantation is one of the most secure from any interference from the
rebels, so I don't feel the slightest uneasiness on that score, for
the whole circumference of the island is picketed, and our forces also
occupy the opposite or northeasterly coast of the sound.
Now as to outfit. Not over $5 each in money, _silver_, for you are
supplied with transportation and food by Government and there's
nothing here to buy. Bed-sacks and pillow ditto. Three umbrellas with
light covers, fly-paper, tin cups, bowls, and tea-pot, set of wooden
boxes for rice, sugar, and other stores furnished by army rations.
Spring-balance that will weigh about twenty pounds, knife, fork, and
spoons for each of you, _plated_, thermometer, three pounds of tea in
one of the boxes. We now have plenty of rice, sugar, molasses,
vinegar, hominy, potatoes, coffee, and beans, from army stores, and on
plantations can get fresh lamb, mutton, chickens, eggs, milk; so we
shall fare better than I thought.
_Beaufort, March 17._ I don't think they would let you take a servant;
it's difficult enough to get you here alone, and there are plenty of
servants here which you are supposed to teach not only to read
but--what is more immediately important--to be _clean_ and
industrious. If you feel any hesitation about coming in contact with
them you shouldn't come, for they are sharp enough to detect apathy or
lurking repugnance, which would render any amount of theoretical
sympathy about worthless. Tell your father their nature and
disposition is nothing new to me. I was with them in Egypt long enough
to get pretty well acquainted, and though these sons of Western Africa
are not exactly of the same stock as the Nubians, they are certainly
no more degraded or lazy. In fact, from what I have already seen here
I am agreeably disappointed. Think of their having reorganized and
gone deliberately to work here some weeks ago, without a white man
near them, preparing hundreds of acres for the new crop! The Irish
wouldn't have done as much in the same position.
This comparison of the negroes with the Irish is made by the
letter-writers, as will be seen, more than once,--almost
always to the disadvantage of the Irish. Forty years ago the
Irish were still merely immigrants, and, further, they were
practically the only people in this country who suggested
comparison with negroes.
The next letter is the first from W. C. G., whom Mr.
Philbrick has already mentioned as destined to be his
assistant.
_March 24. Coffin's Point._ It is the largest plantation on the
Islands, numbering in its full days over 250 hands, or head, as the
negroes call themselves.
A large amount of cotton is still in store here, for which the boat I
hope will call this week; meanwhile the cotton-agent[14] and a guard
occupy the house with us. The former has been on the place three or
four months in charge of a large district with several plantations; he
is a smart young fellow, very dashing and jockey-like. We were
received by the guard with shouldered arms and by this agent, who did
their best to induce or rather bluff us into leaving the premises and
taking possession of another house; for we have two plantations
besides this,--estates belonging to William Fripp's sons.[15] We
stayed, however, and are now occupying two rooms, with plenty of
furniture of different kinds stored by the agent, probably for
removal. The whole business of our Commission and all its agents are
much disliked by the cotton-agents, partly because they don't
sympathize with our purposes,--partly because we seem about to usurp
their authority, to which of course we do succeed.
The cotton-agents have started the corn-planting on most of the
estates,--and almost everywhere the whole condition of people and land
is much better than I expected to find it. The present state of a
plantation depends on the previous character and age of the people,
the influence of the drivers,[16] and the circumstances to which they
have been exposed since the soldiers came. If the people are on the
whole old and steady, if the drivers are intelligent and
strong-minded, if their masters have been humane and fatherly, and if
they have seen few soldiers,--then the work has usually been kept up
pretty well and the negroes are still at home and willing to go
a-field,--and their condition varies as those items vary. On the
larger number, as I have said, things are much better than I expected
to see them. As is proper, more attention has as yet been paid to the
_corn_ lands, and very little to the cotton. Two precious months have
been lost for that crop. On most of the plantations corn enough
remains to last through the next crop,--so there is little danger of
much suffering for want of food. But everything except corn, and their
own eggs and poultry, is wanting,--no molasses, no sugar, no salt, no
tobacco,--and no clothing.
On two of our three plantations things are doing well, but this big
Coffin place is in a very miserable, demoralized condition. It used to
be very successful in cotton--and of late, especially, the hands have
been worked very hard. There are many _young_ people--so all the more
likely to leave. They are within a few miles of Bay Point opposite
Hilton Head, so the temptation to leave is very pressing, for smart
fellows can get money there,--one York with whom I was talking
yesterday got over $30 a month by cooking for two or three messes; he
is sick now and thinks he had better come home for the good of his
_soul_. And perhaps as evil an influence as any was the early presence
of the guards from the 19th N. Y. V., a regiment rather notorious for
wild ways, I believe,--certainly one which greatly injured these
people by their talk about _freedom_ and no need of work, etc., and
their rampant deeds. We are therefore in a hard place here,--and shall
take pretty energetic measures and do the best we can. Mr. Philbrick
has charge of the farming, etc.,--I of the teaching. We were not all
sent out two by two; small plantations had single men. Some men are
expected to overlook several estates lying near each other.
_March 29._ The women work much better than the men, but very few are
faithful. Nor can we hope for any regularity and real improvement till
we are delivered from our cotton-agent and the influences which
emanate from him and his interests.
The people are very discontented here, and as they have logic and need
on their side, it is hard to meet their complaints. In fact, they
can't be met,--very few do full work, many half or none. They need
_clothing_ very badly. They need salt and tobacco,--this summer they
need a little molasses and some bacon. These things[17] they have been
accustomed to receive in stated quantities at stated times,--at
Christmas, and in April or May. If we could supply them simply as they
have been supplied by their masters, the majority I think would be
contented and would work well. The _promises_ to pay to which they
have been treated by the agents of the Government for the last three
months haven't kept them warm. The agent here will probably soon give
them some cloth in part payment. Money they don't know the value
of--and especially now can't spend it to advantage; besides, as I
said, I think few desire it.
The following fragment of a letter, from which the date and
the beginning are missing, was written from Pine Grove at
about this time; its subject is, of course, the negroes.
FROM E. S. P.
They have not yet got any diseased appetite for alcoholic stimulants,
and are happy in their comparative ignorance of such things.
They are a simple, childlike people, almost ignorant of malice,
patient and easily influenced by an appeal to their feelings. There is
far less family feeling and attachment to each other than among the
ignorant Irish, apparently, though I don't know how much allowance to
make for their being so much less demonstrative in their emotions, and
more inured to suffering. They are most eminently a religious people,
according to their light, and always refer their sufferings to Divine
Providence, though without the stoical or fatalist ideas of their
Mohammedan brethren, whom I got to know pretty well in Nubia and
Egypt.
We find it very difficult to reach any motive that will promote
cleanliness as a habit. It requires more authority than our position
gives us as employers to make any police regulations very effectual in
their quarters. This plantation is the neatest one I have seen
anywhere in respect to their houses and yards, but there is room for
great improvement here. They have the same dread of fresh air in
sickness which is common to poor people at home, but there is very
little sickness among them. Only one death has occurred since we came
here, among a population of 420, and that was an infant. They place
great trust in our doctors and keep them pretty busy jogging about.
The next letter, the first from H. W., records her arrival
with Mrs. Philbrick.
_Beaufort, April 15._ The sail up was very beautiful, the green beyond
description brilliant, and now and then the deeper shade of palmetto
or live-oak. Some of the plantations were very picturesque. Roses and
azaleas were plainly visible. An hour and a half, very quickly passed,
brought us to the wharf, where Mr. Pierce and Mr. Hooper met us with
the information that we were to go to Mr. Forbes's, whither we walked
a long half-mile, a sentry at the street-corners, darkies bowing in
every direction, birds and the scent of flowers filling the air,
everything like a June day after a shower. Mr. Philbrick hopes to be
ready for us on Saturday. A cotton-agent in his house prevents us from
going just yet to the Coffin house, but we shall be established for
the present on one of the smaller plantations adjoining.
The letter that follows, written at Pine Grove several days
later, narrates the events of these days, beginning with
April 16, in Beaufort.
FROM H. W.
_Pine Grove, St. Helena, April 21._ H.[18] and Miss Towne[19] carried
the letters to the post-office, Caroline, Mr. Forbes's chamber-girl,
following to show them the way there, take them to the schools and
into some negro quarters. They were derided by the soldiers, they
said, who called after them, "See the Southern Aristocracy with their
nigger behind them!" which amused Caroline very much.
Mr. Forbes took me in his open wagon, a tumble-down affair he has from
a negro to avoid the annoyance of always having to make a requisition
upon Government, the only owner in these regions of anything, and
drove me down the river to a plantation[20] we had noticed as we came
up on the boat, and where there was a cotton-gin Mr. Forbes wanted me
to see. The greater part of the way our road was shaded by woods on
the water-side, live-oaks with their ornamental moss, gum-trees and
pines with quantities of cat-brier and trumpet honeysuckle in full
bloom. The cotton-fields were unshaded, of course, and very large,
containing from one to three hundred acres. We passed some freshly
planted, but most of them were covered with the old bushes, dry and
dead, at which I was much surprised until I found that it was the
habit to leave the fields as they are after the cotton is picked, for
a year, planting on the same land only every other year. It makes
dreary, desolate-looking fields, for though a few weeds spring up, no
grass grows in this region, and they are brown instead of green all
summer. The Smith Plantation is about five miles from town, the house
in the centre of a live-oak grove, beautiful and beyond description,
open underneath, and so hanging with moss that you can scarcely see
any leaves as you look up. A little chapel on the place I got out to
look at, made very roughly of boards whitewashed, inside an earth
floor covered with straw, rough wooden benches, the pulpit and altar
made in the same way, but covered entirely with the grey moss, as we
trim for Christmas. The house looked rough and ordinary to us, as they
all do, except a few in the town; we did not go in. I believe there
are cotton-agents there attending to the ginning, which process we saw
in a little house by itself, where a steam gin worked four stands
tended by one hand each. The funny thing was to see them pack the
bales. There was a round hole in the second-story floor and a bag was
fastened to the edges, into which a man gets and stamps the cotton
down. I saw it swinging downstairs, but did not know what it was till,
on going up, I found a black head just above the floor, which grinned
from ear to ear with pleasure at the sight of a white lady, and ducked
and bobbed in most convulsive fashion.
We drove through the negro quarters, or "nigger-house," as they
themselves call the whole settlement, and they flocked to the doors to
look at us, bowing and smiling as we went by. There were eight or ten
separate houses just raised from the ground so that the air could pass
underneath, and, as we looked in at the doors, apparently with very
little furniture, though in some we saw chairs which were evidently
Massa's. Dirty and ragged they all were, but certainly no more so than
poor Irish, and it seemed to me not so dirty.
I saw palmetto-trees for the first time on this drive near enough to
know what they really looked like. They stand alone in the
cotton-fields like our elms in a meadow, though there are fewer of
them, and they are stiff and straight. The Spanish dagger, looking
like a miniature palmetto, was planted for hedges round the garden and
fish-pond. Mistletoe I saw for the first time.
Mr. Hooper came over in the morning [of the next day] and told us he
should come for us at 12.30, but it was five before we got into the
boat.[21] The negroes sang to us in their wild way as they rowed us
across--I cannot give you the least idea of it. Indeed, I can't give
you the least idea of anything, and you must not expect it. The town
looked very pretty from the boat, some of the houses are large and
quite imposing in appearance. We found Mr. Pierce and his carriage
waiting for us, having been there without any dinner since one
o'clock. (This is the land of waiting, we have discovered--patience is
a virtue our Northern people will have to learn here.) We drove at
once to Pope's plantation, passing Mr. Eustis on the way at his
overseer's house, bedaubed from head to foot with molasses, which he
had been selling all day to the negroes, a pint to a hand. Here Mr.
Philbrick was waiting with his sulky (a two-wheeled jockey-cart), an
ox-team for the baggage, and a dump-cart in which he and H. were to
drive, while I drove the sulky alone in my glory. But it was too late
for us to think of driving ten miles farther, so we laid our beds down
and prepared for another halt. The next morning Mr. Pierce sent us
home in his carriage.
We reached here not long before two, and went to work to try and
muster up some dinner. I had a cup and saucer, tumbler and three
knives and forks, and the rennet, which soon supplied one dish; the
negroes brought china in limited quantities; we opened a box of
sardines, and coffee, and, with the army bread we brought from
Beaufort, fried eggs, and hominy, made a most excellent meal; a
tablecloth, napkins, and silver spoons forming some of the
appointments. Joe, the carpenter, young and handy, made a very good
waiter, but when he went out and cut a bough of sycamore and began to
brush the flies as we ate, it was almost more than I could stand. Then
we went to work to put what things we had to rights, H. got her
servant, and moreover we had to receive and shake hands with any
number of negroes, who came flocking round us at once, following the
carriage as we drove up in true Southern style, and coming into the
house to satisfy their curiosity.
W. G---- was here and aided us with a will, and about five o'clock I
went with him to the praise-house,[22] where he has his school. The
children were all assembled by Cuffy, and he was teaching them when we
went in. Mr. G---- read in the Bible, substituting words that they
could understand, made a very simple prayer, all kneeling, and then
heard them their letters and words for an hour, with a great deal of
tact and ability--strange words, you may think, to use in such a
connection, but you have little idea how much it needs of both. We
are not used to these people--it is even very difficult to understand
what they say. They have been born and brought up just here, in the
most isolated way, for generations, with no chance of improvement, and
there is not a single mulatto[23] on the place--they are black as the
blackest, and perfect children--docile, and with "faith enough to live
by," W---- G---- says. I find I have no shrinking from them, and hope
I shall be able to do my part. I take this school off his hands--he
has two other plantations to teach on and has been working like a
beaver. I made my first attempt this afternoon and got along
comfortably. Flora, the house-servant (that is, ours,--she is a field
hand), took me on my way to see the old mammas, and I went into
several of the cabins and came home with a present of nine eggs!
These houses are all built of hard pine, which is handsome on the
floors, but the rest of the woodwork is painted, in this house an ugly
green, which is not pretty or cheerful. The walls are always left
white. Clapboards are unknown, but hard-pine boards, a foot or more
broad, are put on in the same way, and everything outside is
whitewashed. The place is very attractive-looking, grapevines and
honeysuckles and pine woods near.
_April 25._ The house is raised high from the ground, as all are here,
and boarded in loosely underneath. There is a circle of orange-trees
round the house, and roses in abundance, but no grass, which is
dreary. The quarters are a quarter of a mile off, and the
praise-house is near them, where I have school twice a day. It is very
interesting, and I enjoy it much, though of course there is nothing to
teach but the alphabet and little words. They sing their letters very
nicely now. They are much better-mannered than the Irish, and I have
had no trouble as yet.
Perhaps when I get to understanding things better I shall be able to
tell you some things they say. They were uneasy till they discovered
our first names, and were pleased that mine was that of the "old
Missus." They have brought me presents of eggs two or three times.
FROM W. C. G.
_Pine Grove Plantation, April 22._ You see that we have changed our
home. The ladies have arrived. The house is in better condition than
that at Coffin's, the people better disposed, and the locality is more
retired and does not boast of a cotton-agent. In a month or two we
shall probably move to our old quarters, if it doesn't take longer to
clean it. Miss W---- will be a grand helper. It will be a pretty rough
life for them, and New England comforts and neatness and intelligence
will be sadly missed, but we certainly have been well,--our table is
the most refined thing on the Island, I fancy.
FROM H. W.
_Pine Grove, April 29._ Our days pass pretty much after this fashion.
Mr. Philbrick gets up about six, calls me, and I obey, having
stipulated for a full hour in which to dress. After we get downstairs
it takes the united efforts of most of the family to get the breakfast
on the table, and we are fortunate if we get up from that meal by
half-past eight. It generally consists of hominy, very delicious eaten
with either milk, butter, or molasses, corn-cake, or waffles of
corn-flour--the best of their kind--concentrated coffee, chocolate, or
tea, army bread--when we can get it--crackers, when we can't, and
boiled eggs or fried fish, as the case may be. The important
operations of dish-washing and arranging the rooms upstairs take
longer than you can imagine, and things are not always done when I go
to school at ten, which with our simple style of living is rather a
nuisance. H. begins to pity the Southern housekeepers. This morning,
after making the starch in our little kitchen in the house, she waited
about for two hours, before she could get hold of one of the three
servants. They were all off at the kitchen, smoking and talking and
taking things easy. Joe was nominally cleaning knives, Flora had gone
to empty a pail of water, and Sukey had no thought about her starched
clothes!
Well, I walk off to school, under the white umbrella if the sun
shines, dressed as warmly as I can if it does not. My way lies between
a row of large "Heshaberry" trees, as the negroes call them; a
corruption, I suppose, of Asia Berry, as it is the "Pride of Asia," in
full blossom now, with scent something like our lilac, but more
delicate. On each side of these trees are the corn-houses, stables,
cotton-houses, and near the house a few cabins for house-servants, and
the well. They stretch an eighth of a mile, when a gate (left open)
shuts off the nigger-house and field. Another eighth brings me to the
cabins, which have trees scattered among them, figs and others. The
children begin to gather round me before I get there, with their bow
and curtsey and "goo' mornin, Marm," and as I go through the quarters
I send them in to wash their hands and faces. The praise-house
reached, one of the children rings the bell out of the door to summon
all, and they gather quickly, some to be sent off to wash their
faces--alas, they cannot change their clothes, which are of the
raggedest. But now enough clothes have come to begin to sell, I hope
to have a better dressed set before long. I keep them in for about two
hours--there are about thirty of the little ones who come in the
morning, ten and under; all older are in the field, and come in the
afternoon, as they finish work by noon always.
I go back to lunch at half-past twelve, a cold one generally,
sometimes a few waffles or some hominy for variety, but crackers,
sardines, and blackberries which we have in abundance now, make a
refreshing meal, with tea or coffee when we please. Shop[24] has to be
tended in the afternoon principally, and I sometimes take a turn at it
till I go off at half-past three to school again. We use for shop the
little room between Mr. G.'s and the entry, selling out of the window
over a box for a counter, to the groups on the porch. It is a funny
sight and funny work for us, albeit interesting, for they have had no
clothes for a year, and buy eagerly. Mr. Philbrick has not been able
to let them have any clothing before, as there has only been enough to
give a garment to one in ten, and they have been so used to being
treated alike that their jealousy is very easily roused, and it is a
difficult matter to deal with them. For the same reason the clothes
have to be sold, the money going back to the Commission, to be used
again for their benefit. It would be very much better if only the
goods were sent, for they prefer to make their own clothes and all
know how to sew.
These people show their subserviency in the way they put Marm or Sir
into their sentences every other word and emphasize it as the one
important word, and in always agreeing to everything you say. In
school it is rather annoying to have them say, "Yes Marm, 'zackly
Marm," before it is possible for an idea to have reached their brains.
Flora, our housemaid, who is a character, has a great deal of dignity
and influence among the other negroes, and takes the greatest care of
us. She is most jealous for what she considers our interests, and
moreover is quite an interpreter, though it is hard enough to
understand her sometimes. "Learning" with these people I find means a
knowledge of medicine, and a person is valued accordingly. Flora
wanted to know how much "learning" Miss Helen[25] had had, and it was
a long time before I could make out what she meant.
H. says she never saw me look so well, so you see I thrive in spite of
fleas, which have almost flayed me alive. I understand what it means
by eels getting _used_ to being skinned.
_May 1._ Took a ride through the quarters. We stopped to see Doll and
her week-old baby. H. had quite a talk with Mily, the nurse, who told
her it did them good to see white ladies about, and hoped we were
going to stay. She seemed very much disappointed when H. told her we
should be here [at Pine Grove] only a short time longer. I think it
does them good just to have me walk through the quarters four times a
day--they always curtsey and say a word.
In the afternoon, as I came out of school, Cuffy said, "You promise to
jine praise with we some night dis week, Missus," so I told him I
would go up in the evening if Mr. G. would go with me. When we went up
after eight they were just lighting the two candles. I sat down on the
women's side next a window, and one of the men soon struck up a hymn
in which the others joined and which seemed to answer the purpose of a
bell, for the congregation immediately began to assemble, and after
one or two hymns, Old Peter offered a prayer, using very good
language, ending every sentence with "For Jesus' sake." He prayed for
us, Massa and Missus, that we might be "boun' up in de belly-band of
faith." Then Mr. G. read to them and made a few remarks to which they
listened very attentively; then some hymn-singing, Cuffy deaconing out
the lines two at a time. Then some one suddenly started up and
pronounced a sort of benediction, in which he used the expression
"when we done chawing all de hard bones and swallow all de bitter
pills." They then shook hands all round, when one of the young girls
struck up one of their wild songs, and we waited listening to them for
twenty minutes more. It was not a regular "shout,"[26] but some of
them clapped their hands, and they stamped in time. It was very
difficult to understand the words, though there was so much repetition
that I generally managed to make out a good deal, but could not
remember it much, still less the music, which is indescribable, and no
one person could imitate it at all. As we walked home we asked Cuffy
if they considered the "shout" as part of their religious worship; he
said yes, that "it exercise the frame." Mr. G. told him that some of
the old people had told him they did not like the shouts, or think
them religious, but he said old Binah did not object to them in the
praise-house, but she did not like the shout "out in de world," _i.
e._ before they joined the Church or came to "strive behind the
Elders." He makes his own hymns, "praying to de Lord Jesus to teach
him as he in de woods--jine one word 'ginst toder." They were almost
unintelligible as he deaconed them out, but I daresay they were his
own, unconsciously caught, perhaps, in part from what he had heard in
the white people's church. The only song I could remember ran somewhat
after this fashion:
Oh, Jacob's ladder.
Climb high, climb higher!
Oh sodier of de jubilee,
When you git dere'member me,
Oh! sodier of de cross!
In the introduction to "Slave Songs of the United States," a
collection made chiefly at Port Royal and published in 1867,
this particular song is set down as spurious, that is, as
being sung to a well-known "white folks'" tune. But most of
the negro music is described as "civilized in its character,
partly composed under the influence of association with the
whites, partly actually imitated from their music. In the
main it appears to be original in the best sense of the word."
The same writer goes on:
"On the other hand there are very few which are of an
intrinsically barbaric character, and where this character
does appear, it is chiefly in short passages, intermingled
with others of a different character.... It is very likely
that if we had found it possible to get at more of their
secular music, we should have come to another conclusion as
to the proportion of the barbaric element.... Mr. E. S.
Philbrick was struck with the resemblance of some of the
rowing tunes at Port Royal to the boatmen's songs he had
heard upon the Nile....
"The words are, of course, in a large measure taken from
Scripture, and from the hymns heard at church; and for this
reason these religious songs do not by any means illustrate
the full extent of the debasement of the dialect." Of words
funnily distorted through failure to understand their
meaning there are, however, many examples. "Paul and Silas,
bound in jail," was often sung "Bounden Cyrus born in jail;"
"Ring Jerusalem" appeared as "Ring Rosy Land," etc., etc. "I
never fairly heard a secular song among the Port Royal
freedmen, and never saw a musical instrument among them. The
last violin, owned by a 'worldly man,' disappeared from
Coffin's Point 'de year gun shoot at Bay Pint.'"
The negroes' manner of singing is pretty well suggested by
the following:
"The voices of the colored people have a peculiar quality
that nothing can imitate; and the intonations and delicate
variations of even one singer cannot be reproduced on paper.
And I despair of conveying any notion of the effect of a
number singing together, especially in a complicated
shout.... There is no singing in _parts_, as we understand
it, and yet no two appear to be singing the same thing--the
leading singer starts the words of each verse, often
improvising, and the others, who 'base' him, as it is
called, strike in with the refrain, or even join in the
solo, when the words are familiar. When the 'base' begins,
the leader often stops, leaving the rest of his words to be
guessed at, or it may be they are taken up by one of the
other singers. And the 'basers' themselves seem
|
inward stain
From only listening, if I listened only,
And did not speak, when base was proffered me.
"Hear now what I propose. What I propose
Is not advice; advice I neither give
Nor ask. I do not ask it, for my heart
Is fixed; duress of conscience presses me,
With flesh and blood forbidding to confer.
I must do what I shall, in man's or devil's
Despite. I trust I speak not thus in pride.
Not therefore that the census of your yeas
Or nays may guide me, but that ye may weigh
What force my purpose now unfolded owns
To sway your present counsels, hear and judge.
"Ye know, and all Jerusalem, that Saul
Has counted nothing worthy to be prized
Beside the learning of the law of God.
For this, a boy, from yon Cilician lands
I came; for this, I have consumed my youth.
What envied gains of knowledge I have made,
Sitting a student at Gamaliel's feet,
Befits me not to vaunt; these, small or large,
Belong to God and to my nation, being mine
Only to use for Him and them. I see
Plainly how I must use my trust from God.
Wherefore are we assembled? Wherefore, save
Because these sciolists pervert the law,
Deceived perhaps, deceiving certainly?"
Scarce waved a careless hand in sign at them--
Toward the apostles, still in presence there,
Saul deigned not to divert his scornful eyes:
"Shame is it if I, knowing the law indeed,
Am less than match for these untutored minds,
Amid the flocking fools they lead astray,
To controvert their hateful heresies.
Herewith then I proclaim my ripe resolve
To undertake, against the preaching liars,
On their own terms, a warfare for the truth.
Let it be seen which cause, in open list,
Is stronger, truth from heaven or lie from hell!
"Brethren and fathers, as ye will, consult;
The youngest has his purpose thus divulged."
As when a palm diversely blown upon
In a strong tempest of opponent winds,
Now this way, and now that, obedient
To each prevailing present urgency,
Leans to all quarters of the firmament
By turns, but quickly, let a lull succeed,
Upright again, shows every leaf composed;
So now the council, long enough between
Opinion and opinion buffeted,
While Saul was speaking took a little ease,
No new advice proposed, to breathe again,
Steady itself, and come to equipoise.
Some thought that Saul had spoken proudly; some,
That pride became his worth; some held that he
Would make his vaunting good; some feared his plan
Savored of youth and rashness; others deemed
Public dispute mistaken precedent
Teeming with various mischief--sure to breed
Insufferable pretensions in the crowd,
So taught to count themselves fit arbiters
On Scriptural or traditional points of moot,
And, by close consequence, a serious breach
Endanger in their own authority;
Yet others felt, whatever fruit beside
Was borne of Saul's proposed experiment,
Two things at least were safe to reckon on--
In its own dignity, the Sanhedrim
Must needs incur immedicable hurt,
So plainly scandalous a spectacle
Exhibiting, a councillor enrolled
Of their own number stooping to debate
On equal terms with ignorant fishermen;
Then, on their side, those flattered fishermen,
Far from indulging proper gratitude
For being publicly confounded quite
At such illustrious hands, would be instead
Inflated out of measure, nigh to burst,
With added pride at complaisance so new
From their superiors, while the common herd
Would give them greater heed accordingly.
Such things diverse they thought, and silence kept,
Saul's colleagues in the Sanhedrim; they all
Together felt that Saul in any wise
Would go Saul's way; they therefore silence kept.
One man alone, by age and gravity,
And reverence his in ample revenue,
Was easy master of the Sanhedrim:
On him the council rested and revolved,
As on a fixéd centre and support.
And now 'Gamaliel! let us hear at last
Gamaliel's word' was suddenly the sole,
The simultaneous, silent thought to all.
The eyes of all concentred instantly
Upon Gamaliel found that saint esteemed
And sage already stirring as to rise.
Their readiness to hear, with his to speak,
Timed so in perfect reciprocity
And exquisite accord responsive, marked
That fleet meet moment for the orator,
Which, conscious half, but half unconscious, he,
Gamaliel, wielded by the Holy Ghost,
Was now to seize and use for God so well.
The hoary head, the mien of majesty,
The associative power of ancient fame,
His habit and tradition of command,
Their instinct, grown inveterate, to obey,
Always, wherever he arose to speak
Among his brethren, won Gamaliel heed.
But now, a certain gentle winsomeness,
Born of a certain wavering wistfulness,
Qualified so a new solemnity
Of manner, like a prophet's, felt in him,
That awe came on his hearers as from God.
Gamaliel first bade put the prisoners forth,
In keeping, out of audience, and then said:
"My brethren: Saul my brother--son no more
I name him, since he parts himself from me
In counsel--yet I love him not the less--"
A tremor of sensation fluttered through
The council, with these words, and at Saul's heart
Pausing, infixed, then healed, a subtle pang
Of sweet remorse and gracious tenderness--
"Yea, not the less for this love I my son,
My brother, while I honor him the more.
Yea, and not wholly does he part himself
From me; in deepest counsel we are one.
Saul seeks to honor God obeying Him,
The same seek I; are we not deeply one?
And ever I have taught obedience
To God as the prime thing and paramount;
Disciple therefore still to me, and son,
Is Saul, even in this act and article
Of his secession from his master's part;
Saul and Gamaliel both, and all of us,
I pray my God to save from self-deceit!
I shudder while I pray, 'Deliver me,
O Lord, deliver, from the secret sin
Of false supposed obedience masking pride!'
"Late, I was sure, as Saul is sure to-day.
I thought, and doubted not, we ought to do
Even what ye now are bent to bring to pass.
My way was not Saul's way, but rather yours;
To me it seemed plainly, as seems to you,
Wiser to save the body by some loss,
If loss were need, of limb. Unfalteringly,
The knife would I myself with mine own hand
Have wielded to cut off these members, judged
Unsound and harmful to the general health,
Forever from the congregation. Now,
I feel less sure, Gamaliel feels less sure.
I wish--brethren, I think I wish--to be
Obedient; though deceitful is the heart
Above all things and wicked desperately--
What man can know it?--yet I think I will
Obedience. That was a pure word--the mouth
However far from pure that uttered it--
'To God rather than men must we obey.'
Saul was true son of mine to turn from me
To God--if haply he to God indeed
Have turned from me, and not from me to Saul,
Not knowing! Might I also turn, even I,
Gamaliel from Gamaliel, unto God!
I dread to trust myself, lest I, myself
Obeying, misdeem myself obeying God.
"Hearken, my children. These accuséd men
Unlikely, most unlikely, choice of Heaven
To be His prophets, seemed, and seem, to me.
I look at them and find no prophet mien;
I listen and their Galilæan speech
Offends me; and far more the scandal is
To think what message they propound to us.
Their person and their message I reject--
Reject, or if reject not, not receive.
And yet, my brethren, yet, I counsel you,
Beware! What ye intend, accomplished once,
Were once for all accomplished, not to be
Undone forever. Ye consult to slay,
And find your purpose hard to come by. How,
If, having slain, to your repentance, ye
Consulted to bring back to life again?
Were that not harder yet? Wherefore take heed,
Ye men of Israel. Remember how,
A generation gone, Theudas arose,
Proud boaster and asserter of himself,
Who drew his hundreds to his standard; he
Was slain, and all his followers came to naught.
Some space thereafter, out of Galilee
Judas arose and mustered to his side
Many adherents; but he perished too,
And all that clave to him were far dispersed.
"This therefore as to these is my advice:
Refrain your hands from them; let them alone.
Know, if their deed and counsel be of men,
Its doom is certain, it will come to naught;
But if it be of God, strive how ye may,
Ye cannot overthrow it. Well take heed,
Lest haply ye be found to fight against
God. For myself, when close upon the heels
Of what was wrought mysterious in the escape
Of these our prisoners from that warded keep
Fast-barred, I heard their answer to our sharp
Inquest and blame, I felt as felt of old
That prophet chanting his majestic strain,
'The Lord is in His holy temple, let
The earth, let the whole earth, before Him keep
Silence.' My soul kept silence and still keeps.
And silence keep, all ye, before the Lord!
For the Lord cometh, lo, He cometh swift
To judge the earth! And who of us shall bide
The day of His approach? Not surely he
Then found in arms against God and His Christ!"
Gamaliel spoke and ceased; but, while he spoke,
His speaking was like silence audible,
Rather than sound of voice; and when he ceased,
His silence was as eloquence prolonged.
Awhile the council sat as in a trance,
Unable or unwilling to bestir
Themselves for speech or motion. But not all
Are capable of awe. Some present there,
Either through sad defect of nature proof,
Or through long worldly habit seared and sealed,
Against the access of heavenly influence,
Bode unaware of anything divine
Descended near them--carnal minds, immersed
In sense, from shocks of spirit insulate,
Calm, discomposure none from things unseen,
The faculty for such experience lost,
Pitiably self-possessed! and God Himself
So nigh to have possessed them!
These a space
Waited to let the power a little pass,
Wrought by Gamaliel on the council; then
With tentative preamble, one of them
Said that Gamaliel's words were words of weight,
Weight well derived from character like his--
Whereat the speaker paused, with crafty eye
Cast round from countenance to countenance,
To read how much he safely might detract,
By open difference or by sly demur,
From the just value and authority
Of mild Gamaliel's sentence. But small sign
Saw he to hearten him in hope of ebb
To the strong tide still standing at full flood
That set in favor of the prisoners.
He feebly closed with wish expressed--and wish
It was, not hope--of hope no grounds he saw--
That some means might be found to save the shocked
And staggering dignity--a dignity
Ancient and sacred--of the Sanhedrim
From sheer shipwreck.
Some slight responsive stir
Under such spur to pride emboldened one
To trust they should at least sharply rebuke
The prisoners, and take bond of word from them
Not further to disturb the city's peace.
Another following said, that had been tried
Already once, with what result accrued
Was plain to see. And now the Sanhedrim,
Through various such suggestion commonplace,
Relaxed somewhat from their late mood so tense,
Grew readier to approve his voice who said:
"The first offence we deemed condignly met
With reprimand from us, and interdict.
Those gentle means the prisoners once have scorned,
And to our face assure us they will scorn.
Now let such contumacious insolence
Toward just authority too meek, be met,
If not with death deserved, at least with stripes
So heavy they shall wish it had been death."
Such truculence renewed provoked a new
Reaction. This, that councillor less stern
Noted--who, with Gamaliel and with Saul,
Refrained, when all the others hissed applause
To Mattathias--noted, and with thrift
Converted into opportunity.
A wary spirit Nicodemus was,
With impulses toward good, but weak in will,
And selfish as the timid are. His heart
Was a divided empire in his breast,
Half firm for God, but half to self seduced.
His fellows trusted him accordingly;
Hate him they could not, but they did not love.
Some guessed him guilty of discipleship
To Jesus, secretly indulged through fear.
This their suspicion the suspect in turn
Suspected, and the uneasy consciousness
Made him more curious than his wont to move
By indirection toward his present aim.
What he wished was, to serve the prisoners
And not disserve himself--a double end,
Rendering his counsels double; but as such
Could speak, now Nicodemus rising spoke.
With sinuous slow approach winning his way
Devious whither he wished to go, like those
Creatures that backward facing forward creep
And seem retiring still while they advance,
So Nicodemus wound him toward his goal,
Well-chosen, as he said:
"Let us be wise;
Beyond our purpose were not well to go,
Were foolish. Cruelty is not, I trust,
Our spirit; God is just, but cruel not.
Let us, God's sons, be just indeed, like God,
But then, like God, also not cruel. Stripes
Are heavy, howsoever lightly laid
On freeborn men. The shame is punishment;
A wounded spirit who can bear? Through flesh
You smite the smarting spirit, every blow.
Remember too that lacerated flesh
Has lips to plead with, makes its mute appeal
To pity--eloquence incapable
Of being answered, charging cruelty;
Whereas the bleeding spirit, bleeding hid,
No cruelty imputes, reports no pain,
But, pith of self-respect clean gone from one,
Glazes the eye, dejects the countenance,
Changes the voice to hollow, takes the spring
Out of the step, and leaves the man a wretch
To suffer on an object of contempt
More than compassion--hopelessly bereft
Of power to captivate the public ear,
Which ever itches to be caught the prey
Of orator full-blooded, iron lungs,
Brass front, a lusty human animal.
Such make of men, through shame of public stripes,
Transformed to eunuchs--this, sure, were enough;
Nay, for our purpose, more than more would be.
And even so much as this, yea, lightest stripe,
Drawing a sequel such as I have said--
Brethren, for me, my soul revolts from it;
I feel it cruel, fear it impious.
Behooves we ponder well Gamaliel's word;
And, if to slay were haply against God
To be found fighting, why not, then, to scourge?"
"Such fine-spun sentiment," another now,
Concurring, though sarcastically, said,
"In pity of the victim of the scourge
For suffering inwardly endured through shame,
Supposes that your victim is endowed
With some small faculty for feeling shame,
Which in the present case asks evidence.
"Still, I too take the clement part, and say,
If only for Saul's sake, let these go free
Of any but the lightest punishment.
Saul will desire for foemen hearts as strong
As may be, to call out that strength in him
Which we well know, for their discomfiture.
Even thus, he may prefer some other foe
Than men disparaged by the brand of blows
Upon their backs, some fairer, fresher fame,
His gage of battle to take up, and be
By him immortalized through overthrow
Experienced, such as never yet was worse."
Divergent so in view or motive, they
Agreed at last to let the prisoners go
With stripes inflicted, and a charge severe
Imposed to speak in Jesus' name no more.
These so released departed thence with joy,
Rejoicing to have been accounted meet
For Jesus' sake to suffer shame. Nor ceased
Those faithful men to preach and teach as erst,
Both in the temple and from house to house,
Daily still sounding forth Jesus as Christ.
But Saul withdrew deep pondering in his mind
How he might best his plan divulged fulfill.
BOOK III.
SAUL AGAINST STEPHEN.
Stephen, as a Christian preacher of brilliant genius and of growing
fame, is selected by Saul to be his antagonist in the controversy
resolved upon by him. To a vast concourse of people assembled in
expectation of hearing Stephen preach, Saul takes the opportunity to
address an impassioned and elaborate appeal, with argument, against
Stephen's doctrine. His hearers are powerfully affected; among them,
he not knowing it, Saul's own beloved sister Rachel.
SAUL AGAINST STEPHEN.
Like a wise soldier on some task intent
Of moment and of hazard, who, at heart
Secure of prospering, yet no caution counts,
No pains, unworthy, but with wary feet
Explores his ground about him every rood,
All elements of chance forecalculates,
Draws to his part each doubtful circumstance;
Never too much provided, point by point
Equips himself superfluously strong,
That he prevailing may with might prevail,
And overcome with bounteous victory;
So Saul, firm in resolve and confident,
And inly stung with conscience and with zeal
Not to postpone his weighty work proposed,
Would not be hasty found, nor rash, to fail
Of any circumspection that his sure
Triumph might make more sure, or wider stretch
Its margin, certain to be wide.
Some days
After the council, he, with forecast sage
And prudence to prepare, refrained himself
From word or deed in public; while, at home,
Not moody, but not genial as his use,
His gracious use, was, self-absorbed, retired
In deep and absent muse, he nigh might seem
A stranger to his sister well-beloved,
Wont to be sharer of his inmost mind.
Inmost, save one reserve. He never yet
Had shown to any, scarce himself had seen,
The true deep master motive of his soul,
That fountain darkling in the depths of self
Whence into light all streams of being flowed.
Saul daily, nightly, waking, sleeping, dreamed
Of a new nation, his belovéd own,
Resurgent from the dust consummate fair,
And, for chief corner-stone, with shoutings reared
To station in the stately edifice--
Whom but himself? Who worthier than Saul?
This beckoning image bright of things to be--
Audacious-lovelier far than might be shown
To any, yea, than he himself dared look,
With his own eyes, steadfast and frank upon--
Was interblent so closely in his mind
With what should be the fortune and effect
Of his intended controversy nigh,
That, though his settled purpose to dispute
He had for public reasons publicly
Declared, he yet in private, of that strife,
Still future, everywhere to speak abstained,
Abiding even unto his sister dumb.
Rachel from Tarsus to Jerusalem
Had borne her brother company, her heart
One heart with his to cheer him toward the goal
Of his high purpose, which she knew, to be
Beyond his equals master in the law.
Alone they dwelt together, their abode
Between Gamaliel's and the synagogue
Of the Cilicians. Beautiful and bright
His home she made to him, with housewife ways
Neat-handed, and with fair companionship.
The sister, with that quick intelligence
The woman's, first divined, for secret cause
Of this her brother's travailing silentness,
That he some pregnant enterprise revolved;
Then, having, with the woman's wit, found means
To advise herself what enterprise it was,
She, with the woman's tact of sympathy,
In watchful quiet reverent of his mood,
Strove with him and strove for him, in her thought,
Her wish, her hope, her prayer; nor failed sometimes
A word to drop, unconsciously as seemed,
By lucky chance, that might perhaps convey
A timely help of apt suggestion wise
To Saul her brother for his purpose, he
All undisturbed to guess that aught was meant.
At home, abroad, reserved, Saul not the less
All places of men's frequence and resort
Still visited, and mixed with crowds to catch
The whisper of the people; active not,
But not supine, observing unobserved
As if alone amid the multitude.
The brave apostles of the Nazarene
He heard proclaim their master Lord and Christ,
And marked their method in the Scriptures; not
With open mind obedient toward the truth,
But ever only with shut heart and hard,
Intent on knowing how to contradict.
Meanwhile the novel doctrines spread, and found
New converts day by day, and day by day
Proclaimers new. Of these more eminent
Was none than Stephen, flaming prophet he,
Quenchless in spirit, full of faith and power.
Him oft Saul heard, to listening throngs that hung
Upon the herald's lips with eager ear,
The claim of Jesus to Messiahship
Assert, and from the psalms and prophets prove.
In guise a seraph rapt, with love aflame
And all aflame with knowledge, like the bush
That burned with God in Horeb unconsumed,
The fervent pure apostle Stephen stood,
In ardors from celestial altars caught
Kindling to incandescence--stood and forged,
With ringing blow on blow, his argument,
A vivid weapon edged and tempered so,
And in those hands so wielded, that its stroke
No mortal might abide and bide upright.
Stephen is such as Saul erelong will be
Risen from the baptism of the Holy Ghost!
Saul felt the breath of human power that blew
Round Stephen like a morning wind, he felt
The light that lifted and transfigured him
And glorified, that bright auroral ray
Of genius which forever makes the brow
It strikes on from its fountain far in God
Shine like the sunrise-smitten mountain peak--
Saul felt these things in Stephen by his tie
With Stephen in the fellowship of power;
Kindred to kindred answered and rejoiced.
But that in Stephen which was more and higher
Than Stephen at his native most and highest,
The inhabitation of the Holy Ghost--
This, Saul had yet no sense to apprehend.
The Spirit of God, only the Spirit of God
Can know; the natural man to Him is deaf
And blind. Saul, therefore, seeing did not see,
And hearing heard not. But no less his heart,
In seeing and in hearing Stephen speak,
Leapt up with recognition of a peer
In power to be his meet antagonist
And task him to his uttermost to foil.
Beyond Saul's uttermost it was to be,
That task! though this of Stephen not, but God.
Still goaded day by day with such desire
As nobler spirits know, to feel the strain
And wrestle of antagonistic thews
Tempting his might and stirring up his mind,
Saul felt, besides, the motion and ferment
And great dilation of a patriot soul,
Magnanimous, laboring for his country's cause.
He thought the doctrines of the Nazarene
Pernicious to the Jewish commonwealth,
Not less than was his person base, his life
Unseemly, and opprobrious his death.
He saw, or deemed he saw, in what was taught
From Jesus, only deep disparagement
Disloyally implied of everything
Nearest and dearest to the Hebrew heart.
The gospel was high treason in Saul's eyes;
Suppose it but established in success,
The temple then would be no more what erst
It was, the daily sacrifice would cease,
The holy places would with heathen feet
Be trodden and profaned, the middle wall
Of old partition between Jew and Greek
Would topple undermined, the ritual law
Of Moses would be obsolete and void,
Common would be the oracles of God,
To all divulged, peculiar once to Jews--
Of Jewish name and nation what were left?
Such thoughts, that seemed of liberal scope, were Saul's,
Commingled, he not knowing, with some thoughts,
Less noble, of his own aggrandizement.
It came at length to pass that on a day
The spacious temple-court is thronged with those
Come from all quarters to Jerusalem,
Or dwellers of the city, fain to hear
Once more the preacher suddenly so famed.
Present is Saul, but not as heretofore
To hearken only and observe; the hour
Has struck when his own voice he must uplift,
To make it heard abroad.
He dreamed it not,
But Rachel too was there, his sister. She
Had, from sure signs observed, aright surmised
That the ripe time to speak was come to Saul.
In her glad loyalty, she doubted not
That he, that day, would, out of a full mind,
Pressed overfull with affluence from the heart,
Pour forth a stream of generous eloquence--
Stream, nay, slope torrent, steep sheer cataract,
Of reason and of passion intermixed--
For such she proudly felt her brother's power--
Which down should rush upon his adversaries
And carry them away as with a flood,
Astonished, overwhelmed, and whirled afar;
Rescued at least the ruins of the state!
So glorying in her high vicarious hope
For Saul her brother, Rachel came that morn
Betimes and chose her out a safe recess
For easy audience, nigh, and yet retired,
Between the pillars of a stately porch,
Where she might see and not by him be seen.
Thence Rachel watched all eagerly; when now
The multitude, expecting Stephen, saw
A different man stand forth with beckoning hand
As if to speak. The act and attitude
Commanded audience, for a king of men
Stood there, and a great silence fell on all.
Some knew the face of the young Pharisee,
These whispered round his name; Saul's name and fame
To all were known, and, ere the speaker spoke,
Won him a deepening heed.
Rachel the hush
Felt with a secret sympathetic awe,
And for one breath her beating heart stood still;
It leapt again to hear her brother's voice
Pealing out bold in joyous sense of power.
That noble voice, redounding like a surge
Pushed by the tide, on swept before the wind,
And all the ocean shouldering at its back,
Which seeks out every inlet of the shore
To brim it flush and level from the brine--
Such Saul's voice swelled, as from a plenteous sea,
And, wave on wave of pure elastic tone,
Rejoicing ran through every gallery,
And every echoing endless colonnade,
And every far-retreating least recess
Of building round about that temple-court,
And filled the temple-court with silver sound--
As thus, with haughty summons, he began:
"Ye men of Israel, sojourners from far
Or dwellers in Jerusalem, give heed.
The lines are fallen to us in evil times:
Opinions run abroad perverse and strange,
Divergent from the faith our fathers held.
A day is come, brethren, and fallen on us--
On us, this living generation, big
With promise, or with threat, of mighty doom.
Which will ye have it? Threat, or promise, which?
Yours is the choosing--choose ye may, ye must.
"Abolish Moses, if ye will; destroy
The great traditions of your fathers; say
Abraham was naught, naught Isaac, Jacob, all
The patriarchs, heroes, martyrs, prophets, kings;
That Seed of Abraham naught, our nation's Hope,
Foretold to be an universal King;
Make one wide blank and void, an emptied page,
Of all the awful glories of our past--
Deliverance out of Egypt, miracle
On miracle wrought dreadfully for us
Against our foes, path cloven through the sea,
Jehovah in the pillar of cloud and fire,
And host of Pharaoh mightily overthrown;
The law proclaimed on Sinai amid sound
And light insufferable and angels nigh
Attending; manna in the wilderness;
The rock that lived and moved and followed them,
Our fathers, flowing water in the waste--
Obliterate at a stroke whatever sets
The seal of God upon you as His own,
And marks you different from the heathen round--
Shekinah fixed between the cherubim,
The vacant Holy of Holies filled with God,
The morning and the evening sacrifice,
Priest, altar, incense, choral hymn and psalm,
Confused melodious noise of instruments
Together sounding the high praise of God;
All this, with more I will not stay to tell,
This temple itself with its magnificence,
The hope of Him foreshown, the Messenger
Of that eternal covenant wherein
Your souls delight themselves, Who suddenly
One day shall come unto His temple--blot,
Expunge, erase, efface, consent to be
No more a people, mix and merge yourselves
With aliens, blood that in your veins flows pure
All the long way one stream continuous down
From Abraham called the friend of God--such blood
Adulterate in the idolatrous, corrupt
Pool of the Gentiles--men of Israel!
Or are ye men? and are ye Israel?
I stand in doubt of you--I stand in doubt
Of kinsmen mine supposed that bide to hear
Such things as seems that ye with pleasure hear!
"Say, know ye not they mean to take away
Your place and name? Are ye so blind? Or are
Ye only base poor creatures caring not
Though knowing well? Oft have ye seen the fat
Of lambs upon the flaming altar fume
One instant and in fume consume away;
So swiftly and so utterly shall pass,
In vapor of smoke, the glorious excellency,
The pomp, the pride, nay, but the being itself,
Of this our nation from beneath the sun,
Let once the hideous doctrine of a Christ
Condemned and crucified usurp the place
In Hebrew hearts of that undying hope
We cherish of Messiah yet to reign
In power and glory more than Solomon's,
From sunrise round to sunrise without end,
And tread the Gentiles underneath our feet."
Indignant patriot spirit in the breast
Of Rachel mixed itself with kindred pride
And gladness for her brother gleaming so
Before her in a kind of fulgurous scorn
Which made his hearers quail while they admired;
She could not stay a sudden gush of tears.
But Saul's voice now took on a winning change,
As, deprecating gently, thus he spoke:
"Forgive, my brethren, I have used hot words
Freely and frankly, as great love may speak.
But that I love you, trust you, hope of you
The best, the noblest, when once more you are
Yourselves, and feel the spirit of your past
Come back, I had not cared to speak at all.
I simply should have hung my head in shame,
Worn sackcloth, gone with ashes on my brow,
And sealed my hand upon my lips for you
Forever. Love does not despair, but hopes
Forever. And I love you far too well
To dream despair of you. Bethink yourselves,
My brethren! Me, as if I were the voice
Of your own ancient aspiration, hear.
Bear with me, let me chide, say not that love
Lured me to over-confidence of you.
"Be patient now, my brethren, while I go,
So briefly as I may, through argument
That well might ask the leisure of long hours,
To show from Scripture, from authority,
From reason and from nature too not less,
Why we should hold to our ancestral faith,
And not the low fanatic creed admit
Of such as preach for Christ one crucified.
Be patient--I myself must patient be,
Tutoring down my heart to let my tongue
Speak calmly, as in doubtful argument,
Where I am fixed and confident to scorn."
As when Gennesaret, in his circling hills,
By wing of wind down swooping suddenly
Is into tempest wrought that, to his depths
Astir, he rouses, and on high his waves
Uplifts like mountains snowy-capped with foam;
So, smitten with the vehement impact
And passion of Saul's rash, abrupt
Beginning, that mercurial multitude
Had answered with commotion such as seemed
Menace of instant act of violence:
But, as when haply there succeeds a lull
To tempest, then the waves of Galilee
Sink from their swelling and smooth down to plane
Yet deep will roll awhile from shore to shore
That long slow undulation following storm;
So, when, with wise self-recollection, Saul,
In mid-career of passionate appeal,
Stayed, and those gusts of stormy eloquence
Impetuous poured no longer on the sea
Of audience underneath him, but, instead,
Proposed a sober task of argument,
The surging throng surceased its turbulence,
And settled from commotion into calm;
Yet so as still to feel the rock and sway
Of central agitation at its heart,
While thus that master of its moods went on:
"What said Jehovah to the serpent vile
Which tempted Eve? Did he not speak of One,
Offspring to her seduced, Who should arise
To crush the offending head? No hint, I trow,
Of meekness and obedience unto death
Found there at least, death on the shameful tree,
Forsooth, to be the character and doom
Of that foretokened Champion of his kind,
That haughty Trampler upon Satan's head!
"To Abraham our father was of God
Foretold, 'In thee shall all the families
Of the earth be blessed.' What blessing, pray, could come
Abroad upon mankind
|
made his old cheeks burn.
Then he call'd to a wrong-maddened people, and swore[B]
Their name in the map should never be more:
Dire came the laugh, and smote worse than before.
Were earthquake a giant, up-thrusting his head
And o'erlooking the nations, not worse were the dread.
Then, lo! was a wonder, and sadness to see;
For with that very people, their leader, stood he,
Incarnate afresh, like a Cæsar of old;[C]
But because he look'd back, and his heart was cold,
Time, hope, and himself for a tale he sold.
Oh largest occasion, by man ever lost!
Oh throne of the world, to the war-dogs tost!
He vanished; and thinly there stood in his place
The new shape of Sword, with an humbler face,[D]
Rebuking his brother, and preaching for right,
Yet aye when it came, standing proud on his might,
And squaring its claims with his old small sight;
Then struck up his drums, with ensign furl'd,
And said, "I will walk through a subject world:
Earth, just as it is, shall for ever endure,
The rich be too rich, and the poor too poor;
And for this I'll stop knowledge. I'll say to it, 'Flow
Thus far; but presume no farther to flow:
For me, as I list, shall the free airs blow.'"
[Illustration:
THEN SUDDENLY CAME HE WITH GOWNED MEN,
AND SAID, "NOW OBSERVE ME--I'M CAPTAIN PEN."
_Canto V. p. 34._]
Laugh'd after him loudly that land so fair,[E]
"The king thou set'st over us, by a free air
Is swept away, senseless." And old Sword then
First knew the might of great Captain Pen.
So strangely it bow'd him, so wilder'd his brain,
That now he stood, hatless, renouncing his reign;
Now mutter'd of dust laid in blood; and now
'Twixt wonder and patience went lifting his brow.
Then suddenly came he, with gowned men,
And said, "Now observe me--_I'm_ Captain Pen:
_I'll_ lead all your changes--I'll write all your books--
I'm every thing--all things--I'm clergymen, cooks,
Clerks, carpenters, hosiers--I'm Pitt--I'm Lord Grey."
'Twas painful to see his extravagant way;
But heart ne'er so bold, and hand ne'er so strong,
What are they, when truth and the wits go wrong?
FOOTNOTES:
[A] The American War.
[B] The French War.
[C] Napoleon.
[D] The Duke of Wellington, or existing Military Toryism.
[E] The Glorious Three Days.
VI.
OF CAPTAIN PEN, AND HOW HE FOUGHT WITH CAPTAIN SWORD.
Now tidings of Captain Sword and his state
Were brought to the ears of Pen the Great,
Who rose and said, "His time is come."
And he sent him, but not by sound of drum,
Nor trumpet, nor other hasty breath,
Hot with questions of life and death,
But only a letter calm and mild;
And Captain Sword he read it, and smil'd,
And said, half in scorn, and nothing in fear,
(Though his wits seem'd restor'd by a danger near,
For brave was he ever) "Let Captain Pen
Bring at his back a million men,
And I'll talk with his wisdom, and not till then."
Then replied to his messenger Captain Pen,
"I'll bring at my back a _world_ of men."
Out laugh'd the captains of Captain Sword,
But their chief look'd vex'd, and said not a word,
For thought and trouble had touch'd his ears
Beyond the bullet-like sense of theirs,
And wherever he went, he was 'ware of a sound
Now heard in the distance, now gathering round,
Which irk'd him to know what the issue might be;
But the soul of the cause of it well guess'd he.
Indestructible souls among men
Were the souls of the line of Captain Pen;
Sages, patriots, martyrs mild,
Going to the stake, as child
Goeth with his prayer to bed;
Dungeon-beams, from quenchless head;
Poets, making earth aware
Of its wealth in good and fair;
And the benders to their intent,
Of metal and of element;
Of flame the enlightener, beauteous,
And steam, that bursteth his iron house;
And adamantine giants blind,
That, without master, have no mind.
Heir to these, and all their store,
Was Pen, the power unknown of yore;
And as their might still created might,
And each work'd for him by day and by night,
In wealth and wondrous means he grew,
Fit to move the earth anew;
Till his fame began to speak
Pause, as when the thunders wake,
Muttering, in the beds of heaven:
Then, to set the globe more even,
Water he call'd, and Fire, and Haste,
Which hath left old Time displac'd--
And Iron, mightiest now for Pen,
Each of his steps like an army of men--
(Sword little knew what was leaving him then)
And out of the witchcraft of their skill,
A creature he call'd, to wait on his will--
Half iron, half vapour, a dread to behold--
Which evermore panted and evermore roll'd,
And uttered his words a million fold.
Forth sprang they in air, down raining like dew,
And men fed upon them, and mighty they grew.
Ears giddy with custom that sound might not hear,
But it woke up the rest, like an earthquake near;
And that same night of the letter, some strange
Compulsion of soul brought a sense of change;
And at midnight the sound grew into a roll
As the sound of all gath'rings from pole to pole,
From pole unto pole, and from clime to clime,
Like the roll of the wheels of the coming of time;--
A sound as of cities, and sound as of swords
Sharpening, and solemn and terrible words,
And laughter as solemn, and thunderous drumming,
A tread as if all the world were coming.
And then was a lull, and soft voices sweet
Call'd into music those terrible feet,
Which rising on wings, lo! the earth went round
To the burn of their speed with a golden sound;
With a golden sound, and a swift repose,
Such as the blood in the young heart knows;
Such as Love knows, when his tumults cease;
When all is quick, and yet all is at peace.
And when Captain Sword got up next morn,
Lo! a new-fac'd world was born;
For not an anger nor pride would it shew,
Nor aught of the loftiness now found low,
Nor would his own men strike a single blow:
Not a blow for their old, unconsidering lord
Would strike the good soldiers of Captain Sword;
But weaponless all, and wise they stood,
In the level dawn, and calm brotherly good;
Yet bowed to him they, and kiss'd his hands,
For such were their new lord's commands,
Lessons rather, and brotherly plea;
Reverence the past, quoth he;
Reverence the struggle and mystery,
And faces human in their pain;
Nor his the least, that could sustain
Cares of mighty wars, and guide
Calmly where the red deaths ride.
"But how! what now?" cried Captain Sword;
"Not a blow for your gen'ral? not even a word?
What! traitors? deserters?"
"Ah no!" cried they;
"But the 'game's' at an end; the 'wise' wont play."
"And where's your old spirit?"
"The same, though another;
Man may be strong without maiming his brother."
"But enemies?"
"Enemies! Whence should they come,
When all interchange what was known but to some?"
"But famine? but plague? worse evils by far."
"O last mighty rhet'ric to charm us to war!
Look round--what has earth, now it equably speeds,
To do with these foul and calamitous needs?
Now it equably speeds, and thoughtfully glows,
And its heart is open, never to close?
[Illustration:
AND SO, LIKE THE TOOL OF A DISUS'D ART,
HE STOOD AT HIS WALL, AND RUSTED APART.
_Canto_ VI. _p. 44._]
"Still I can govern," said Captain Sword;
"Fate I respect; and I stick to my word."
And in truth so he did; but the word was one
He had sworn to all vanities under the sun,
To do, for their conq'rors, the least could be done.
Besides, what had _he_ with his worn-out story,
To do with the cause he had wrong'd, and the glory?
No: Captain Sword a sword was still,
He could not unteach his lordly will;
He could not attemper his single thought;
It might not be bent, nor newly wrought:
And so, like the tool of a disus'd art,
He stood at his wall, and rusted apart.
'Twas only for many-soul'd Captain Pen
To make a world of swordless men.
POSTSCRIPT;
CONTAINING SOME REMARKS ON WAR AND MILITARY STATESMEN.
POSTSCRIPT;
CONTAINING SOME REMARKS ON WAR AND MILITARY STATESMEN.
The object of this poem is to show the horrors of war, the false ideas
of power produced in the minds of its leaders, and, by inference, the
unfitness of those leaders for the government of the world.
The author intends no more offence to any one than can be helped: he
feels due admiration for that courage and energy, the supposed
misdirection of which it deplores; he heartily acknowledges the
probability, that that supposed misdirection has been hitherto no
misdirection, but a necessity--but he believes that the time is come
when, by encouraging the disposition to question it, its services and
its sufferings may be no longer required, and he would fain tear asunder
the veil from the sore places of war,--would show what has been hitherto
kept concealed, or not shown earnestly, and for the purpose,--would
prove, at all events, that the time has come for putting an end to those
phrases in the narratives of warfare, by which a suspicious delicacy is
palmed upon the reader, who is told, after everything has been done to
excite his admiration of war, that his feelings are "spared" a recital
of its miseries--that "a veil" is drawn over them--a "truce" given to
descriptions which only "harrow up the soul," &c.
Suppose it be necessary to "harrow up the soul," in order that the soul
be no longer harrowed? Moralists and preachers do not deal after this
tender fashion with moral, or even physical consequences, resulting from
other evils. Why should they spare these? Why refuse to look their own
effeminacy in the face,--their own gaudy and overweening encouragement
of what they dare not contemplate in its results? Is a murder in the
streets worth attending to,--a single wounded man worth carrying to the
hospital,--and are all the murders, and massacres, and fields of
wounded, and the madness, the conflagrations, the famines, the miseries
of families, and the rickety frames and melancholy bloods of posterity,
only fit to have an embroidered handkerchief thrown over them? Must
"ladies and gentlemen" be called off, that they may not "look that way,"
the "sight is so shocking"? Does it become us to let others endure,
what we cannot bear even to think of?
Even if nothing else were to come of inquiries into the horrors of war,
surely they would cry aloud for some better provision against their
extremity _after_ battle,--for some regulated and certain assistance to
the wounded and agonized,--so that we might hear no longer of men left
in cold and misery all night, writhing with torture,--of bodies stripped
by prowlers, perhaps murderers,--and of frenzied men, the other day the
darlings of their friends, dying, two and even several days after the
battle, of famine! The field of Waterloo was not completely cleared of
its dead and dying till nearly a week! Surely large companies of men
should be organized for the sole purpose of assisting and clearing away
the field after battle. They should be steady men, not lightly
admitted, nor unpossessed of some knowledge of surgery, and they should
be attached to the surgeon's staff. Both sides would respect them for
their office, and keep them sacred from violence. Their duties would be
too painful and useful to get them disrespected for not joining in the
fight--and possibly, before long, they would help to do away their own
necessity, by detailing what they beheld. Is that the reason why there
is no such establishment? The question is asked, not in bitterness, but
to suggest a self-interrogation to the instincts of war.
I have not thought proper to put notes to the poem, detailing the
horrors which I have touched upon; nor even to quote my authorities,
which are unfortunately too numerous, and contain worse horrors still.
They are furnished by almost every history of a campaign, in all
quarters of the world. Circumstances so painful, in a first attempt to
render them public for their own sakes, would, I thought, even meet with
less attention in prose than in verse, however less fitted they may
appear for it at first sight. Verse, if it has any enthusiasm, at once
demands and conciliates attention; it proposes to say much in little;
and it associates with it the idea of something consolatory, or
otherwise sustaining. But there is one prose specimen of these details,
which I will give, because it made so great an impression on me in my
youth, that I never afterwards could help calling it to mind when war
was spoken of; and as I had a good deal to say on that subject, having
been a public journalist during one of the most interesting periods of
modern history, and never having been blinded into an admiration of war
by the dazzle of victory, the circumstance may help to show how salutary
a record of this kind may be, and what an impression the subject might
be brought to make on society. The passage is in a note to one of Mr
Southey's poems, the "Ode to Horror," and is introduced by another
frightful record, less horrible, because there is not such agony implied
in it, nor is it alive.
"I extract" (says Mr Southey) "the following picture of consummate
horror from notes to a poem written in twelve-syllable verse, upon the
campaign of 1794 and 1795: it was during the retreat to Deventer. 'We
could not proceed a hundred yards without perceiving the dead bodies of
men, women, children, and horses, in every direction. One scene made an
impression upon my memory which time will never be able to efface. Near
another cart we perceived a stout-looking man and a beautiful young
woman, with an infant, about seven months old, at the breast, all three
frozen and dead. The mother had most certainly expired in the act of
suckling her child; as with one breast exposed she lay upon the drifted
snow, the milk to all appearance in a stream drawn from the nipple by
the babe, and instantly congealed. The infant seemed as if its lips had
but just then been disengaged, and it reposed its little head upon the
mother's bosom, with an overflow of milk, frozen as it trickled from the
mouth. Their countenances were perfectly composed and fresh, resembling
those of persons in a sound and tranquil slumber.'"
"The following description (he continues) of a field of battle is in the
words of one who passed over the field of Jemappe, after Doumourier's
victory: 'It was on the third day after the victory obtained by general
Doumourier over the Austrians, that I rode across the field of battle.
The scene lies on a waste common, rendered then more dreary by the
desertion of the miserable hovels before occupied by peasants.
Everything that resembled a human habitation was desolated, and for the
most part they had been burnt or pulled down, to prevent their affording
shelter to the posts of the contending armies. The ground was ploughed
up by the wheels of the artillery and waggons; everything like herbage
was trodden into mire; broken carriages, arms, accoutrements, dead
horses and men, were strewed over the heath. _This was the third day
after the battle: it was the beginning of November, and for three days a
bleak wind and heavy rain had continued incessantly._ There were still
remaining alive several hundreds of horses, and of the human victims of
that dreadful fight. I can speak with certainty of having seen more than
four hundred men _still living_, unsheltered, _without food_, and
without any human assistance, most of them confined to the spot where
they had fallen _by broken limbs_. The two armies had proceeded, and
abandoned these miserable wretches to their fate. _Some of the dead
persons appeared to have expired in the act of embracing each other._
Two young French officers, who were brothers, had crawled under the side
of a dead horse, where they had contrived a kind of shelter by means of
a cloak: they were both mortally wounded, and groaning _for each other_.
One very fine young man had just strength enough to drag himself out of
a hollow partly filled with water, and was laid upon a little hillock
groaning with agony; A GRAPE-SHOT HAD CUT ACROSS THE UPPER PART OF HIS
BELLY, AND HE WAS KEEPING IN HIS BOWELS WITH A HANDKERCHIEF AND HAT. He
begged of me to end his misery! He complained of dreadful thirst. I
filled him the hat of a dead soldier with water, which he nearly drank
off at once, and left him to that end of his wretchedness which could
not be far distant.'"
"I hope (concludes Mr Southey), I have always felt and expressed an
honest and Christian abhorrence of wars, and of the systems that produce
them; but my ideas of their immediate horrors fell infinitely short of
this authentic picture."
Mr Southey, in his subsequent lives of conquerors, and his other
writings, will hardly be thought to have acted up to this "abhorrence of
wars, and of the systems that produce them." Nor is he to be blamed for
qualifying his view of the subject, equally blameless (surely) as they
are to be held who have retained their old views, especially by him who
helped to impress them. His friend Mr Wordsworth, in the vivacity of his
admonitions to hasty complaints of evil, has gone so far as to say that
"Carnage is God's daughter," and thereby subjected himself to the
scoffs of a late noble wit. He is addressing the Deity himself:--
"But thy most dreaded instrument,
In working out a pure intent,
Is man, array'd for mutual slaughter:
Yea, Carnage is thy daughter."
Mr Wordsworth is a great poet and a philosophical thinker, in spite of
his having here paid a tremendous compliment to a rhyme (for
unquestionably the word "slaughter" provoked him into that imperative
"Yea," and its subsequent venturous affiliation); but the judgment, to
say no more of it, is rash. Whatever the Divine Being intends, by his
permission or use of evil, it becomes us to think the best of it; but
not to affirm the appropriation of the particulars to him under their
worst appellation, seeing that he has implanted in us a horror of them,
and a wish to do them away. What it is right in him to do, is one
thing; what it is proper in us to affirm that he actually does, is
another. And, above all, it is idle to affirm what he intends to do for
ever, and to have us eternally venerate and abstain from questioning an
evil. All good and evil, and vice and virtue themselves, might become
confounded in the human mind by a like daring; and humanity sit down
under every buffet of misfortune, without attempting to resist it:
which, fortunately, is impossible. Plato cut this knotty point better,
by regarding evil as a thing senseless and unmalignant (indeed no
philosopher regards anything as malignant, or malignant for malignity's
sake); out of which, or notwithstanding it, good is worked, and to be
worked, perhaps, finally to the abolition of evil. But whether this
consummation be possible or not, and even if the dark horrors of evil be
necessary towards the enjoyment of the light of good, still the horror
must be maintained, where the object is really horrible; otherwise, we
but the more idly resist the contrast, if necessary--and, what is
worse, endanger the chance of melioration, if possible.
Did war appear to me an inevitable evil, I should be one of the last men
to shew it in any other than its holiday clothes. I can appeal to
writings before the public, to testify whether I am in the habit of
making the worst of anything, or of not making it yield its utmost
amount of good. My inclinations, as well as my reason, lie all that way.
I am a passionate and grateful lover of all the beauties of the
universe, moral and material; and the chief business of my life is to
endeavour to give others the like fortunate affection. But, on the same
principle, I feel it my duty to look evil in the face, in order to
discover if it be capable of amendment; and I do not see why the
miseries of war are to be spared this interrogation, simply because they
are frightful and enormous. Men get rid of smaller evils which lie in
their way--nay, of great ones; and there appears to be no reason why
they should not get rid of the greatest, if they will but have the
courage. We have abolished inquisitions and the rack, burnings for
religion, burnings for witchcraft, hangings for forgery (a great triumph
in a commercial country), much of the punishment of death in some
countries, all of it in others. Why not abolish war? Mr Wordsworth
writes no odes to tell us that the Inquisition was God's daughter;
though Lope de Vega, who was one of its officers, might have done
so--and Mr Wordsworth too, had he lived under its dispensation. Lope de
Vega, like Mr Wordsworth and Mr Southey, was a good man, as well as a
celebrated poet: and we will concede to his memory what the English
poets will, perhaps, not be equally disposed to grant (for they are
severe on the Romish faith) that even the Inquisition, _like War_, might
possibly have had some utility in its evil, were it no other than a
hastening of Christianity by its startling contradictions of it. Yet it
has gone. The Inquisition, as War may be hereafter, is no more. Daughter
if it was of the Supreme Good, it was no immortal daughter. Why should
"Carnage" be,--especially as God has put it in our heads to get rid of
it?
I am aware of what may be said on these occasions, to "puzzle the will;"
and I concede of course, that mankind may entertain false views of their
power to change anything for the better. I concede, that all change may
be only in appearance, and not make any real difference in the general
amount of good and evil; that evil, to a certain invariable amount, may
be necessary to the amount of good (the overbalance of which, with a
most hearty and loving sincerity, I ever acknowledge); and finally, that
all which the wisest of men could utter on any such subject, might
possibly be nothing but a jargon,--the witless and puny voice of what
we take to be a mighty orb, but which, after all, is only a particle in
the starry dust of the universe.
On the other hand, all this may be something very different from what we
take it to be, setting aside even the opinions which consider mind as
everything, and time and space themselves as only modifications of it,
or breathing-room in which it exists, weaving the thoughts which it
calls life, death, and materiality.
But be his metaphysical opinions what they may, who but some fantastic
individual, or ultra-contemplative scholar, ever thinks of subjecting to
them his practical notions of bettering his condition! And how soon is
it likely that men will leave off endeavouring to secure themselves
against the uneasier chances of vicissitude, even if Providence ordains
them to do so for no other end than the preservation of vicissitude
itself, and not in order to help them out of the husks and thorns of
action into the flowers of it, and into the air of heaven? Certain it
is, at all events, that the human being is incited to increase his
amount of good: and that when he is endeavouring to do so, he is at
least not fulfilling the worst part of his necessity. Nobody tells us,
when we attempt to put out a fire and to save the lives of our
neighbours, that Conflagration is God's daughter, or Murder God's
daughter. On the contrary, these are things which Christendom is taught
to think ill off, and to wish to put down; and therefore we should put
down war, which is murder and conflagration by millions.
To those who tell us that nations would grow cowardly and effeminate
without war, we answer, "Try a reasonable condition of peace first, and
then prove it. Try a state of things which mankind have never yet
attained, because they had no press, and no universal comparison of
notes; and consider, in the meanwhile, whether so cheerful, and
intelligent, and just a state, seeing fair play between body and mind,
and educated into habits of activity, would be likely to uneducate
itself into what was neither respected nor customary. Prove, in the
meanwhile, that nations are cowardly and effeminate, that have been long
unaccustomed to war; that the South Americans are so; or that all our
robust countrymen, who do not "go for soldiers," are timid
agriculturists and manufacturers, with not a quoit to throw on the
green, or a saucy word to give to an insult. Moral courage is in
self-respect and the sense of duty; physical courage is a matter of
health or organization. Are these predispositions likely to fail in a
community of instructed freemen? Doubters of advancement are always
arguing from a limited past to an unlimited future; that is to say, from
a past of which they know but a point, to a future of which they know
nothing. They stand on the bridge "between two eternities," seeing a
little bit of it behind them, and nothing at all of what is before; and
uttering those words unfit for mortal tongue, "man ever was" and "man
ever will be." They might as well say what is beyond the stars. It
appears to be a part of the necessity of things, from what we see of the
improvements they make, that all human improvement should proceed by the
co-operation of human means. But what blinker into the night of next
week,--what luckless prophet of the impossibilities of steam-boats and
steam-carriages,--shall presume to say how far those improvements are to
extend? Let no man faint in the co-operation with which God has honoured
him.
As to those superabundances of population which wars and other evils are
supposed to be necessary in order to keep down, there are questions
which have a right to be put, long before any such necessity is assumed:
and till those questions be answered, and the experiments dependent upon
them tried, the interrogators have a right to assume that no such
necessity exists. I do not enter upon them--for I am not bound to do so;
but I have touched upon them in the poem; and the "too rich," and other
disingenuous half-reasoners, know well what they are. All passionate
remedies for evil are themselves evil, and tend to re-produce what they
remedy. It is high time for the world to show that it has come to man's
estate, and can put down what is wrong without violence. Should the
wrong still return, we should have a right to say with the Apostle,
"Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof;" for meanwhile we should
"not have done evil that good may come." That "good" may come! nay,
that evil may be perpetuated; for what good, superior to the
alternatives denounced, is achieved by this eternal round of war and its
causes? Let us do good in a good and kind manner, and trust to the
co-operation of Providence for the result. It seems the only real way of
attaining to the very best of which our earth is capable; and at the
very worst, necessity, like the waters, will find its level, and the
equity of things be justified.
I firmly believe, that war, or the sending thousands of our
fellow-creatures to cut one another to bits, often for what they have no
concern in, nor understand, will one day be reckoned far more absurd
than if people were to settle an argument over the dinner-table with
their knives,--a logic indeed, which was once fashionable in some places
during the "good old times." The world has seen the absurdity of that
practice: why should it not come to years of discretion, with respect to
violence on a larger scale? The other day, our own country and the
United States agreed to refer a point in dispute to the arbitration of
the king of Holland; a compliment (if we are to believe the newspapers)
of which his majesty was justly proud. He struck a medal on the strength
of it, which history will show as a set-off against his less creditable
attempts to force his opinions upon the Belgians. Why should not every
national dispute be referred, in like manner, to a third party? There is
reason to suppose, that the judgment would stand a good chance of being
impartial; and it would benefit the character of the judge, and dispose
him to receive judgments of the same kind; till at length the custom
would prevail, like any other custom; and men be astonished at the
customs that preceded it. In private life, none but school-boys and the
vulgar settle disputes by blows; even duelling is losing its dignity.
Two nations, or most likely two governments, have a dispute; they reason
the point backwards and forwards; they cannot determine it; perhaps they
do not wish to determine; so, like two carmen in the street, they fight
it out; first, however, dressing themselves up to look fine, and pluming
themselves on their absurdity; just as if the two carmen were to go and
put on their Sunday clothes, and stick a feather in their hat besides,
in order to be as dignified and fantastic as possible. They then "go at
it," and cover themselves with mud, blood, and glory. Can anything be
more ridiculous? Yet, apart from the habit of thinking otherwise, and
being drummed into the notion by the very toys of infancy, the
similitude is not one atom too ludicrous; no, nor a thousandth part
enough so. I am aware that a sarcasm is but a sarcasm, and need not
imply any argument; never includes all;--but it acquires a more
respectable character when so much is done to keep it out of
sight,--when so many questions are begged against it by "pride, pomp,
and circumstance," and allegations of necessity. Similar allegations may
be, and are brought forward, by other nations of the world, in behalf of
customs which we, for our parts, think very ridiculous, and do our
utmost to put down; never referring them, as we refer our own, to the
mysterious ordinations of Providence; or, if we do, never hesitating to
suppose, that Providence, in moving us to interfere, is varying its
ordinations. Now, all that I would ask of the advocates of war, is to
apply the possible justice of this supposition to their own case, for
the purpose of thoroughly investigating the question.
But they will exultingly say, perhaps, "Is this a time for investigating
the question, when military genius, even for civil purposes, has
regained its ascendancy in the person of the Duke of Wellington? When
the world has shown that it cannot do without him? When whigs, radicals,
liberals of all sorts, have proved to be but idle talkers, in comparison
with this man of few words and many deeds?" I answer, that it remains to
be proved whether the ascendancy be gained or not; that I have no belief
it will be regained; and that, in the meanwhile, never was time fitter
for questioning the merits of war, and, by inference, those of its
leaders. The general peacefulness of the world presents a fair
opportunity for laying the foundations of peaceful opinion; and the
alarm of the moment renders the interrogation desirable for its
immediate sake.
The re-appearance of a military administration, or of an administration
_barely civil_, and military at heart, may not, at first sight, be
thought the most promising one for hastening a just appreciation of
war, and the ascendancy of moral over physical strength. But is it, or
can it be, lasting? Will it not provoke--is it not now provoking--a
re-action still more peremptory against the claims of Toryism, than the
state of things which preceded it? Is it anything but a flash of
success, still more indicative of expiring life, and caused only by its
convulsive efforts?
If it be, this it is easy enough to predict, that Sir Robert Peel,
notwithstanding his abilities, and the better ambition which is natural
to them, and which struggles in him with an inferior one, impatient of
his origin, will turn out to be nothing but a servant of the
aristocracy, and (more or less openly) of a barrack-master. He will be
the servant, not of the King, not of the House of Commons, but of the
House of Lords, and (as long as such influence lasts, which can be but
a short while), of its military leader. He will do nothing whatsoever
contrary to their dictation, upon peril of being treated worse than
Canning; and all the reform which he is permitted to bring about will be
only just as much as will serve to keep off the spirit of it as long as
possible, and to continue the people in that state of comparative
ignorance, which is the only safeguard of monopoly. Every unwilling step
of reform will be accompanied with some retrograde or bye effort in
favour of the abuses reformed: cunning occasion will be seized to
convert boons, demanded by the age, into gifts of party favour, and
bribes for the toleration of what is withheld; and as knowledge proceeds
to extort public education (for extort it it will, and in its own way
too at last), mark, and see what attempts will be made to turn knowledge
against itself, and to catechise the nation back into the schoolboy
acquiescence of the good people of Germany. Much good is there in that
people--I would not be thought to undervalue it--much _bonhommie_--and
in the most despotic districts, as much sensual comfort as can make any
people happy who know no other happiness. But England and France, the
leaders of Europe, the peregrinators of the world, cannot be confined to
those lazy and prospectless paths. They have gone through the feudal
reign; they must now go through the commercial (God forbid that for any
body's sake they should stop there!), and they will
|
--of all
commodities, or, what is the same thing, the continually diminishing
purchasing power of the cowries, at last began to attract attention,
and this in turn induced distrust; so that the price of a bushel
of wheat, which had been at first one hundred cowries, and then two
hundred, rose to three, four, and even five hundred cowries. Another
remarkable circumstance noticed was, that, as prices increased,
the wants of trade for cowry money also increased proportionably,
which want the adventurers who had been the means of giving the
island its increased volume of money took care to supply by bringing
additional quantities of cowries as they were needed. It was also
observed that, as distrust increased, there was also a remarkable
increase in societary activity; for every body desired to change off
his cowry money for something else. [3] Persons who were in debt made
haste to pay their debts, and every body was ready to lend cowry money
to start all sorts of new enterprises. A company was organized, for
example, with a capital of ten million cowries, to explore the wreck
of the original ship which brought Robinson Crusoe to the island; and
although nobody knew exactly where the wreck was, or what was supposed
to remain in it, it was advocated as affording great opportunity
for labor. Another project, for which a company with fifty million
cowries capital was started, was to build a system of canals across
the island, although the island had a width of only about ten miles,
with a remarkably safe ocean navigation all around it.
Finally, the secret of the whole matter gradually leaked out. Other
people besides the original three shrewd fellows found out where the
supply of cowries came from, and made haste to visit the remote island,
provide themselves with money, and put it in circulation. But the
more money that was issued, the more was needed to supply the wants
of trade, until at last it took a four-horse wagon-load of cowries
to buy a bushel of wheat. Then the bubble burst. Stock-companies
all failed. Trade became utterly stagnant. The man whom Robinson
Crusoe had made secretary of the island treasury thought he could
help matters by issuing a few more cowries, but it was no use. Some
very wise persons were certain that every thing would be all right
again if people would only have confidence; but as long as the people
who worked and saved were uncertain what they were to receive for
the products of their labor--something or nothing--confidence didn't
return. Every body felt poor and swindled. Every body who thought he
had money in savings-banks woke up all at once to the realization
that his money was nothing but a lot of old shells. Every body
had his bags, his tills, and his money-boxes filled with shells,
which he had taken in exchange for commodities which had cost him
valuable time and labor. Strictly speaking, however, calamity did not
overtake every body. There were some exceptions, namely the shrewd and
idle fellows who had first found the cheap supply of cowries, and,
taking advantage of the ignorance of the community, had added them
to the before-existing circulation to serve as money. All these had
taken very good care to keep the substantial valuable things--houses,
lots, plows, grain, etc.--which they had received in exchange. They
had, in fact, grown rich by robbing the rest of the community. [4]
The community, however, were too courteous to call them thieves, and
in conversation they were usually referred to as shrewd financiers,
and as men ahead of their time. The concluding act of this curious
island experience was, that the formerly so highly prized money
became depreciated to such an extent as to possess value only as
a material for making lime. The people accordingly, by burning,
made lime out of it, and then, in order to make things outwardly
cheerful, used the lime as white-wash. But upon one point they were
all unanimous, and that was, that the next commodity they might select
to use as money should be something whose permanency of value did not
depend on elements capable of being suddenly affected by accidental
circumstances, or arbitrarily and easily changed by the devices of
those who desired to get their living without working for it.
But this experience of the islanders in reference to the originating
and using of money, although curious, has not been exceptional; for the
records of history show that men almost everywhere, in going through
the process of civilization, have had a greater or less measure of
the same experience. One particularly noteworthy illustration of this
is recorded in the "History of New York," by Diedrich Knickerbocker,
and in the manuscript records of the New York Historical Society. It
was in the days of Dutch rule--1659--in New Amsterdam (afterward New
York), when the common money in use was the so-called Indian money,
or "wampum;" which consisted "of strings of beads wrought of clams,
periwinkles, and other shell-fish. These had formed a simple currency
among the savages, who were content to take them of the Dutch in
exchange for peltries."
William Kieft was at that time governor, and being desirous of
increasing the wealth of New Amsterdam, and withal, as the historian
relates, somewhat emulous of Solomon (who made gold and silver as
plenty as stones in the streets of Jerusalem), he (the governor)
determined to accomplish his desire, and at the same time rival
Solomon by making this money of easy production the current coin of the
province. "It is true, it had an intrinsic value among the Indians,
who used it to ornament their robes and moccasins; but among the
honest burghers it had no more intrinsic value" than bits of bone,
rag, paper, or any other worthless material. "This consideration,
however, had no weight with Governor Kieft. He began by paying all
the servants of the company, and all the debts of the Government,
in strings of wampum. He sent emissaries to sweep the shores of Long
Island, which was the Ophir of this modern Solomon, and abounded in
shell-fish. These were transported in loads to New Amsterdam, coined
into Indian money, and launched into circulation."
"And now for a time affairs went on swimmingly. Money became as
plentiful as in the modern days of paper currency, and, to use a
popular phrase, 'a wonderful impulse was given to public prosperity.'"
Unfortunately for the success of Governor Kieft's scheme, the
Yankees on Connecticut River soon found that they could make wampum
in any quantity, with little labor and cost, out of oyster-shells, and
accordingly made haste to supply all the wampum that the wants of trade
in New Amsterdam required; buying with it every thing that was offered,
and paying the worthy Dutchmen their own price. Governor Kieft's money,
it is to be further noticed, had also in perfection that most essential
attribute of all good money, "non-exportability." Accordingly,
when the Dutchmen wanted any tin pans or wooden bowls of Yankee
manufacture, they had to pay for them in substantial guilders, or
other sound metallic currency; wampum being no more acceptable to
the Yankees in exchange than addled eggs, rancid butter, rusty pork,
rotten potatoes, or any other non-exportable Dutch commodity. [5]
The result of all this was, that in a little time the Dutchmen and
the Indians got all the wampum, and the Yankees all the beaver-skins,
Dutch herrings, Dutch cheeses, and all the silver and gold of the
province. Then, as might naturally have been expected, confidence
became impaired. Trade also came to a stand-still, and, to quote from
the old manuscript records, "the company is defrauded of her revenues,
and the merchants disappointed in making returns with which they
might wish to meet their engagements." It is safe to conclude that,
after this, the commodity made use of by the Dutchmen as money was
something less liable to have its value impaired than wampum.
The early settlers in East Tennessee also came to a similar conclusion,
after a somewhat similar experience. Raccoon-skins were in demand for
various purposes, and consequently were valuable. They accordingly
selected them for use as money. Opossum-skins, on the other hand, were
not in demand, and therefore had little value. Those of the settlers
who desired to discharge their obligations without giving a full
equivalent paid their taxes in opossum-skins to which coons' tails
were attached. The counterfeits having once got into the treasury,
could not be exported out of the treasury to meet the payments of
the State, and the use of coon-skins as currency came to an end.
But to return to the island. Although the first experience of the
islanders in selecting a commodity to be used as money had been
particularly unfortunate, the necessity of having some agency to serve
the purpose of money remained as great as before, and consequently
a new commodity had to be selected. Various people proposed various
things. Some proposed to use bananas, which were always desirable,
and, when good and ripe, were always exchangeable at a very constant
value; but their unfitness to be used as money was acknowledged as
soon as it was pointed out that bananas decayed very quickly after
they became most useful, and that therefore a man who had plenty of
money to-day might have none tomorrow, and that through no fault of
his own. [6] Wheat, cattle, and pieces of stamped iron were also
proposed, but all of these were found to be unsuitable in some
essential particular. Thus, for example, it was objected to wheat,
that, though it was almost always in demand, and represented a very
constant amount of labor for its production, it was too bulky to
carry about, and rarely had the same exact value one year as another;
to cattle, that it was impossible to divide up an ox, cutting off
the tail at one time and the ears at another, for the purpose of
making change, without destroying the value of the animal as a whole;
and that if cows in general were to be used as legal tender to pay
debts, the very poorest cow would very probably be selected from
the money-pen for such a purpose; [7] while, if iron were adopted as
money, and circulated at its current value, it might be necessary to
move about a ton to pay a debt of twenty or thirty dollars.
A peculiar kind of beads, made of blue glass, had come into use with
the women on the island as ornaments, and being greatly in demand,
small in bulk, and of most durable material, they were thought to
be peculiarly well fitted to serve the purpose of money. They were
accordingly adopted, and for a time fairly answered the purpose. But
all at once the women declared their continued use to be unfashionable;
and all use and demand for the beads at once ceasing, the merchants
and others who had accumulated a large stock of them, in exchange
for other commodities, at the same moment found that what they had
regarded as money had no longer any purchasing power or value, and
in consequence experienced great losses. Thereupon the community
concluded not to use blue glass beads any longer as money. [8]
How fast the people on the island, by reason of their varied
experience, educated themselves up to a knowledge of what constitutes
good money may be inferred from the following incident:
A portion of the inhabitants on the island were heathen, and, to defray
the expense of efforts to civilize and Christianize them, it was the
habit of certain good men to take advantage of the assembling of the
people from time to time to solicit and receive contributions for
such objects. It was observed, however, on such occasions that some
persons, either through ignorance of what constitutes money, or by
reason of great poverty, were in the habit of depositing commodities
in the hat which were not money; and the practice having been brought
to the attention of Robinson Crusoe (who generally presided at such
meetings), he is reported to have administered rebuke and instruction
in the following impressive manner:
"Before proceeding to take up our regular contribution for the
heathen," he said, "I would suggest to the congregation--and more
especially to those who sit in the gallery--that the practice of
putting into the hat commodities which are not money, more especially
buttons, shows a degree of ignorance respecting the uses of money on
the part of some in this community which I had not supposed possible,
after all our recent and varied experience on this subject. But if,
through ignorance or impecuniosity, any should feel obliged to continue
to contribute buttons in the place of money, I would request that
they do not stamp down or break off the eyes; inasmuch, as while by
so doing they utterly destroy the utility of these commodities as
buttons, and do not increase their desirability as money, they also
utterly fail to deceive the heathen; who, although ignorant of the
Gospel, and not using buttons for any purpose, are nevertheless,
as a general thing, good judges of currency."
CHAPTER VI.
GOLD, AND HOW THEY CAME TO USE IT.
Finally, time and circumstances helped the islanders to a solution of
their difficulties. A man, walking in a ravine one day, picked up a
small bright mass of shining metal. Although it had evidently lain
in the sand, been washed by the water, exposed to the atmosphere,
and rubbed against the rocks, nobody knows how long, it had a
remarkable brightness and color; and the more it was rubbed, the
brighter and more attractive it became. This little mass of metal,
which afterward came to be designated as gold, the man carried home
to his wife, who in turn was so much pleased with it that she hung
it by a string about her neck as an ornament. Its attractiveness of
course excited the desire of every other woman to have the same, and
a further search in the ravine resulted in the discovery of other
nuggets. Closer examination of the new metal also showed that it
possessed many other remarkable qualities besides brightness. It was
found it could easily be melted and cast, and also be readily molded
without heat by hammering and pressing; and that when so cast, molded,
and pressed, it persistently retained the shape and impression that
were given it. Further, that it could be drawn into the finest of
wire, hammered into the thinnest of plates and leaves, and be bent
and twisted to almost any extent without breaking; that an admixture
with it of the slightest impurity or alloy so immediately changed its
color, that color became to a very high degree a test of its purity;
[9] that fire, water, air, and almost all the agencies destructive
to other things, had comparatively little or no effect upon it;
that with the exception of size and weight, every piece, no matter
how small, possessed all the attributes of every other larger piece;
and that when any large piece was divided into a great number of
smaller pieces, these last, in turn, could be reunited without loss
or difficulty again into one whole. Of course, the discovery of all
these remarkable qualities united in one substance not only greatly
increased its utility, but at the same time greatly increased the
desire of every body to have it. In place of being worn in a rough
state as an ornament, it was converted into rings, bracelets, chains,
pins, etc. It was found to be almost indispensable for a great number
of mechanical and chemical purposes; and, finally, the charm for its
possession and desire for its use proved so overpowering that to many
it actually became almost an object of worship.
If a man was a Pagan, he felt that in no way could he so honor and
symbolize the god he worshiped as to fashion in gold the image of
that which he imagined; if he was a Christian, he chose gold for
the fabrication of his symbolic vessels and ornaments, as, of all
material things, the one which was most typical of purity, beauty,
durability, and worth. If a great government or a people desired
to commemorate the deeds of a hero or statesman, it impressed their
effigies in medals of gold; if a maxim was enunciated which by general
consent embodied the best rules of life, it was called golden; if
a law or precept was thought worthy of being kept in ever-present
remembrance before the people, it was emblazoned in letters of gold;
while for speech, prophecy, or poetry, this same metal has ever been
a never-failing source for the finest of comparisons and the most
attractive of figurative illustrations. In short, from the time of
its first discovery, among all nations, in all countries, with the
ignorant and the learned, the savage and the civilized, the rich and
the poor, the humble and the powerful, gold has always been, of all
material things, the one which most men have desired most; the one for
which, under most circumstances, they have been willing to exchange
all other material possessions, and for the sake of acquiring which,
even part with immaterial things of greater value--honor, creed,
morality, health, and even life itself.
Gold so becoming an object of universal desire to the people on the
island, and made exchangeable for all other things, it soon acquired
spontaneously a universal purchasing power, and from that moment
became Money.
This purchasing power was at first by no means fixed or constant. So
long as there was but a small quantity of gold, its purchasing power
was large. As the quantity extracted from the rocks or washed from
the sands became greater, and the wants of the people became more and
more satisfied, its purchasing power or value decreased; and if the
supply had continued, and the demand had been limited to the wants
of the island exclusively, its value in time would have undoubtedly
been no greater than copper or iron, and possibly not so great. But,
very curiously, an abundant supply did not continue. That which was
obtained first and with little labor proved to be the result of the
decay and washing of the rocks through long ages; and when the readily
accessible or surface deposits became exhausted, as was soon the
case, the conditions determining the supply of gold became altogether
different. On the one hand, there was no lack of gold. Instead of being
a very scarce metal, as was for a time supposed, it was found to be
so widely disseminated that the chemists and metallurgists readily
detected traces of gold in almost every extensive bed of clay and
sand they examined. [10]
But, on the other hand, experience also proved that to collect any
very considerable quantity of the metal required the expenditure not
only of a vast amount of most disagreeable and exhausting labor, but
also of a great quantity of other commodities. So that the people who,
at the outset, abandoned their various occupations of raising wheat,
making coats, building boats, baking bread, and constructing stone
walls and chimneys, and betook themselves to digging gold, soon
learned that, as a general rule, the results of a day's labor thus
employed purchased no more of useful or desirable commodities--meat,
drink, clothes, etc.--than the results of a similar amount of labor
exerted in the most ordinary occupations; and not a few even were
ready to assert, as the result of their individual experience, that
a man could do better for himself in the way of earning a living by
following any and every other occupation rather than that of seeking
for gold. [11] Accordingly, after trying it for a little while, the
most skilled laborers left the gold regions and went back to their
old occupations; and these, in turn, were followed by the unskilled
laborers in such numbers, that had it not been for the encouragement
growing out of the hope of suddenly enriching themselves through
the chance discovery of a great nugget (as sometimes happened),
the mines would have been entirely deserted. As it was, the supply
of gold greatly fell off, and, the demand for it remaining about the
same, the purchasing power of the stock on hand for other commodities
gradually increased, until it came about that the result of an average
day's labor in digging gold was found to buy more than the result of
an average day's labor in other occupations. But as soon as this was
observed, an additional supply of labor went back to gold-mining,
and continued to follow it, until an equalization of results from
effort in gold-digging and effort in other corresponding employments
was again established, as before related. And this interchange of
employments and equalization of results from labor went on, year by
year, until at last the people, as it were by instinct, found out that
a given quantity of gold represented more permanently a given amount
of a certain grade or kind of human labor or effort than any other
one substance. And the moment this fact became apparent, the people
on the island for the first time also clearly perceived that gold,
in addition to the universal exchanging quality or purchasing power
which it had before naturally acquired, from the circumstance that
every body from the time of its first discovery wanted it, had further
acquired two other attributes, which fitted it, above all things else,
to serve as money; namely, and first, that it had become a measure or
standard of value, by which, as by a yard-stick, the comparative value
of all other commodities might be measured or estimated; and, second,
that its value or purchasing power was so constant and continuously
inherent in itself, even under circumstances when the value of most
other commodities would be destroyed, that the greatest security or
guarantee which any person owning gold could possibly have of its
remaining valuable to him for any length of time was, that the owner
should simply keep possession of it.
By no portion of people on the island was this last attribute regarded
so much in the light of a blessing as by the poor old men and women. As
a general rule, they earned but little more than sufficed to support
them, and they were therefore always naturally very anxious lest what
little they saved should be impaired in value or made worthless by
keeping, before the time when they might especially need it to pay for
doctors and medicine, or insure them a decent burial. The cowry money,
which had before represented their hard toil and personal deprivation,
had turned out, on keeping, to be only worthless shells; the bead
money had become valueless when it became unfashionable; the cattle
money had to be fed every day to keep it from experiencing a heavy
discount, and penned up every night to prevent it from walking off;
the wheat money was always liable to be injured by damp or devoured
by vermin; while twenty pounds of pig-iron had proved too heavy
for their old limbs to carry to the store every time they wanted
to purchase a little cloth or tobacco. But here was something at
last which completely satisfied the necessities of their situation,
and enabled them to feel certain that, whether they buried it in the
ground, where it was always damp and moldy; or put it in the chimney,
where it was always hot and smoky; or lived at one end of the island
among the heathen, or at the other end among the Christians, would
always, year in and year out, buy about the same average quantity of
all sorts of things; and which, when offered in payment for services
or commodities, to the doctor, lawyer, merchant, druggist, undertaker,
mason, or tailor; to the Yankee, Irish, Dutch, Turk, or Hindoo; to
the governor of Ohio, or a senator from Indiana, did not require any
of them to look in a book, examine a law, read the Bible, or hunt up
the resolutions of the last Congress or political convention, to tell
how much it was worth, or whether it was safe to take and keep it.
There was a very wise man on the island who objected to the use of
gold as money, for the reason that he felt afraid that the poor old
women who wanted to feel certain of having always something of reliable
value in their possession would fill their old stockings with it and
hoard it. [12] But he was soon shut up by some one asking him, why,
if the old women wanted to keep something by them perfectly secure
against a rainy day, and slept better nights because they knew they
had it, they shouldn't be allowed that privilege? and if there could
be any possible reason why any one should object to the old women
hoarding gold, except that he wanted to cheat and wrong the poor by
compelling them to keep their hard-earned savings in something whose
value was not certain, and which might have no value whatever when
it came time to pay the doctor or the undertaker?
When the people on the island first began to use gold as money, they
carried it around with them in the form in which it was first found;
the fine dust or scales inclosed in quills, and the nuggets in bags;
or they melted and hammered it into large lumps and bars; [13] and,
as the purchasing power of the gold was always proportioned to its
weight and purity, every body carried round with him small scales
and tests with which he proved the gold before making exchanges with
it (the same as is customary at the present day in China). But this
method involved great inconveniences; and although the statement of a
person of recognized honesty that he had proved the value of the gold
he offered in payment was generally accepted, it was nevertheless
recognized that there was no more unfairness or discourtesy in the
claim of the grocer to test the quality of the money of his customer by
scales and acids, than there was in the claim of the customer to test,
by tasting, the salt and sugar of the grocer. As might be inferred,
therefore, it often required a good deal of time to complete the most
ordinary exchanges, and people everywhere complained about it and
wrote letters to the newspapers. Merchants who were very cautious
and particular, irritated their customers, and got the reputation
of being very exacting and distrustful; while merchants who had but
little capital and wanted to get business, advertised they would take
gold on the simple word of their customers. But it was observed of
the last, that, owing to being constantly cheated, they all, sooner
or later, failed. At last the difficulty was remedied by a series of
happy circumstances.
Robinson Crusoe had, some years before this, died, at a good old age,
as had also Will Atkins, and all the sailors who had come with him
to the island from other countries; so that there were none now on
the island who had ever known any thing about or ever seen any coined
money. In making some public improvements, however, a party of workmen
one day broke into the old cave in which Crusoe had first lived when
he escaped from the shipwreck, and there, in the dirt beneath the
floor, were discovered the three great bags of money which Crusoe
had found in the chest, and in his disgust had buried and utterly
forgotten. Every body at once recognized the metal to be gold, and
was perfectly willing to exchange other commodities for it with the
finders, the same as he was willing to do for any other gold. But
why it should be in the form of flat round disks, and stamped with
inscriptions and images, was something that puzzled every body; and
the Antiquarian and Philosophical Society called a special meeting
to discuss the subject. Some, looking to only one side of the pieces,
thought they were medals struck to commemorate some distinguished man,
or a woman, whose name often appeared to be "Liberty." Others, who
looked only at the other side, thought they were intended to signalize
a great contest between the lion and the unicorn, or to make the people
familiar with the peculiarities of some unnatural bird or beast, which,
as it was not like any thing either in the heavens, or on the earth,
or in the waters under the earth, it might not be sinful to worship.
At last, after the flat disks or coins had been for some time in
circulation, and the community had found out, by repeatedly weighing
and testing them, that each disk represented a constant weight of
gold of uniform purity, the idea came at once to every one that the
only use of the fanciful images and inscriptions on the disks was to
officially testify to the fact of their uniformity of weight and value;
and then every body wondered that he could have been so stupid as not
to have before recognized the idea and adopted it, in place of every
man weighing, cutting up, and testing his gold every time he desired
to part with or receive it in making an exchange. An arrangement was
accordingly at once made for a public establishment--afterward called
a mint--to which every person who so desired could bring his gold and
receive it back again after it had been divided into suitable pieces of
determinate weight and fineness; the fact that the weight and fineness
of each piece had been so proved being indicated by appropriate marks
upon the metal. And in this manner "coined money" first came into use
on the island. And by this time, also, the money which Robinson Crusoe
found in the chest, and which, when it first came into his possession,
had neither utility, value, nor use as a standard, or measure of value,
had gradually acquired all these several attributes: utility, when the
material of which it was composed became capable of satisfying some
human desire for it, as an ornament, as a symbol of worship, or for
some mechanical or chemical purpose; value (the sole result of labor),
when it became an object of or equivalent in exchange, or acquired a
power of purchasing other things; a standard, or measure of value,
when its purchasing power, by reason of various circumstances, was
found to be, if not absolutely permanent, at least more permanent,
on the average, than that of any other commodity.
The conversion of money into coin was something purely artificial, and
the result of law, or statute enactments, the sole object of which was
simply to make the money (previously in use) true and in the highest
degree convenient. But, as has already been pointed out, money came
into use in the first instance without statute, and was the result,
as it were, of men's instincts; and the subsequent choice by them
of gold, in preference to any other commodities for use as money,
was for reasons similar to those which induced men to choose silk,
wool, flax, and cotton as materials for clothing; and stone, brick,
and timber as materials for houses. It was the thing best adapted to
supply the want needed.
The introduction and use of coined money at once gave an impetus
to business, and made the people richer, because it saved time and
labor in making exchanges, and relieved every man from the trouble
and expense of buying and carrying round with him scales and other
tests. The only persons dissatisfied were the scale-makers, who found
their business almost destroyed, and they petitioned the authorities
to have their interests protected by the enactment of a law compelling
all persons to weigh their coins with scales before exchanging, as
formerly they did their gold. But, as every body at once saw that the
effect of such a law would be equivalent to compelling all exchangers
to do useless work, the petition amounted to nothing.
For convenience in speaking and writing, also, each piece of gold or
coin of determinate weight and fineness regularly issued by the mint
received a particular name and had a particular device impressed on
it. Thus, for example, the piece of lowest denomination, containing
25.8 grains of standard gold, which had on it a likeness of Crusoe's
old and faithful servant, was called a "Friday;" a piece of ten times
its weight and value, with a small portrait of the founder of the
island community, was called a "Crusoe;" and a piece of double the
weight of the last, or twenty times the weight of the first, with
a large portrait on it, was called a "Robinson Crusoe" or a "double
Crusoe." Some time after, when the island became generally known to the
rest of the world, it was found that these coins exactly corresponded
in weight, fineness, and value with those adopted in that foreign
country called the United States, and there known under the names of
the gold dollar, eagle, and double-eagle; and after a time, for the
purpose of favoring the development of civilization and assimilating
nationalities by the adoption of a common monetary standard, it was
agreed to discard all local sentiments, and to substitute the latter
names for the former.
CHAPTER VII.
HOW THE ISLANDERS DETERMINED TO BE AN HONEST AND FREE PEOPLE.
Next came the consideration of the laws regulating the exchanges and
the use of money. Some people wanted laws enacted that every person
should be obliged to sell and part with any thing he owned, provided
a nominal or real equivalent in what the State should declare money
should be offered him; and, also, that when any person had bought
commodities and services of another, and had promised to pay for them
after a time, he might fully discharge the obligation by tendering
that which the State said was money, no matter whether in the mean
time the persons in charge of the mint had, for any reasons, taken
out one-half the valuable gold in the coins, and substituted in its
place comparatively worthless lead.
But, to the honor of the islanders, these propositions met with little
favor. They said, we mean to be an honest and also a free people; and,
therefore, every one in buying or selling shall do exactly what he
has agreed to do; unless, by reason of some unforeseen or unavoidable
circumstances, he is absolutely unable to perform his agreement or
contract. And they said, further, that if any one receives commodities
and services, and promises to give, five years or five minutes
afterward, in return, an agreed-upon quality and quantity of gold,
wheat, cod-fish, or cabbages, it shall be considered, as in truth
it is, dishonest to attempt to discharge the obligation by offering
pig-iron in the place of gold, pease or beans in the place of wheat,
soft-shell crabs in the place of cod-fish, or pumpkins in the place
of cabbages; and any community which shall in any way sanction any
such evasion of the letter or spirit of its obligations can have no
rightful claim to call itself an honest, Christian people; and if any
community enacts and maintains laws compelling any person to receive
in exchange, or in pay for his services or products, something which
he did not agree to and would not otherwise receive, such a community
has no rightful claim to call itself a free community. The people
on the island, therefore, decided that they would allow the island
authorities to interfere with exchanges to this extent only: that the
medium of exchange and measure of values that they had adopted and
called a Friday, or a dollar, should always and under all circumstances
contain 25.8 grains of standard gold; that this standard should never
be departed from; and that although no one should be compelled to
use it, yet whenever any one talked about or promised to pay or give
money, without specifying whether the money should be wampum money,
bead money, cattle money, gold money, or any other particular kind of
money, the money issued by the acknowledged authorities of the island
should be understood and accepted as what was meant. In short, like
sensible men, the islanders concluded that as long as they maintained
in common use a real, good, and true money, which carried on its face
evidence (easily read and known of all men) of its value or purchasing
power, there was little use of cumbering up the statute-book with any
thing about legal tender. They would leave that to other people wiser
than they were, who desired to use money that would not circulate,
except it had some artificial power or agency back of it to make it go.
After this, every thing for a time pertaining to trade and commerce
went on very smoothly on the island. It is true there were bad persons
who obtained commodities and services on credit for which they never
intended to pay; careless and extravagant persons who bought more
than they were able to pay for; and foolish and oversanguine people
who, after having by labor and economy accumulated a good store of
commodities, exchanged them for shares in enterprises which never
could pay. And when people by one or more of such methods lost the
results of their hard labor and toil, they naturally felt depressed,
lost confidence in their fellow-men, and thought times and things
might be improved by turning all those in office out, and putting
new men in. But no one on the island ever for a moment imagined
that there was any way to honestly replace the money they had lost,
except by acquiring through industry and economy a new store of useful
commodities with which to buy money; and no one who ever had any thing
to sell which others in the community wanted, and were able to give
in return a fair equivalent, ever found himself in want of money or
a market; while, on the other hand, no one who had nothing to sell
which the community wanted
|
house, just big enough for
us and them, somewhere, wherever you would like, Edward.’
‘I shall like what you like,’ he said.
‘But that is not what I wish at all; I want you to tell me what will
please _you_. You would like to be within reach of the great libraries,
within reach of what is going on. No one can write what is to live
without being within reach----’
He shook his head. ‘You are too partial in your estimate of what I am
likely to do; so long as I am within reach of you--and thank God nothing
can put me out of that!--I don’t know that I care for anything more.’
‘That is what I should say, Edward,’ she said, with some vehemence, ‘not
you. Do you think I am such a silly woman as to wish you to be entirely
occupied with me? No, no; that is the woman’s part.’
‘Well,’ he said, with his usual soft laugh, ‘mine is the feminine
_rôle_, you know, to a great extent. Fortunately, my disposition quite
chimes in with it.’
‘What do you mean by the feminine _rôle_?’
‘My love, I don’t mean anything. I mean that life was too many for me
when you and I were parted. I was the divided half, don’t you know, “of
such a friendship as had mastered time.” Being sundered from my mate,
time mastered me: I took to floating, as you don’t like to do, even on
the lake.’
‘Edward,’ she cried, ‘if anything could make it more dreadful to me to
think of that time, it would be hearing you speak so.’
‘Don’t,’ he said, ‘there is no occasion; after all, neither time nor
anything else masters one if it is not in one’s nature. You think too
well of me, Carry. Some people are made to float.’
‘And what was I then?’ she said. ‘I was swept away. I could not resist
the force against me. It was worse for me, oh! far worse, Edward, than
for you. I was caught by the torrent: there was no floating in my case.
Perhaps you will say I was made to be carried away.’
‘My darling,’ he said, ‘that’s all over and past. Don’t let us think of
what is done with. Here we are now, two people, not very old, quite able
to enjoy all the good things of this life, and who have got them, thank
Heaven! in a large share. What would you and I have attained with all
the fighting possible, compared to the happiness of being together,
having each other’s constant company? And we have got that, with many
pretty things besides,’ he added, with his gentle laugh.
Lady Car felt the words like a flood pouring to her lips, but she was
silent; how could she speak? Did it never occur to him how these pretty
things were attained--how it was that he and she sat out here by this
window looking out upon Lake Leman and the moonlight in circumstances
such as only rich people can secure, both of them to start with being so
poor--how it was that they had been able to wander about together, a
pair of lovers, for years, with all the accessories of happiness as well
as the happiness itself? She clasped her slight fingers together till
the pressure hurt; but she said nothing, having nothing--having far too
much to say. Such thoughts had glanced across her mind before, faintly,
for a moment. She could not have told why they had become so much more
vivid now. It was, no doubt, because of the change which was about to
take place in their life, the giving up of the wandering, the settling
down. Her thoughts carried her away altogether as she sat gazing out
with vacant eyes at the lake and the moonlight, forgetting where she was
and that she had an answer to make to the question addressed to her. At
last her husband’s gentle voice, so refined and soft, startled her back
to the reality of the moment.
‘You don’t say anything, Carry. If I were of a jealous temper I might
ask whether, perhaps, you were beginning to doubt? but I don’t, I don’t,
my love; you need not defend yourself. We both know that is the best
that life could give us, and it has come to us almost without an effort.
Isn’t it so? For my part, I’ve got all I want, and the rest of the
circumstances are indifferent to me--where we live or what we do--you in
my house and my home--and my occupation--and my content. I want no
more.’
Could anything be said more sweet to a woman? According to all the
conventionalities, no--according to many of the most natural feelings,
no. What could be better than each other’s constant society, to be
together always, to share everything, to own no thought that was not
within the charmed circle of their happiness? As he said these words
slowly, with little pauses between, she took in all the sweetness of
them, with a commentary in her mind that was not sweet, an impatience
which scarcely could be controlled, a blank sensation as of
impossibility which held back the impatience. Was there not something
more to be said--something more?
Mr. Beaufort had lit his cigarette, which was so habitual to him, so
completely the breath of his reflective leisure and gentleness and calm,
that the most sensitive of women could not have objected to it; nothing
so aggressive as a cigar ever touched his lips, as little as any lady
could he tolerate a pipe. The little curl of blue smoke, the pungent but
aromatic odour, the very attitude of the shapely hand holding it, were
characteristic. The smoke curled softly upwards from his soft brown
beard and moustache. He was a very handsome man, handsomer in his way
than Carry, whose nose was a trifle too long and her mobile lips a
trifle too thin. She was, indeed, a little too thin altogether, whereas
he was perfect in the fullness of his manhood, just over forty, but as
young and strong as, and enjoying his youth and strength more than, at
twenty-five. She looked at him and was silent. Is not a man better than
a woman at that age above all? Is not he more likely to have discovered
the real secret of life? Was not he better able to judge than Carry, a
creature who had never been wise, who had been hurried, passive, through
so many horrors, and dragged out of a tragedy of awful life, to be
landed at last on this pleasant shore? Surely, seeing it must be so, her
troubled mind made a wild circle from the point where they had parted
until this, when they were one, and for a moment, in the dimness behind
his chair, it seemed to Lady Car that she saw a spectre rise. She almost
thought a shadowy face looked at her over Beaufort’s head--a face
black-browed, with big, light, fiery eyes, burning as she had often
seen them burn--the same eyes that were closed in sleep in little
Janet’s crib--the same that sometimes gloomed out from her little boy’s
dark countenance. Her faithful recollection made his picture on the air
while Beaufort took dainty puffs of his cigarette. He had no such ghost
to daunt him, his memory was pure and calm, while hers was filled with
that dreadful shadow, and with reason, for without that shadow this
happiness could never have been. What a thought for a woman--what a
thought! and to think that it should never once cross the imagination of
the man who was enjoying all the other had lost--all and so much more,
and that but for the other this happiness could never have been!
These thoughts came like a wave over Carry while she sat with her
fingers clasped tight, arrested, dumb, incapable of any reply. What a
blessed thing that even one’s nearest and dearest cannot divine the
quick thoughts that come and go, the visions that flash across us, while
we sit by their side and reveal nothing! If Beaufort could have seen
that black-browed spectre, and realised all that Torrance had brought
for him, would he have maintained that attitude of thoughtful leisure,
that calm of assured satisfaction and happiness? To be sure he did know;
there was no secret in it; everybody knew. There was nothing wrong, no
guilt, nothing to blush for. The shame was all fanciful, as was that
sense of her husband’s strange obtuseness and want of perception which
had seized upon Carry, as if they had been horrible things, when they
were quite innocent, natural things, which she ought to have most
desired for him. It was curious, too, to think that between two people
who loved each other so, who were so entirely in sympathy, one could be
so unimpressed by the feelings of the other; that the air should be so
full for her of ghosts, of passion, and misery past, of the strange,
horrible thought that it was by those passions and miseries that she had
purchased both for him and herself this calm, and yet that he should
divine nothing, but think it only a light question of locality, of
where to settle down, of a desirable neighbourhood! Apparently the
lightness of the decision they had to make, its entirely unimportant
character, struck him as he lay back in his chair with his face towards
the lake and the moonlight, and the faint blue curl of fragrant smoke
rising in the air. ‘I’ll tell you what we’ll do,’ he said suddenly, with
a laugh, ‘to facilitate this tremendous decision. We’ll take a
succession of houses in different places, and find out by experiment
which we like best.’
She brought herself back to the triviality of the discussion with a
gasp, as if she had fallen, and with a great effort to dismiss those
other thoughts. ‘But that would be no better than travelling,’ she said,
‘of which I am a little tired. I want a home of my own, a house which
belongs to no one else,’ she added, with a slight shiver, ‘but you and
me, Edward, no ghosts of other people in it.’
‘Do you call their little pictures ghosts?’ he said, looking round at
the dim walls, which were hung with portraits of the Swiss family to
whom the villa belonged; ‘not lovely ones certainly, but quite innocent.
Then, Carry my love, do just as you please. I shall come with you, like
Tom and Janet, to see the new place. If you choose one that’s very ugly
and out of the way, we will all protest. But, so far as I am concerned,
it can’t be ugly while you are there,’ he said, putting his hands upon
hers with a tender pressure. Then added, with a look of solicitude,
putting away the cigarette, ‘Why, you are in a fever, Carry. Your poor
little hands are like fire. I hope you haven’t taken cold on the lake.’
‘I never take cold,’ she said, smiling. ‘I suppose it is mere silliness,
thinking that this time is over, and that we are going back to the
world.’
‘If that vexes you, my darling, don’t let us go back to the world.’
‘Edward, you make me wild, you are so indifferent! You speak as if
nothing mattered, as if we could go on and just please ourselves and
think of nothing else for ever.’
‘Well, my love, I tell you nothing matters to me except yourself, and I
don’t think the world would mind much. But don’t be vexed, Carry. I know
the boy must go to school and all the rest of it. We’ll do our duty like
men--I mean like women, which is far more thorough. And, for my part,
I’m not a bit afraid of the world. Even London I can face quite
tranquilly with you by my side, especially as at this time of the year
there’s nobody there.’
‘Oh, Edward!’ she said, with a tender exasperation; ‘it is very soothing
to be everything in the world to the man you love; and yet----’
CHAPTER III
They all came home, as people say--though it was no home to which they
were coming, and they had been very much at home in their Swiss villa,
notwithstanding the portraits of the Swiss owners of the place on all
the walls. It is very delightful after a long absence to come home when
that familiar place is open and waiting for you, and the children run
about the rooms in a tumult of joy, recognising everything, and you
settle into your old chair, in your old corner, as if you had never been
away. It is quite a different thing when a family comes home to settle
down. Looking for a house is apt to be a weary operation, and a small
house in London in autumn, in the meantime, is not very gay. But, on the
other hand, in October London is not the dismal place it often appears
to the stranger: there are still days of bright and sunny weather; the
brown grass in the parks has begun to recover itself a little, the trees
grow red and yellow, and lend a little light of their own to supplement
the skies. Though St. James’s Park is rarely more than in monotone, like
a drawing in sepia, the wider breadths between the Marble Arch and Hyde
Park Corner are brighter, and there is a little stir in the air of
people coming back. It was rather a depressed and downcast family party
that arrived after a brief but rough crossing of the Channel and all the
wear and tear of the journey--Lady Car very pale, with lines on her
forehead that showed all the freshly awakened anxiety with which the
sight of her native country, involving, as it did, the renewing of many
responsibilities and of life in its commonplace aspect after a long
holiday, had filled her; little Janet, very fretful and tired, almost
paler than her mother, with her black brow and black hair, and big blue
lips accentuating the whiteness of her face; Tom, distracted with the
confinement and the impossibility of any play or commotion beyond that
which could be carried on within the limited space of a railway
carriage, exasperated and exasperating; and an attendant group of tired
maids, rendered half frantic by his pranks and the impossibility of
keeping him in order. Mr. Beaufort had an immense superiority amid this
group. He had not turned a hair, the rough crossing had no effect upon
him. He was very kind to little Janet, who had succumbed, and was
quietly miserable, lying on a bench, and he took the tenderest care of
his wife, who never at the worst moment lost her air of distinction or
was humbled to a common level even by the waves of the Channel. His tall
figure, in a long ulster, with his fine brown beard blowing a little in
the wind, his cigarette always giving forth a curl of dainty smoke, was
a comfort to see, even at a distance, facing the breeze at the other end
of the ship. Tom, who would not be kept down, clung to his stepfather,
whom on other occasions he showed no great love for, trotting after him,
standing in his shelter, with little legs set well apart, and now and
then a clutch at the ulster to steady himself, characteristically
selecting the most sturdy member of the party to hold by. When the party
tumbled into the hotel in the winterly evening, half dazed with fatigue,
Beaufort was still the master of the situation. He was quite fresh and
self-possessed. Coming back to England, which oppressed Lady Car with so
many thoughts, did not affect him any more than crossing to Paris, or to
Vienna, or to any other capital. The fact of beginning a new chapter of
existence did not affect him. He felt it, indeed, to be no new chapter
of existence, only a continuance of the former. He was pleased enough to
arrive, not sorry to end the wandering, glad enough to settle down. It
meant rather rest to him than any excitement of a new beginning. He was
half amused at and altogether indulgent and tolerant of Carry’s fancy
about not going to her own house. It was, perhaps, a little absurd, for
Scotland, of course, was the right place to go to at this time of the
year; and to look for a new house in a new place, when a house that
belongs to you, in the most eligible position, is standing vacant, was,
no doubt, a strange caprice. But if that was how she felt, far should it
be from him to cross her. He was not a great sportsman. A day or two’s
shooting, even a week or two, perhaps, could not harm any man, but he
did not very much care if he never touched a gun. Still it was so
obvious that it was the natural place to go to. He smiled to himself as
he walked to the club after dinner, taking himself off that she might
get to bed, to the rest she wanted so much, at this caprice of hers.
Dear Carry, if it had been a much greater matter, so far as he was
concerned, she should have her way; but he allowed to himself, with a
smile, that it was a little silly. When you have been married for a time
you are able to allow this without any derogation to your divinity. He
admired and loved her as much as a man could do, but it was a pleasure
to feel that a little indulgence had to be exercised, to mingle now and
then with his chivalrous reverence and love. He would do nothing to
cross her. She should get her house where she pleased, furnish it--with
some aid from his own taste--how she pleased, and be happy as she would.
He smiled as he walked along the familiar streets; it was a pleasure to
be in London again. It was a pleasure to be so well off, he who had
often been poorly enough off, doubtful sometimes whether he could afford
to order his dinner at the club. All that was over now, and he had no
objection to owe it to his wife. What did it matter which of them had
the money? Had he possessed it, how gladly would he have spent it upon
Carry, to give her everything that heart could desire! This is, when one
comes to think of it, the real generosity, the most noble way of taking
such a matter. To think that it was not Carry’s money, but the money of
Torrance, that made everything so comfortable for them, happily did not
dwell in his mind as it did in hers. He did not even think of it--it was
so of course, and of course she had purchased this competence which she
shared with her second husband by being an excellent wife to the
previous husband, and winning his trust and confidence. Mr. Beaufort
luckily did not feel that there was any reason for dwelling upon that
side of the question.
Next morning the whole party was revived and cheerful. The children,
when they burst into the room, after a long enforced waiting in the
temporary nursery which looked to the back, and from which they saw
nothing but chimneys and the backs of other houses, rushed to the large
window of the room in which Lady Car was breakfasting, with a scream of
pleasure. To look out upon the busy road full of carriages and people,
and the trees and space of Hyde Park beyond, delighted them. Little Tom
stood smacking the whip which was his perpetual accompaniment, and
making ejaculations. ‘Oh, I say! What lots and lots of people! There’s a
pony! but he can’t ride a bit, that fellow on it. Where’s he going to
ride? What’s inside those gates? is it a palace or is it a park, or what
is it? I say, Beau!--what a liar he is, Jan! he said there was nobody
in London--and there’s millions!’
‘Tom,’ said Lady Car; ‘if you say such things you will be sent away.’
‘Let him talk,’ said Beaufort; ‘he is quite right from his point of
view. You must remember, Tom, that, though you’re a clever fellow, you
don’t know everything; and there may be millions of people in London
though there’s nobody.’
They both turned upon him incredulous faces, with that cynicism of
childhood which is as remarkable as its trust, overawed by a sense of
his superior knowledge, yet quite unconvinced of his good faith. Their
faces were very like each other--rather large and without colour, their
eyebrows shaggy and projecting, their large round eyes _à fleur de
tête_. Janet’s little red mouth, which was her pretty feature, was open
with suspicion and wonder. Tom’s bore an expression of half-assumed
scorn. He was a little afraid of ‘Beau,’ and had an alarmed belief in
him, at the bottom of much doubt of his meaning and resistance
generally.
‘You seem to have a great budget of correspondence this morning, Car.’
‘From the house-agents; there seem to be houses to be had everywhere.
Instead of any difficulty in finding one, we shall only be troubled
where to choose. What do you say to Richmond? the river is so lovely,
and the park so delightful for the children, and----’
‘If Tom is going to school, as I suppose he is, there will only be one
child to consider, and little Jan is not _difficile_.’
‘Am I going to school, mother?’ Tom faced round again suddenly from the
window and stood against the light with his legs apart, a very square,
solid little form to reckon with.
‘You must, my dear boy; your education has been kept back so long. To be
sure, he knows French,’ said Carry, with a wistful look at her husband,
seeking approval, ‘which so few boys of his age do.’ Mr. Beaufort had
considered that it would be advantageous for Tom to be at school before
now.
‘I don’t mind,’ said the boy. ‘I like it. I want to go. I hated all
those French fellows--but they’re different here.’
‘The first thing they will ask you at Eton is whether you will take a
licking,’ said Beaufort; ‘that was how it was in my day.’
‘I won’t,’ cried Tom; ‘not if it was the biggest fellow in the school.
Did you, Beau?’
‘I can’t remember, it’s so long ago,’ said the stepfather. ‘No, not
Richmond, if you please, Car; it’s pretty, but it’s cockney. Sunday
excursions spoil all the places about London.’
‘Windsor? One would still have the river within reach, and rides in the
forest without end.’
‘Windsor still less, Carry my love. It’s a show place. Royal persons
always coming and going, and crowds to stare at them. If you love me,
no.’
‘That’s a large argument, Edward. We should not live in the town, of
course, and to see the Queen driving about would always be a little
excitement.’
‘Does she drive in a big umbrella like the gentlemen upon the omnibus?’
said Janet, whose eyes had been caught by that wonder. Tom had seen it
too, and was full of curiosity, but kept his eye upon Beaufort to see
whether he would laugh at the question.
‘Much grander, with gold fringe and a little royal standard flying from
the top,’ said Beaufort gravely. ‘You know the Doge at Venice always had
an umbrella, and other great princes.’
Tom stared very steadily, with his big, round eyes, to watch for the
suspicion of a smile, but, seeing none, ventured, with a little
suppressed doubt and defiance of the possibly ‘humbugging’ answer, ‘Who
are the men on the omnibuses? They can’t all be princes; they’re just
like _cochers_,’ cried Tom.
‘Don’t you trust to appearances, my boy. Did you never hear that the
greatest swells drove mail coaches? Not Windsor, Car, not Windsor.’
‘Surrey, Edward? Guildford, Haslemere, Dorking--somewhere in that
direction?’
‘At Dorking we should be in the way of the battle, Tom.’
‘I should like that,’ cried the boy; ‘and I suppose _you_ can fire a
gun, Beau,’ he added, after a moment’s hesitation, scrutinising his
stepfather closely, glad to have the chance of one insult, but something
afraid of the response.
‘Tom!’ cried his mother, in a warning tone.
‘More or less,’ said Beaufort languidly; ‘enough to hit a Dutchman if
there was one before me--you know they’re very broad. At Guildford
people are buried on the top of a hill for the sake of the view. Yes, I
think Surrey would do.’
‘Am I to go to Eton straight off, mother--is that in Surrey? I want to
go a good long way off. I don’t want to be near home. You would be
coming to see me, and Jan, and kiss me, and call me “Tom,” and make the
other fellows laugh.’
‘What should you be called but Tom?’ said Lady Car, with a smile.
‘Torrance!’ cried the child with pride, as who should say Plantagenet.
She had been looking at him, smiling, but at this utterance of the boy
Lady Car started and turned burning red, then coldly pale. Why should
she? Nothing could be more fantastic, more absurd, than the feeling. She
had done no harm in making a second marriage, in which she had found
happiness, after the first one, which had brought nothing but misery.
She had offended against no law, written or unwritten. She had wiped out
Torrance and his memory, and all belonging to him (except his money),
for years. Why should the name which she had once borne, which was
undeniably her son’s name, affect her so deeply now? The smile became
fixed about the corner of her mouth, but the boy, of course, understood
nothing of what was passing in his mother’s mind, though he stared at
her a little as if he did, increasing her confusion. ‘The fellows never
call a fellow by his christened name,’ said Tom, great in the
superiority of what he had learned from various schoolboys on their
travels. These were things, he was aware, which of course women didn’t
know.
‘You’d better come and have a stroll with me, Master Tom,’ said
Beaufort. ‘I’ll show you Piccadilly, which is always something; as for
the park, you wouldn’t care for it: there are no riders in the Row now.
You see, as I told you, there’s nobody in London. Come, get your hat,
quickly.’
‘Me too,’ said little Janet, with a pout of her small mouth.
‘Not any ladies to-day, only two fellows, as Tom says, taking a stroll
together.’
‘In a moment, Beau!’ cried Tom, delighted, rushing to get his hat. ‘I
told you, Jan, old Beau’s a gentleman--sometimes,’ the boy added, as his
sister ran after him to see what arrangements of her own she could make
to the same end.
‘You are very good to them, Edward--oh! very good. How can I ever thank
you?’ said Lady Car, with tears in her eyes. Her nerves had been a
little shaken by that shock, and by the vain perception that stole over
her of two parties in the family, two that would become more distinctly
two by the progress of years, unlike in nature and constitution, and
even in name. It is not necessary to insist upon the family name of
children travelling with their mother. No one had been much the wiser
during these years of wandering. But Tom’s ‘Torrance!’ was a revelation,
and opened before her possibilities unknown.
‘Good, am I? That’s all right, that’s something to the credit side, but
I was not aware of it,’ said Beaufort, in his easy way; ‘all the same,’
he added, laughing, ‘Master Tom will want looking after if we are to
make anything of him. He will want a tight hand, which, I fear, does not
belong either to you or me.’
It cost Lady Car a pang to hear even this mild expression of opinion
about her boy. A mother says many things, and feels many things, about
her children which no one else may say before her. She looked at him
wistfully, with a faint smile, which was full of pain. ‘He is only a
child,’ she said, apologetically, ‘and then he will get that at school.’
She could not contradict him, and she could not argue with him. Poor
little Tom! he was her own, though he might not be all she wished him to
be--the plea rose to her lips unconsciously that he was fatherless, that
he had drawbacks to contend against, poor child. What a plea to form
even unconsciously in her mind! She looked at her husband with such a
troubled and wistful appeal that his heart smote him. He laid his hand
upon her head caressingly, and stooped to kiss her.
‘To be sure,’ he said; ‘the boy will be all right, Car. He has plenty of
spirit, and that is the best thing, after all. Ready, Tom? Come along,
then. I’m ready too.’
Lady Car followed him with her wistful eyes. They were not full of
admiring delight, as when a mother watches her children going out with
their father, proud of both him and them, and of their love for each
other. What it must be to have a life without complications, full of
unity, in which a woman can feel like that! Carry longed to whisper in
her child’s ear, to bid him, oh! to be good, to mind what Beau said to
him, to behave like a gentleman to one who was so kind--so kind! But she
had to let him go without that warning, fearing that he would be
disrespectful, and come back in disgrace, though Edward was so gentle
with him, and never complained, except to say that he would want a tight
hand. How well she knew that he wanted a tight hand! and how certain she
was that it was not from her he would get that needful restraint! And
from whom, then? At school, from some master who would know nothing
about him, nor give him credit for the complications in his lot, his
having no father. Perhaps, she said to herself in her troubled thoughts,
it is better for a boy to have any kind of a father than no father at
all. His father would have flogged him, had no mercy upon him, taught
him to swear and swagger, and ride wild horses, and run wild about the
country. Would that have been better? She stopped, with a shudder,
unable to pursue the question. Better--oh heavens! But for her what
would it have been? She turned to meet little Janet’s large eyes fixed
upon her, and started with alarm and a kind of horror. It seemed to her
that the child must have read her thoughts.
‘Are you cold, mozer?’ Janet said. Though she was eight, she had still
difficulties with the ‘th,’ difficulties perhaps rather of a foreigner
than a child.
‘No, dear,’ said Lady Car, again shuddering, but smiling upon the little
girl. ‘It is not at all cold.’
‘Mozer, take me out with you, since Tom has gone with Beau. I don’t want
to go out with nurse. I want to be wiz you.’
‘Dear,’ said Carry, wooing her little daughter for a favourable reply
with soft caresses, ‘isn’t Beau kind to Tom? Don’t you love Beau?’
The child searched her face, as children do, in an unconscious but
penetrating search for motives unknown. Janet saw that her mother was
wistful and unassured, though she did not probably know how to name
these motives. ‘I do well enough,’ she said. ‘I don’t think of him.
Mozer, take me out with you.’
And this was all that could be got out of Janet. The black brow and the
dark hair made her look so much more resolute and determined than usual
that poor Carry was almost afraid of her little girl, and believed that
she hid beneath that careless answer thoughts and feelings which were
quite determined and well-assured.
CHAPTER IV
The house was found after a great many not unpleasurable
researches--little expeditions, now and then, which Lady Caroline and
her husband took together, with reminiscences of their first honeymoon
travels, which had been so sweet. She forgot, as a woman is so ready to
do, all the little deceptions and disappointments of the intervening
years, and when they found at last the very thing they wanted the
elation and exhilaration of a new beginning entered fully into Carry’s
mind. If Edward had shown himself too contented with his life, too
little ambitious, too indifferent to any stimulant, there was something
in the fact of being unsettled, of having no certain motive of his life,
of moving about constantly from one place to another, which would very
well account for that. But when he was no longer subject to
interruption, when his time and his thoughts were free, who could doubt
that a new spring of energy would burst forth? In the old days, when
they had first met, he had been full of projects. Was not that one of
the charms that had caught her girlish heart? He had so fully meant to
make himself a great influence in the world, to help to sway the course
of events, to make the world a better place. They had talked of that
before even they talked of love--and her enthusiasm had been roused and
fired by his. He had told her--how well she remembered!--that it was a
mistake of dull minds to think that it was hard to obtain an influence
upon one’s fellow-men. On the contrary, if you are but in earnest--in
such earnest that none could mistake your sincerity and true
feeling--then the response, especially of the young, especially of the
working people, whom it was of so much importance to influence for good,
was most ready, almost immediate. So he said, discoursing for hours as
they wandered about the Swiss valley in which they had met, Carry
Lindores all in a flame of enthusiastic listening, responding with her
whole heart. What a beautiful lot it had seemed to her to share this
work and this life of this new crusader, this chief of men! She was not
Lady Caroline then, but a poor little girl in a faded frock, her father
far out of the succession, and no grandeur of rank or anything else
surrounding the wandering family. Carry’s imagination went back to that
moment with a leap, ignoring, oh so thankfully! all that had gone
between. She had hardly done much with her unfaithfulness to congeal her
Edward’s enthusiasm, to turn him from his hopefulness to misanthropy and
pessimism. He had fallen into apathy because he had been forsaken and
unhappy. But now everything was to begin anew--a settled home on English
ground, a position of his own in which his leisure and his peace should
be undisturbed and his mind free to throw itself into the old studies.
Who could doubt that with all this his energy and his enthusiasm would
come back to him again?
The house was near one of the charming little towns of Surrey. It was on
the slope of a hill, a house partly antique for beauty, and with a new
part built on behind, happily out of sight, for comfort. A wide
landscape of breezy undulations stretched before the windows; the town,
upon another low hill, all its red roofs picturesquely outlined among
the trees, stood out a charming object in the view, not near enough to
add any association of noise or gossip. The very railway ran in a
cutting, invisible, though near enough to be exceedingly convenient,
nothing but a puff of steam showing now and then over the trees. The
landscape embraced, as it were, two worlds--heather and fir trees on one
side, luxuriant English cornfields, woods, and villages on the other.
The altitude of their hillside was not great, but as there was nothing
greater about it, it might have been Mont Blanc for the feeling of wide
atmosphere and sky; yet they were within a mile or two of the little
country town, and within an hour and a half of London! What could be
more delightful, combining every advantage? Carry had all the delight of
a bride in furnishing her house--nay,
|
conclusions.
He was a firm believer in the existence of phlogiston; but he seems,
at least ultimately, to have adopted the view of Scheele, and many
other eminent contemporary chemists--indeed, the view of Cavendish
himself--that hydrogen gas is phlogiston in a separate and pure state.
Common air he considered as a compound of oxygen and phlogiston.
Oxygen, in his opinion, was air quite free from phlogiston, or air in
a simple and pure state; while _azotic gas_ (the other constituent of
common air) was air saturated with phlogiston. Hence he called oxygen
_dephlogisticated_, and azote _phlogisticated air_. The facts that
when common air is converted into azotic gas its bulk is diminished
about one-fifth part, and that azotic gas is lighter than common air or
oxygen gas, though not quite unknown to him, do not seem to have drawn
much of his attention. He was not accustomed to use a balance in his
experiments, nor to attend much to the alterations which took place in
the weight of bodies. Had he done so, most of his theoretical opinions
would have fallen to the ground.
When a body is allowed to burn in a given quantity of common air, it is
known that the quality of the common air is deteriorated; it becomes,
in his language, more phlogisticated. This, in his opinion, was owing
to an affinity which existed between phlogiston and air. The presence
of air is necessary to combustion, in consequence of the affinity which
it has for phlogiston. It draws phlogiston out of the burning body,
in order to combine with it. When a given bulk of air is saturated
with phlogiston, it is converted into azotic gas, or _phlogisticated
air_, as he called it; and this air, having no longer any affinity for
phlogiston, can no longer attract that principle, and consequently
combustion cannot go on in such air.
All combustible bodies, in his opinion, contain hydrogen. Of course
the metals contain it as a constituent. The calces of metals are those
bodies deprived of phlogiston. To prove the truth of this opinion, he
showed that when the oxide of iron is heated in hydrogen gas, that gas
is absorbed, while the calx is reduced to the metallic state. Finery
cinder, which he employed in these experiments, is, in his opinion,
iron not quite free from phlogiston. Hence it still retains a quantity
of hydrogen. To prove this, he mixed together finery cinder and
carbonates of lime, barytes and strontian, and exposed the mixture to a
strong heat; and by this process obtained inflammable gas in abundance.
In his opinion every inflammable gas contains hydrogen in abundance.
Hence this experiment was adduced by him as a demonstration that
hydrogen is a constituent of finery cinder.
All these processes of reasoning, which appear so plausible as Dr.
Priestley states them, vanish into nothing, when his experiments are
made, and the weights of every thing determined by means of a balance:
it is then established that a burning body becomes heavier during its
combustion, and that the surrounding air loses just as much weight as
the burning body gains. Scheele and Lavoisier showed clearly that the
loss of weight sustained by the air is owing to a quantity of oxygen
absorbed from it, and condensed in the burning body. Cruikshank first
elucidated the nature of the inflammable gas, produced by the heating
a mixture of finery cinder and carbonate of lime, or other earthy
carbonate. He found that iron filings would answer better than finery
cinder. The gas was found to contain no hydrogen, and to be in fact
a compound of oxygen and carbon. It was shown to be derived from the
carbonic acid of the earthy carbonate, which was deprived of half its
oxygen by the iron filings or finery cinder. Thus altered, it no longer
preserved its affinity for the lime, but made its escape in the gaseous
form, constituting the gas now known by the name of carbonic oxide.
Though the consequence of the Birmingham riots, which obliged Dr.
Priestley to leave England and repair to America, is deeply to be
lamented, as fixing an indelible disgrace upon the country; perhaps
it was not in reality so injurious to Dr. Priestley as may at first
sight appear. He had carried his peculiar researches nearly as far
as they could go. To arrange and methodize, and deduce from them the
legitimate consequences, required the application of a different
branch of chemical science, which he had not cultivated, and which his
characteristic rapidity, and the time of life to which he had arrived,
would have rendered it almost impossible for him to acquire. In all
probability, therefore, had he been allowed to prosecute his researches
unmolested, his reputation, instead of an increase, might have
suffered a diminution, and he might have lost that eminent situation as
a man of science which he had so long occupied.
With Dr. Priestley closes this period of the History of British
Chemistry--for Mr. Cavendish, though he had not lost his activity, had
abandoned that branch of science, and turned his attention to other
pursuits.
CHAPTER II.
OF THE PROGRESS OF PHILOSOPHICAL CHEMISTRY IN SWEDEN.
Though Sweden, partly in consequence of her scanty population, and the
consequent limited sale of books in that country, and partly from the
propensity of her writers to imitate the French, which has prevented
that originality in her poets and historians that is requisite for
acquiring much eminence--though Sweden, for these reasons, has never
reached a very high rank in literature; yet the case has been very
different in science. She has produced men of the very first eminence,
and has contributed more than her full share in almost every department
of science, and in none has she shone with greater lustre than in the
department of Chemistry. Even in the latter part of the seventeenth
century, before chemistry had, properly speaking, assumed the rank of a
science, we find Hierne in Sweden, whose name deserves to be mentioned
with respect. Moreover, in the earlier part of the eighteenth century,
Brandt, Scheffer, and Wallerius, had distinguished themselves by their
writings. Cronstedt, about the middle of the eighteenth century, may
be said to have laid the foundation of systematic mineralogy upon
chemical principles, by the publication of his System of Mineralogy.
But Bergman is entitled to the merit of being the first person who
prosecuted chemistry in Sweden on truly philosophical principles,
and raised it to that high estimation to which its importance justly
entitles it.
Torbern Bergman was born at Catherinberg, in West Gothland, on the
20th of March, 1735. His father, Barthold Bergman, was receiver of the
revenues of that district, and his mother, Sara Hägg, the daughter of
a Gotheborg merchant. A receiver of the revenues was at that time,
in Sweden, a post both disagreeable and hazardous. The creatures of
a party which had had the ascendancy in one diet, they were exposed
to the persecution of the diet next following, in which an opposite
party usually had the predominance. This circumstance induced Bergman
to advise his son to turn his attention to the professions of law or
divinity, which were at that time the most lucrative in Sweden. After
having spent the usual time at school, and acquired those branches of
learning commonly taught in Sweden, in the public schools and academies
to which Bergman was sent, he went to the University of Upsala, in the
autumn of 1752, where he was placed under the guidance of a relation,
whose province it was to superintend his studies, and direct them to
those pursuits that were likely to lead young Bergman to wealth and
distinction. Our young student showed at once a decided predilection
for mathematics, and those branches of physics which were connected
with mathematics, or depended upon them. But these were precisely
the branches of study which his relation was anxious to prevent his
indulging in. Bergman attempted at once to indulge his own inclination,
and to gratify the wishes of his relation. This obliged him to study
with a degree of ardour and perseverance which has few examples.
His mathematical and physical studies claimed the first share of his
attention; and, after having made such progress in them as would
alone have been sufficient to occupy the whole time of an ordinary
student--to satisfy his relation, Jonas Victorin, who was at that
time a _magister docens_ in Upsala, he thought it requisite to study
some law books besides, that he might be able to show that he had not
neglected his advice, nor abandoned the views which he had held out.
He was in the habit of rising to his studies every morning at four
o'clock, and he never went to bed till eleven at night. The first year
of his residence at Upsala, he had made himself master of Wolf's Logic,
of Wallerius's System of Chemistry, and of twelve books of Euclid's
Elements: for he had already studied the first book of that work in
the Gymnasium before he went to college. He likewise perused Keil's
Lectures on Astronomy, which at that time were considered as the best
introduction to physics and astronomy. His relative disapproved of his
mathematical and physical studies altogether; but, not being able to
put a stop to them, he interdicted the books, and left his young charge
merely the choice between law and divinity. Bergman got a small box
made, with a drawer, into which he put his mathematical and physical
books, and over this box he piled the law books which his relative had
urged him to study. At the time of the daily visits of his relative,
the mathematical and physical books were carefully locked up in the
drawer, and the law books spread upon the table; but no sooner was his
presence removed, than the drawer was opened, and the mathematical
studies resumed.
This incessant study; this necessity under which he found himself to
consult his own inclinations and those of his relative; this double
portion of labour, without time for relaxation, exercise, or amusement,
proved at last injurious to young Bergman's health. He fell ill, and
was obliged to leave the university and return home to his father's
house in a state of bad health. There constant and moderate exercise
was prescribed him, as the only means of restoring his health. That his
time here might not be altogether lost to him, he formed the plan of
making his walks subservient to the study of botany and entomology.
At this time Linnæus, after having surmounted obstacles which would
have crushed a man of ordinary energy, was in the height of his glory;
and was professor of botany and natural history in the University of
Upsala. His lectures were attended by crowds of students from every
country in Europe: he was enthusiastically admired and adored by
his students. This influence on the minds of his pupils was almost
unbounded; and at Upsala, every student was a natural historian.
Bergman had studied botany before he went to college, and he had
acquired a taste for entomology from the lectures of Linnæus himself.
Both of these pursuits he continued to follow after his return home
to West Gothland; and he made a collection of plants and of insects.
Grasses and mosses were the plants to which he turned the most of his
attention, and of which he collected the greatest number. But he felt
a predilection for the study of insects, which was a field much less
explored than the study of plants.
Among the insects which he collected were several not to be found in
the _Fauna Suecica_. Of these he sent specimens to Linnæus at Upsala,
who was delighted with the present. All of them were till then unknown
as Swedish insects, and several of them were quite new. The following
were the insects at this time collected by Bergman, and sent to Upsala,
as they were named by Linnæus:
_Phalæna._ Bombyx monacha, camelina.
Noctua Parthenias, conspicillaris.
Perspicillaris, flavicornis, Plebeia.
Geometra pennaria.
Tortrix Bergmanniana, Lediana.
Tinea Harrisella, Pedella, Punctella.
_Tenthredo._ Vitellina, ustulata.
_Ichneumon._ Jaculator niger.
_Tipula._ Tremula.
When Bergman's health was re-established, he returned to Upsala with
full liberty to prosecute his studies according to his own wishes, and
to devote the whole of his time to mathematics, physics, and natural
history. His relations, finding it in vain to combat his predilections
for these studies, thought it better to allow him to indulge them.
He had made himself known to Linnæus by the collection of insects
which he had sent him from Catherinberg; and, drawn along by the
glory with which Linnæus was surrounded, and the zeal with which his
fellow-students prosecuted such studies, he devoted a great deal of
his attention to natural history. The first paper which he wrote upon
the subject contained a discovery. There was a substance observed in
some ponds not far from Upsala, to which the name of _coccus aquaticus_
was given, but its nature was unknown. Linnæus had conjectured that
it might be the _ovarium_ of some insect; but he left the point to be
determined by future observations. Bergman ascertained that it was the
ovum of a species of leech, and that it contained from ten to twelve
young animals. When he stated what he had ascertained to Linnæus, that
great naturalist refused to believe it; but Bergman satisfied him
of the truth of his discovery by actual observation. Linnæus, thus
satisfied, wrote under the paper of Bergman, _Vidi et obstupui_, and
sent it to the academy of Stockholm with this flattering panegyric. It
was printed in the Memoirs of that learned body for 1756 (p. 199), and
was the first paper of Bergman's that was committed to the press.
He continued to prosecute the study of natural history as an amusement;
though mathematics and natural philosophy occupied by far the greatest
part of his time. Various useful papers of his, connected with
entomology, appeared from time to time in the Memoirs of the Stockholm
Academy; in particular, a paper on the history of insects which attack
fruit-trees, and on the methods of guarding against their ravages: on
the method of classing these insects from the forms of their larvæ, a
time when it would be most useful for the agriculturist to know, in
order to destroy those that are hurtful: a great number of observations
on this class of animals, so various in their shape and their
organization, and so important for man to know--some of which he has
been able to overcome, while others, defended by their small size, and
powerful by their vast numbers, still continue their ravages; and which
offer so interesting a sight to the philosopher by their labours, their
manners, and their foresight.--Bergman was fond of these pursuits,
and looked back upon them in afterlife with pleasure. Long after, he
used to mention with much satisfaction, that by the use of the method
pointed out by him, no fewer than seven millions of destructive insects
were destroyed in a single garden, and during the course of a single
summer.
About the year 1757 he was appointed tutor to the only son of Count
Adolf Frederick Stackelberg, a situation which he filled greatly to the
satisfaction both of the father and son, as long as the young count
stood in need of an instructor. He took his master's degree in 1758,
choosing for the subject of his thesis on _astronomical interpolation_.
Soon after, he was appointed _magister docens_ in natural philosophy,
a situation peculiar to the University of Upsala, and constituting a
kind of assistant to the professor. For his promotion to this situation
he was obliged to M. Ferner, who saw how well qualified he was for it,
and how beneficial his labours would be to the University of Upsala. In
1761 he was appointed _adjunct_ in mathematics and physics, which, I
presume, means that he was raised to the rank of an associate with the
professor of these branches of science. In this situation it was his
business to teach these sciences to the students of Upsala, a task for
which he was exceedingly well fitted. During this period he published
various tracts on different branches of physical science, particularly
on the _rainbow_, the crepuscula, the aurora-borealis, the electrical
phenomena of Iceland spar, and of the tourmalin. We find his name
among the astronomers who observed the first transit of Venus over the
sun, in 1761, whose results deserve the greatest confidence.[1] His
observations on the electricity of the tourmalin are important. It was
he that first established the true laws that regulate these curious
phenomena.
[1] See Phil. Trans., vol. lii. p. 227, and vol. lvi. p. 85.
During the whole of this period he had been silently studying chemistry
and mineralogy, though nobody suspected that he was engaged in any
such pursuits. But in 1767 John Gottschalk Wallerius, who had long
filled the chair of chemistry in the University of Upsala, with high
reputation, resigned his chair. Bergman immediately offered himself
as a candidate for the vacant professorship: and, to show that he
was qualified for the office, published two dissertations on the
Manufacture of Alum, which probably he had previously drawn up, and had
lying by him. Wallerius intended to resign his chair in favour of a
pupil or relation of his own, whom he had destined to succeed him. He
immediately formed a party to oppose the pretensions of Bergman; and
his party was so powerful and so malignant, that few doubted of their
success: for it was joined by all those who, despairing of equalling
the industry and reputation of Bergman, set themselves to oppose and
obstruct his success. Such men unhappily exist in all colleges, and
the more eminent a professor is, the more is he exposed to their
malignant activity. Many of those who cannot themselves rise to any
eminence, derive pleasure from the attempt to pull down the eminent
to their own level. In these attempts, however, they seldom succeed,
unless from some want of prudence and steadiness in the individual
whom they assail. Bergman's Dissertations on Alum were severely
handled by Wallerius and his party: and such was the influence of the
ex-professor, that every body thought Bergman would be crushed by him.
Fortunately, Gustavus III. of Sweden, at that time crown prince,
was chancellor of the university. He took up the cause of Bergman,
influenced, it is said, by the recommendation of Von Swab, who pledged
himself for his qualifications, and was so keen on the subject that he
pleaded his cause in person before the senate. Wallerius and his party
were of course baffled, and Bergman got the chair.
For this situation his previous studies had fitted him in a peculiar
manner. His mathematical, physical, and natural-historical knowledge,
so far from being useless, contributed to free him from prejudices, and
to emancipate him from that spirit of routine under which chemistry
had hitherto suffered. They gave to his ideas a greater degree of
precision, and made his views more correct. He saw that mathematics
and chemistry divided between them the whole extent of natural
science, and that its bounds required to be enlarged, to enable it
to embrace all the different branches of science with which it was
naturally connected, or which depended upon it. He saw the necessity
of banishing from chemistry all vague hypotheses and explanations,
and of establishing the science on the firm basis of experiment. He
was equally convinced of the necessity of reforming the nomenclature
of chemistry, and of bringing it to the same degree of precision that
characterized the language of the other branches of natural philosophy.
His first care, after getting the chair, was to make as complete a
collection as he could of mineral substances, and to arrange them in
order according to the nature of their constituents, as far as they
had been determined by experiment. To another cabinet he assigned the
Swedish minerals, ranged in a geographical manner according to the
different provinces which furnished them.
When I was at Upsala, in 1812, the first of these collections still
remained, greatly augmented by his nephew and successor, Afzelius.
But no remains existed of the geographical collection. However, there
was a very considerable collection of this kind in the apartments
of the Swedish school of mines at Stockholm, under the care of Mr.
Hjelm, which I had an opportunity of inspecting. It is not improbable
that Bergman's collection might have formed the nucleus of this. A
geographical collection of minerals, to be of much utility, should
exhibit all the different formations which exist in the kingdom: and
in a country so uniform in its nature as Sweden, the minerals of one
county are very nearly similar to those of the other counties; with
the exception of certain peculiarities derived from the mines, or from
some formations which may belong exclusively to certain parts of the
country, as, for example, the coal formations in the south corner of
Sweden, near Helsinburg, and the porphyry rocks, in Elfsdale.
Bergman attempted also to make a collection of models of the apparatus
employed in the different chemical manufactories, to be enabled to
explain these manufactures with greater clearness to his students. I
was informed by M. Ekeberg, who, in 1812, was _magister docens_ in
chemistry at Upsala, that these models were never numerous. Nor is it
likely that they should be, as Sweden cannot boast of any great number
of chemical manufactories, and as, in Bergman's time, the processes
followed in most of the chemical manufactories of Europe were kept as
secret as possible.
Thus it was Bergman's object to exhibit to his pupils specimens of all
the different substances which the earth furnishes, with the order in
which these productions are arranged on the globe--to show them the
uses made of all these different productions--how practice had preceded
theory and had succeeded in solving many chemical problems of the most
complicated nature.
His lectures are said to have been particularly valuable. He drew
around him a considerable number of pupils, who afterwards figured as
chemical discoverers themselves. Of all these Assessor Gahn, of Fahlun,
was undoubtedly the most remarkable; but Hjelm, Gadolin, the Elhuyarts,
and various other individuals, likewise distinguished themselves as
chemists.
After his appointment to the chemical chair at Upsala, the remainder
of his life passed with very little variety; his whole time was
occupied with his favourite studies, and not a year passed that he
did not publish some dissertation or other upon some more or less
important branch of chemistry. His reputation gradually extended itself
over Europe, and he was enrolled among the number of the members
of most scientific academies. Among other honourable testimonies
of the esteem in which he was held, he was elected rector of the
University of Upsala. This university is not merely a literary body,
but owns extensive estates, over which it possesses great authority,
and, having considerable control over its students, and enjoying
considerable immunities and privileges (conferred in former times as
an encouragement to learning, though, in reality, they serve only to
cramp its energies, and throw barriers in the way of its progress),
constitutes, therefore, a kind of republic in the midst of Sweden: the
professors being its chiefs. But while, in literary establishments,
all the institutions ought to have for an object to maintain peace,
and free their members from every occupation unconnected with letters,
the constitution of that university obliges its professors to attend
to things very inconsistent with their usual functions; while it
gives men of influence and ambition a desire to possess the power and
patronage, though they may not be qualified to perform the duties, of
a professor. Such temptations are very injurious to the true cause
of science; and it were to be wished, that no literary body, in any
part of the world, were possessed of such powers and privileges. When
Bergman was rector, the university was divided into two great parties,
the one consisting of the theological and law faculties, and the other
of the scientific professors. Bergman's object was to preserve peace
and agreement between these two parties, and to convince them that it
was the interest of all to unite for the good of the university and the
promotion of letters. The period of his magistracy is remarkable in the
annals of the university for the small number of deliberations, and the
little business recorded in the registers; and for the good sense and
good behaviour of the students. The students in Upsala are numerous,
and most of them are young men. They had been accustomed frequently to
brave or elude the severity of the regulations; but during Bergman's
rectorship they were restrained effectually by their respect for his
genius, and their admiration of his character and conduct.
When the reputation of Bergman was at its height, in the year 1776,
Frederick the Great of Prussia formed the wish to attach him to the
Academy of Sciences of Berlin, and made him offers of such a nature
that our professor hesitated for a short time as to whether he ought
not to accept them. His health had been injured by the assiduity
with which he had devoted himself to the double duty of teaching and
experimenting. He might look for an alleviation of his ailments, if
not a complete recovery, in the milder climate of Prussia, and he
would be able to devote himself entirely to his academical duties; but
other considerations prevented him from acceding to this proposal,
tempting as it was. The King of Sweden had been his benefactor, and it
was intimated to him that his leaving the kingdom would afflict that
monarch. This information induced him, without further hesitation,
to refuse the proposals of the King of Prussia. He requested of the
king, his master, not to make him lose the merit of his sacrifice
by augmenting his income; but to this demand the King of Sweden very
properly refused to accede.
In the year 1771, Professor Bergman married a widow lady, Margaretha
Catharina Trast, daughter of a clergyman in the neighbourhood of
Upsala. By her he had two sons; but both of them died when infants.
This lady survived her husband. The King of Sweden settled on her an
annuity of 200 rix dollars, on condition that she gave up the library
and apparatus of her late husband to the Royal Society of Upsala.
Bergman's health had been always delicate; indeed he seems never to
have completely recovered the effects of his first year's too intense
study at Upsala. He struggled on, however, with his ailments; and, by
way of relaxation, was accustomed sometimes, in summer, to repair to
the waters of Medevi--a celebrated mineral spring in Sweden, situated
near the banks of the great inland lake, Wetter. One of these visits
seems to have restored him to health for the time. But his malady
returned in 1784 with redoubled violence. He was afflicted with
hemorrhoids, and his daily loss of blood amounted to about six ounces.
This constant drain soon exhausted him, and on the 8th of July, 1784,
he died at the baths of Medevi, to which he had repaired in hopes of
again benefiting by these waters.
The different tracts which he published, as they have been enumerated
by Hjelm, who gave an interesting account of Bergman to the Stockholm
Academy in the year 1785, amount to 106. They have been all collected
into six octavo volumes entitled "Opuscula Torberni Bergman Physica et
Chemica"--with the exception of his notes on Scheffer, his Sciagraphia,
and his chapter on Physical Geography, which was translated into
French, and published in the Journal des Mines (vol. iii. No. 15, p.
55). His Sciagraphia, which is an attempt to arrange minerals according
to their composition, was translated into English by Dr. Withering.
His notes on Scheffer were interspersed in an edition of the "Chemiske
Föreläsningar" of that chemist, published in 1774, which he seems to
have employed as a text-book in his lectures: or, at all events, the
work was published for the use of the students of chemistry at Upsala.
There was a new edition of it published, after Bergman's death, in the
year 1796, to which are appended Bergman's Tables of Affinities.
The most important of Bergman's chemical papers were collected by
himself, and constitute the three first volumes of his Opuscula. The
three last volumes of that work were published after his death. The
fourth volume was published at Leipsic, in 1787, by Hebenstreit, and
contains the rest of his chemical papers. The fifth volume was given
to the world in 1788, by the same editor. It contains three chemical
papers, and the rest of it is made up with papers on natural history,
electricity, and other branches of physics, which Bergman had published
in the earlier part of his life. The same indefatigable editor
published the sixth volume in 1790. It contains three astronomical
papers, two chemical, and a long paper on the means of preventing any
injurious effects from lightning. This was an oration, delivered before
the Royal Academy of Sciences of Stockholm, in 1764, probably at the
time of his admission into the academy.
It would serve little purpose in the present state of chemical
knowledge, to give a minute analysis of Bergman's papers. To judge
of their value, it would be necessary to compare them, not with our
present chemical knowledge, but with the state of the science when
his papers were published. A very short general view of his labours
will be sufficient to convey an idea of the benefits which the science
derived from them.
1. His first paper, entitled "On the Aerial Acid," that is, _carbonic
acid_, was published in 1774. In it he gives the properties of this
substance in considerable detail, shows that it possesses acid
qualities, and that it is capable of combining with the bases, and
forming salts. What is very extraordinary, in giving an account of
carbonate of lime and carbonate of magnesia, he never mentions the name
of Dr. Black; though it is very unlikely that a controversy, which had
for years occupied the attention of chemists, should have been unknown
to him. Mr. Cavendish's name never once appears in the whole paper;
though that philosopher had preceded him by seven or eight years. He
informs us, that he had made known his opinions respecting the nature
of this substance, to various foreign correspondents, among others
to Dr. Priestley, as early as the year 1770, and that Dr. Priestley
had mentioned his views on the subject, in a paper inserted in the
Philosophical Transactions for 1772. Bergman found the specific gravity
of carbonic acid gas rather higher than 1·5, that of air being 1.
His result is not far from the truth. He obtained his gas, by mixing
calcareous spar with dilute sulphuric acid. He shows that this gas
has a sour taste, that it reddens the infusion of litmus, and that
it combines with bases. He gives figures of the apparatus which he
used. This apparatus demands attention. Though far inferior to the
contrivances of Priestley, it answered pretty well, enabling him to
collect the gas, and examine its properties.
It is unnecessary to enter into any further details respecting this
paper. Whoever will take the trouble to compare it with Cavendish's
paper on the same subject, will find that he had been anticipated by
that philosopher in a great many of his most important facts. Under
these circumstances, I consider as singular his not taking any notice
of Cavendish's previous labours.
2. His next paper, "On the Analyses of Mineral Waters," was first
published in 1778, being the subject of a thesis, supported by J.
P. Scharenberg. This dissertation, which is of great length, is
entitled to much praise. He lays therein the foundation of the mode of
analyzing waters, such as is followed at present. He points out the
use of different reagents, for detecting the presence of the various
constituents in mineral water, and then shows how the quantity of each
is to be determined. It would be doing great injustice to Bergman, to
compare his analyses with those of any modern experimenter. At that
time, the science was not in possession of any accurate analyses of
the neutral salts, which exist in mineral waters. Bergman undertook
these necessary analyses, without which, the determination of the
saline constituents of mineral waters was out of the question. His
determinations were not indeed accurate, but they were so much
better than those that preceded them, and Bergman's character as an
experimenter stood so high, that they were long referred to as a
standard by chemists. The first attempt to correct them was by Kirwan.
But Bergman's superior reputation as a chemist enabled his results
still to keep their ground, till his character for accuracy was finally
destroyed by the very accurate experiments which the discovery of
the atomic theory rendered it necessary to make. These, when once
they became generally known, were of course preferred, and Bergman's
analyses were laid aside.
It is a curious and humiliating fact, as it shows how much chemical
reputation depends upon situation, or accidental circumstances, that
Wenzel had, in 1766, in his book on _affinity_, published much more
accurate analyses of all these salts, than Bergman's--analyses indeed
which were almost perfectly correct, and which have scarcely been
surpassed, by the most careful ones of the present day. Yet these
admirable experiments scarcely drew the attention of chemists; while
the very inferior ones of Bergman were held up as models of perfection.
3. Bergman, not satisfied with pointing out the mode of analyzing
mineral waters, attempted to imitate them artificially by chemical
processes, and published two essays on the subject; in the first he
showed the processes by which cold mineral waters might be imitated,
and in the other, the mode of imitating hot mineral waters. The attempt
was valuable, and served to extend greatly the chemical knowledge of
mineral waters, and of the salts which they contain; but it was made
at too early a period of the analytical art, to approach perfection.
A similar remark applies to his analysis of sea-water. The water
examined was brought by Sparmann from a depth of eighty fathoms, near
the latitude of the Canaries: Bergman found in it only common salt,
muriate of magnesia, and sulphate of lime. His not having discovered
the presence of sulphate of magnesia is a sufficient proof of the
imperfection of his analytical methods; the other constituents exist
in such small quantity in sea-water that they might easily have been
overlooked, but the quantity of sulphate of magnesia in sea-water is
considerable.
4. I shall pass over the paper on oxalic acid, which constituted the
subject of a thesis, supported in 1776, by John Afzelius Arfvedson.
It is now known that oxalic acid was discovered by Scheele, not by
Bergman. It is impossible to say how many of the numerous facts
stated in this thesis were ascertained by Scheele, and how many
by Afzelius. For, as Afzelius was already a _magister docens_ in
chemistry, there can be little doubt that he would himself ascertain
the facts which were to constitute the foundation of his thesis. It
is indeed now known that Bergman himself intrusted all the details of
his experiments to his pupils. He was the contriver, while his pupils
executed his plans. That Scheele has nowhere laid claim to a discovery
of so much importance as that of oxalic acid, and that he allowed
Bergman peaceably to bear away the whole credit, constitutes one of
the most remarkable facts in the history of chemistry. Moreover, while
it reflects so much credit on Scheele for modesty and forbearance,
it seems to bear a little hard upon the character of
|
goddess he could
invoke in his distress was a mystery to me. We parted, however, without
further explanation, and I did not see him until three days after, when
he summoned me to partake of the _foy_ with which his landlord proposed
to regale him ere his departure for Edinburgh.
I found Dick in high spirits, whistling while he buckled the small
knapsack which contained his colours, brushes, pallets, and clean
shirt. That he parted on the best terms with mine host was obvious from
the cold beef set forth in the low parlour, flanked by two mugs of
admirable brown stout; and I own my curiosity was excited concerning
the means through which the face of my friend’s affairs had been so
suddenly improved. I did not suspect Dick of dealing with the devil,
and by what earthly means he had extricated himself thus happily I was
at a total loss to conjecture.
He perceived my curiosity, and took me by the hand. “My friend,” he
said, “fain would I conceal, even from you, the degradation to which it
has been necessary to submit, in order to accomplish an honourable
retreat from Gandercleaugh. But what avails attempting to conceal that
which must needs betray itself even by its superior excellence? All the
village—all the parish—all the world—will soon discover to what poverty
has reduced Richard Tinto.”
A sudden thought here struck me. I had observed that our landlord wore,
on that memorable morning, a pair of bran new velveteens instead of his
ancient thicksets.
“What,” said I, drawing my right hand, with the forefinger and thumb
pressed together, nimbly from my right haunch to my left shoulder, “you
have condescended to resume the paternal arts to which you were first
bred—long stitches, ha, Dick?”
He repelled this unlucky conjecture with a frown and a pshaw,
indicative of indignant contempt, and leading me into another room,
showed me, resting against the wall, the majestic head of Sir William
Wallace, grim as when severed from the trunk by the orders of the
Edward.
The painting was executed on boards of a substantial thickness, and the
top decorated with irons, for suspending the honoured effigy upon a
signpost.
“There,” he said, “my friend, stands the honour of Scotland, and my
shame; yet not so—rather the shame of those who, instead of encouraging
art in its proper sphere, reduce it to these unbecoming and unworthy
extremities.”
I endeavoured to smooth the ruffled feelings of my misused and
indignant friend. I reminded him that he ought not, like the stag in
the fable, to despise the quality which had extricated him from
difficulties, in which his talents, as a portrait or landscape painter,
had been found unavailing. Above all, I praised the execution, as well
as conception, of his painting, and reminded him that, far from feeling
dishonoured by so superb a specimen of his talents being exposed to the
general view of the public, he ought rather to congratulate himself
upon the augmentation of his celebrity to which its public exhibition
must necessarily give rise.
“You are right, my friend—you are right,” replied poor Dick, his eye
kindling with enthusiasm; “why should I shun the name of an—an—(he
hesitated for a phrase)—an out-of-doors artist? Hogarth has introduced
himself in that character in one of his best engravings; Domenichino,
or somebody else, in ancient times, Morland in our own, have exercised
their talents in this manner. And wherefore limit to the rich and
higher classes alone the delight which the exhibition of works of art
is calculated to inspire into all classes? Statues are placed in the
open air, why should Painting be more niggardly in displaying her
masterpieces than her sister Sculpture? And yet, my friend, we must
part suddenly; the carpenter is coming in an hour to put up the—the
emblem; and truly, with all my philosophy, and your consolatory
encouragement to boot, I would rather wish to leave Gandercleugh before
that operation commences.”
We partook of our genial host’s parting banquet, and I escorted Dick on
his walk to Edinburgh. We parted about a mile from the village, just as
we heard the distant cheer of the boys which accompanied the mounting
of the new symbol of the Wallace Head. Dick Tinto mended his pace to
get out of hearing, so little had either early practice or recent
philosophy reconciled him to the character of a sign-painter.
In Edinburgh, Dick’s talents were discovered and appreciated, and he
received dinners and hints from several distinguished judges of the
fine arts. But these gentlemen dispensed their criticism more willingly
than their cash, and Dick thought he needed cash more than criticism.
He therefore sought London, the universal mart of talent, and where, as
is usual in general marts of most descriptions, much more of each
commodity is exposed to sale than can ever find purchasers.
Dick, who, in serious earnest, was supposed to have considerable
natural talents for his profession, and whose vain and sanguine
disposition never permitted him to doubt for a moment of ultimate
success, threw himself headlong into the crowd which jostled and
struggled for notice and preferment. He elbowed others, and was elbowed
himself; and finally, by dint of intrepidity, fought his way into some
notice, painted for the prize at the Institution, had pictures at the
exhibition at Somerset House, and damned the hanging committee. But
poor Dick was doomed to lose the field he fought so gallantly. In the
fine arts, there is scarce an alternative betwixt distinguished success
and absolute failure; and as Dick’s zeal and industry were unable to
ensure the first, he fell into the distresses which, in his condition,
were the natural consequences of the latter alternative. He was for a
time patronised by one or two of those judicious persons who make a
virtue of being singular, and of pitching their own opinions against
those of the world in matters of taste and criticism. But they soon
tired of poor Tinto, and laid him down as a load, upon the principle on
which a spoilt child throws away its plaything. Misery, I fear, took
him up, and accompanied him to a premature grave, to which he was
carried from an obscure lodging in Swallow Street, where he had been
dunned by his landlady within doors, and watched by bailiffs without,
until death came to his relief. A corner of the Morning Post noticed
his death, generously adding, that his manner displayed considerable
genius, though his style was rather sketchy; and referred to an
advertisement, which announced that Mr. Varnish, a well-known
printseller, had still on hand a very few drawings and paintings by
Richard Tinto, Esquire, which those of the nobility and gentry who
might wish to complete their collections of modern art were invited to
visit without delay. So ended Dick Tinto! a lamentable proof of the
great truth, that in the fine arts mediocrity is not permitted, and
that he who cannot ascend to the very top of the ladder will do well
not to put his foot upon it at all.
The memory of Tinto is dear to me, from the recollection of the many
conversations which we have had together, most of them turning upon my
present task. He was delighted with my progress, and talked of an
ornamented and illustrated edition, with heads, vignettes, and _culs de
lampe_, all to be designed by his own patriotic and friendly pencil. He
prevailed upon an old sergeant of invalids to sit to him in the
character of Bothwell, the lifeguard’s-man of Charles the Second, and
the bellman of Gandercleugh in that of David Deans. But while he thus
proposed to unite his own powers with mine for the illustration of
these narratives, he mixed many a dose of salutary criticism with the
panegyrics which my composition was at times so fortunate as to call
forth.
“Your characters,” he said, “my dear Pattieson, make too much use of
the _gob box;_ they _patter_ too much (an elegant phraseology which
Dick had learned while painting the scenes of an itinerant company of
players); there is nothing in whole pages but mere chat and dialogue.”
“The ancient philosopher,” said I in reply, “was wont to say, ‘Speak,
that I may know thee’; and how is it possible for an author to
introduce his _personæ dramatis_ to his readers in a more interesting
and effectual manner than by the dialogue in which each is represented
as supporting his own appropriate character?”
“It is a false conclusion,” said Tinto; “I hate it, Peter, as I hate an
unfilled can. I grant you, indeed, that speech is a faculty of some
value in the intercourse of human affairs, and I will not even insist
on the doctrine of that Pythagorean toper, who was of opinion that over
a bottle speaking spoiled conversation. But I will not allow that a
professor of the fine arts has occasion to embody the idea of his scene
in language, in order to impress upon the reader its reality and its
effect. On the contrary, I will be judged by most of your readers,
Peter, should these tales ever become public, whether you have not
given us a page of talk for every single idea which two words might
have communicated, while the posture, and manner, and incident,
accurately drawn, and brought out by appropriate colouring, would have
preserved all that was worthy of preservation, and saved these
everlasting ‘said he’s’ and ‘said she’s,’ with which it has been your
pleasure to encumber your pages.”
I replied, “That he confounded the operations of the pencil and the
pen; that the serene and silent art, as painting has been called by one
of our first living poets, necessarily appealed to the eye, because it
had not the organs for addressing the ear; whereas poetry, or that
species of composition which approached to it, lay under the necessity
of doing absolutely the reverse, and addressed itself to the ear, for
the purpose of exciting that interest which it could not attain through
the medium of the eye.”
Dick was not a whit staggered by my argument, which he contended was
founded on misrepresentation. “Description,” he said, “was to the
author of a romance exactly what drawing and tinting were to a painter:
words were his colours, and, if properly employed, they could not fail
to place the scene which he wished to conjure up as effectually before
the mind’s eye as the tablet or canvas presents it to the bodily organ.
The same rules,” he contended, “applied to both, and an exuberance of
dialogue, in the former case, was a verbose and laborious mode of
composition which went to confound the proper art of fictitious
narrative with that of the drama, a widely different species of
composition, of which dialogue was the very essence, because all,
excepting the language to be made use of, was presented to the eye by
the dresses, and persons, and actions of the performers upon the stage.
But as nothing,” said Dick, “can be more dull than a long narrative
written upon the plan of a drama, so where you have approached most
near to that species of composition, by indulging in prolonged scenes
of mere conversation, the course of your story has become chill and
constrained, and you have lost the power of arresting the attention and
exciting the imagination, in which upon other occasions you may be
considered as having succeeded tolerably well.”
I made my bow in requital of the compliment, which was probably thrown
in by way of _placebo_, and expressed myself willing at least to make
one trial of a more straightforward style of composition, in which my
actors should do more, and say less, than in my former attempts of this
kind. Dick gave me a patronising and approving nod, and observed that,
finding me so docile, he would communicate, for the benefit of my muse,
a subject which he had studied with a view to his own art.
“The story,” he said, “was, by tradition, affirmed to be truth,
although, as upwards of a hundred years had passed away since the
events took place, some doubts upon the accuracy of all the particulars
might be reasonably entertained.”
When Dick Tinto had thus spoken, he rummaged his portfolio for the
sketch from which he proposed one day to execute a picture of fourteen
feet by eight. The sketch, which was cleverly executed, to use the
appropriate phrase, represented an ancient hall, fitted up and
furnished in what we now call the taste of Queen Elizabeth’s age. The
light, admitted from the upper part of a high casement, fell upon a
female figure of exquisite beauty, who, in an attitude of speechless
terror, appeared to watch the issue of a debate betwixt two other
persons. The one was a young man, in the Vandyke dress common to the
time of Charles I., who, with an air of indignant pride, testified by
the manner in which he raised his head and extended his arm, seemed to
be urging a claim of right, rather than of favour, to a lady whose age,
and some resemblance in their features, pointed her out as the mother
of the younger female, and who appeared to listen with a mixture of
displeasure and impatience.
Tinto produced his sketch with an air of mysterious triumph, and gazed
on it as a fond parent looks upon a hopeful child, while he anticipates
the future figure he is to make in the world, and the height to which
he will raise the honour of his family. He held it at arm’s length from
me—he held it closer—he placed it upon the top of a chest of
drawers—closed the lower shutters of the casement, to adjust a downward
and favourable light—fell back to the due distance, dragging me after
him—shaded his face with his hand, as if to exclude all but the
favourite object—and ended by spoiling a child’s copy-book, which he
rolled up so as to serve for the darkened tube of an amateur. I fancy
my expressions of enthusiasm had not been in proportion to his own, for
he presently exclaimed with vehemence: “Mr. Pattieson, I used to think
you had an eye in your head.”
I vindicated my claim to the usual allowance of visual organs.
“Yet, on my honour,” said Dick, “I would swear you had been born blind,
since you have failed at the first glance to discover the subject and
meaning of that sketch. I do not mean to praise my own performance, I
leave these arts to others; I am sensible of my deficiencies, conscious
that my drawing and colouring may be improved by the time I intend to
dedicate to the art. But the conception—the expression—the
positions—these tell the story to every one who looks at the sketch;
and if I can finish the picture without diminution of the original
conception, the name of Tinto shall no more be smothered by the mists
of envy and intrigue.”
I replied: “That I admired the sketch exceedingly; but that to
understand its full merit, I felt it absolutely necessary to be
informed of the subject.”
“That is the very thing I complain of,” answered Tinto; “you have
accustomed yourself so much to these creeping twilight details of
yours, that you are become incapable of receiving that instant and
vivid flash of conviction which darts on the mind from seeing the happy
and expressive combinations of a single scene, and which gathers from
the position, attitude, and countenance of the moment, not only the
history of the past lives of the personages represented, and the nature
of the business on which they are immediately engaged, but lifts even
the veil of futurity, and affords a shrewd guess at their future
fortunes.”
“In that case,” replied I, “Painting excels the ape of the renowned
Gines de Passamonte, which only meddled with the past and the present;
nay, she excels that very Nature who affords her subject; for I protest
to you, Dick, that were I permitted to peep into that
Elizabeth-chamber, and see the persons you have sketched conversing in
flesh and blood, I should not be a jot nearer guessing the nature of
their business than I am at this moment while looking at your sketch.
Only generally, from the languishing look of the young lady, and the
care you have taken to present a very handsome leg on the part of the
gentleman, I presume there is some reference to a love affair between
them.”
“Do you really presume to form such a bold conjecture?” said Tinto.
“And the indignant earnestness with which you see the man urge his
suit, the unresisting and passive despair of the younger female, the
stern air of inflexible determination in the elder woman, whose looks
express at once consciousness that she is acting wrong and a firm
determination to persist in the course she has adopted——”
“If her looks express all this, my dear Tinto,” replied I, interrupting
him, “your pencil rivals the dramatic art of Mr. Puff in The Critic,
who crammed a whole complicated sentence into the expressive shake of
Lord Burleigh’s head.”
“My good friend, Peter,” replied Tinto, “I observe you are perfectly
incorrigible; however, I have compassion on your dulness, and am
unwilling you should be deprived of the pleasure of understanding my
picture, and of gaining, at the same time, a subject for your own pen.
You must know then, last summer, while I was taking sketches on the
coast of East Lothian and Berwickshire, I was seduced into the
mountains of Lammermoor by the account I received of some remains of
antiquity in that district. Those with which I was most struck were the
ruins of an ancient castle in which that Elizabeth-chamber, as you call
it, once existed. I resided for two or three days at a farmhouse in the
neighbourhood, where the aged goodwife was well acquainted with the
history of the castle, and the events which had taken place in it. One
of these was of a nature so interesting and singular, that my attention
was divided between my wish to draw the old ruins in landscape, and to
represent, in a history-piece, the singular events which have taken
place in it. Here are my notes of the tale,” said poor Dick, handing a
parcel of loose scraps, partly scratched over with his pencil, partly
with his pen, where outlines of caricatures, sketches of turrets,
mills, old gables, and dovecots, disputed the ground with his written
memoranda.
I proceeded, however, to decipher the substance of the manuscript as
well as I could, and move it into the following Tale, in which,
following in part, though not entirely, my friend Tinto’s advice, I
endeavoured to render my narrative rather descriptive than dramatic. My
favourite propensity, however, has at times overcome me, and my
persons, like many others in this talking world, speak now and then a
great deal more than they act.
CHAPTER II.
Well, lord, we have not got that which we have;
’Tis not enough our foes are this time fled,
Being opposites of such repairing nature.
Henry VI. Part II.
In the gorge of a pass or mountain glen, ascending from the fertile
plains of East Lothian, there stood in former times an extensive
castle, of which only the ruins are now visible. Its ancient
proprietors were a race of powerful and warlike barons, who bore the
same name with the castle itself, which was Ravenswood. Their line
extended to a remote period of antiquity, and they had intermarried
with the Douglasses, Humes, Swintons, Hays, and other families of power
and distinction in the same country. Their history was frequently
involved in that of Scotland itself, in whose annals their feats are
recorded. The Castle of Ravenswood, occupying, and in some measure
commanding, a pass betweixt Berwickshire, or the Merse, as the
southeastern province of Scotland is termed, and the Lothians, was of
importance both in times of foreign war and domestic discord. It was
frequently beseiged with ardour, and defended with obstinacy, and, of
course, its owners played a conspicuous part in story. But their house
had its revolutions, like all sublunary things: it became greatly
declined from its splendour about the middle of the 17th century; and
towards the period of the Revolution, the last proprietor of Ravenswood
Castle saw himself compelled to part with the ancient family seat, and
to remove himself to a lonely and sea-beaten tower, which, situated on
the bleak shores between St. Abb’s Head and the village of Eyemouth,
looked out on the lonely and boisterous German Ocean. A black domain of
wild pasture-land surrounded their new residence, and formed the
remains of their property.
Lord Ravenswood, the heir of this ruined family, was far from bending
his mind to his new condition of life. In the civil war of 1689 he had
espoused the sinking side, and although he had escaped without the
forfeiture of life or land, his blood had been attainted, and his title
abolished. He was now called Lord Ravenswood only in courtesy.
This forfeited nobleman inherited the pride and turbulence, though not
the fortune, of his house, and, as he imputed the final declension of
his family to a particular individual, he honoured that person with his
full portion of hatred. This was the very man who had now become, by
purchase, proprietor of Ravenswood, and the domains of which the heir
of the house now stood dispossessed. He was descended of a family much
less ancient than that of Lord Ravenswood, and which had only risen to
wealth and political importance during the great civil wars. He himself
had been bred to the bar, and had held high offices in the state,
maintaining through life the character of a skilful fisher in the
troubled waters of a state divided by factions, and governed by
delegated authority; and of one who contrived to amass considerable
sums of money in a country where there was but little to be gathered,
and who equally knew the value of wealth and the various means of
augmenting it and using it as an engine of increasing his power and
influence.
Thus qualified and gifted, he was a dangerous antagonist to the fierce
and imprudent Ravenswood. Whether he had given him good cause for the
enmity with which the Baron regarded him, was a point on which men
spoke differently. Some said the quarrel arose merely from the
vindictive spirit and envy of Lord Ravenswood, who could not patiently
behold another, though by just and fair purchase, become the proprietor
of the estate and castle of his forefathers. But the greater part of
the public, prone to slander the wealthy in their absence as to flatter
them in their presence, held a less charitable opinion. They said that
the Lord Keeper (for to this height Sir William Ashton had ascended)
had, previous to the final purchase of the estate of Ravenswood, been
concerned in extensive pecuniary transactions with the former
proprietor; and, rather intimating what was probable than affirming
anything positively, they asked which party was likely to have the
advantage in stating and enforcing the claims arising out of these
complicated affairs, and more than hinted the advantages which the cool
lawyer and able politician must necessarily possess over the hot,
fiery, and imprudent character whom he had involved in legal toils and
pecuniary snares.
The character of the times aggravated these suspicions. “In those days
there was no king in Israel.” Since the departure of James VI. to
assume the richer and more powerful crown of England, there had existed
in Scotland contending parties, formed among the aristocracy, by whom,
as their intrigues at the court of St. James’s chanced to prevail, the
delegated powers of sovereignty were alternately swayed. The evils
attending upon this system of government resembled those which afflict
the tenants of an Irish estate, the property of an absentee. There was
no supreme power, claiming and possessing a general interest with the
community at large, to whom the oppressed might appeal from subordinate
tyranny, either for justice or for mercy. Let a monarch be as indolent,
as selfish, as much disposed to arbitrary power as he will, still, in a
free country, his own interests are so clearly connected with those of
the public at large, and the evil consequences to his own authority are
so obvious and imminent when a different course is pursued, that common
policy, as well as common feeling, point to the equal distribution of
justice, and to the establishment of the throne in righteousness. Thus,
even sovereigns remarkable for usurpation and tyranny have been found
rigorous in the administration of justice among their subjects, in
cases where their own power and passions were not compromised.
It is very different when the powers of sovereignty are delegated to
the head of an aristocratic faction, rivalled and pressed closely in
the race of ambition by an adverse leader. His brief and precarious
enjoyment of power must be employed in rewarding his partizans, in
extending his influence, in oppressing and crushing his adversaries.
Even Abou Hassan, the most disinterested of all viceroys, forgot not,
during his caliphate of one day, to send a douceur of one thousand
pieces of gold to his own household; and the Scottish vicegerents,
raised to power by the strength of their faction, failed not to embrace
the same means of rewarding them.
The administration of justice, in particular, was infected by the most
gross partiality. A case of importance scarcely occurred in which there
was not some ground for bias or partiality on the part of the judges,
who were so little able to withstand the temptation that the adage,
“Show me the man, and I will show you the law,” became as prevalent as
it was scandalous. One corruption led the way to others still more
gross and profligate. The judge who lent his sacred authority in one
case to support a friend, and in another to crush an enemy, and whose
decisions were founded on family connexions or political relations,
could not be supposed inaccessible to direct personal motives; and the
purse of the wealthy was too often believed to be thrown into the scale
to weigh down the cause of the poor litigant. The subordinate officers
of the law affected little scruple concerning bribery. Pieces of plate
and bags of money were sent in presents to the king’s counsel, to
influence their conduct, and poured forth, says a contemporary writer,
like billets of wood upon their floors, without even the decency of
concealment.
In such times, it was not over uncharitable to suppose that the
statesman, practised in courts of law, and a powerful member of a
triumphant cabal, might find and use means of advantage over his less
skilful and less favoured adversary; and if it had been supposed that
Sir William Ashton’s conscience had been too delicate to profit by
these advantages, it was believed that his ambition and desire of
extending his wealth and consequence found as strong a stimulus in the
exhortations of his lady as the daring aim of Macbeth in the days of
yore.
Lady Ashton was of a family more distinguished than that of her lord,
an advantage which she did not fail to use to the uttermost, in
maintaining and extending her husband’s influence over others, and,
unless she was greatly belied, her own over him. She had been
beautiful, and was stately and majestic in her appearance. Endowed by
nature with strong powers and violent passions, experience had taught
her to employ the one, and to conceal, if not to moderate, the other.
She was a severe and strict observer of the external forms, at least,
of devotion; her hospitality was splendid, even to ostentation; her
address and manners, agreeable to the pattern most valued in Scotland
at the period, were grave, dignified, and severely regulated by the
rules of etiquette. Her character had always been beyond the breath of
slander. And yet, with all these qualities to excite respect, Lady
Ashton was seldom mentioned in the terms of love or affection.
Interest—the interest of her family, if not her own—seemed too
obviously the motive of her actions; and where this is the case, the
sharp-judging and malignant public are not easily imposed upon by
outward show. It was seen and ascertained that, in her most graceful
courtesies and compliments, Lady Ashton no more lost sight of her
object than the falcon in his airy wheel turns his quick eyes from his
destined quarry; and hence, something of doubt and suspicion qualified
the feelings with which her equals received her attentions. With her
inferiors these feelings were mingled with fear; an impression useful
to her purposes, so far as it enforced ready compliance with her
requests and implicit obedience to her commands, but detrimental,
because it cannot exist with affection or regard.
Even her husband, it is said, upon whose fortunes her talents and
address had produced such emphatic influence, regarded her with
respectful awe rather than confiding attachment; and report said, there
were times when he considered his grandeur as dearly purchased at the
expense of domestic thraldom. Of this, however, much might be
suspected, but little could be accurately known: Lady Ashton regarded
the honour of her husband as her own, and was well aware how much that
would suffer in the public eye should he appear a vassal to his wife.
In all her arguments his opinion was quoted as infallible; his taste
was appealed to, and his sentiments received, with the air of deference
which a dutiful wife might seem to owe to a husband of Sir William
Ashton’s rank and character. But there was something under all this
which rung false and hollow; and to those who watched this couple with
close, and perhaps malicious, scrutiny it seemed evident that, in the
haughtiness of a firmer character, higher birth, and more decided views
of aggrandisement, the lady looked with some contempt on her husband,
and that he regarded her with jealous fear, rather than with love or
admiration.
Still, however, the leading and favourite interests of Sir William
Ashton and his lady were the same, and they failed not to work in
concert, although without cordiality, and to testify, in all exterior
circumstances, that respect for each other which they were aware was
necessary to secure that of the public.
Their union was crowned with several children, of whom three survived.
One, the eldest son, was absent on his travels; the second, a girl of
seventeen, and the third, a boy about three years younger, resided with
their parents in Edinburgh during the sessions of the Scottish
Parliament and Privy Council, at other times in the old Gothic castle
of Ravenswood, to which the Lord Keeper had made large additions in the
style of the 17th century.
Allan Lord Ravenswood, the late proprietor of that ancient mansion and
the large estate annexed to it, continued for some time to wage
ineffectual war with his successor concerning various points to which
their former transactions had given rise, and which were successively
determined in favour of the wealthy and powerful competitor, until
death closed the litigation, by summoning Ravenswood to a higher bar.
The thread of life, which had been long wasting, gave way during a fit
of violent and impotent fury with which he was assailed on receiving
the news of the loss of a cause, founded, perhaps, rather in equity
than in law, the last which he had maintained against his powerful
antagonist. His son witnessed his dying agonies, and heard the curses
which he breathed against his adversary, as if they had conveyed to him
a legacy of vengeance. Other circumstances happened to exasperate a
passion which was, and had long been, a prevalent vice in the Scottish
disposition.
It was a November morning, and the cliffs which overlooked the ocean
were hung with thick and heavy mist, when the portals of the ancient
and half-ruinous tower, in which Lord Ravenswood had spent the last and
troubled years of his life, opened, that his mortal remains might pass
forward to an abode yet more dreary and lonely. The pomp of attendance,
to which the deceased had, in his latter years, been a stranger, was
revived as he was about to be consigned to the realms of forgetfulness.
Banner after banner, with the various devices and coats of this ancient
family and its connexions, followed each other in mournful procession
from under the low-browed archway of the courtyard. The principal
gentry of the country attended in the deepest mourning, and tempered
the pace of their long train of horses to the solemn march befitting
the occasion. Trumpets, with banners of crape attached to them, sent
forth their long and melancholy notes to regulate the movements of the
procession. An immense train of inferior mourners and menials closed
the rear, which had not yet issued from the castle gate when the van
had reached the chapel where the body was to be deposited.
Contrary to the custom, and even to the law, of the time, the body was
met by a priest of the Scottish Episcopal communion, arrayed in his
surplice, and prepared to read over the coffin of the deceased the
funeral service of the church. Such had been the desire of Lord
Ravenswood in his last illness, and it was readily complied with by the
Tory gentlemen, or Cavaliers, as they affected to style themselves, in
which faction most of his kinsmen were enrolled. The Presbyterian
Church judicatory of the bounds, considering the ceremony as a
bravading insult upon their authority, had applied to the Lord Keeper,
as the nearest privy councillor, for a warrant to prevent its being
carried into effect; so that, when the clergyman had opened his
prayer-book, an officer of the law, supported by some armed men,
commanded him to be silent. An insult which fired the whole assembly
with indignation was particularly and instantly resented by the only
son of the deceased, Edgar, popularly called the Master of Ravenswood,
a youth of about twenty years of age. He clapped his hand on his sword,
and bidding the official person to desist at his peril from farther
interruption, commanded the clergyman to proceed. The man attempted to
enforce his commission; but as an hundred swords at once glittered in
the air, he contented himself with protesting against the violence
which had been offered to him in the execution of his duty, and stood
aloof, a sullen and moody spectator of the ceremonial, muttering as one
who should say: “You’ll rue the day that clogs me with this answer.”
The scene was worthy of an artist’s pencil. Under the very arch of the
house of death, the clergyman, affrighted at the scene, and trembling
for his own safety, hastily and unwillingly rehearsed the solemn
service of the church, and spoke “dust to dust and ashes to ashes,”
over ruined pride and decayed prosperity. Around stood the relations of
the deceased, their countenances more in anger than in sorrow, and the
drawn swords which they brandished forming a violent contrast with
their deep mourning habits. In the countenance of the young man alone,
resentment seemed for the moment overpowered by the deep agony with
which he beheld his nearest, and almost his only, friend consigned to
the tomb of his ancestry. A relative observed him turn deadly pale,
when, all rites being now duly observed, it became the duty of the
chief mourner to lower down into the charnel vault, where mouldering
coffins showed their tattered velvet and decayed plating, the head of
the corpse which was to be their partner in corruption. He stept to the
youth and offered his assistance, which, by a mute motion, Edgar
Ravenswood rejected. Firmly, and without a tear, he performed that last
duty. The stone was laid on the sepulchre, the door of the aisle was
locked, and the youth took possession of its massive key.
As the crowd left the chapel, he paused on the steps which led to its
Gothic chancel. “Gentlemen and friends,” he said, “you have this day
done no common duty to the body of your deceased kinsman. The rites of
due observance, which, in other countries, are allowed as the due of
the meanest Christian, would this day have been denied to the body of
your relative—not certainly sprung of the meanest house in Scotland—had
it not been assured to him by your courage. Others bury their dead in
sorrow and tears
|
of the sixteenth
century. And I have read, somewhere, that this mode of printing the
patterns on small pieces of paper was an imitation of the Spanish
squares of stamped and painted leather with which the grandees of Spain
covered their walls, a fashion that spread all over Europe.
"We are told that wall-paper was first used in Europe as a substitute
for the tapestry so commonly employed in the middle ages, partly as a
protection against the cold and damp of the stone walls of the houses,
partly, no doubt, as an ornament."
But here is something delightfully positive from A. Blanchet's _Essai
sur L'Histoire du Papier et de sa Fabrication_, Exposition retrospective
de la Papetier, Exposition Universelle, Paris, 1900.
Blanchet says that paper was invented in China by Tsai Loon, for
purposes of writing. He used fibres of bark, hemp, rags, etc. In 105 A.
D. he reported to the government on his process, which was highly
approved. He was given the honorary title of Marquis and other honors.
The first paper book was brought to Japan from Corea, then a part of
China, in 285. The conquest of Turkestan by the Arabs, through which
they learned the manufacture of paper, came in the battle fought on the
banks of the River Tharaz, in July, 751. Chinese captives brought the
art to Samarcand, from which place it spread rapidly to other parts of
the Arabian Empire. Damascus was one of the first places to receive it.
In Egypt, paper began to take the place of papyrus in the ninth century,
and papyrus ceased to be used in the tenth. The Arabian paper was made
of rags, chiefly linen, and sized with wheat starch. European paper of
the thirteenth century shows, under the microscope, fibres of flax and
hemp, with traces of cotton. About 1400, animal glue was first used for
sizing. The common belief that Arabian and early European paper was made
of cotton is a mistake. There has never been any paper made of raw
cotton, and cotton paper anywhere is exceptional. In 1145, when the
troops of Abd el Mounin were about to attack the capital of Fez, the
inhabitants covered the vault of the mihrab of the mosque with paper,
and put upon this a coating of plaster, in order to preserve from
destruction the fine carvings which are still the admiration of
visitors. The mihrab of an Arabic mosque is a vaulted niche or alcove,
in which the altar stands and towards which the worshippers look while
they pray. This is probably the earliest approach to the use of
wall-paper and shows the excellent quality of the paper.
Herbert Spencer states that "Dolls, blue-books, paper-hangings are
lineally descended from the rude sculpture paintings in which the
Egyptians represented the triumphs and worship of their god-kings." No
doubt this is true, but the beginning of paper, and probably of
wall-paper, was in China.
Paper made of cotton and other vegetable fibres by the Chinese was
obtained by the Arabs in trade, through Samarcand. When they captured
that city, in 704 A.D. they learned the process from Chinese captives
there, and soon spread it over their empire. It was known as "Charta
Damascena" in the Middle Ages, and was extensively made also in Northern
Africa. The first paper made in Europe was manufactured by the Moors in
Spain, at Valencia, Toledo, and Xativa. At the decline of Moorish power,
the Christians took it up, but their work was not so good. It was
introduced into Italy through the Arabs in Sicily; and the Laws of
Alphonso, 1263, refer to it as "cloth parchment." The earliest documents
on this thick "cotton" paper date from the twelfth and thirteenth
centuries, as a deed of King Roger of Sicily, dated 1102, shows. When
made further north, other materials, such as rags and flax, were used.
The first mention of rag paper, in a tract of Peter, Abbott of Cluny
from 1122 to 1150, probably means woolen. Linen paper was not made until
in the fourteenth century.
The Oriental papers had no water mark,--which is really a wire mark.
Water-mark paper originated in the early fourteenth century, when
paper-making became an European industry; and a considerable
international trade can be traced by means of the water marks.
The French Encyclopædia corroborates Blanchet's statement that the
common notion that the Arabic and early European papers were made of
cotton is a mistake; the microscope shows rag and flax fibres in the
earliest.
Frederic Aumonier says: "From the earliest times man has longed to
conceal the baldness of mud walls, canvas tents or more substantial
dwellings, by something of a decorative character. Skins of animals, the
trophies of the chase, were probably used by our remote ancestors for
ages before wall-paintings and sculptures were thought of. The extreme
antiquity of both of these latter methods of wall decoration has
recently received abundant confirmation from the valuable work done by
the Egyptian Research Department, at Hierakonopolis, where
wall-paintings have been discovered in an ancient tomb, the date of
which has not yet been determined, but which is probably less than seven
thousand years old; and by the discovery of ancient buildings under the
scorching sand dunes of the great Sahara, far away from the present
boundary line of habitable and cultivated land. The painted decorations
on the walls of some of the rooms in these old-world dwellings have been
preserved by the dry sand, and remain almost as fresh as they were on
the day they left the hand of the artist, whose bones have long since
been resolved into their native dust."
From the Encyclopædia Britannica I condense the long article on "Mural
Decoration":
There is scarcely one of the numerous branches of decorative art which
has not at some time or other been applied to the ornamentation of
wall-surfaces.
I. Reliefs sculptured in marble or stone; the oldest method of wall
decoration.
II. Marble veneer; the application of thin marble linings to wall
surfaces, these linings often being highly variegated.
III. Wall linings of glazed bricks or tiles. In the eleventh and
twelfth centuries, the Moslems of Persia brought their art to great
perfection and used it on a large scale, chiefly for interiors. In the
most beautiful specimens, the natural growth of trees and flowers is
imitated. About 1600 A. D., this art was brought to highest perfection.
IV. Wall coverings of hard stucco, frequently enriched with relief and
further decorated with delicate paintings in gold and colors, as at the
Alhambra at Granada and the Alcazar at Seville.
V. Sgraffito; a variety of stucco work used chiefly in Italy, from the
sixteenth century down. A coat of stucco is made black by admixture of
charcoal. Over this a second very thin coat of white stucco is laid. The
drawing is made to appear in black on a white ground, by cutting away
the white skin enough to show the black undercoat.
VI. Stamped leather; magnificent and expensive, used during the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, in Italy, Spain, France, and later
in England.
VII. Painted cloth. In _King Henry IV._, Falstaff says his soldiers are
"slaves, as ragged as Lazarus in the painted cloth." Canvas, painted to
imitate tapestry, was used both for ecclesiastical and domestic
hangings. English mediæval inventories contain such items as "stayned
cloth for hangings"; "paynted cloth with stories and batailes"; and
"paynted cloths of beyond-sea-work." The most important existing example
is the series of paintings of the Triumph of Julius Caesar, now in
Hampton Court. These designs were not meant to be executed in tapestry,
but were complete as wall-hangings. Godon, in _Peinture sur Toile_,
says: "The painted canvasses kept at the Hôtel Dieu at Rheims were done
in the fifteenth century, probably as models for woven tapestries. They
have great artistic merit. The subjects are religious." Painted cloths
were sometimes dyed in a manner similar to those Indian stuffs which
were afterwards printed and are now called chintzes. It is recorded
somewhere, that the weaving industry was established at Mulhouse
(Rixheim) by workers who left Rheims at a time when laws were passed
there to restrict the manufacture of painted cloths, because there was
such a rage for it that agriculture and other necessary arts were
neglected.
VIII. Printed hangings and wall-papers. The printing of various textiles
with dye-colors and mordaunts is probably one of the most ancient of the
arts. Pliny describes a dyeing process employed by the ancient
Egyptians, in which the pattern was probably formed by printing from
blocks. The use of printed stuffs is of great antiquity among the Hindus
and Chinese, and was practised in Western Europe in the thirteenth
century, and perhaps earlier. The South Kensington Museum has
thirteenth-century specimens of block-printed linen made in Sicily, with
beautiful designs. Later, toward the end of the fourteenth century, a
great deal of block-printed linen was made in Flanders and was imported
largely into England.
Tapestries as wall-hangings were used in the earliest times, and, as
tiles and papers were copied from them, they must be spoken of here. One
remarkable example of tapestry from a tomb in the Crimea is supposed by
Stephani to date from the fourth century before Christ. Homer frequently
describes tapestry hangings, as when he alludes to the cloth of purple
wool with a hunting scene in gold thread, woven by Penelope for Ulysses.
Plutarch, in his Life of Themistocles, says, "Speech is like cloth of
Arras, opened and put abroad, whereby the imagery doth appear in figure;
whereas in thoughts they lie but as in packs."
The oldest tapestry now in existence is the set of pieces known as the
Bayeux Tapestry, preserved in the library at Bayeux, near Caen, in
France, and said to be the work of Matilda, Queen of William the
Conqueror. These pieces measure two hundred and thirty-one feet long and
twenty inches wide.
It is generally believed, and stated as a fact in the various
guide-books, that the Bayeux Tapestry was the work of Queen Matilda, the
consort of the Conqueror, assisted by her ladies. At that time, English
ladies were renowned for their taste and skill in embroidery. Their work
was known throughout Europe as English work. The Conquest having brought
the people of Normandy and England into close intercourse, it is pointed
out that on William's return to France, he must have taken with him many
Saxons, with their wives and daughters, in honorable attendance upon
him; and that these ladies might have helped Matilda and her companions
in making this historical piece of needlework. Many historians, however,
incline to the opinion that Matilda and her ladies had nothing to do
with the tapestry, although it was done during her lifetime.
It is amusing to note how Miss Strickland, in her _Lives of the Queens
of England_, takes up the cudgels in a very vigorous manner on behalf of
Matilda's claim:
"The archæologists and antiquaries would do well to direct their
intellectual powers to more masculine objects of enquiry, and leave the
question of the Bayeux Tapestry (with all other matters allied to
needle-craft) to the decision of the ladies, to whose province it
belongs. It is a matter of doubt whether one out of the many gentlemen
who have disputed Matilda's claim to that work, if called upon to
execute a copy of either of the figures on canvas, would know how to put
in the first stitch."
But Dr. Daniel Rock, in his exhaustive work on Tapestries, casts the
gravest doubts upon the tradition that this needlework owed its origin
to Matilda and her ladies: "Had such a piece anywise or ever belonged to
William's wife, we must think that, instead of being let stray away to
Bayeux, toward which place she bore no particular affection, she would
have bequeathed it, like other things, to her beloved church at Caen."
The author points out that there is no mention of the tapestry in the
Queen's will, while two specimens of English needlework, a chasuble and
a vestment, are left to the Church of the Trinity at Caen, the beautiful
edifice founded by her at the time when her husband founded the
companion church of St. Etienne in the same city. In fact, Dr. Rock
thinks the tapestry was made in London, to the order of three men quite
unknown to fame, whose names appear more than once on the tapestry
itself. Coming over with the Conqueror, they obtained wide possessions
in England, as appears from the Doomsday Book, and would naturally have
wished to make a joint offering to the cathedral of their native city.
In support of this view, it is shown that the long strip of needlework
exactly fits both sides of the nave of the cathedral at Bayeux, where
until recent times it has hung.
The tapestry has undergone so many vicissitudes that it is a matter for
wonder that it has been preserved in such good condition for eight
hundred years. At one time it was exhibited at the Hôtel de Ville, at
Bayeux, fixed panorama-fashion on two rollers, so that it was at the
disposal of the fingers as well as the eyes of the curious. When
Napoleon was thinking of invading this country, he had the tapestry
carried to the various towns of France and publicly exhibited, so as to
arouse popular enthusiasm on behalf of his designs.
In 1871, when the Prussians were thought to be in dangerous proximity to
Bayeux, the tapestry was taken down, enclosed in a metal cylinder, and
buried in a secret place until the close of the war. Now it is kept in
the Public Library in an upright glass case, which forms the sides of a
hollow parallelogram, the tapestry being carried first round the outside
and then round the inside space, so that every part of it is open to
inspection, while it cannot be touched or mutilated. This valuable
information is given by Mr. T. C. Hepworth.
In the Old Testament we find records of "hangings of fine twined linen"
and "hangings of white cloth, of green, of blue, fastened with cords of
fine linen and purple." Shakespeare has several allusions to tapestry:
as, "fly-bitten tapestry"; "worm-eaten tapestry"; "covered o'er with
Turkish tapestry"; "the tapestry of my dining chambers"; "it was hanged
with tapestry of silk"; "in cypress chests my arras"; "hangings all of
Tyrian tapestry."
Cardinal Wolsey's private accounts and inventories, still preserved,
state that in 1552 he bought one hundred and thirty-two large pieces of
Brussels tapestry, woven with Scriptural subjects and mostly made to
order, so as to fit exactly the various wall spaces. Among the
wall-pieces, "in addition to the numerous sacred subjects are mentioned
mythological scenes, romances, historical pieces and hangings of
verdure," the last being decorative work, in which trees and foliage
formed the main design, with accessory figures engaged in hunting,
hawking and the like.
We read in Gibbon's Rome that Charles the Sixth despatched, by way of
Hungary, Arras tapestry representing the battles of the great Alexander.
And Macaulay inquires, "Where were now the brave old hangings of Arras
which had adorned the walls of lordly mansions in the days of
Elizabeth?"
According to Shakespeare, the arras was found convenient to conceal
eaves-droppers, those planning a frolic or plotting mischief; or for a
hasty lunch, as in _The Woman Hater_, by Beaumont and Fletcher:
I have of yore made many a scrambling meal,
In corners, behind arrases, on stairs.
Arras was used precisely the same as a curtain; it hung on tenters or
lines from the rafters or from some temporary stay, and was opened, held
up, or drawn aside, as occasion required. The writers of the day
frequently mentioned these wall-hangings. Evelyn, in his diary, 1641,
says, "We were conducted to the lodgings, tapestry'd with incomparable
arras."
Scott, in _The Lady of the Lake_, has this couplet:
In vain on gilded roof they fall,
And lighten up a tapestried wall.
And in _Waverley_ he speaks of "remnants of tapestried hangings, window
curtains and shreds of pictures with which he had bedizened his
tatters."
After the seventeenth century, these tapestries were used for covering
furniture, as the seats and backs of sofas and arm chairs, desks and
screens; and fire-screens covered with tapestry as beautiful as a
painting were in vogue. In the _Comedy of Errors_ we recall this
passage:
In the desk
That's covered o'er with Turkish tapestry
There is a purse of ducats.
Clarence Cook says: "There was a kind of tapestry made in Europe in the
fifteenth century--in Flanders, probably--in which there were
represented gentlemen and ladies, the chatelaine and her suite walking
in the park of the chateau. The figures, the size of life, seem to be
following the course of a slender stream. The park in which these noble
folk are stiffly disporting is represented by a wide expanse of meadow,
guiltless of perspective, stretching up to the top of the piece of stuff
itself, a meadow composed of leaves and flowers--bluebells, daisies, and
flowers without a name--giving the effect of a close mosaic of green,
mottled with colored spots. On the meadow are scattered various figures
of animals and birds--the lion, the unicorn, the stag, and the rabbit.
Here, too, are hawks and parrots; in the upper part is a heron, which
has been brought down by a hawk and is struggling with the victor, some
highly ornamental drops of blood on the heron's breast showing that he
is done for. And to return to the brook which winds along the bottom of
the tapestry, it is curious to note that this part of the work is more
real and directly natural in its treatment than the rest. The water is
blue, and is varied by shading and by lines that show the movement of
the stream; the plants and bushes growing along its borders are drawn
with at least a conventional look of life, some violets and fleur-de-lis
being particularly well done; and in the stream itself are sailing
several ducks, some pushing straight ahead, others nibbling the grass
along the bank, and one, at least, diving to the bottom, with tail and
feet in the air."
The best authority on tapestries in many lands is the exhaustive work by
Muntz, published in Paris, 1878-1884, by the Société anonyme de
Publication Périodique--three luxuriously bound and generously
illustrated volumes, entitled _Histoire Générale de la Tapisserie en
Italie, en Allemagne, en Angleterre, en Espagne_.
We learn here that in 1630 Le François, of Rouen, incited by the
Chinese colored papers imported by the missionaries, tried to imitate
the silk tapestries of the wealthy in a cheaper substance. He spread
powdered wool of different colors on a drawing covered with a sticky
substance on the proper parts. This _papier velouté_, called _tontisse_
by Le François, was exported to England, where it became known as "flock
paper." The English claim a previous invention by Jeremy Lanyer, who, in
1634, had used Chinese and Japanese processes. At any rate, the
manufacture of flock papers spread in England and was given up in
France. Only toward the middle of the eighteenth century was the making
of real colored papers (_papier peints_) begun in France and England.
The first factory was set up in 1746, but the work was not extended
further until 1780, when it was taken up by the brothers George and
Frederic Echardt.
Chinese picture papers were imported into France by Dutch traders and
used to decorate screens, desks, chimney-pieces, etc., as early as the
end of the seventeenth century. By the middle of the eighteenth, they
were an important ornament of elegant interiors. In the list of the
furniture given to Mlle. Desmares by Mlle. Damours, September 25, 1746,
is a fire-screen of China paper, mounted on wood, very simple. On July
25, 1755, Lazare Duvaux delivered to Mme. de Brancas, to be sent to the
Dauphiness, a sheet of China paper with very beautiful vases and
flowers, for making which he charged thirty livres. April 6, 1756, he
sold to the Countess of Valentinois, for one hundred and forty-four
livres, six sheets of China paper, painted on gauze with landscapes and
figures.
May 8, 1770, M. Marin advertised for sale in a Paris newspaper
twenty-four sheets of China paper, with figures and gilt ornaments, ten
feet high and three and one-half feet wide, at twenty-four livres a
sheet; to be sold all together, or in lots of eight sheets each. By this
time whole rooms were papered. July 15, 1779, an apartment in Paris was
advertised to let, having a pretty boudoir with China paper in small
figures representing arts and crafts, thirteen sheets, with a length of
thirty-seven feet (horizontally) and height of eight feet ten inches,
with gilt beaded moulding. Dec. 31, 1781, "For sale, at M. Nicholas's,
China wall-paper, glazed, blue ground, made for a room eighteen feet
square, with gilt moulding."
Mr. Aumonier says: "Notwithstanding the Chinese reputation for printing
from wooden blocks from time immemorial, no specimens of their work
produced by that process have ever come under the notice of the author,
in public museums or elsewhere, and it is far more probable that early
Chinese works imported into Europe were painted by hand, in imitation of
the wondrous needlework, for which, through unknown ages, the Eastern
peoples have been famous. A most perfect and beautiful example of this
work, of Japanese origin, may be seen in the "Queen's palace at the
Hague," called the _Huis-ten-Bosch_--the House-in-the-Wood. This is a
magnificent composition of foliage and flowers, birds and butterflies,
perfect in form and beauty of tint, worked in silks on a ground of
_écru_ satin. It is composed of many breadths forming one picture,
starting from the ground with rock-work, and finishing at the top of the
wall with light sprays of flowers, birds, butterflies and sky; the
colouring of the whole so judiciously harmonized as to be an object
lesson of great value to any decorator, and worth traveling many miles
to study."
I think that we may now safely say that China holds the honors in this
matter. And as most of us grow a bit weary of continuous citations from
cyclopedias, which are quoted because there is nothing less didactic to
quote, and there must be a historical basis to stand on and start from,
let us wander a little from heavy tomes and see some of the difficulties
encountered in looking up old wall-papers to be photographed.
An American artist, who has made his home in Paris for years, looked
over the photographs already collected, grew enthusiastic on the
subject, and was certain he could assist me, for, at the Retrospective
Exhibition held in that city in 1900, he remembered having seen a
complete exhibition of wall-papers and designs from the beginning. Of
course the dailies and magazines of that season would have full reports.
"Just send over to Jack Cauldwell--you know him. He is now occupying my
studio, and he will gladly look it up."
I wrote, and waited, but never received any response; heard later that
he was painting in Algiers and apparently all the hoped-for reports had
vanished with him. My famously successful searcher after the elusive and
recondite gave up this fruitless hunt in despair. Other friends in Paris
were appealed to, but could find nothing.
Then many told me, with confidence, that there must be still some
handsome old papers in the mansions of the South. And I did my best to
secure at least some bits of paper, to show what had been, but I believe
nearly all are gone "down the back entry of time."
One lady, belonging to one of the best old families of Virginia, writes
me, "My brother has asked me to write to you about wall-papers. I can
only recall one instance of very old or peculiar papering in the South,
and my young cousin, who is a senior in the Columbia School of
Architecture and very keen on 'Colonial' details, tells me that he only
knows of one. He has just been through tide-water Virginia, or rather,
up the James and Rappahannock rivers, and he says those houses are all
without paper at all, as far as he knows.
"At Charlestown, West Virginia, there is a room done in tapestry paper
in classic style, the same pattern being repeated, but this is not old,
being subsequent to 1840. The room that I have seen is wainscoted, as is
the one at Charlestown, and has above the wainscoting a tapestry paper
also in shades of brown on a white ground.
"The principal wall has a large classical design, with columns, ships
and figures, not unlike the Turner picture of Carthage, as I remember
it. This picture is not repeated, but runs into others. Whether each is
a panel, or they are merged into one another by foliage, I am unable to
recall. I know that there is a stag hunt and some sylvan scenes. It
seemed as if the paper must have been made with just such a room in
mind, as the patterns seemed to fit the spaces. As the room was the
usual corner parlor common to Southern mansions, it was probably made
for the type. I was told by a boarder in this house that the paper was
old and there were similar papers in Augusta County. I do not know
whether these are choice and rare instances, or whether they are
numerous and plentiful in other sections."
All my responses from the South have been cordial and gracious and
interesting, but depressing.
I hear, in a vague way, of papers that I really should have--in Albany
and Baltimore. We all know of the papers in the Livingston and Jumel
mansions; the former are copied for fashionable residences.
I heard of some most interesting and unusual papers in an old house in
Massachusetts, and after struggling along with what seemed almost
insurmountable hindrances, was at last permitted to secure copies. The
owner of the house died; the place was to be closed for six months; then
it was to be turned over to the church, for a parsonage, and I agonised
lest one paper might be removed at once as a scandalous presentment of
an unholy theme. I was assured that in it the Devil himself was caught
at last, by three revengeful women, who, in a genuine tug-of-war
scrimmage, had torn away all of his tail but a stub end. Finally I
gained a rather grudging permit for my photographer to copy the
papers--"if you will give positive assurance that neither house nor
walls shall be injured in the slightest degree."
_PLATE III._
In abrupt contrast with the preceding specimen, this old French
paper is printed with great care and shows high artistic taste. The
eight well-composed groups of figures that form the complete design
are after the manner of Watteau; the coloring is rich but quiet.
Seventeen shades and colors were imposed on a brown ground, and the
black mesh-work added over all.
[Illustration]
As the artist is a quiet gentleman--also an absolute abstainer--so that
I could not anticipate any damage from a rough riot or a Bacchanalian
revel, I allowed him to cross the impressive threshold of the former
home of a Massachusetts governor, and the result was a brilliant
achievement, as may be seen in the end papers of this book.
Sometimes when elated by a promise that a certain paper, eagerly
desired, could be copied, I sent my man only to have the door held just
a bit open, while he heard the depressing statement that madam had
"changed her mind and didn't want the paper to be taken."
All this is just a reminder that it is not entirely easy to get at what
is sure so soon to disappear. And I mourn that I did not think years ago
of securing photographs of quaint and antique papers.
Man has been defined as "an animal who collects." There is no hobby more
delightful, and in this hunt I feel that I am doing a real service to
many who have not time to devote to the rather difficult pursuit of what
will soon be only a remembrance of primitive days.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
II
PROGRESS AND IMPROVEMENT IN THE ART
[Illustration]
II
PROGRESS AND IMPROVEMENT IN THE ART
If we go far enough back in trying to decide the origin of almost any
important discovery, we are sure to find many claimants for the honor.
It is said, on good authority, that "paper-hangings for the walls of
rooms were originally introduced in China." This may safely be accepted
as correct. The Chinese certainly discovered how to make paper, then a
better sort for wall hangings, and by Chinese prisoners it was carried
to Arabia. Travellers taking the news of the art to their homes in
various countries, it soon became a subject of general interest, and
variations and inventions in paper manufacture were numerous.
We are apt to forget how much we owe to the Chinese nation--the
mariners' compass, gun-powder, paper, printing by moveable types (a
daily paper has been published in Pekin for twelve hundred years,
printed, too, on silk). They had what we call The Golden Rule five
hundred years before Christ was born. With six times the population of
the United States, they are the only people in the world who have
maintained a government for three thousand years.
The earliest papers we hear of anywhere were imported from China, and
had Chinese or Indian patterns; coming first in small sheets, then in
rolls. Some of the more elaborate kinds were printed by hand; others
were printed from blocks. These papers, used for walls, for hangings,
and for screens, were called "pagoda papers," and were decorated with
flowers, symbolic animals and human figures.
The Dutch were among the most enterprising, importing painted hangings
from China and the East about the middle of the sixteenth century.
Perhaps these originated in Persia; the word "chintz" is of Persian
origin, and the French name for its imitations was "perses."
From the Dutch, these imported hangings were soon carried to England,
France, Germany and other Continental nations. Each nation was deadly
jealous in regard to paper-making, even resorting, in Germany in 1390,
to solemn vows of secrecy from the workman and threats of imprisonment
for betrayal of methods. Two or three centuries later, the Dutch
prohibited the exportation of moulds under no less a penalty than death.
The oldest allusion to printed wall-papers that I have found is in an
account of the trial, in 1568, of a Dutch printer, Herman Schinkel of
Delft, on the charge of printing books inimical to the Catholic faith.
The examination showed that Schinkel took ballad paper and printed roses
and stripes on the back of it, to be used as a covering for attic walls.
In the Library of the British Museum may be seen a book, printed in Low
Dutch, made of sixty specimens of paper, each of a different material.
The animal and vegetable products of which the workmen of various
countries tried to manufacture paper would make a surprising list. In
England, a paper-mill was set up probably a century before Shakespeare's
time. In the second part of _Henry the Sixth_ is a reference to a
paper-mill.
About 1745, the Campagnie des Indes began to import these papers
directly. They were then also called "Indian" papers. August 21, 1784,
we find an advertisement: "For sale--20 sheets of India paper,
representing the cultivation of tea."
Such a paper, with this same theme, was brought to America one hundred
and fifty years ago--a hand-painted Chinese wall-paper, which has been
on a house in Dedham ever since, and is to-day in a very good state of
preservation. Of this paper I give three reproductions from different
walls of the room.
In _Le Mercure_, June, 1753, M. Prudomme advertised an assortment of
China paper of different sizes; and again, in May, 1758, that he had
received many very beautiful India papers, painted, in various sizes and
grounds, suitable for many uses, and including every kind that could be
desired. This was the same thing that was called "China" paper five
years before.
The great development of the home manufacture of wall-papers, at the
beginning of the nineteenth century, put an end to the importation from
China. The English were probably the first importers of these highly
decorative Chinese papers, and quickly imitated them by printing the
papers. These "_papiers Anglais_" soon became known on the Continent,
and the French were also at work as rivals in their manufacture and use.
Of a book published in 1847, called _The Laws of Harmonious Colouring_,
the author, one David R. Hay, was house painter and decorator to the
Queen. I find that he was employed as a decorator and paper-hanger by
Sir Walter Scott, and he says that Sir Walter directed everything
personally. Mr. Hay speaks of a certain Indian paper, of crimson color,
with a small gilded pattern upon it. "This paper Sir Walter did not
quite approve of for a dining-room, but as he got it as a present,
expressly for that purpose, and as he believed it to be rare, he would
have it put up in that room rather than hurt the feelings of the donor.
I observed to Sir Walter that there would be scarcely enough to cover
the wall; he replied in that case I might paint the recess for the
side-board in imitation of oak." Mr. Hay found afterwards that there was
quite enough paper, but Sir Walter, when he saw the paper on the recess,
heartily wished that the paper had fallen short, as he liked the recess
much better unpapered. So in the night Mr. Hay took off the paper and
painted the recess to look like paneled oak. This was in 1822.
Sir Walter, in a letter to a friend, speaks of "the most splendid
Chinese paper, twelve feet high by four wide; enough to finish the
drawing-room and two bed-rooms, the color being green, with rich Chinese
figures." Scott's own poem, _The Lady of the Lake_, has been a favorite
theme for wall-paper.
Professor W. E. D. Scott, the Curator of Ornithology at Princeton
College, in his recent book, _The Story of a Bird Lover_, alludes, in a
chapter about his childhood, to the papers on the walls of his
grandfather's home: "As a boy, the halls interested me enormously; they
have been papered with such wall-paper as I have never seen elsewhere.
The entrance hall portrayed a vista of Paris, apparently arranged along
the Seine, with ladies and gentlemen promenading the banks, and all the
notable buildings, the Pantheon, Notre Dame, and many more distributed
in the scene, the river running in front.
"But it was when I reached the second story that my childish imagination
was exercised. Here the panorama was of a different kind; it represented
scenes in India--
|
Sea,
and in Thessaly--but, wherever it is, I have always endeavored to
give the characters life and movement, and make them children of the
times and of the Hellenic soil. I have also sought to delve deeper
into the life of ancient times than usually happens in novels. Many
peculiarities, like the purification after a murder in the first tale,
the Baetylus oracle in “The Hetaeria,” and the use of the great weapon
of naval warfare, _the dolphin_, in “Too Happy” have scarcely been
previously described in any form in our literature. The belief in
marvellous stones animated by spirits was widely diffused in ancient
times, as such stones, under the name of _abadir_, were known in
Phoenicia. The description of the Baetylus oracle is founded upon Pliny
(17, 9, 51), Photius (p. 1047) and Pausanias (X. 24). It is evident
enough that the stone-spirit’s answer was given by the ventriloquist’s
art. Though the ancients had several names for ventriloquists, such as
_engastrimythae_, _sternomanteis_, etc., the art was certainly little
known in daily life, it seems to have been kept secret and used for the
answers of oracles, etc. The soothsayer and ventriloquist Eurycles,
mentioned by Aristophanes, endeavored to make the people believe that a
spirit spoke from his mouth because he uttered words without moving his
lips. For the _dolphin_, the weapon used in naval warfare, see _Scholia
graeca in Aristoph._ (_equit_ 762) and Thucydides (VII. 41).
In the ancient dialogue I have always endeavored to give the replies
an individual coloring, and it will be found that Acestor speaks a
different language from Sthenelus, Philopator from Polycles, etc.
Phrases like: “Begone to the vultures,” “show the hollows under the
soles of the feet,” “casting fire into the bosom,” etc., may easily be
recognized as borrowed from the classic writers. To enter into the
subject more minutely would be carrying the matter too far. Single
characteristic expressions, such as _palpale legein_, etc. cannot be
reproduced.
In introducing the reader to so distant and alien a world, it has been
a matter of great importance to me to win his confidence; with this
purpose I have sought by quotations to show the authority for what I
have written. Here and there, to remove any doubt of the existence of
an object in ancient times, I have added the Greek names. For the rest
I have everywhere striven to follow the old maxim _artis est celare
artem_.
COPENHAGEN, November 1, 1881.
P. MARIAGER.
CONTENTS.
PAGE
ZEUS HYPSISTOS, 1
THE SYCOPHANT, 69
THE HETAERIA, 95
TOO HAPPY, 203
LYCON WITH THE BIG HAND, 225
ILLUSTRATIONS.
PAGE
_Gold-fillet_ (Dr. Schliemann. Hissarlik, Troy.) 1
_Dragon figure on a gold plate_ (Dr. Schliemann, Mycenæ.) 65
_The market of Athens_ at a later period, about 200 B. C.
(In the upper part, in the background, is the Acropolis
with the Parthenon, the colossal statue of Athene, and
the Propylæa. To the left of the centre is a part of King
Attalus’ hall, afterwards the Stoa Poecile, the circular
Tholus, and behind, the Bouleuterium. In the foreground is
a statue of Eirene, Peace, with the child Plutus in her
arms; in the centre of the steps the square orator’s stage
with hermae at the corners.) 69
_Antique vase design_, 92
_Athens seen from the road to Eleusis._ (In the centre of the
picture the Acropolis, with the lower town in front, in the
background Mt. Hymettus.) 95
_Antique vase design_, 199
_The Ægean Sea._ (A large ploion, merchant ship, followed by a
pirate craft. Two of the Cyclades in the background.) 203
_Renaissance design_, 222
_Coast scene in Thessaly_, (near Pass of Thermopylæ,) 225
_Ancient jugglers._ (The figure at the right is performing a
“sword dance.”) 318
ZEUS HYPSISTOS.
A TALE OF THE PELASGIAN PERIOD.
[Illustration]
ZEUS HYPSISTOS.
I.
The region was one of the most noteworthy in Attica. Manifold in
variety were the objects crowded together within a narrow space. By the
side of riven masses of rock appeared the smooth slopes of a mountain
plateau, and--the centre of the landscape--a huge crag with a flat top
and steep sides towered aloft like a gigantic stone altar, reared by
the earth itself to receive the homage and reverence of mankind. Two
rivers, a wide and a narrow stream, flowed down its sides. Height and
valley, ravine and mountain peak, closely adjoined each other, all easy
of access and affording a surprising wealth of beautiful views.
The spot had a lofty destination. Here temples and pillared halls,
hermae and statues were to appear like the marble embodiment of a
dream of beauty in the youth of the human race; from hence the light of
intellect was to diffuse its rays over the whole inhabited world.
But in the distant ages of which we are now speaking Athens had no
existence even in name. Yet a suburb of the city afterwards so renowned
was already in course of construction. On the Pnyx, the Areopagus,
and part of the Museium stood a number of dwellings, and even at the
present day traces may be found on these heights of eight or nine
hundred houses, which must have lodged three or four thousand persons.
This city, founded by inhabitants of the island of Salamis, was called
Kranaai, and its residents were known by the name of Cranai, dwellers
on the heights.
Nothing could be more simple than these houses. As may still be
seen, they consisted merely of a room hollowed in the cliff, closed
in front and above with clay and stones,--the latter seem to have
rested upon logs to prevent a sudden fall during the earthquakes so
frequent in this region. Here and there small holes, into which the
ends of the pieces of timber were thrust, may still be discerned in
the cliffs. Many of the dwellings were arranged in rows, rising like
stairs one above another, all with an open space in front to serve as
a place of meeting for the inhabitants. These terraces were connected
by small steps hewn in the rock; here and there appeared altars,
large storehouses, and tombs, the latter consisting of one or more
subterranean rock chambers. Great numbers of such sepulchres are still
found scattered over large tracts of the ancient cliff-city.
Other remains of masonry may be seen in the holes in the earth made
to collect rain-water. More than twenty of these ancient wells can be
counted in this region, for though the Attic country was richly dowered
in many respects, it lacked water, and it was not without cause that
Solon’s law afterwards prohibited any one from borrowing of a neighbor
more than a certain quantity. The inhabitants of Kranaai had located
their wells so skilfully that even now--after the lapse of more than
thirty centuries--many of them collect and keep the rain.
Below the cliff-city itself the direction of the streets may still be
discerned, especially in the deep gully leading down to the Ilissus.
Here there are distinct traces of wheels, between which the stone was
roughened to give the draught-animals a better foothold, and along the
sides of the road ran smooth-hewn gutters to carry off the rain-water
pouring down from both bluffs.
II.
Many generations had already succeeded each other in the cliff-city,
when a new race settled on the little plateau between the Hill of
the Nymphs and the Gulf of Barathron. Like their predecessors,
the new-comers originated in Salamis, but they called themselves
Cychreans, from a family descended from Cychreus, one of the demi-gods
of the island.
While on the Pnyx alone was found the altar of Zeus Hypsistos, the
supreme Zeus, around which gathered the native inhabitants and the
Cranai to worship a common god, the new-comers erected a sanctuary to
the sea-nymph Melite, Hercules’ love, who was related to the Æacidae,
natives of Salamis.
The two neighboring colonies thus each worshipped its own divinity and
lived in peace and friendship, nay at last some of the Cychreans took
wives among the daughters of the Cranai.
On the other hand the new-comers were by no means on good terms with
the natives; for, as the latter lived scattered over the country and
did not seem to be very numerous, the Cychreans had forced those they
met to work for them. They had already employed them to smooth the
cliff, to enable them to build there, and many of the Pelasgians had
been seriously injured by the toilsome labor. Nay, Tydeus, a tall,
handsome youth, brother of one of their chiefs, had suffered a terrible
death, having been stoned because he had defended himself and refused
to work for the foreigners.
The Cychreans endeavored to conceal their crime, fearing that when the
matter reached the Pelasgians’ ears they would make war upon them.
There was very grave cause for alarm; for the Cychreans had often seen
from their cliff Pelasgian scouts hiding behind the clumps of broom on
the plains, evidently watching for an opportunity to approach their
enslaved countrymen. Young, swift-footed youths, whom it was lost
time to pursue, had invariably been chosen for this service, so the
Cychreans lay in ambush, captured some of the lads and questioned them
narrowly then, as they pretended to know nothing, forced them to work
like the others.
The morning after the capture of these spies the Cychreans noticed
that, far out on the plain, a pile of wood had been lighted, on which
ferns and green plants were undoubtedly thrown; for it sent forth a
dense, blackish-brown smoke, which rose to a considerable height and
could be seen far and near. Later in the day another bale-fire was
discovered farther off, and before noon ten columns of smoke were
counted from the cliff, five on each side, the last of which were
almost lost to sight in the distance. There was something strangely
menacing in these murky clouds which, calling to and answering each
other, rose like a mute accusation towards the sky.
The whole Cychrean nation, young and old, bond and free, gathered
outside of their houses and stared at the unknown sign. They suspected
that it was a signal for the Pelasgians to assemble, but when they
spoke of it to the new bondmen the latter said they had never seen such
a smoke, but that the Cychreans might rely upon it that the Pelasgians
would not march against them until the arrival of a more propitious
day. When the new settlers asked when that would be, they answered:
“When the moon is large in the sky.”
The Cychreans were obliged to be content with this, but each man in
secret carefully examined his weapons; no one believed himself safe.
III.
Lyrcus, son of Xanthios, was one of the principal Cychrean chiefs. He
was feared for his strength and, in those days, fear was synonymous
with respect. Lyrcus had devoted himself to the trade of war; he
understood how to forge and handle weapons and taught the youths their
use. In personal appearance he was a tall man with curling black
locks, a reddish-brown beard, and a keen, but by no means ugly face.
He usually went clad in a tight-fitting garment made of wolf-skins,
that left his muscular legs and arms bare, and wore around his waist
a leather girdle in which was thrust a bronze knife a finger long.
Many tales about him were in circulation among the Pelasgians; for
being a warlike man he had often quarrelled with them and on predatory
excursions with some of his comrades had plundered their lands,
carrying off goats, barley, figs, honey, and whatever else pleased him.
Lyrcus was no longer very young. He had seen the green leaves unfold
and the swallows return some forty times. Nevertheless, he had always
scoffed at love and considered it foolish trifling. When he was not
forging, his mind was absorbed in the chase and in practising the use
of arms.
Yet, though Lyrcus was so fierce a warrior, Aphrodite had touched
his heart and shown that she, as well as Artemis, deserved the name
of Hekaërge, the far-shooting. Once, during a short visit to the
neighboring settlement, Lyrcus had seen Byssa, the fairest maiden in
the cliff-city, drawing water from the well in front of her house, and
had instantly been seized with an ardent passion for her. Grasping her
firmly by the arm, he gazed intently at her and, when the blushing
maiden asked why he held her so roughly, he replied: “Never to let you
go!” Such was the fierce Lyrcus’ wooing.
Byssa’s father, Ariston, the priest of Zeus Hypsistos, was an aged,
gentle-natured man who dared not refuse the turbulent warrior; yet he
only gave his consent on condition that Byssa should keep the faith
of her ancestors and not offer sacrifices to Melite in the Cychreans’
sanctuary. Nevertheless, both he and his wife had tears in their eyes
when Lyrcus bore their only child away and, in taking leave of Byssa,
Ariston laid his hands upon her head, saying:
“Be a good wife to this stranger. But do not abandon Zeus Hypsistos,
that Zeus Hypsistos may not abandon you.”
Since that day a whole winter had passed, and Lyrcus seemed to love
Byssa more and more tenderly. There was only one subject on which the
husband and wife held different opinions. When Lyrcus saw the other
women flocking to Melite’s sanctuary he often wished that Byssa should
accompany them. But Byssa was inflexible. “Remember your promise to
my father,” she said. “Whatever may befall me, I shall never forget
his counsel: ‘Do not abandon Zeus Hypsistos, that Zeus Hypsistos may
not abandon you.’” And so the matter rested. But when a Phoenician
ship came to the coast--for in those days the Phoenicians were the
only people who dared to sail across the sea--Lyrcus bought the
finest stuffs, ornaments, and veils. It seemed as though he could not
adorn Byssa enough, she was to be more richly attired than any of the
Cychrean women.
Byssa had already had one suitor before her marriage, one of the
Pelasgian chiefs, a man thirty-eight years old, named Periphas. He was
the owner of a large herd of goats, often offered sacrifices to Zeus,
smoothed many a quarrel, and had the reputation of being a good and
upright man. Yet there was little reason that he should be renowned for
piety and sanctity, for he could scarcely control his passions and had
so violent a temper that he had once killed a soothsayer because the
latter, in the presence of the people, had predicted that he would die
a shameful death.
While offering a sacrifice in the cliff-city Periphas had seen pretty
Byssa and instantly asked her of her father, promising rich bridal
gifts. But the priest Ariston had answered that the maiden was still
too young.
After that time Periphas was often met in the vicinity of the Cranai’s
cliff and, when sacrifices were offered on the ancient altar, always
appeared at the head of the Pelasgians. But from the hour Lyrcus had
carried Byssa home none of the Cranai had seen him, though it was said
that on one of Lyrcus’ pillaging excursions he had shouted:
“Beware, when the day of retribution comes, I shall not content myself
with carrying off goats.”
Such was the state of affairs at the beginning of our tale. It almost
seemed as if the capture of the spies was to give occasion for war;
one of the youths had succeeded in escaping and the Cychreans feared
that during his stay among them he might have obtained news of Tydeus’
death. This Tydeus, who had been so shamefully stoned, was Periphas’
brother, and the chief thus had double cause for vengeance--his
brother’s murder and his slighted love.
But spite of the danger, under these circumstances, of leaving the
Cychreans’ cliff Lyrcus had too restless a nature to remain quietly at
home. The very day that the columns of smoke had struck such terror
into the people he had set out early in the morning, accompanied by six
or eight men, to hunt on the plains or among the woods that clothed Mt.
Parnes.
IV.
The day had been one of scorching heat. The sun had still one-sixth of
its course to run, and the air quivered over the heated cliffs.
The Cychreans had sought refuge outside of their small, close dwellings
to get a breath of the north wind. On each terrace, men, women,
and children were moving about, the former often clad merely with
the skin of some animal thrown around the hips, the boys perfectly
nude, and the women in looped, sleeveless garments or sometimes with
only a short petticoat over the loins. Most of these robes were
white, and the others were made of red, yellow, or blue stuffs; at
that time people valued only bright pure colors. Everywhere merry
conversation was heard, and these hundreds of half-nude figures formed
an indescribably animated picture against the dark background of rock.
Fear of the Pelasgians seemed to have vanished even before the fires
were extinguished, at any rate it did not prevent the Cychreans from
enjoying the present moment.
On one of the lowest terraces, directly opposite to the Areopagus,
stood Lyrcus’ house and beside it the shed where he forged his weapons.
At the door he had chained a large yellow dog of the Molossian breed,
a sort of bull-dog, and in the shelter of the dwelling an old female
slave was busy at a fire, over which she had hung a soot-encrusted clay
vessel.
A few paces off, towards the edge of the cliff, a canopy of rushes was
stretched between long poles. Beneath its shadow stood Byssa busied in
weaving loose bits of woollen stuff into a single piece. The “chain”
was placed perpendicularly, so that the weaving was done standing;--the
horizontal loom, which had been used in Egypt for centuries, was not
yet known in Hellas.
As Byssa stood near the verge of the cliff, with the blue sky behind
her, there was an excellent opportunity to observe her. She had
fastened her dark hair in a knot through which a bronze pin was thrust,
and wore around her neck a row of blue glass beads. The rest of her
dress consisted merely of a red petticoat, reaching from her hips to
her knees. But her low brow, her calm black eyes, brilliant complexion,
and full bust displayed the voluptuous beauty peculiar to the South,
and which, even in early youth, suggests the future mother. In short,
she was a true descendant of the grand Hellenic women, who from the
dim mists of distant ages appear in the bewitching lore of tradition,
fair enough to lure the gods themselves and strong enough to bear their
ardent embrace and become the mothers of demi-gods and heroes.
It was a pleasure to see how nimbly she used her hands, and how swiftly
the weaving progressed. Each movement of the young wife’s vigorous,
rounded, slightly-sun-burned body, though lacking in grace, possessed a
peculiar witchery on which no man’s eye would have rested with impunity.
But all men seemed banished from her presence. Every one knew that
Lyrcus’ jealousy was easily inflamed, and however great the charm Byssa
exercised, fear of the fierce warrior was more potent still.
Byssa’s thoughts did not seem to be absorbed in her work. Each moment
she glanced up from her weaving.
The Attic plain lay outspread before her in the sunlight. Here were no
waving grain-fields, no luxuriant vineyards; the layer of soil that
covered the rocks was so thin that the scanty crop of grass could only
feed a few goats. Here and there appeared a few gnarled olive-trees,
whose green-grey foliage glistened with a silvery lustre, and wherever
there was a patch of moisture the earth was covered with a speckled
carpet of crocus, hyacinth, and narcissus blossoms.
Finding the plain always empty and desolate, the young wife at last let
her hands fall and, sighing deeply, turned towards the slave.
“How long he stays!” she exclaimed, breaking the silence.
“Lyrcus is strong and well armed,” replied the slave as she heaped more
wood on the fire. “The Pelasgians fear him worse than death. He will
return unhurt.”
Byssa worked on silently; but she was not at ease and looked up from
her weaving still more frequently than before.
“Why,” cried the slave suddenly, “there they are. Look at Bremon.”[B]
The bull-dog had risen on its hind legs and was leaning forward so
that the chain was stretched tight; snuffing the wind and growling
impatiently it wagged its tail with all its might.
[B] Growler.
V.
Byssa stepped farther from under the rush canopy and shaded her eyes
with her hands. On the right the view was closed by Mt. Lycabettus,
whose twin peaks looked almost like one; on the left the gaze rested on
dark Parnes, whose strangely-formed side-spur, Harma, the chariot, was
distinctly visible from the Cychreans’ cliff.
For a long time Byssa saw nothing, then she accidentally noticed, much
nearer than she had expected, a white spot among some trees.
“There he is! There he is!” she cried joyously, clapping her hands.
“Tratta, rejoice! I see a light spot out there--his white horse.”
In a mountainous country like Attica even the plains are uneven, and a
rise of the ground concealed her view of the approaching steed.
At last the light spot appeared again--this time considerably nearer.
Then several moments passed, during which it seemed to grow larger.
Byssa strained her sight to the utmost, her bosom heaving with anxious
suspense. Suddenly she turned very pale and throwing herself upon
Tratta’s breast, faltered in a low voice:
“Something terrible has happened. The horse is alone--riderless.”
Almost at the same instant she released herself from the slave’s
embrace and went to the very verge of the cliff. From thence, at a
long distance behind the horse, she descried a group of people slowly
advancing. Several men who looked like black specks seemed to be
carrying another, and several more followed.
At this sight Byssa uttered a loud shriek and clenched both hands in
her hair. But Tratta held her back.
“Be calm, child,” she said with all the authority of age. “First learn
what has happened. You can find plenty of time to mourn.”
But Byssa did not heed her. The horse had come very near and was
galloping swiftly to its stable at the foot of the cliff.
Ere Tratta could prevent it, Byssa hurried to the nearest flight of
stairs and darted madly down the rough-hewn steps, where the slightest
stumble would cause mutilation or death. The slave, not without an
anxious shake of the head, slowly followed.
The horse had scarcely allowed itself to be caught when Byssa, with
tears in her eyes and a peculiar solemnity of manner, turned to the old
servant and pointed to the animal’s heaving flank.
There was not the slightest wound to be seen; but a streak of blood a
finger broad had flowed down the steed’s white side and matted its hair
together.
“I knew it, Tratta, I knew it!” cried Byssa despairingly.
Then, in a lower tone, she added: “It is _his_ blood.”
But Tratta answered almost angrily:
“His or some other person’s; what do you know about it? Help me to get
the horse into the shed.”
Byssa, without knowing what she was doing, obeyed and then looked out
over the plain, where she beheld a sight that made her tremble from
head to foot.
Lyrcus was approaching uninjured at the head of his men.
Byssa uttered a shriek of joy that echoed from cliff to cliff as, with
outstretched arms and fluttering hair, she flew to meet her husband.
Lyrcus knit his brows.
“What is it? What do you want here?” he asked, surprised to find her at
the base of the cliff.
But Byssa heeded neither words nor look. Throwing her arms around his
neck she clung to him and covered his wolf-skin robe with tears and
kisses.
“Lyrcus, you are alive,” she repeated frantically, while all the fear
and suspense she had endured found vent in soothing sobs.
“Byssa, speak! What is it?” asked Lyrcus, amazed at the excitement in
which he found his wife.
Byssa took him by the hand, led him to the stable, and put her finger
on the red streak upon the horse’s side.
“Simpleton!” said Lyrcus laughing. “That is no human blood.” And he
pointed to a huge dead wild-boar, which two men could scarcely carry
on a lance flung over their shoulders. “After the hunt,” he continued,
“we wanted to put the great heavy beast on the horse; but it was
frightened, bolted, and ran home.”
Meantime the men had come up. In spite of their fear of Lyrcus they
could not refrain from looking at pretty Byssa, who was now doubly
beautiful in her agitation and delight. Nay, some were not content
with gazing at her face, but cast side-glances at her bare feet and
ankles, which were sufficiently well-formed to attract attention,
though it was customary for women to go about with looped garments.
Lyrcus noticed these stolen glances, and frowning gripped his lance
more firmly.
“Why do you wear that red rag?” he said harshly, pointing to Byssa’s
short petticoat. “Haven’t I given you long robes?”
“The sun is so hot--and I was alone at my weaving,” stammered the poor
young wife with a burning blush.
As she spoke, confused and abashed, she put her foot on the lowest step
of the rock-stairs and was going to hurry up the cliff. But Lyrcus
seized her and hurling her behind him so that he concealed her with his
own body, shouted sternly to his companions:
“Forward!”
Then he himself went up after them, watching rigidly to see that no one
looked back, but left Byssa and the slave to follow as best they could.
VI.
On the cliff above there was great joy among the Cychreans over the
splendid game. But when the animal was flayed and its flesh cut into
pieces all, not merely the hunters themselves but their friends and
relatives, wanted a share of the prize. From words they came to blows,
and Lyrcus needed all his authority to restrain the infuriated men.
Meantime the sun had set behind the mountains of Corydallus. The
olive-trees on the plain cast no shadows, the whole of the level ground
was veiled in darkness. Everything was silent and peaceful, ever and
anon a low twittering rose from the thickets.
The Cychreans lingered gossipping together after the labor of the
day. Some of them asked Lyrcus and his companions whether anything
had happened during the hunt. Lyrcus replied that small parties of
Pelasgians had been seen passing in the distance, but he seemed to
attach no importance to the matter, and many of the Cychreans were
preparing to go to rest--when a child’s clear voice cried in amazement:
“Look, look! The hills are moving!”
Every eye followed the direction of the child’s finger.
Far away over some low hills, whose crests stood forth in clear relief
against the evening sky, a strange rippling motion was going on. It
looked as though some liquid body was flowing down, for one dark rank
succeeded another, as wave follows wave.
There was something in the sight which turned the blood in the
Cychreans’ veins to ice. Nothing was visible on the plain itself;
everything there was shrouded in the dusk of evening.
All listened in breathless suspense. Then a rushing sound echoed
through the increasing darkness--a noise like a great body of men in
motion, the hum of many voices, distant shouts, songs, and the clash
of weapons. The din seemed to increase and draw nearer. Then flames
glimmered, as though instantly covered by dark figures. It was like a
living stream, that grew and widened till it surrounded the whole cliff.
Then a torch was lighted and a small party of ten or twelve men
approached within a bow-shot. Two of them put long horns of spiral
form to their mouths, and wild echoing notes resounded from cliff to
cliff. A man clad in a white linen robe stepped forward, raising aloft
a laurel staff. Deep silence followed, and his shrill voice was now
heard, saying:
“Cychreans! Ye have greatly wronged us. Ye have built houses on land
that was not yours; ye have made the men of our nation serve you and,
when the youth Tydeus refused, ye basely murdered him.
“For the surrender of the land and in token of subjection ye must pay
us, the original inhabitants of the country, an annual tribute of seven
hundred spears and as many swords and shields.”
Here a loud clamor arose among the Cychreans. They understood that it
was the Pelasgians’ intention to disarm them, and their wrath found
vent in fierce invectives.
“Listen to the dogs!” they shouted. “Ere the battle has begun, they
talk like conquerors. Do the bragging fools suppose they can blow the
cliff over with their snail horns?”
But the herald did not allow himself to be interrupted.
“Cychreans!” he continued, “the Pelasgians whom ye have enslaved must
be set free and, in compensation for your crime of murder, we demand
that you deliver up to us Lyrcus, who has provoked war and pillaged
peaceful dwellers in the land. These demands we will enforce by arms.
We no longer come with entreaties, but with commands.”
Again a terrible din arose, but Lyrcus ordered silence and springing
upon a rock, from which he could be seen and heard far and near,
shouted:
“Pelasgians! The land where we have built was desolate and uninhabited;
it belonged to us as much as to you. When you demand slaves and wish
me to be delivered over to you, the answer is: _Come and take us_. But
mark this: it is _you_, not _we_, who begin the war; we only defend
ourselves against assault. This answer is deserved, and approved by our
people.”
Loud exulting shouts from the Cychreans hailed his words.
Lyrcus gazed confidently around him; for, reckless as he was of his own
safety, he was cautious where the people’s welfare was concerned. At
the first sign of war he had put the cliff in a posture of defence.
At all the wider approaches he had piled heaps of huge stones to be
rolled down on the foe, and where men could climb up singly he had
stationed sentinels. The rear of the height was inaccessible; here
stretched for more than four hundred ells the Golf of Barathron,
bordered along its almost perpendicular sides by cliffs from ninety to
a hundred yards high. This dark, wild chasm was afterwards used for
a place of execution; and it was here that malefactors whom the law
sentenced “to be hurled into the abyss” ended their days. Towards the
north, the windward side, the cliff had no covering of earth and here
at its foot, half concealed among some huge boulders, was the entrance
to a cave which led obliquely upward to some subterranean tombs, whence
a steep passage extended to one of the lower terraces. In this passage
Lyrcus had had steps hewn in order to secure a secret descent to the
plain, and for farther concealment he had ordered bushes to be planted
outside of the cave.
Though the Cychreans on the whole were in good spirits, they found
themselves in a serious mood as the decisive hour approached. Lyrcus,
at his first leisure moment, had assured Byssa that the Pelasgians
would be received in such a way that not a single man could set foot on
the open space before the houses. The young wife silently embraced him;
her eyes were full of tears and she could not speak. She trusted her
husband implicitly, but nevertheless was deeply moved.
“Before the sun goes down,” she thought, “many an eye will be closed.
And what will be Lyrcus’ fate?”
VII.
The greater portion of the night passed quietly. They saw the
Pelasgians light fires in a semi-circle around the cliff and noticed
the smell of roasted meat. Songs and laughter were heard, and with the
fires a thicket of spears seemed to have grown out of the earth.
On the cliff itself deep silence reigned. Yet a strange crackling sound
echoed upon the night, and the wind brought a light mist and a smell of
burning. Soon after a red cloud rose into the air and from lip to lip
ran the shout:
“The store-house is on fire!”
Was it some foolhardy Pelasgian or one of the new-made bondmen who
had set it in flames? In any case the task had been no easy one. The
store-house, like the dwellings, had been hewn out of the cliff and
contained nothing combustible except seeds and the timbers on which
the roof rested. Nevertheless, the flames spread swiftly, when the
fire first reached the air, and a part of the roof fell. Vast lurid
clouds of smoke whirled aloft and, as usual when seeds are burning,
numberless showers of sparks rose with the smoke and fell back again to
the earth in a fine rain. Suddenly, just as the fallen timbers burst
into a blaze, a lofty column of fire shot up from the roof. The Hill
of the Nymphs, the Areopagus, and the height known in later times as
the Acropolis were illumined by a crimson glow, and the whole Pelasgian
army broke into exulting shouts.
Some of the boldest came nearer, and an old bow-legged simpleton,
ridiculously equipped with a gigantic helmet and an enormous club,
strode toward the cliff, where he made a movement as though he was
setting his foot on the neck of a conquered foe.
At this defiance a young Cychrean seized his bow and arrow.
“_Rhai--bo--ske--lēs!_ Bow-legs!” he shouted, his voice echoing far
over the plain, “where did you get your shield?”
The bow-string twanged--and the old man just as he took flight fell
backward to the ground.
The Cychreans clapped their hands and uttered loud shouts of joy.
At the sight of the old man’s fall--he was probably a chief--a
bloodthirsty yell ran through the ranks of the Pelasgians. A long word,
rendered unintelligible by the distance,
|
When the poor woman in mourning almost stumbled into
the carriage, followed by her child, he put out his hand to help her
and gave her his seat. She had stumbled because her eyes were dim with
dreadful crying, and she could scarcely see. It made one’s heart stand
still to see the wild grief of her, and her unconsciousness of the world
about her. The world did not matter. There was no world. I think there
was nothing left anywhere but the grave she had just staggered blindly
away from. I felt as if she had been lying sobbing and writhing and
beating the new turf on it with her poor hands, and I somehow knew that
it had been a child’s grave she had been to visit and had felt she left
to utter loneliness when she turned away.
It was because I thought this that I wished she had not seemed so
unconscious of and indifferent to the child who was with her and clung
to her black dress as if it could not bear to let her go. This one was
alive at least, even if she had lost the other one, and its little face
was so wistful! It did not seem fair to forget and ignore it, as if
it were not there. I felt as if she might have left it behind on the
platform if it had not so clung to her skirt that it was almost dragged
into the railway carriage with her. When she sank into her seat she did
not even lift the poor little thing into the place beside her, but left
it to scramble up as best it could. She buried her swollen face in her
handkerchief and sobbed in a smothered way as if she neither saw, heard,
nor felt any living thing near her.
How I wished she would remember the poor child and let it comfort her!
It really was trying to do it in its innocent way. It pressed close to
her side, it looked up imploringly, it kissed her arm and her crape
veil over and over again, and tried to attract her attention. It was
a little, lily-fair creature not more than five or six years old and
perhaps too young to express what it wanted to say. It could only cling
to her and kiss her black dress, and seem to beg her to remember that
it, at least, was a living thing. But she was too absorbed in her
anguish to know that it was in the world. She neither looked at nor
touched it, and at last it sat with its cheek against her sleeve, softly
stroking her arm, and now and then kissing it longingly. I was obliged
to turn my face away and look out of the window, because I knew the man
with the kind face saw the tears well up into my eyes.
The poor woman did not travel far with us. She left the train after a
few stations were passed. Our fellow-traveler got out before her to help
her on to the platform. He stood with bared head while he assisted her,
but she scarcely saw him. And even then she seemed to forget the child.
The poor thing was dragged out by her dress as it had been dragged in. I
put out my hand involuntarily as it went through the door, because I was
afraid it might fall. But it did not. It turned its fair little face
and smiled at me. When the kind traveler returned to his place in the
carriage again, and the train left the station, the black-draped woman
was walking slowly down the platform and the child was still clinging to
her skirt.
CHAPTER IV
My guardian was a man whose custom it was to give large and dignified
parties. Among his grand and fashionable guests there was nearly always
a sprinkling of the more important members of the literary world. The
night after I arrived there was to be a particularly notable dinner. I
had come prepared to appear at it. Jean had brought fine array for
me and a case of jewels. I knew I must be “dressed up” and look as
important as I could. When I went up-stairs after tea, Jean was in my
room laying things out on the bed.
“The man you like so much is to dine here to-night, Ysobel,” she said.
“Mr. Hector MacNairn.”
I believe I even put my hand suddenly to my heart as I stood and looked
at her, I was so startled and so glad.
“You must tell him how much you love his books,” she said. She had a
quiet, motherly way.
“There will be so many other people who will want to talk to him,” I
answered, and I felt a little breathless with excitement as I said it.
“And I should be too shy to know how to say such things properly.”
“Don’t be afraid of him,” was her advice. “The man will be like his
books, and they’re the joy of your life.”
She made me look as nice as she could in the new dress she had brought;
she made me wear the Muircarrie diamonds and sent me downstairs. It does
not matter who the guests were; I scarcely remember. I was taken in to
dinner by a stately elderly man who tried to make me talk, and at last
was absorbed by the clever woman on his other side.
I found myself looking between the flowers for a man’s face I could
imagine was Hector MacNairn’s. I looked up and down and saw none I could
believe belonged to him. There were handsome faces and individual ones,
but at first I saw no Hector MacNairn. Then, on bending forward a little
to glance behind an epergne, I found a face which it surprised and
pleased me to see. It was the face of the traveler who had helped the
woman in mourning out of the railway carriage, baring his head before
her grief. I could not help turning and speaking to my stately elderly
partner.
“Do you know who that is--the man at the other side of the table?” I
asked.
Old Lord Armour looked across and answered with an amiable smile. “It is
the author the world is talking of most in these days, and the talking
is no new thing. It’s Mr. Hector MacNairn.”
No one but myself could tell how glad I was. It seemed so right that
he should be the man who had understood the deeps of a poor, passing
stranger woman’s woe. I had so loved that quiet baring of his head! All
at once I knew I should not be afraid of him. He would understand that I
could not help being shy, that it was only my nature, and that if I said
things awkwardly my meanings were better than my words. Perhaps I
should be able to tell him something of what his books had been to me.
I glanced through the flowers again--and he was looking at me! I could
scarcely believe it for a second. But he was. His eyes--his wonderful
eyes--met mine. I could not explain why they were wonderful. I think
it was the clearness and understanding in them, and a sort of great
interestedness. People sometimes look at me from curiosity, but they do
not look because they are really interested.
I could scarcely look away, though I knew I must not be guilty of
staring. A footman was presenting a dish at my side. I took something
from it without knowing what it was. Lord Armour began to talk kindly.
He was saying beautiful, admiring things of Mr. MacNairn and his work.
I listened gratefully, and said a few words myself now and then. I was
only too glad to be told of the great people and the small ones who were
moved and uplifted by his thoughts.
“You admire him very much, I can see,” the amiable elderly voice said.
I could not help turning and looking up. “It is as if a great, great
genius were one’s friend--as if he talked and one listened,” I said. “He
is like a splendid dream which has come true.”
Old Lord Armour looked at me quite thoughtfully, as if he saw something
new in me.
“That is a good way of putting it, Miss Muircarrie,” he answered.
“MacNairn would like that. You must tell him about it yourself.”
I did not mean to glance through the flowers again, but I did it
involuntarily. And I met the other eyes--the wonderful, interested
ones just as I had met them before. It almost seemed as if he had been
watching me. It might be, I thought, because he only vaguely remembered
seeing me before and was trying to recall where we had met.
When my guardian brought his men guests to the drawing-room after
dinner, I was looking over some old prints at a quiet, small table.
There were a few minutes of smiling talk, and then Sir Ian crossed the
room toward me, bringing some one with him. It was Hector MacNairn he
brought.
“Mr. MacNairn tells me you traveled together this afternoon without
knowing each other,” he said. “He has heard something of Muircarrie and
would like to hear more, Ysobel. She lives like a little ghost all
alone in her feudal castle, Mr. MacNairn. We can’t persuade her to like
London.”
I think he left us alone together because he realized that we should get
on better without a companion.
Mr. MacNairn sat down near me and began to talk about Muircarrie. There
were very few places like it, and he knew about each one of them. He
knew the kind of things Angus Macayre knew--the things most people had
either never heard of or had only thought of as legends. He talked as he
wrote, and I scarcely knew when he led me into talking also. Afterward
I realized that he had asked me questions I could not help answering
because his eyes were drawing me on with that quiet, deep interest. It
seemed as if he saw something in my face which made him curious.
I think I saw this expression first when we began to speak of our
meeting in the railway carriage, and I mentioned the poor little fair
child my heart had ached so for.
“It was such a little thing and it did so want to comfort her! Its white
little clinging hands were so pathetic when they stroked and patted
her,” I said. “And she did not even look at it.”
He did not start, but he hesitated in a way which almost produced the
effect of a start. Long afterward I remembered it.
“The child!” he said. “Yes. But I was sitting on the other side. And I
was so absorbed in the poor mother that I am afraid I scarcely saw it.
Tell me about it.”
“It was not six years old, poor mite,” I answered. “It was one of those
very fair children one sees now and then. It was not like its mother.
She was not one of the White People.”
“The White People?” he repeated quite slowly after me. “You don’t mean
that she was not a Caucasian? Perhaps I don’t understand.”
That made me feel a trifle shy again. Of course he could not know what I
meant. How silly of me to take it for granted that he would!
“I beg pardon. I forgot,” I even stammered a little. “It is only my way
of thinking of those fair people one sees, those very fair ones, you
know--the ones whose fairness looks almost transparent. There are not
many of them, of course; but one can’t help noticing them when they pass
in the street or come into a room. You must have noticed them, too.
I always call them, to myself, the White People, because they are
different from the rest of us. The poor mother wasn’t one, but the child
was. Perhaps that was why I looked at it, at first. It was such a lovely
little thing; and the whiteness made it look delicate, and I could not
help thinking--” I hesitated, because it seemed almost unkind to finish.
“You thought that if she had just lost one child she ought to take more
care of the other,” he ended for me. There was a deep thoughtfulness in
his look, as if he were watching me. I wondered why.
“I wish I had paid more attention to the little creature,” he said, very
gently. “Did it cry?”
“No,” I answered. “It only clung to her and patted her black sleeve and
kissed it, as if it wanted to comfort her. I kept expecting it to cry,
but it didn’t. It made me cry because it seemed so sure that it could
comfort her if she would only remember that it was alive and loved her.
I wish, I wish death did not make people feel as if it filled all the
world--as if, when it happens, there is no life left anywhere. The child
who was alive by her side did not seem a living thing to her. It didn’t
matter.”
I had never said as much to any one before, but his watching eyes made
me forget my shy worldlessness.
“What do you feel about it--death?” he asked.
The low gentleness of his voice seemed something I had known always.
“I never saw it,” I answered. “I have never even seen any one
dangerously ill. I--It is as if I can’t believe it.”
“You can’t believe it? That is a wonderful thing,” he said, even more
quietly than before.
“If none of us believed, how wonderful that would be! Beautiful, too.”
“How that poor mother believed it!” I said, remembering her swollen,
distorted, sobbing face. “She believed nothing else; everything else was
gone.”
“I wonder what would have happened if you had spoken to her about the
child?” he said, slowly, as if he were trying to imagine it.
“I’m a very shy person. I should never have courage to speak to a
stranger,” I answered.
“I’m afraid I’m a coward, too. She might have thought me interfering.”
“She might not have understood,” he murmured.
“It was clinging to her dress when she walked away down the platform,” I
went on. “I dare say you noticed it then?”
“Not as you did. I wish I had noticed it more,” was his answer. “Poor
little White One!”
That led us into our talk about the White People. He said he did not
think he was exactly an observant person in some respects. Remembering
his books, which seemed to me the work of a man who saw and understood
everything in the world, I could not comprehend his thinking that, and
I told him so. But he replied that what I had said about my White People
made him feel that he must be abstracted sometimes and miss things. He
did not remember having noticed the rare fairness I had seen. He smiled
as he said it, because, of course, it was only a little thing--that he
had not seen that some people were so much fairer than others.
“But it has not been a little thing to you, evidently. That is why I
am even rather curious about it,” he explained. “It is a difference
definite enough to make you speak almost as if they were of a different
race from ours.”
I sat silent a few seconds, thinking it over. Suddenly I realized what I
had never realized before.
“Do you know,” I said, as slowly as he himself had spoken, “I did not
know that was true until you put it into words. I am so used to thinking
of them as different, somehow, that I suppose I do feel as if they were
almost like another race, in a way. Perhaps one would feel like that
with a native Indian, or a Japanese.”
“I dare say that is a good simile,” he reflected. “Are they different
when you know them well?”
“I have never known one but Wee Brown Elspeth,” I answered, thinking it
over.
He did start then, in the strangest way.
“What!” he exclaimed. “What did you say?”
I was quite startled myself. Suddenly he looked pale, and his breath
caught itself.
“I said Wee Elspeth, Wee Brown Elspeth. She was only a child who played
with me,” I stammered, “when I was little.”
He pulled himself together almost instantly, though the color did not
come back to his face at once and his voice was not steady for a few
seconds. But he laughed outright at himself.
“I beg your pardon,” he apologized. “I have been ill and am rather
nervous. I thought you said something you could not possibly have
said. I almost frightened you. And you were only speaking of a little
playmate. Please go on.”
“I was only going to say that she was fair like that, fairer than any
one I had ever seen; but when we played together she seemed like any
other child. She was the first I ever knew.”
I told him about the misty day on the moor, and about the pale troopers
and the big, lean leader who carried Elspeth before him on his saddle. I
had never talked to any one about it before, not even to Jean Braidfute.
But he seemed to be so interested, as if the little story quite
fascinated him. It was only an episode, but it brought in the weirdness
of the moor and my childish fancies about the things hiding in the white
mist, and the castle frowning on its rock, and my baby face pressed
against the nursery window in the tower, and Angus and the library, and
Jean and her goodness and wise ways. It was dreadful to talk so much
about oneself. But he listened so. His eyes never left my face--they
watched and held me as if he were enthralled. Sometimes he asked a
question.
“I wonder who they were--the horsemen?” he pondered. “Did you ever ask
Wee Elspeth?”
“We were both too little to care. We only played,” I answered him. “And
they came and went so quickly that they were only a sort of dream.”
“They seem to have been a strange lot. Wasn’t Angus curious about them?”
he suggested.
“Angus never was curious about anything,” I said. “Perhaps he knew
something about them and would not tell me. When I was a little thing
I always knew he and Jean had secrets I was too young to hear. They hid
sad and ugly things from me, or things that might frighten a child. They
were very good.”
“Yes, they were good,” he said, thoughtfully.
I think any one would have been pleased to find herself talking quietly
to a great genius--as quietly as if he were quite an ordinary person;
but to me the experience was wonderful. I had thought about him so much
and with such adoring reverence. And he looked at me as if he truly
liked me, even as if I were something new--a sort of discovery which
interested him. I dare say that he had never before seen a girl who had
lived so much alone and in such a remote and wild place.
I believe Sir Ian and his wife were pleased, too, to see that I
was talking. They were glad that their guests should see that I was
intelligent enough to hold the attention even of a clever man. If Hector
MacNairn was interested in me I could not be as silly and dull as I
looked. But on my part I was only full of wonder and happiness. I was a
girl, and he had been my only hero; and it seemed even as if he liked me
and cared about my queer life.
He was not a man who had the air of making confidences or talking about
himself, but before we parted I seemed to know him and his surroundings
as if he had described them. A mere phrase of his would make a picture.
Such a few words made his mother quite clear to me. They loved each
other in an exquisite, intimate way. She was a beautiful person. Artists
had always painted her. He and she were completely happy when they were
together. They lived in a house in the country, and I could not at all
tell how I discovered that it was an old house with beautiful chimneys
and a very big garden with curious high walls with corner towers round
it. He only spoke of it briefly, but I saw it as a picture; and always
afterward, when I thought of his mother, I thought of her as sitting
under a great and ancient apple-tree with the long, late-afternoon
shadows stretching on the thick, green grass. I suppose I saw that just
because he said:
“Will you come to tea under the big apple-tree some afternoon when the
late shadows are like velvet on the grass? That is perhaps the loveliest
time.”
When we rose to go and join the rest of the party, he stood a moment and
glanced round the room at our fellow-guests.
“Are there any of your White People here to-night?” he said, smiling. “I
shall begin to look for them everywhere.”
I glanced over the faces carelessly. “There are none here to-night,”
I answered, and then I flushed because he had smiled. “It was only
a childish name I gave them,” I hesitated. “I forgot you wouldn’t
understand. I dare say it sounds silly.”
He looked at me so quickly.
“No! no! no!” he exclaimed. “You mustn’t think that! Certainly not
silly.”
I do not think he knew that he put out his hand and gently touched my
arm, as one might touch a child to make it feel one wanted it to listen.
“You don’t know,” he said in his low, slow voice, “how glad I am that
you have talked to me. Sir Ian said you were not fond of talking to
people, and I wanted to know you.”
“You care about places like Muircarrie. That is why,” I answered,
feeling at once how much he understood. “I care for Muircarrie more than
for all the rest of the world. And I suppose you saw it in my face. I
dare say that the people who love that kind of life cannot help seeing
it there.”
“Yes,” he said, “it is in your eyes. It was what I saw and found myself
wondering about when I watched you in the train. It was really the moor
and the mist and the things you think are hidden in it.”
“Did you watch me?” I asked. “I could not help watching you a little,
when you were so kind to the poor woman. I was afraid you would see me
and think me rude.”
“It was the far look in your face I watched,” he said. “If you will come
to tea under the big apple-tree I will tell you more about it.”
“Indeed I will come,” I answered. “Now we must go and sit among the
other people--those who don’t care about Muircarrie at all.”
CHAPTER V
I went to tea under the big apple-tree. It was very big and old and
wonderful. No wonder Mr. MacNairn and his mother loved it. Its great
branches spread out farther than I had ever seen the branches of an
apple-tree spread before. They were gnarled and knotted and beautiful
with age. Their shadows upon the grass were velvet, deep and soft. Such
a tree could only have lived its life in such a garden. At least it
seemed so to me. The high, dim-colored walls, with their curious, low
corner towers and the leafage of the wall fruits spread against their
brick, inclosed it embracingly, as if they were there to take care of
it and its beauty. But the tree itself seemed to have grown there in all
its dignified loveliness of shadow to take care of Mrs. MacNairn, who
sat under it. I felt as if it loved and was proud of her.
I have heard clever literary people speak of Mrs. MacNairn as a
“survival of type.” Sometimes clever people bewilder me by the terms
they use, but I thought I understood what they meant in her case. She
was quite unlike the modern elderly woman, and yet she was not in the
least old-fashioned or demodee. She was only exquisitely distinct.
When she rose from her chair under the apple-tree boughs and came
forward to meet me that afternoon, the first things which struck me were
her height and slenderness and her light step. Then I saw that her clear
profile seemed cut out of ivory and that her head was a beautiful shape
and was beautifully set. Its every turn and movement was exquisite. The
mere fact that both her long, ivory hands enfolded mine thrilled me.
I wondered if it were possible that she could be unaware of her
loveliness. Beautiful people are thrilling to me, and Mrs. MacNairn has
always seemed more so than any one else. This is what her son once said
of her:
“She is not merely beautiful; she is Beauty--Beauty’s very spirit moving
about among us mortals; pure Beauty.”
She drew me to a chair under her tree, and we sat down together. I felt
as if she were glad that I had come. The watching look I had seen in her
son’s eyes was in hers also. They watched me as we talked, and I found
myself telling her about my home as I had found myself telling him. He
had evidently talked to her about it himself. I had never met any one
who thought of Muircarrie as I did, but it seemed as if they who were
strangers were drawn by its wild, beautiful loneliness as I was.
I was happy. In my secret heart I began to ask myself if it could be
true that they made me feel a little as if I somehow belonged to some
one. I had always seemed so detached from every one. I had not been
miserable about it, and I had not complained to myself; I only accepted
the detachment as part of my kind of life.
Mr. MacNairn came into the garden later and several other people came
in to tea. It was apparently a sort of daily custom--that people who
evidently adored Mrs. MacNairn dropped in to see and talk to her every
afternoon. She talked wonderfully, and her friends’ joy in her was
wonderful, too. It evidently made people happy to be near her. All she
said and did was like her light step and the movements of her delicate,
fine head--gracious and soft and arrestingly lovely. She did not let
me drift away and sit in a corner looking on, as I usually did among
strangers. She kept me near her, and in some subtle, gentle way made me
a part of all that was happening--the talk, the charming circle under
the spreading boughs of the apple-tree, the charm of everything.
Sometimes she would put out her exquisite, long-fingered hand and touch
me very lightly, and each time she did it I felt as if she had given me
new life.
There was an interesting elderly man who came among the rest of the
guests. I was interested in him even before she spoke to me of him. He
had a handsome, aquiline face which looked very clever. His talk was
brilliantly witty. When he spoke people paused as if they could not
bear to lose a phrase or even a word. But in the midst of the trills
of laughter surrounding him his eyes were unchangingly sad. His face
laughed or smiled, but his eyes never.
“He is the greatest artist in England and the most brilliant man,” Mrs.
MacNairn said to me, quietly. “But he is the saddest, too. He had a
lovely daughter who was killed instantly, in his presence, by a fall.
They had been inseparable companions and she was the delight of his
life. That strange, fixed look has been in his eyes ever since. I know
you have noticed it.”
We were walking about among the flower-beds after tea, and Mr. MacNairn
was showing me a cloud of blue larkspurs in a corner when I saw
something which made me turn toward him rather quickly.
“There is one!” I said. “Do look at her! Now you see what I mean! The
girl standing with her hand on Mr. Le Breton’s arm.”
Mr. Le Breton was the brilliant man with the sad eyes. He was standing
looking at a mass of white-and-purple iris at the other side of the
garden. There were two or three people with him, but it seemed as if for
a moment he had forgotten them--had forgotten where he was. I wondered
suddenly if his daughter had been fond of irises. He was looking at them
with such a tender, lost expression. The girl, who was a lovely, fair
thing, was standing quite close to him with her hand in his arm, and she
was smiling, too--such a smile!
“Mr. Le Breton!” Mr. MacNairn said in a rather startled tone. “The girl
with her hand in his arm?”
“Yes. You see how fair she is,” I answered.
“And she has that transparent look. It is so lovely. Don’t you think so?
SHE is one of the White People.”
He stood very still, looking across the flowers at the group. There was
a singular interest and intensity in his expression. He watched the pair
silently for a whole minute, I think.
“Ye-es,” he said, slowly, at last, “I do see what you mean--and it IS
lovely. I don’t seem to know her well. She must be a new friend of my
mother’s. So she is one of the White People?”
“She looks like a white iris herself, doesn’t she?” I said. “Now you
know.”
“Yes; now I know,” he answered.
I asked Mrs. MacNairn later who the girl was, but she didn’t seem to
recognize my description of her. Mr. Le Breton had gone away by that
time, and so had the girl herself.
“The tall, very fair one in the misty, pale-gray dress,” I said. “She
was near Mr. Le Breton when he was looking at the iris-bed. You were
cutting some roses only a few yards away from her. That VERY fair girl?”
Mrs. MacNairn paused a moment and looked puzzled.
“Mildred Keith is fair,” she reflected, “but she was not there then. I
don’t recall seeing a girl. I was cutting some buds for Mrs. Anstruther.
I--” She paused again and turned toward her son, who was standing
watching us. I saw their eyes meet in a rather arrested way.
“It was not Mildred Keith,” he said. “Miss Muircarrie is inquiring
because this girl was one of those she calls the White People. She was
not any one I had seen here before.”
There was a second’s silence before Mrs. MacNairn smilingly gave me one
of her light, thrilling touches on my arm.
“Ah! I remember,” she said. “Hector told me about the White People. He
rather fancied I might be one.”
I am afraid I rather stared at her as I slowly shook my head. You see
she was almost one, but not quite.
“I was so busy with my roses that I did not notice who was standing near
Mr. Le Breton,” she said. “Perhaps it was Anabel Mere. She is a more
transparent sort of girl than Mildred, and she is more blond. And you
don’t know her, Hector? I dare say it was she.”
CHAPTER VI
I remained in London several weeks. I stayed because the MacNairns were
so good to me. I could not have told any one how I loved Mrs. MacNairn,
and how different everything seemed when I was with her. I was never shy
when we were together. There seemed to be no such thing as shyness in
the world. I was not shy with Mr. MacNairn, either. After I had sat
under the big apple-tree boughs in the walled garden a few times I
realized that I had begun to belong to somebody. Those two marvelous
people cared for me in that way--in a way that made me feel as if I
were a real girl, not merely a queer little awkward ghost in a far-away
castle which nobody wanted to visit because it was so dull and desolate
and far from London. They were so clever, and knew all the interesting
things in the world, but their cleverness and experience never
bewildered or overwhelmed me.
“You were born a wonderful little creature, and Angus Macayre has filled
your mind with strange, rich furnishings and marvelous color and form,”
Mrs. MacNairn actually said to me one day when we were sitting together
and she was holding my hand and softly, slowly patting it. She had a
way of doing that, and she had also a way of keeping me very near her
whenever she could. She said once that she liked to touch me now and
then to make sure that I was quite real and would not melt away. I did
not know then why she said it, but I understood afterward.
Sometimes we sat under the apple-tree until the long twilight deepened
into shadow, which closed round us, and a nightingale that lived in the
garden began to sing. We all three loved the nightingale, and felt as
though it knew that we were listening to it. It is a wonderful thing to
sit quite still listening to a bird singing in the dark, and to dare to
feel that while it sings it knows how your soul adores it. It is like a
kind of worship.
We had been sitting listening for quite a long time, and the nightingale
had just ceased and left the darkness an exquisite silence which fell
suddenly but softly as the last note dropped, when Mrs. MacNairn began
to talk for the first time of what she called The Fear.
I don’t remember just how she began, and for a few minutes I did not
quite understand what she meant. But as she went on, and Mr. MacNairn
joined in the talk, their meaning became a clear thing to me, and I knew
that they were only talking quite simply of something they had often
talked of before. They were not as afraid of The Fear as most people
are, because they had thought of and reasoned about it so much, and
always calmly and with clear and open minds.
By The Fear they meant that mysterious horror most people feel at the
thought of passing out of the world they know into the one they don’t
know at all.
How quiet, how still it was inside the walls of the old garden, as we
three sat under the boughs and talked about it! And what sweet night
scents of leaves and sleeping flowers were in every breath we drew! And
how one’s heart moved and lifted when the nightingale broke out again!
“If one had seen or heard one little thing, if one’s mortal being could
catch one glimpse of light in the dark,” Mrs. MacNairn’s low voice said
out of the shadow near me, “The Fear would be gone forever.”
“Perhaps the whole mystery is as simple as this,” said her son’s voice
“as simple as this: that as there are tones of music too fine to be
registered by the human ear, so there may be vibrations of light not to
be seen by the human eye; form and color as well as sounds; just
beyond earthly perception, and yet as real as ourselves, as formed as
ourselves, only existing in that other dimension.”
There was an intenseness which was almost a note of anguish in Mrs.
MacNairn’s answer, even though her voice was very low. I involuntarily
turned my head to look at her, though of course it was too dark to see
her face. I felt somehow as if her hands were wrung together in her lap.
“Oh!” she said, “if one only had some shadow of a proof that the mystery
is only that WE cannot see, that WE cannot hear, though they are really
quite near us, with us--the ones who seem to have gone away and whom we
feel we cannot live without. If once we could be sure! There would be no
Fear--there would be none!”
“Dearest”--he often called her “Dearest,” and his voice had a wonderful
sound in the darkness; it was caress and strength, and it seemed to
speak to her of things they knew which I did not--“we have vowed to each
other that we WILL believe there is no reason for The Fear. It was a vow
between us.”
“Yes! Yes!” she cried, breathlessly, “but sometimes,
Hector--sometimes--”
“Miss Muircarrie does not feel it--”
“Please say ‘Ysobel’!” I broke in. “Please do.”
He went on as quietly as if he had not even paused:
“Ysobel told me the first night we met that it seemed as if she could
not believe in it.”
“It never seems real to me at all,” I said. “Perhaps that is because I
can never forget what Jean told me about my mother lying still upon her
bed, and listening to some one calling her.” (I had told them Jean’s
story a few days before.) “I knew it was my father; Jean knew, too.”
“How did you know?” Mrs. MacNairn’s voice was almost a whisper.
“I could not tell you that. I never asked myself HOW it was.
|
employed.” He had an extraordinary knowledge of English poetry, and
could quote from memory with a correctness which, says the same grave
Scot, “appeared surprising even to those whose attention had never been
directed to more important acquisitions.” What little intellectual
activity outside politics still lingered on at Oxford was probably
connected with philological speculations such as those of James Harris,
the learned, if somewhat priggish, author of _Hermes_. At any rate,
Smith went deeply into every branch of grammar. Andrew Dalzel, who was
Professor of Greek at Edinburgh in Adam Smith’s old age, often remarked
on “the uncommon degree in which Mr. Smith retained possession even to
the close of his life of different branches of knowledge which he had
long ceased to cultivate,” and particularly mentioned to his colleague
Dugald Stewart, “the readiness and correctness” of his memory on
philological subjects and his acuteness in discussing the _minutiæ_ of
Greek grammar.
Dugald Stewart failed to collect any information about Smith’s Oxford
days, but a few relics have been preserved by Lord Brougham in the
appendix to the discursive and rather disappointing essay upon Adam
Smith that appears in his _Lives of the Philosophers_. “I have now
before me,” says Brougham, “a number of Dr. Smith’s letters written when
at Oxford between the years 1740 and 1746 to his mother: they are almost
all upon mere family and personal matters; most of them indeed upon his
linen and other such necessaries, but all show his strong affection for
his parent.” The few quotations Brougham gives are barely worth
recording. On November 29, 1743, Adam Smith writes: “I am just recovered
of a violent fit of laziness, which has confined me to my elbow chair
these three months.” Again on July 2, 1744: “I am quite inexcusable for
not writing to you oftener. I think of you every day, but always defer
writing till the post is just going, and then sometimes business or
company, but oftener laziness, hinders me.” He speaks of “an inveterate
scurvy and shaking of the head” which have been perfectly cured by tar
water, “a remedy very much in vogue here for all diseases.”
His college contemporaries, says Mr. Rae, “were a singularly
undistinguished body,” with the exception of a Fifeshire man, John
Douglas, who had gone direct to Oxford from the Grammar School at
Dunbar. Douglas at first had a small exhibition at St. Mary’s Hall, but
after fighting at Fontenoy, he obtained a Snell Exhibition. He
distinguished himself later as a pamphleteer and was rewarded with the
Bishopric of Salisbury. With this exception, Adam Smith seems to have
made no friends at Oxford. Besides his books he must have enjoyed from
time to time walks and excursions into the surrounding country. In the
_Wealth of Nations_ he was able to make close comparisons of the
condition of the labouring classes in England and Scotland, and there is
a passage, about the use of coal and wood by the common people in
Oxfordshire, to show that he had certainly acquired as an undergraduate
the faculty of minute and picturesque observation which he afterwards
turned to such account.[5] What Smith did in the vacations we do not
know. He could not have had much money to spare, and there is no
indication that he ever returned home or even visited London.
At last, in August 1746, after taking his degree as a Bachelor of Arts,
he retraced his steps to Scotland, and gave up all thought of a clerical
career. In the words of his biographer, “he chose to consult in this
instance his own inclinations in preference to the wishes of his
friends; and abandoning at once all the schemes which their prudence had
formed for him, he resolved to return to his own country and to limit
his ambition to the uncertain prospect of obtaining, in time, some one
of those moderate preferments to which literary attainments lead in
Scotland.” He was now in 1746 again in his mother’s house at Kirkcaldy,
“engaged in study, but without any fixed plan for his future life.” So
far as I am aware, none of Adam Smith’s biographers has definitely
assigned to this period any of the writings which he either published or
left to his executors. In the latter class, however, there is a group of
fragments dealing with the history of Astronomy, of Ancient Physics, and
of Ancient Logic and Metaphysics, and an elaborate essay on _The
Imitative Arts_, which are collectively described by his executors in an
advertisement as “parts of a plan he once had formed for giving a
connected history of the liberal sciences and elegant arts.”[6]
The essay on _The Imitative Arts_ belongs to a different design and to a
slightly later period. But it seems clear that the _History of
Astronomy_ was composed at this time.[7] There is no other period of his
life in which he would have been so well able to collect the materials
for an examination of the systems of the Greek, the Arabian, and the
mediæval astronomers as in the six years of Oxford study, or so likely
to shape them into a finished treatise as in the two quiet years spent
at Kirkcaldy immediately after his return, when, we are told, he was
“engaged in study, but without any fixed plan for his future life.” The
_History of Astronomy_, which takes us from the schools of Thales and
Pythagoras through the systems of Copernicus, Tycho Brahe, Galileo,
Kepler, and Descartes to that of Sir Isaac Newton, is complete in
itself, though from certain notes and memoranda which accompanied it
Smith’s executors were led to believe that he contemplated some further
extension.[8] It ends very appropriately with an enthusiastic
description of Sir Isaac Newton’s discovery as the greatest ever made by
man. He had acquired “the most universal empire that was ever
established in philosophy,” and was the only natural philosopher whose
system, instead of being a mere invention of the imagination to connect
otherwise discordant phenomena, appeared to contain in itself “the real
chains which nature makes use of to bind together her several
operations.” In attributing the _History of Astronomy_ to Oxford and
Kirkcaldy I except the concluding pages, which must have been added in
the last years of his life; for in a letter to Hume (1773) he spoke of
it as a history of Astronomical Systems to the time (not of Newton but)
of Descartes.
Although complete in itself, this masterly essay was plainly meant by
its author to form only one book in a great history of philosophy. It
begins with three short introductory sections, the first on surprise,
the second on wonder, and the third on the origin of philosophy. It is
the function of philosophy, he says, to discover the connecting
principles of nature, and to explain those portents which astonish or
affright mankind. He then shows that celestial appearances have always
excited the greatest curiosity, and describes with extraordinary
learning and vivacity the long series of attempts that had been made to
account for “the ways of the sky and the stars”—
“How winter suns in ocean plunge so soon,
And what delays the timid nights of June.”
_The History of Ancient Physics_, a much shorter fragment, is placed in
his collected works immediately after the _History of Astronomy_. It
evidently belongs to the same early period, but is of little interest.
Upon _The History of Ancient Logics and Metaphysics_ we shall have
something to say in our next chapter.
After two years of waiting, Adam Smith got his opportunity. His
neighbour, James Oswald of Dunnikier, had become Kirkcaldy’s
representative in Parliament, and was now a Commissioner of the Navy.
Through Oswald Smith seems to have been introduced to Henry Home (Lord
Kames), a leader of the Edinburgh Bar, and arbiter of Scottish
elegancies. Home was a warm patron of English literature, and was busily
importing it along with English ploughs and other Southern improvements
into his native land. What a contrast between this typical Scotch
patriot of 1750 and grim old Fletcher of Saltoun, the corresponding type
of 1700, whose remedy for Scottish ills was to restore slavery, and
place all labourers in the situation of salters and colliers! Finding
that Smith had acquired the accent and was well read in the prose and
poetry of England, Home encouraged him to give what we should now call
extension lectures in Edinburgh. Accordingly the young Oxford graduate
delivered a course of lectures on English literature in the winter of
1748-9, adding in the following year a course on political economy in
which he preached the doctrines of natural liberty and free trade. The
English lectures were attended by Henry Home, Alexander Wedderburn, and
William Johnstone (Sir William Pulteney), and proved no mere success of
esteem; for they brought in a clear £100, and were so popular that they
were repeated in the two following winters. The manuscript of these
lectures was burnt shortly before his death, and the world is probably
not much the poorer. Smith shared the opinions of his age, and set up
Dryden, Pope, and Gray on pedestals from which they were soon to be
thrown down by the children of nature and romance. He gave these
lectures afterwards at Glasgow, and Boswell, who attended them in 1759,
told Johnson that Smith had condemned blank verse. Johnson was
delighted, and cried out: “Sir, I was once in company with Smith, and we
did not take to each other; but had I known that he loved rhyme as much
as you tell me he does, I should have hugged him.” One cannot help
wondering what would have been said if Boswell had repeated another of
our author’s critical opinions, that Johnson was “of all writers ancient
and modern the one who kept off the greatest distance from common
sense.”
The most valuable part of Adam Smith’s critical lectures has been
preserved in an essay on the _Imitative Arts_, which I should judge from
internal evidence to have been drafted at this time, but to have been
revised and improved in later years. Considering that neither Burke’s
essay on the _Sublime and Beautiful_ nor Lessing’s _Laocoon_ had then
appeared, we cannot but admire the originality he displayed in analysing
the different effects produced by sculpture, painting, music, and
dancing, and in distinguishing the different pleasures that attend the
various kinds and degrees of imitation. He works out with much ingenuity
the theory of the _difficulté surmontée_ by which Voltaire accounted for
the effect of verse and rhyme. Smith extends this principle to other
arts, and seeks, always cleverly, often successfully, to show that much
of our delight in art arises from our admiration for the artist’s skill
in overcoming difficulties. He declares that a disparity between the
imitating and the imitated object is the foundation of the beauty of
imitation. The great masters of statuary and painting never produce
their effects by deception. To prove this, he refers to the rather
unpleasing effect produced by painted statues and by the reflections of
a mirror. Photography would have supplied him with another illustration.
It may here be said that, though judged by modern standards of criticism
Smith’s taste was faulty, yet all his favourite authors are in the first
rank, and there is no instance recorded of his having bestowed praise on
anything bad either in prose or poetry. “You will learn more as to
poetry,” he once said, “by reading one good poem than by a thousand
volumes of criticism.” Wordsworth in one of his prefaces calls him most
unjustly “the worst critic, David Hume excepted, that Scotland, a soil
to which this sort of weed seems natural, has produced.” The Lake Poet,
who did not distinguish between the quality of the “Ode on the
Intimations” and “Peter Bell,” was probably thinking of some literary
anecdotes that appeared in _The Bee_ in 1791 after Smith’s death. The
writer, who may or may not be trustworthy, is only repeating table talk.
He mentions that Smith depreciated Percy’s _Reliques_ and some of
Milton’s minor poems. With regard to blank verse, Smith said: “they do
well to call it blank, for blank it is. I myself, even I, who never
could find a single rhyme in my life, could make blank verse as fast as
I could speak.” From this censure he always excepted Milton; but he
thought the English dramatists should have used rhyme like the French.
Racine’s _Phèdre_ appealed to him as the finest of all tragedies.
Voltaire was his literary pope. Oddly enough, his first publisher’s
commission was to collect and edit (anonymously, of course) for the
Foulis Press an edition of the poems of a well-known Jacobite, Hamilton
of Bangour. The book was published in 1748, and contained the “Braes of
Yarrow,” which Wordsworth called an exquisite ballad. Hamilton had
played poet laureate to the Young Pretender in 1745, and was still an
exile in France. In 1750, when the poet was pardoned, he struck up a
warm friendship with his anonymous editor, and (according to Sir John
Dalrymple) Smith spent with him “many happy and flattering hours.”
It has been said that in addition to his lectures on English literature
Smith also delivered a course on Economics. This we know from a
manuscript by which Dugald Stewart vindicates Adam Smith’s claim to have
been the original discoverer of the leading principles of political
economy. This manuscript, a paper read by Smith to a learned society
some years later, proves that he wrote, or rather dictated, his economic
lectures in 1749, and delivered them in the following winter.
At this time David Hume and James Oswald were corresponding on
commercial topics. In 1750 Hume, who was then abroad, sent Oswald his
famous essay on the _Balance of Trade_, and asked for criticism. Oswald
replied in a long letter which shows that he too held very enlightened
views on public finance, and we may be pretty certain that Smith as well
as Hume derived at this time much benefit from intercourse with Oswald.
In fact, in his preface to Oswald’s correspondence, Oswald’s grandson
boasts that he has heard Adam Smith, then the renowned author of the
_Wealth of Nations_, “dilate with a generous and enthusiastic pleasure
on the qualifications and merits of Mr. Oswald, candidly avowing at the
same time how much information he had received on many points from the
enlarged views and profound knowledge of that accomplished statesman.”
Some allowance should be made for the natural exaggeration of a Scotch
kinsman; but Smith certainly rated Oswald high, describing him in the
paper above mentioned as one who combined a taste for general principles
with the detailed information of a statesman. Stewart adds that “he was
one of Mr. Smith’s earliest and most confidential friends.” They must
have seen a great deal of one another both in Kirkcaldy and Edinburgh in
the five years between his return from Oxford and the appointment we
have now to record.
CHAPTER II
THE BEGINNING OF A CAREER
By his Edinburgh lectures Smith had proved that he could be at once
learned and popular, and the fact that he was probably the only Scottish
savant who had thoroughly acquired the English accent at a time when
English had suddenly become highly fashionable north of the Tweed, would
do him no harm in loyal Glasgow, where the English connection, with all
its solid advantages, was well esteemed. Accordingly in 1750, when a
vacancy occurred in the chair of Logic at Glasgow, Adam Smith’s
candidature proved very acceptable, and he was unanimously appointed by
the Senate. A week later he read a Latin dissertation on the Origin of
Ideas, signed the Westminster Confession of Faith before the Presbytery
of Glasgow, and took the usual oath of fidelity to the authorities. So
far as I am aware, it has not been noticed hitherto that the substance
of Smith’s inaugural dissertation, _De Origine Idearum_, has been
preserved in a fragment published by his literary executors after his
death. _The History of the Ancient Logics and Metaphysics_, as the piece
is called, deserves notice not only as one of the earliest specimens of
Smith’s extraordinary power of reasoning, but because it proves his
interest in some metaphysical questions which are suppressed or ignored
in his larger treatises, and at the same time exhibits the range and
accuracy of his classical scholarship.
In describing the ancient dialectic Smith had to give an explanation of
what Plato meant by “ideas.” The later Platonists imagined their master
to mean no more than that “the Deity formed the world after what we
would now call an idea or plan conceived in his own mind, in the same
manner as any other artist.” Against them the young philosopher
proceeded to turn the formidable battery of ratiocination that was one
day to demolish a living and formidable foe. It is characteristic of
Adam Smith that whether he is attacking the harmless errors of an
extinct school of thought, or the noxious fallacies of an established
policy, he tries every mode of assault. He “swims, or sinks, or wades,
or creeps, or flies”:—
“If Plato had meant to express no more than this most natural and
simple of all notions, he might surely have expressed it more plainly,
and would hardly, one would think, have talked of it with so much
emphasis, as of something which it required the utmost reach of
thought to comprehend. According to this representation, Plato’s
notion of species, or Universals, was the same with that of Aristotle.
Aristotle, however, does not seem to understand it as such; he bestows
a great part of his Metaphysics upon confuting it, and opposes it in
all his other works.”
Again, this notion of the separate existence of Species is the very
basis of Plato’s philosophy; and there is not a single dialogue in all
his works which does not refer to it. Can Aristotle, “who appears to
have been so much superior to his master in everything but eloquence,”
wilfully have misinterpreted Plato’s fundamental principle when Plato’s
writings were in everybody’s hands and his disciples were spread all
over Greece; when Speusippus, the nephew and successor of Plato, as well
as Xenocrates, who continued the school in the Academy, at the same time
as Aristotle held his in the Lyceum, must have been ready at all times
to expose and affront him for such gross disingenuity? Aristotle’s
interpretation had been followed by Cicero, Seneca, and every classical
authority down to Plutarch, “an author who seems to have been as bad a
critic in philosophy as in history, and to have taken everything at
second-hand in both.”
Whether Smith either then or at any time arrived at metaphysical
certainty is very doubtful. “To explain the nature, and to account for
the origin of general Ideas is,” he says, “even at this day, the
greatest difficulty in abstract philosophy.”
“How the human mind when it reasons concerning the general nature of
triangles, should either conceive, as Mr. Locke imagines it does, the
idea of a triangle, which is neither obtusangular, nor rectangular,
nor acutangular; but which was at once both none and of all those
together; or should, as Malbranche thinks necessary for this purpose,
comprehend at once, within its finite capacity, all possible triangles
of all possible forms and dimensions, which are infinite in number, is
a question to which it is not easy to give a satisfactory answer.”
He suggests that notions like those of Plato, or Cudworth, or
Malebranche, depend a good deal upon the vague and general language in
which they are expressed. So long as a philosophy is not very distinctly
explained, it “passes easily enough through the indolent imagination
accustomed to substitute words in the room of ideas.” Platonism vanishes
indeed, and is discovered to be altogether incomprehensible upon an
attentive consideration. It did, however, require attentive
consideration, and but for Aristotle “might without examination have
continued to be the current philosophy for a century or two.” This early
and unnoticed composition proves that Smith had thought deeply on
metaphysics though he deliberately avoided them in his masterpieces.
He found time to translate and read part of the essay as a Latin
dissertation; but his engagements in Edinburgh prevented him from taking
up his new work before the autumn. When October came he found his task
doubled. Craigie, the Professor of Ethics, had fallen ill, and had been
ordered to Lisbon for his health. Smith was informed of this by Dr.
Cullen, one of his new colleagues, and was requested to undertake
Craigie’s duties. It was further suggested that he should pay particular
attention to jurisprudence and politics, which were held to fall within
the province of moral philosophy. Smith replies (3rd September 1751)
that he will gladly relieve Craigie of his class, and will willingly
undertake to lecture on natural jurisprudence and politics.
The session began on the 10th of October, and soon afterwards came the
news of Craigie’s death. Smith detested the sophisms of what he called
“the cobweb science” of Ontology, and cared little for the Logic of the
schools. He was anxious, therefore, to be transferred to the chair of
Ethics, and at the same time formed a design with other friends to
procure the appointment of his friend David Hume to the chair of Logic.
But the prejudice against Hume proved too strong. “I should prefer David
Hume to any man for the college,” Smith wrote privately to Cullen, “but
I am afraid the public would not be of my opinion, and the interest of
the society will oblige us to have regard to the opinion of the public.”
This was from Edinburgh, whither Smith had made what was then
(incredible as it may seem) a two-days’ journey from Glasgow, in order
to wait upon Archibald, Duke of Argyll, nicknamed King of Scotland,
because he exercised a sort of royal influence over all Scottish
appointments. At the duke’s levee Smith was duly introduced, and his
application was successful. The transfer was effected, and in April
Smith was appointed to the chair which he was to adorn for twelve years.
It was perhaps the most important event of his life. For a temperament
like his, so prone to study and reflection, so averse to the toil of the
pen, required some constant external stimulus, some congenial inducement
to undertake the task of exposition. His gifts might have remained idle,
his talents buried, had not the warm and sympathetic atmosphere of a
full, eager, and admiring class-room set his tongue and his more
reluctant pen in motion. We need not brood over the
might-not-have-beens; but when we think of the power that fortune
exercises over men’s lives, we may thank her for assigning Adam Smith at
this critical moment to the town and University of Glasgow. By that
propitious act she lent powerful aid to the construction of a science
that must ever be associated with the prosperity and peaceful progress
of mankind.
Smith himself has indicated in a general statement the advantages he
derived from this professorship:—
“To impose upon any man the necessity of teaching, year after year,
any particular branch of science, seems, in reality, to be the most
effectual method for rendering him completely master of it himself. By
being obliged to go every year over the same ground, if he is good for
anything he necessarily becomes, in a few years, well acquainted with
every part of it: and if upon any particular point he should form too
hasty an opinion one year, when he comes in the course of his lectures
to reconsider the same subject the year thereafter, he is very likely
to correct it. As to be a teacher of science is certainly the natural
employment of a mere man of letters, so is it likewise perhaps the
education which is most likely to render him a man of solid learning
and knowledge.”
He regarded the profession of teacher as an education, and for that very
reason he never ceased to be a learner and a discoverer. Instead of
sticking in the muddy ruts of dogma, he drove on gathering facts and
opinions till he reached the goal. To vary a well-known inscription, he
might have written over the door of his class-room, “Deverticulum
philosophi ad veritatem proficiscentis,”—the resting-place of a
philosopher on march to truth. Assuredly a happier appointment was never
made, whether we look at the true interests of the Professor himself or
at those of the University. Smith always thought the years at Glasgow
the happiest and most useful of his life. Besides his strong preference
for Morals over Logic, he had carnal reasons to rejoice in the
transference, for it gave a rather better income. Altogether the chair
of Morals at Glasgow seems to have yielded about £170 a year—a fine
income in Scotland at a time when, as Mr. Rae observes, the largest
stipend in the Presbyterian Church was £138.
In addition to salary and fees, Smith was allotted a good house in the
Professors’ Court, which he shared with his mother and cousin (Miss Jane
Douglas), who came from Kirkcaldy to live with him. The manses in the
old Professors’ Court were held by the professors in order of seniority,
and Smith removed three times in order to take full advantage of his
privileges, obtaining the best in 1762, when Leechman, Hutcheson’s
biographer, was appointed Principal. In 1761, when a second edition of
the _Moral Sentiments_ appeared, with a newly inserted passage
describing the view from his study window, he was in the house
previously occupied by Dr. Dick, Professor of Natural Philosophy. To
this house nature seems to have been especially kind,—though in reading
Smith’s description of his view we must recollect that Glasgow, the
garden city, was then famous for the clearness of its atmosphere and the
beauty of its surroundings. “In my present situation,” that is to say,
looking from the window of his study, he sees “an immense landscape of
lawns and woods and distant mountains.” The landscape illustrates the
philosophy of the mind: it “seems to do no more than cover the little
window which I write by and to be out of all proportion less than the
chamber in which I am sitting.” He can form a just comparison between
the great objects of the remote scene and the little objects in the room
only by transporting himself to a different station from whence both
could be surveyed at nearly equal distances. The image, it will be seen,
is introduced by Adam Smith to illustrate his theory of “the impartial
spectator,” the judge within the breast, whom we must consult if we are
to see the things that concern ourselves and others in their true shape
and proportions. Just as a man must in some measure be acquainted with
the philosophy of vision before he can be thoroughly convinced how small
is his own room compared with the mountains he sees from his window, so
to the selfish and original passions of human nature, unschooled by
experience, unassisted by scale or measure, “the loss or gain of a very
small interest of our own appears to be of vastly more importance,
excites a much more passionate joy or sorrow than the greatest concern
of another with whom we have no particular connection.”[9]
With the failure of Hume’s candidature for the Logic chair was lost a
golden opportunity of associating two of the first philosophers of that
age on the staff of a small provincial college in one of the poorest,
rudest, and least frequented kingdoms of Western Europe. The legend that
Burke (four years before he published his _Treatise on the Sublime and
Beautiful_) was another candidate has been adjudged apocryphal, though
it was formerly accepted by good authorities. Many of the Glasgow
students were Irish Presbyterians, and an Irishman might well have been
encouraged to seek a chair in the University of Hutcheson.
George Jardine, a student in 1760 and Professor of Logic from 1774,
dated the first radical reform in the teaching of philosophy at Glasgow,
from a royal visitation of 1727, after which each professor was
restricted to a particular department instead of being required to
lecture for three successive years in logic, ethics, and physics. He
adds that the improvements thus introduced were greatly promoted by
fortunate appointments. First came Dr. Francis Hutcheson, whose “copious
and splendid eloquence” illustrated an amiable system of morality, and
at the same time popularised the use of English as the medium of
instruction. Hutcheson’s reforms were not suspended by his death. But
the Logic class continued to be conducted in Latin until Adam Smith,
being rather unexpectedly called to the office in 1750, “found it
necessary to read in the English language a course of lectures in
Rhetoric and Belles Lettres which he had formerly delivered in
Edinburgh.” The last department in the University to abandon Latin was
Law, and the innovator was Smith’s pupil and friend, John Millar.
After Smith’s brief tenure of the chair, Logic fell back for a time to
its old subject-matter, but the Latin medium could not be revived. “From
the time that the lectures began to be delivered in English the eyes of
men were opened,” writes Jardine. It was felt that the old logic of the
schools, even when perfectly understood, had little or no connection
with modern thought, and none with the active business of life. The
local situation, too, of the University in a great commercial city,
where men had a quick perception of utility, and looked for a clear
adaptation of means to ends, helped to promote reform. But dislike of
Logic and Ontology was not peculiar to Smith or to Glasgow. They were
discountenanced by the most popular philosopher of that age. “Had the
craftiest men,” wrote Shaftesbury in his _Characteristics_, “for many
ages together been employed in finding out a method to confound reason
and to degrade the understandings of men, they could not perhaps have
succeeded better than by the establishing of this mock science.”
Hutcheson had ignored logic and avoided metaphysical problems. In his
_Theory of Moral Sentiments_, Smith renounced “the abstruse syllogisms
of a quibbling dialectic”; but he never made the mistake of confounding
Aristotle with the Aristotelians.
There is in the _Wealth of Nations_ a highly interesting digression upon
the Universities, to explain how Greek conceptions of philosophy were
debased in the Middle Ages, and how its ancient division into three
parts was altered for another into five in most of the academies of
Europe. In the ancient philosophy, whatever was taught concerning the
nature either of the human mind or the deity made a part of the system
of physics. Whatever reason could conclude or conjecture upon the human
and the divine mind, made two chapters of “the science which pretended
to give an account of the origin and revolutions of the great system of
the universe.” But in the universities of Europe, “where philosophy was
taught only as subservient to theology,” it was natural to dwell upon
these two chapters and to make them distinct sciences. And so
Metaphysics or Pneumatics were set up in opposition to Physics.
The result was, in Adam Smith’s view, disastrous. While on the one hand,
subjects requiring experiment and observation, and capable of yielding
many useful discoveries, were almost entirely neglected; on the other a
subject, in which “after a few very simple and obvious truths the most
careful attention can discover nothing but obscurity and uncertainty,
and can consequently produce nothing but subtleties and sophisms, was
greatly cultivated.” Metaphysics having thus been set up in opposition
to physics, the comparison between them naturally gave birth to a third,
called ontology, or the science which treated of the qualities and
attributes common to both. “But if subtleties and sophisms composed the
greater part of the Metaphysics or Pneumatics of the schools, they
composed the whole of this cobweb science of Ontology.” Holding these
views, it is not surprising that Smith welcomed an escape from this
chair to one which proposed as its object an inquiry of a very different
nature: wherein consists the happiness and perfection of a man,
considered not only as an individual, but as the member of a family, of
a state, and of the great society of mankind. Here was a stepping-stone
to the _Wealth of Nations_. Meanwhile he did what he could to unsettle
the cobweb sciences.
Of Smith as a logician, John Millar, a member of his class in 1751-2,
wrote that he “saw the necessity of departing widely from the plan that
had been followed by his predecessors, and of directing the attention of
his pupils to studies of a more interesting and useful nature than the
logic and the metaphysics of the schools.” Accordingly, says Millar,
“after exhibiting a general view of the powers of the mind, and
explaining so much of the ancient logic as was requisite to gratify
curiosity with respect to an artificial method of reasoning which had
once occupied the universal attention of the learned, he dedicated all
the rest of his time to the delivery of a system of rhetoric and belles
lettres.” Another of those who attended his classes at Glasgow says that
even after he became Professor of Moral Philosophy he would from time to
time give lectures on taste and literature, and it must have been one of
these that Boswell heard in 1759. Art, the drama, and music were always
favourite objects of his speculations, and doubtless the substance of
his essay on the _Imitative Arts_ was delivered from time to time in the
University. Millar says Smith never appeared to greater advantage than
as a lecturer:—
“His manner, though not graceful, was plain and unaffected, and as he
seemed to be always interested in the subject, he never failed to
interest his hearers. Each discourse consisted commonly of several
distinct propositions, which he successively endeavoured to prove and
illustrate. These propositions when announced in general terms had,
from their extent, not unfrequently something of the air of a paradox.
In his attempts to explain them, he often appeared at first not to be
sufficiently possessed of the subject, and spoke with some hesitation.
As he advanced, however, the matter seemed to crowd upon him, his
manner became warm and animated, and his expression easy and fluent.
In points susceptible of controversy you could easily discern that he
secretly conceived an opposition to his opinions, and that he was led
upon this account to support them with greater energy and vehemence.
By the fulness and variety of his illustrations the subject gradually
swelled in his hands and acquired a dimension which, without a tedious
repetition of the same views, was calculated to seize the attention of
his audience, and to afford them pleasure as well as instruction in
following the same subject through all the diversity of shades and
aspects in which it was presented, and afterwards in tracing it
backwards to that original proposition or general truth from which
this beautiful train of speculation had proceeded.”
Another old pupil dwelt upon his “animated and extemporaneous
eloquence,” especially when he was drawn into digressions in the course
of question and answer. Smith himself attributed his success very
largely to the vigilant care with which he watched his audience; for he
depended very much upon their sympathy. “During one whole session,” he
is reported to have said, “a certain student with a plain but expressive
countenance was of great use to me in judging of my success. He sat
conspicuously in front of a pillar: I had him constantly under my eye.
If he leant forward to listen all was right, and I knew that I had the
ear of my class; but if he leant back in an attitude of listlessness I
felt at once that all was wrong, and that I must change either the
subject or the style of my address.”
CHAPTER III
THEOLOGY AND RELIGIOUS ESTABLISHMENTS
The age into which Adam Smith was born was an age of religious doubt and
philosophic curiosity. During his lifetime the governing classes in
England, undisturbed by enthusiasms, were little disposed to entertain
revolutionary ideas in politics or religion. It seemed to be the
function of philosophic thinkers to leave the constitution of a
tolerably liberal State and a tolerably lax Church, and to advance in
other directions. The fierce storms that bent the course of Selden and
Milton and Hobbes had abated. Men tried to forget
“The lifted axe, the agonising
|
In fifty years of horse tradin' no one has ever accused me of
tellin' a lie. When I come back I'll still have the watch. If you're not
satisfied with the horse, we'll trade back."
"That sounds fair," said Jim judiciously.
The trader reached inside the wagon and pulled out a bridle.
"Here's the bridle I got with the horse," he said, climbing down from the
wagon. "You'll need a bridle, so I'll throw that in. Now the horse has on
a rope halter. It doesn't look like much but it's sturdy. You can have
that too if you want."
"Thanks, Mister," said Jim, beginning to be overwhelmed by all his new
property.
"Now I'll tell you something," said the old man. "There is such a thing
as an honest horse trader even if people don't think so. A trader that
deals square will tell a man about any defects that he knows of inside
the horse. About his wind, whether he has the heaves, and things like
that. Anything that shows outside the horse, it's up to the buyer to see.
If he can't tell what he's buyin', it's his tough luck."
"This horse looks all right to me," said Jim, stoutly defending his new
property.
"He is," said the trader. "Since you're a young feller and haven't had
much experience tradin', I'd tell you if anything was wrong. This mustang
hasn't any defects we haven't already talked about. There's that saddle
sore, the lame foreleg, he's pretty lean, and his coat needs a lot of
work. Other than that he's sound. Now I want you to take notice of the
way he holds his head. It's kinda cockeyed. Now lots of folks would look
at him and figure him to be a mean horse. He isn't. That horse isn't a
bit mean; he's been mistreated and he's a little worried about whom to
trust. You be good to him and he'll be as gentle as can be."
"He'll like me," said Jim confidently.
"I think he will. One other thing--that mustang is a smart critter.
Horses are like people; some are just naturally dumb and others are
smart. I've been handling the animals so long I've kinda got a sixth
sense about 'em. Now this little feller is one of the smartest I've ever
run across."
Evarts untied the mustang from the end of the string and handed the rope
to Jim.
"Well, he's your horse. Good luck."
"Good-by," said Jim as the trader climbed back on the wagon. "That's a
good watch too."
Jim watched the wagon, with its trailing string of horses, move off down
the road. He felt a twinge of pain as he thought of his beloved watch
slowly moving into the distance. Then he felt a tug on the rope he held.
The horse was looking at him quizzically.
"No, I'm not sorry I traded," said Jim, as if in answer to a question.
"But I'm going to miss that watch. I know what I'm going to do. I'll call
you 'Ticktock' after my watch."
Chapter Two
The Reception
After tying Ticktock to the orchard fence, Jim stepped back and regarded
his property with admiration. Ownership had caused the mustang to take on
new beauty in the eyes of the boy. There were so many things to be done
that Jim was uncertain where to start. He had to feed the pony, comb out
his mane and tail, give him a good grooming and do something about that
saddle sore. After much thought, Jim finally decided the most important
and most enjoyable thing to do was to win his horse's confidence. He ran
happily into the house and down the cellar stairs. There were still a few
apples left, he knew from frequent trips to the barrel.
"Here you are, Ticktock," he said, returning with an apple. "It's a
winesap and no worms in it either."
Cutting the apple in half, he carefully removed the core and offered
one-half in his outstretched hand. Ticktock moved forward cautiously.
After a few moments of doubtful sniffing, he picked the apple delicately
from the boy's outstretched palm. He ate it with obvious relish.
"Liked it, didn't you?" asked Jim, getting more pleasure than if he had
eaten the apple himself.
Ticktock didn't reply. He stuck his head forward and sniffed at Jim's
other hand.
"Say, you're pretty smart," said Jim admiringly, as he gave the pony the
remainder of the apple. "You know there's two halves to an apple."
By this time Jim felt confident enough to begin stroking the mustang's
head. Next he gently scratched the horse's ears. He knew dogs liked their
ears scratched, so why not horses? Ticktock didn't seem to mind, for he
stood patiently. Jim had progressed as far as the neck when there was an
interruption. Colonel Flesher drove in the yard in his little truck. The
fleshy stock buyer climbed out of his car and walked toward the boy.
"Good afternoon, Colonel," said Jim, glad to see the visitor. Now here
was a man who would appreciate the finer points of a beautiful horse.
"Come see my mustang."
[Illustration: Selling a mustang]
"Mustang, eh?" asked Colonel Flesher jovially.
"Yep. A real Western. Isn't he a beauty?"
Colonel Flesher looked at the little horse doubtfully. He pursed his lips
searching for the right thing to say. The boy's enthusiasm left no doubt
as to what sort of answer was expected.
"Well, he's a bit thin yet to be called a beauty," he said, evading
nicely.
"He may be a little thin," admitted Jim unwillingly, "but I'll fix that
up in no time. He's a Texas ranch horse."
"That so?" asked the colonel, glad to be off the subject of the mustang's
appearance. "Where'd you get him?"
"Traded a gold watch for him. I made a fine deal. He's worth a lot more
than a gold watch, isn't he?"
"Well, that all depends on the watch," answered the stock buyer
cautiously. "There are all sorts of watches you know, some cheap, some
valuable."
"I've never seen a watch that was worth half as much as this horse," said
Jim hotly, realizing that Colonel Flesher wasn't too enthusiastic about
Ticktock.
"Hm-m-m, well," hedged the colonel, trying to be truthful and still not
hurt the boy's feelings.
"You wait," said Jim confidently. "Wait until I get him spruced up a bit;
then you'll see. He's probably the smartest horse in the whole state."
"That could be true enough," said the stock buyer, glad to find something
on which they could agree. "I'd like to spend more time looking at him,
son; but I'm in a big hurry. Can you tell me where the calf is that I
bought from your father?"
Jim led the calf out of the barn and over to the truck. The two carried a
small stock chute to the back of the truck. By dint of much pushing,
pulling and coaxing, the calf was finally loaded.
"Here's the fifteen dollars for the calf," said the colonel. "Thanks a
lot for helping me."
Jim returned to his horse. Colonel Flesher's lack of approval didn't
bother him in the least. He shrugged his shoulders. After all the stock
buyer bought cows largely, and probably wasn't able to see Ticktock's
wonderful qualities. He went out to the barn for a curry comb and brush.
Now he hoped his family wouldn't be back for hours. He had visions of the
mustang looking like a show horse by the time they returned.
Currying Ticktock turned out to be a much bigger job than Jim had
anticipated. After the first ten minutes he sadly conceded that it would
be a matter of weeks instead of hours before he could have the pony's
coat sleek and glistening. He tried unsuccessfully to comb out a few
strands of the matted mane and gave up. Instead he started to work on a
shoulder--that looked easier. After twenty minutes of hard work, he was
resting his tired arms when the family drove in the yard. Jim ran
excitedly over to the car, jumping on the running board as the car
stopped.
Since the driver's seat was on the side toward the orchard, Mr. Meadows
saw the mustang first.
"Where did that nag come from?" he inquired.
"Nag!" said Jim, astounded. "Why that's a real Texas cow pony with a
brand and everything."
"All right," said Carl Meadows, grinning at his son. "Where did that real
Texas cow pony come from?"
"I traded for him," said Jim proudly.
"You did what?"
"Traded for him."
"Traded what?" asked Jim's father.
"My gold watch. I got the horse, a halter and a bridle, all for my
watch."
Mr. Meadows said nothing, but the grin vanished. Very slowly and grimly
he got out of the car and walked toward the horse. Mrs. Meadows and Jean
followed, all gathering in front of the mustang. Ticktock stopped grazing
and looked up inquiringly at his suddenly large audience.
"You traded your grandfather's gold watch for _that_," Mr. Meadows asked
finally, with a contemptuous wave of his hand toward the horse.
"Uh-uh." Jim sensed that matters were rapidly becoming difficult, so he
tried to ease the situation as much as he could. "He's the smartest horse
you ever saw."
"I don't know how smart the horse is," said his father, "but I'm
beginning to have some doubts about you, Jim. I gave you that watch
because I thought you would take care of it and appreciate it."
"But I did appreciate it!" cried Jim in a hurt voice.
"Not enough, apparently, to prevent you from trading it off for a
broken-down piece of horseflesh."
"He isn't broken-down," replied Jim, coming to the defense of Ticktock.
"He's a beautiful horse."
"Well I'll be--"
"Carl!" said Mrs. Meadows sharply.
"Well, it's enough to make a man swear," said Mr. Meadows. "Jim, who
palmed this crazy-looking nag off on you? I'm going to take it back and
get your watch back."
"I don't want to trade back," cried Jim. "I want to keep Ticktock."
"Who was it?" repeated his father. Mr. Meadows' usually good-natured
expression was replaced by one of angry determination. Jim knew he had
best answer the question.
"A traveling horse trader named Ned Evarts," he replied.
"A traveling horse trader!" shouted Mr. Meadows, grabbing his head in his
hands in despair. "That is the last straw. There's no telling where the
rascal is now. Still, I'm so disgusted that I've half a mind to phone the
sheriff to see if the man can be located."
"Don't do that, Dad," Jim pleaded. "He asked me if I was sure it would be
all right with you."
"Well that is about as low a piece of swindling as I've ever
encountered," said the older man, "taking advantage of a boy!"
"He wasn't a swindler. Besides, he said he'd be back this fall and if I
wasn't satisfied, he'd trade back."
"Back this fall," scoffed his father. "Why he'll have that watch in the
first pawn shop he finds. He's probably laughing now at how he got rid of
such a broken-down old plug."
Miserable as he was, Jim was not going to let anyone make remarks about
Ticktock. "He isn't broken-down and he isn't old either. Only six years
old."
"Six years old!" said Mr. Meadows scornfully. "Why he's closer to
sixteen. Did you look at his teeth?"
"No."
"Well, I'll show you something about your valuable horse!" said Carl
Meadows, advancing toward Ticktock.
The mustang had been watching and listening to the argument with
interest. He couldn't understand the words, but there was little else
that he missed. The frequent looks of contempt that Carl Meadows had
given him hadn't passed unnoticed. Ticktock was a horse of considerable
independence. He wanted people to like him, but if they didn't, he wasted
little time in trying to win their favor. Affection was a two-way affair
with him. Mrs. Meadows and Jean were neutral and puzzled respectively, so
Ticktock reserved judgment on them. But the mustang definitely did not
like the tall man. When Mr. Meadows reached out confidently to open his
jaws, Ticktock promptly took a nip at one of the outstretched hands. It
wasn't a savage bite--just a moderate bite, as the mustang didn't hate
the strange man. He merely didn't want to be handled by anyone who
disliked him. However, the nip was enough to take the skin off one finger
and draw blood.
Mr. Meadows jerked his arm back and really cursed this time. He shook the
injured hand and glared with hatred at the pony.
"That settles it. That mean-tempered beast has got to go. I won't have a
vicious horse on my place. The next thing you know he will kill someone."
Jim was very alarmed at the accident. He hadn't expected outright
approval of his trade, but he certainly had not anticipated such violent
opposition. Now the biting had climaxed the situation. He felt sorry
about his father's injured hand but somehow he knew how Ticktock felt and
was in sympathy with him too.
"He isn't vicious, Dad. He's just not used to you. Look here."
Before his father could stop him, Jim stepped forward and took hold of
Ticktock's muzzle. He opened the mustang's mouth easily.
"Want to see his teeth?"
"No thank you. I've felt them; that's enough." Mr. Meadows was a very
tolerant man, but he was human and had a streak of stubbornness. He had
taken his stand and was not going to back down. "I've said all I'm going
to say about that horse. Come help me get the groceries out of the car."
All through the chores Jim and his father maintained strict silence about
the mustang. Jim performed his routine work from habit, for his mind was
busy with its overwhelming burden of misery. After the chores he went
quietly in the house and washed for supper. During the meal he sat
abjectly staring at his plate, eating scarcely anything. Mr. Meadows
could not help noticing his son's misery; but Jim's father was angry and
determined, so he too sat in tight-lipped silence. Mrs. Meadows
maintained her stand of complete neutrality. That left only Jean, who had
forgotten the argument and just wondered why everyone was so silent.
After supper Mr. Meadows went into the living room. Jim waited a few
minutes and then followed, determined to make another attempt to change
his father's stand. Mr. Meadows had always been very reasonable before.
Jim's mother left the dishes and went in the living room also, fearing a
peacemaker might be needed.
"Look, Dad," said Jim, trying to approach the subject gradually, "there's
an empty stall in the barn."
"I said the horse was not going to stay," said Mr. Meadows. "I simply
will not waste feed on a useless, mean-tempered horse."
"He won't use any feed," Jim pointed out. "Just grass."
"In the winter there is snow covering the grass," said the older man
dryly.
"I'll earn money this summer to feed him through the winter!" declared
Jim confidently. "Besides, I already have three dollars."
He reached in his pocket to make certain he still had his precious three
dollars. His hand found the fifteen that Colonel Flesher had paid for the
calf. In the excitement he had forgotten to give the money to his father.
"Here's the fifteen dollars Colonel Flesher gave me for the calf."
Mr. Meadows pocketed the money. "It's a good thing he didn't come before
the horse trader, or you probably would have thrown in the fifteen
dollars with the watch."
"I would not," said Jim bitterly. He was now even more hurt than before.
"The money wasn't mine but the watch was. You gave it to me."
Everything seemed to mount up in Jim's mind. He had felt like shedding
tears several times since his family's return, but he was no crybaby and
had held them back. Now once again he began to choke up dangerously; so
he started to leave the room.
Mr. Meadows began to be somewhat sorry about his last words. He realized
that in his anger he had spoken rather hastily, and he saw his son was
deeply hurt.
"I'm sorry, Jim," he said finally and rather awkwardly. "I shouldn't have
said that. I know you would never be dishonest or trade off anything that
didn't belong to you. I did give you the watch and it was your property.
It's just that I attached a lot of sentiment to the watch and thought you
would too."
Mrs. Meadows had been weighing the problem all evening. She hadn't been
too favorably impressed by Ticktock, but she knew with a mother's
instinct how precious the rawboned pony was to her son. Now that her
husband was in a slightly more softened mood she decided to strike.
"Carl, come in the kitchen a few minutes," she said.
As Jim waited anxiously, he could hear low voices coming from the
kitchen. He knew his parents as well as they knew him and suspected that
his mother was coming to his rescue. When his parents returned to the
living room, Mrs. Meadows was looking determined and a trifle triumphant,
while her husband was embarrassedly trying to look indulgent. Jim sat up
expectantly.
"Your mother and I have talked over this matter," announced Mr. Meadows.
"We've decided to arrive at a compromise with you. You can keep the horse
this summer providing he isn't too mean and causes no trouble. But this
fall he goes. I will not feed him through the winter."
"Hurrah!" shouted Jim and dashed out of the house.
When you are not quite thirteen a summer is a lifetime. The fall seemed a
million years away--a tiny cloud away over on the horizon. Why school
hadn't even ended for the summer as yet. Jim went up to where Ticktock
stood, still tied to the orchard fence. He stroked the mustang's head and
told him the good news.
"It's all set, Ticktock. You can stay. We've got the whole summer
together. You're going to get fat and really like it here. Now don't mind
if Dad doesn't seem to like you. He's really an awful nice Dad. It's just
that grown-ups don't understand a lot of things. You sorta have to make
allowances for them. We'll show everybody what a good horse you are. Only
if we're going to make a good impression you can't go around biting
people."
The mustang took the good news very calmly.
"Come on, old boy; I'll show you your new stall. It might rain tonight
and we don't want you to catch cold."
Chapter Three
The First Victory
The next few weeks were busy ones for Jim. School took most of the day,
while after school there were chores to do. Since Mr. Meadows maintained
his hostile attitude toward the mustang, Jim was very careful not to
shirk any of his farm work in order to spend additional time on Ticktock.
In spite of the full schedule, he managed to spend an hour or two on his
pony each day. He went over the pony's coat for an exhausting hour every
evening and worked on the matted tail and mane. A few applications of
methylene blue to the saddle sores caused them to start healing, while
the remaining lameness quickly disappeared.
The first week-end Jim laboriously put in an entire new floor in
Ticktock's stall. He carried fresh clay from a hill on the other side of
the farm and packed it firmly over the floor of the stall. He kept the
pony's quarters scrupulously clean and filled with fresh straw for
bedding.
While Jim was at school, the little horse cropped busily at the spring
grass and waited for his master's return. He sensed that Jim was the only
member of the family who was ready to lavish affection on him. Mr.
Meadows' hostility was quite open and apparent. Jim's mother, while at
least neutral, was seldom seen by the horse. As for Jean, Ticktock hadn't
quite made up his mind. Jim's little sister hadn't decided whether to be
scornful of the horse or to like him as she did all the other animals
around the farm.
Under the circumstances it was not strange that the mustang welcomed Jim
home from school each afternoon, particularly since the reunion usually
meant an apple. The little pony had never had anyone really love him
before and he was quick to respond. Like most horses, the mustang had
always wanted to be close friends with some man. While the cow hands on
the range had treated him well, no one had ever singled him out for any
particular attention. He had been roped, saddled and worked. That was the
beginning and end of his ranch existence. Perhaps his very gentleness had
kept him from notice, as many cowboys preferred a rather wild and
unmanageable horse. Ticktock didn't lack spirit. He simply didn't see any
sense in bucking and kicking up a fuss.
It was three days before Jim ventured to ride his horse. He examined the
saddle sores and decided they were not too tender and that he could avoid
sitting on them. He put on the bridle for the first time and led Ticktock
up beside a small platform by the feed shed. Gingerly he climbed on the
pony's bare back. Mrs. Meadows, unobserved, watched nervously from the
kitchen window. Secretly she thought the mustang looked somewhat
mean-tempered, but she kept silent. Her fears were unfounded, for the
pony stood calmly while Jim climbed awkwardly on his back. The horse
craned his head around as if to make certain his rider was firmly seated
and then stood waiting for orders.
Jim sat puzzled for a moment. He had ridden their broad-backed farm
horses many times, but this was different. He had heard somewhere you
never clicked to a saddle horse--and he wanted to do things right. You
said "giddap" to a work horse, but that sounded a little undignified for
a Western ranch horse. Finally he just pressed with his knees, lifted the
reins and said: "O.K., Ticktock, let's go." The pony seemed to
understand, for he started off at a brisk walk. Once outside the yard
gate, Jim gave another press of the knees and they were off at a trot. It
wasn't a very comfortable trot, as jolting along bareback on a spine as
prominent as Ticktock's still was, couldn't possibly be anything but
painful. But Jim enjoyed every moment. As he was still being careful of
the pony's tender foot, he rode him only a short distance down the road.
The return trip was made at a full gallop. Ticktock was not slow, so the
horse and rider made a triumphant entry into the yard.
As Jim slid off there was no doubt in his mind that Ticktock was the
fastest as well as the finest horse in the world.
After the first trial, Jim went for a daily ride, each one growing
longer. He led the horse into the yard, took the bridle over to the
platform, gave a shrill whistle, and Ticktock would trot up to be bridled
and mounted. Then they would go dashing off down the road, chasing
rustlers, carrying the mail, or acting out whatever happened to be the
current daydream.
Springdale no longer held any fascination for Jim. Saturdays were too
precious to be wasted in town. There were too many odd jobs to be done.
He repaired Ticktock's feedbox, and built a rack for a bucket in one
corner of the stall. He wasn't going to ask anyone to water his horse
when he was away, and he had no intention of letting the pony be thirsty.
The second Saturday after Ticktock's arrival, Jim was lying on the front
porch resting from his labors. He munched on a cookie and gazed
contentedly at his horse. Ticktock was in the front yard grazing. The
regular pasture didn't seem quite luxuriant enough to Jim. Besides he
planned to ride any moment now and wanted his horse near. The orchard
would have been the ideal spot but the bull was again occupying that
area. The boy thought about the bull and frowned.
Jim wasn't the only one who disliked the bull, for Mrs. Meadows was very
nervous concerning the big red animal. She was also home this particular
Saturday. Her last words to her husband, before he and Jean left for
town, had been about the mean-tempered bull.
"Carl, I wish you'd see Colonel Flesher and sell that ugly brute. When I
stay home without you I'm always afraid that he'll get loose."
"I'll get rid of him this fall," Mr. Meadows had said, laughing. "He's
safe enough in the orchard and I'm certain there's nothing you'll want in
there today."
Jim lay thinking about the time he had been trapped in the tree. He was
still angry about that and wished he could think of some way of evening
the score. Besides, that orchard would certainly make a nice private
pasture for the horse. Grazing in the yard was not too satisfactory. His
mother had objected at first on the grounds that Ticktock would eat or
trample her flowers. They had finally compromised by agreeing that the
mustang could graze on the strip between the drive and the orchard fence.
As Jim disliked tethering his horse, he had to watch carefully; but it
was worth it. The pony was near and each mouthful he ate was that much
less lawn to be mowed.
Jim was turning over the weighty problem of whether to go for a ride now
or to try arguing his mother out of another cookie, when he noticed the
bull coming through the orchard gate. Either the gate had been insecurely
fastened or else the latch had been broken. He jumped to his feet in
alarm.
"Mother, the bull's loose!" he shouted.
His mother came through the door onto the porch just as Jim started down
the steps. She made a frantic grab and caught her son by his overall
suspenders. She pulled him, kicking and struggling, back to the center of
the porch.
"Where do you think you're going?" she demanded.
"Ticktock is in the yard," pointed out Jim, almost beside himself with
fear for his precious horse.
"The bull won't bother a horse," Jim's mother reassured him.
"He will too!" cried Jim. "I saw a movie of a bull-fight and bulls
sometimes kill horses."
"Nevertheless, you are staying right here," said Mrs. Meadows firmly. "If
anybody gets hurt, it is not going to be you. Besides, Ticktock is a
ranch pony. He can take care of himself."
The bull took a long curious look at the mustang who continued to graze
peacefully. Ordinarily the bull stayed clear of the large work horses but
the pony looked small enough to intimidate. He gave several snorts and
began to paw with his front foot. Ticktock just went on grazing, ignoring
the bull completely. The big animal lowered his head and prepared to
rush. Jim squirmed and struggled in another attempt to get free but his
mother now had him by the arm and showed no intention of letting him go.
Jim wasn't quite certain what he could do if he were free. All he could
think of was that his pony was in danger.
"He's going to rush!" he shouted.
"You couldn't stop him," said his mother. She too began to wonder about
the mustang's safety.
The bull lunged forward, gathering speed as he went. His short legs
worked furiously, like pistons in a racing engine. Just as he seemed
certain to smash into the pony's side, Ticktock jerked his head up and
made a quick wheeling movement. The bull rushed past harmlessly.
"There!" said Mrs. Meadows, with a huge sigh of relief. "Ticktock can
take care of himself."
"I guess he's too smart for an old bull," said Jim with more confidence
than he really felt.
The bull turned around and was pawing again. After his experience in the
orchard, Jim was well acquainted with the ugly animal's tactics.
"Look out, Ticktock!" he shouted.
The mustang needed no warning. He was watching the bull with a quizzical
look. He seemed amazed, as if he couldn't quite believe that a "cow
critter" could possibly be stupid enough to try any tricks on a smart
ranch pony like himself. He cocked his head and stood waiting as if he
were saying, "I'll just wait and see if this is really true. Maybe I just
imagined that bull was rushing at me."
[Illustration: Bull and pony fighting]
The bull rushed all right. He came ploughing across the yard like a
freight train, the driving hooves taking huge chunks out of the smooth
green sod. Ticktock calmly and neatly side-stepped. He decided this time
that he hadn't been mistaken. The bull was actually trying to scare
_him_. The whole thing was ridiculous. As the bull came charging back the
third time the pony decided he had enough of such foolishness. He wheeled
sharply when the animal was a few feet away. As the bull roared past,
Ticktock lashed out sharply with both hind feet. Running the open range
as a colt had taught the mustang how to use his only weapons, his feet.
He had learned well, as the bull now discovered. Ticktock planted a firm
kick squarely on the fat side of the big red animal. The bull, almost
knocked over by the force of the blow, gave a loud bellow of pain and
surprise. Jim jumped up and down on the front porch, cheering as if at a
boxing match.
"Sock him, Ticktock; let him have it!"
By now Ticktock had his ears back and his teeth bared. He stood watching
the bull, willing to give him another lesson. The bull, however, needed
no more instruction. He promptly dropped all ideas regarding the little
pony, moving a respectful distance away. Snorting in baffled rage and
disappointment, he walked across the yard and began pawing furiously in
the flower beds.
"My flowers," moaned Mrs. Meadows. "Now I know that bull is going to be
sold. I could kill him with my bare hands."
"I'll chase him out," volunteered Jim.
"No you don't. You are still staying here," insisted Jim's mother.
Jim gave a whistle. "Come here, Ticktock."
The mustang trotted up to the porch. Jim climbed on confidently. He had
no bridle but he was long since past the point where he needed reins to
make his wishes known to the pony. He rode over to the nearest tree and
broke off a substantial switch.
"Come on, boy; after the bull."
Ticktock went after the big animal. Cutting steers out of herds, chasing
back strays, and all such maneuvers were old routine with him. He needed
few directions; all he required was to know where Jim wanted the bull to
go. They turned the animal back and, after a few trys, chased him through
the orchard gate.
Once inside, Jim gave the defeated and lumbering bull a triumphant swat
with his switch. The big beast broke into a reluctant run. Shouting and
waving his arms like a wild cowboy, Jim chased the vanquished bull to the
far end of the orchard.
When finally there was no place farther to go, he relented. Returning, he
fastened the gate securely and slid off Ticktock.
"You're the bravest and smartest horse in the world, Ticktock. I'm going
to get you something for a reward."
Jim swaggered into the kitchen, trying to walk as he thought a bow-legged
cowboy would.
"Ticktock is really a smart horse, isn't he, Mom?"
"He seems to be very intelligent," admitted his mother.
"We can handle that bull all right," boasted Jim. "Why we can chase him
all over."
"I noticed you did," said Mrs. Meadows dryly. "I don't say he didn't
deserve it this time, but don't make a practice of chasing him. That bull
is going to be sold and there is no use running the fat off him."
"Oh no, we won't run him," protested Jim. "But any time you want him
handled, just call on us."
"All right," laughed his mother. "Now go get the apple you were planning
on asking for. And you can have a cookie for yourself."
"One down," said Jim as he gave Ticktock his apple. "Mom's all for you.
We'll show the others too. You wait. If only you hadn't taken that bite
at Dad."
The mustang stopped munching long enough to grin.
Chapter Four
New Allies
By the time school was over for the summer, Ticktock had filled out
considerably. His hip bones no longer appeared as if they were about to
poke through his hide, his neck was less scrawny, and his backbone,
though visible, no longer resembled the ridgepole of a tent. Jim could
ride him bareback without the painful discomfort of the first few weeks.
While the daily grooming had improved the pony's coat a good deal, there
were still patches that were far from satisfactory. Over all, the horse
presented a rather mottled appearance. As some of the snarls in the
pony's tail proved too much for Jim's patience, they had been removed by
means of scissors. The result was rather weird--some strands were long
and flowing while others were short and ragged. The mane was likewise
irregular. Jim couldn't bring himself to clip the mane short, as all the
cowboys' horses he had ever seen in the movies had long manes. So again
he had clipped where he couldn't untangle, ending up with a mane that
resembled a comb with half the teeth missing. But at any rate the horse
was free of burrs.
There was no questioning the mustang's health or vitality. He frisked
about like a colt, showing that his wiry constitution hadn't suffered
permanently from his past mistreatment. Since to Jim the horse had
appeared beautiful in his original state, by now he was the embodiment of
all that was perfect in horseflesh. Ticktock ran to meet the boy each
time he appeared, even though it might be ten times a day. It had become
second nature to obey the boy's whistle. The two were on a perfect basis
of friendship and understanding.
A few days after the summer vacation began, Jim hung on the orchard
fence, deep in thought. The summer was just beginning, but he hadn't
forgotten his father's decision the night he had traded for Ticktock.
Fall had to come someday and then the mustang would have to go. Mr.
Meadows had shown no signs of relenting toward the pony. He ignored the
mustang as much as possible and when he did have to notice the pony, his
eyes contained as much dislike as ever.
Something had to be done, decided Jim. Perhaps he could think of some way
to earn money. If he could get enough money to pay for Ticktock's feed
for the winter, his father's chief objection would be overcome. Then with
his mother on his side, Jim felt he might win a reprieve for his horse.
He thought over the possible ways of earning money. There weren't many
jobs a boy could do on a farm that brought in cash. Certainly there was
plenty of work, but you did that anyway and didn't expect pay. Now a boy
in town could deliver papers, cut the neighbors' lawns and run errands.
Here on the farm it was different. Of course you could pick wild
blackberries and huckleberries and sell them, but it would be some time
before either were ripe and he couldn't afford to wait. No, things were
tough. Now he knew why boys left the farm. Feeling discouraged he went
into the house to see if there was something to eat that would take his
mind off his troubles.
"Jimmy," said Mrs. Meadows, as her son ambled into the kitchen, "You
won't get that cake I promised. I forgot to get any vanilla extract when
I was in town."
"Gee,"
|
lean as a stripped bush; that I was greyer than a badger; withered
and wrinkled like an empty sack; naked as a fish; wretched as a starving
crow in winter; and on my fingers and toes there were great curving
claws, so that I looked like nothing that was known, like nothing that
was animal or divine. And I sat by the pool weeping my loneliness and
wildness and my stern old age; and I could do no more than cry and
lament between the earth and the sky, while the beasts that tracked me
listened from behind the trees, or crouched among bushes to stare at me
from their drowsy covert.
“A storm arose, and when I looked again from my tall cliff I saw that
great fleet rolling as in a giant’s hand. At times they were pitched
against the sky and staggered aloft, spinning gustily there like
wind-blown leaves. Then they were hurled from these dizzy tops to the
flat, moaning gulf, to the glassy, inky horror that swirled and whirled
between ten waves. At times a wave leaped howling under a ship, and with
a buffet dashed it into air, and chased it upwards with thunder stroke
on stroke, and followed again, close as a chasing wolf, trying with
hammering on hammering to beat in the wide-wombed bottom and suck out
the frightened lives through one black gape. A wave fell on a ship and
sunk it down with a thrust, stern as though a whole sky had tumbled at
it, and the barque did not cease to go down until it crashed and sank in
the sand at the bottom of the sea.
“The night came, and with it a thousand darknesses fell from the
screeching sky. Not a round-eyed creature of the night might pierce an
inch of that multiplied gloom. Not a creature dared creep or stand. For
a great wind strode the world lashing its league-long whips in cracks
of thunder, and singing to itself, now in a world-wide yell, now in an
ear-dizzying hum and buzz; or with a long snarl and whine it hovered
over the world searching for life to destroy.
“And at times, from the moaning and yelping blackness of the sea, there
came a sound--thin-drawn as from millions of miles away, distinct as
though uttered in the ear like a whisper of confidence--and I knew that
a drowning man was calling on his God as he thrashed and was battered
into silence, and that a blue-lipped woman was calling on her man as her
hair whipped round her brows and she whirled about like a top.
“Around me the trees were dragged from earth with dying groans; they
leaped into the air and flew like birds. Great waves whizzed from the
sea: spinning across the cliffs and hurtling to the earth in monstrous
clots of foam; the very rocks came trundling and sidling and grinding
among the trees; and in that rage, and in that horror of blackness I
fell asleep, or I was beaten into slumber.”
CHAPTER VI
“THERE I dreamed, and I saw myself changing into a stag in dream, and
I felt in dream the beating of a new heart within me, and in dream I
arched my neck and braced my powerful limbs.
“I awoke from the dream, and I was that which I had dreamed.
“I stood a while stamping upon a rock, with my bristling head swung
high, breathing through wide nostrils all the savour of the world. For
I had come marvellously from decrepitude to strength. I had writhed from
the bonds of age and was young again. I smelled the turf and knew for
the first time how sweet that smelled. And like lightning my moving nose
sniffed all things to my heart and separated them into knowledge.
“Long I stood there, ringing my iron hoof on stone, and learning all
things through my nose. Each breeze that came from the right hand or the
left brought me a tale. A wind carried me the tang of wolf, and against
that smell I stared and stamped. And on a wind there came the scent of
my own kind, and at that I belled. Oh, loud and clear and sweet was the
voice of the great stag. With what ease my lovely note went lilting.
With what joy I heard the answering call. With what delight I bounded,
bounded, bounded; light as a bird’s plume, powerful as a storm, untiring
as the sea.
“Here now was ease in ten-yard springings, with a swinging head, with
the rise and fall of a swallow, with the curve and flow and urge of an
otter of the sea. What a tingle dwelt about my heart! What a thrill spun
to the lofty points of my antlers! How the world was new! How the sun
was new! How the wind caressed me!
“With unswerving forehead and steady eye I met all that came. The old,
lone wolf leaped sideways, snarling, and slunk away. The lumbering bear
swung his head of hesitations and thought again; he trotted his small
red eye away with him to a near-by brake. The stags of my race fled from
my rocky forehead, or were pushed back and back until their legs broke
under them and I trampled them to death. I was the beloved, the well
known, the leader of the herds of Ireland.
“And at times I came back from my boundings about Eire’, for the strings
of my heart were drawn to Ulster; and, standing away, my wide nose took
the air, while I knew with joy, with terror, that men were blown on the
wind. A proud head hung to the turf then, and the tears of memory rolled
from a large, bright eye.
“At times I drew near, delicately, standing among thick leaves or
crouched in long grown grasses, and I stared and mourned as I looked on
men. For Nemed and four couples had been saved from that fierce storm,
and I saw them increase and multiply until four thousand couples lived
and laughed and were riotous in the sun, for the people of Nemed had
small minds but great activity. They were savage fighters and hunters.
“But one time I came, drawn by that intolerable anguish of memory, and
all of these people were gone: the place that knew them was silent: in
the land where they had moved there was nothing of them but their bones
that glinted in the sun.
“Old age came on me there. Among these bones weariness crept into my
limbs. My head grew heavy, my eyes dim, my knees jerked and trembled,
and there the wolves dared chase me.
“I went again to the cave that had been my home when I was an old man.
“One day I stole from the cave to snatch a mouthful of grass, for I was
closely besieged by wolves. They made their rush, and I barely escaped
from them. They sat beyond the cave staring at me.
“I knew their tongue. I knew all that they said to each other, and all
that they said to me. But there was yet a thud left in my forehead, a
deadly trample in my hoof. They did not dare come into the cave.
“‘To-morrow,’ they said, ‘we will tear out your throat, and gnaw on your
living haunch’.”
CHAPTER VII
“Then my soul rose to the height of Doom, and I intended all that might
happen to me, and agreed to it.
“‘To-morrow,’ I said, ‘I will go out among ye, and I will die,’ and at
that the wolves howled joyfully, hungrily, impatiently.
“I slept, and I saw myself changing into a boar in dream, and I felt in
dream the beating of a new heart within me, and in dream I stretched my
powerful neck and braced my eager limbs. I awoke from my dream, and I
was that which I had dreamed.
“The night wore away, the darkness lifted, the day came; and from
without the cave the wolves called to me: “‘Come out, O Skinny Stag.
Come out and die.’
“And I, with joyful heart, thrust a black bristle through the hole of
the cave, and when they saw that wriggling snout, those curving tusks,
that red fierce eye, the wolves fled yelping, tumbling over each other,
frantic with terror; and I behind them, a wild cat for leaping, a giant
for strength, a devil for ferocity; a madness and gladness of lusty,
unsparing life; a killer, a champion, a boar who could not be defied.
“I took the lordship of the boars of Ireland.
“Wherever I looked among my tribes I saw love and obedience: whenever
I appeared among the strangers they fled away. And the wolves feared me
then, and the great, grim bear went bounding on heavy paws. I charged
him at the head of my troop and rolled him over and over; but it is not
easy to kill the bear, so deeply is his life packed under that stinking
pelt. He picked himself up and ran, and was knocked down, and ran again
blindly, butting into trees and stones. Not a claw did the big bear
flash, not a tooth did he show, as he ran whimpering like a baby, or
as he stood with my nose rammed against his mouth, snarling up into his
nostrils.
“I challenged all that moved. All creatures but one. For men had again
come to Ireland. Semion, the son of Stariath, with his people, from whom
the men of Domnann and the Fir Bolg and the Galiuin are descended. These
I did not chase, and when they chased me I fled.
“Often I would go, drawn by my memoried heart, to look at them as they
moved among their fields; and I spoke to my mind in bitterness: ‘When
the people of Partholon were gathered in counsel my voice was heard; it
was sweet to all who heard it, and the words I spoke were wise. The eyes
of women brightened and softened when they looked at me. They loved to
hear him when he sang who now wanders in the forest with a tusky herd.’”
CHAPTER VIII
“OLD age again overtook me. Weariness stole into my limbs, and anguish
dozed into my mind. I went to my Ulster cave and dreamed my dream, and I
changed into a hawk.
“I left the ground. The sweet air was my kingdom, and my bright eye
stared on a hundred miles. I soared, I swooped; I hung, motionless as a
living stone, over the abyss; I lived in joy and slept in peace, and had
my fill of the sweetness of life.
“During that time Beothach, the son of Iarbonel the Prophet, came to
Ireland with his people, and there was a great battle between his men
and the children of Semion. Long I hung over that combat, seeing every
spear that hurtled, every stone that whizzed from a sling, every sword
that flashed up and down, and the endless glittering of the shields. And
at the end I saw that the victory was with Iarbonel. And from his people
the Tuatha De’ and the Ande’ came, although their origin is forgotten,
and learned people, because of their excellent wisdom and intelligence,
say that they came from heaven.
“These are the people of Faery. All these are the gods.
“For long, long years I was a hawk. I knew every hill and stream; every
field and glen of Ireland. I knew the shape of cliffs and coasts, and
how all places looked under the sun or moon. And I was still a hawk when
the sons of Mil drove the Tuatha De’ Danann under the ground, and held
Ireland against arms or wizardry; and this was the coming of men and the
beginning of genealogies.
“Then I grew old, and in my Ulster cave close to the sea I dreamed my
dream, and in it I became a salmon. The green tides of ocean rose over
me and my dream, so that I drowned in the sea and did not die, for I
awoke in deep waters, and I was that which I dreamed. I had been a man,
a stag, a boar, a bird, and now I was a fish. In all my changes I had
joy and fulness of life. But in the water joy lay deeper, life pulsed
deeper. For on land or air there is always something excessive and
hindering; as arms that swing at the sides of a man, and which the
mind must remember. The stag has legs to be tucked away for sleep, and
untucked for movement; and the bird has wings that must be folded and
pecked and cared for. But the fish has but one piece from his nose to
his tail. He is complete, single and unencumbered. He turns in one turn,
and goes up and down and round in one sole movement.
“How I flew through the soft element: how I joyed in the country where
there is no harshness: in the element which upholds and gives way; which
caresses and lets go, and will not let you fall. For man may stumble in
a furrow; the stag tumble from a cliff; the hawk, wing-weary and beaten,
with darkness around him and the storm behind, may dash his brains
against a tree. But the home of the salmon is his delight, and the sea
guards all her creatures.”
CHAPTER IX
“I became the king of the salmon, and, with my multitudes, I ranged on
the tides of the world. Green and purple distances were under me: green
and gold the sunlit regions above. In these latitudes I moved through a
world of amber, myself amber and gold; in those others, in a sparkle
of lucent blue, I curved, lit like a living jewel: and in these again,
through dusks of ebony all mazed with silver, I shot and shone, the
wonder of the sea.
“I saw the monsters of the uttermost ocean go heaving by; and the long
lithe brutes that are toothed to their tails: and below, where gloom
dipped down on gloom, vast, livid tangles that coiled and uncoiled, and
lapsed down steeps and hells of the sea where even the salmon could not
go.
“I knew the sea. I knew the secret caves where ocean roars to ocean; the
floods that are icy cold, from which the nose of a salmon leaps back as
at a sting; and the warm streams in which we rocked and dozed and were
carried forward without motion. I swam on the outermost rim of the great
world, where nothing was but the sea and the sky and the salmon; where
even the wind was silent, and the water was clear as clean grey rock.
“And then, far away in the sea, I remembered Ulster, and there came on
me an instant, uncontrollable anguish to be there. I turned, and through
days and nights I swam tirelessly, jubilantly; with terror wakening in
me, too, and a whisper through my being that I must reach Ireland or
die.
“I fought my way to Ulster from the sea.
“Ah, how that end of the journey was hard! A sickness was racking in
every one of my bones, a languor and weariness creeping through my every
fibre and muscle. The waves held me back and held me back; the soft
waters seemed to have grown hard; and it was as though I were urging
through a rock as I strained towards Ulster from the sea.
“So tired I was! I could have loosened my frame and been swept away;
I could have slept and been drifted and wafted away; swinging on
grey-green billows that had turned from the land and were heaving and
mounting and surging to the far blue water.
“Only the unconquerable heart of the salmon could brave that end of
toil. The sound of the rivers of Ireland racing down to the sea came to
me in the last numb effort: the love of Ireland bore me up: the gods of
the rivers trod to me in the white-curled breakers, so that I left
the sea at long, long last; and I lay in sweet water in the curve of a
crannied rock, exhausted, three parts dead, triumphant.”
CHAPTER X
“Delight and strength came to me again, and now I explored all the
inland ways, the great lakes of Ireland, and her swift brown rivers.
“What a joy to lie under an inch of water basking in the sun, or beneath
a shady ledge to watch the small creatures that speed like lightning on
the rippling top. I saw the dragon-flies flash and dart and turn, with
a poise, with a speed that no other winged thing knows: I saw the hawk
hover and stare and swoop: he fell like a falling stone, but he could
not catch the king of the salmon: I saw the cold-eyed cat stretching
along a bough level with the water, eager to hook and lift the creatures
of the river. And I saw men.
“They saw me also. They came to know me and look for me. They lay in
wait at the waterfalls up which I leaped like a silver flash. They held
out nets for me; they hid traps under leaves; they made cords of the
colour of water, of the colour of weeds--but this salmon had a nose that
knew how a weed felt and how a string--they drifted meat on a sightless
string, but I knew of the hook; they thrust spears at me, and threw
lances which they drew back again with a cord. Many a wound I got from
men, many a sorrowful scar.
“Every beast pursued me in the waters and along the banks; the barking,
black-skinned otter came after me in lust and gust and swirl; the wild
cat fished for me; the hawk and the steep-winged, spear-beaked birds
dived down on me, and men crept on me with nets the width of a river,
so that I got no rest. My life became a ceaseless scurry and wound and
escape, a burden and anguish of watchfulness--and then I was caught.”
CHAPTER XI
“THE fisherman of Cairill, the King of Ulster, took me in his net. Ah,
that was a happy man when he saw me! He shouted for joy when he saw the
great salmon in his net.
“I was still in the water as he hauled delicately. I was still in the
water as he pulled me to the bank. My nose touched air and spun from it
as from fire, and I dived with all my might against the bottom of the
net, holding yet to the water, loving it, mad with terror that I must
quit that loveliness. But the net held and I came up.
“‘Be quiet, King of the River,’ said the fisherman, ‘give in to Doom,’
said he.
“I was in air, and it was as though I were in fire. The air pressed on
me like a fiery mountain. It beat on my scales and scorched them. It
rushed down my throat and scalded me. It weighed on me and squeezed me,
so that my eyes felt as though they must burst from my head, my head as
though it would leap from my body, and my body as though it would swell
and expand and fly in a thousand pieces.
“The light blinded me, the heat tormented me, the dry air made me
shrivel and gasp; and, as he lay on the grass, the great salmon whirled
his desperate nose once more to the river, and leaped, leaped, leaped,
even under the mountain of air. He could leap upwards, but not forwards,
and yet he leaped, for in each rise he could see the twinkling waves,
the rippling and curling waters.
“‘Be at ease, O King,’ said the fisherman. ‘Be at rest, my beloved. Let
go the stream. Let the oozy marge be forgotten, and the sandy bed where
the shades dance all in green and gloom, and the brown flood sings
along.’
“And as he carried me to the palace he sang a song of the river, and a
song of Doom, and a song in praise of the King of the Waters.
“When the king’s wife saw me she desired me. I was put over a fire and
roasted, and she ate me. And when time passed she gave birth to me, and
I was her son and the son of Cairill the king. I remember warmth and
darkness and movement and unseen sounds. All that happened I remember,
from the time I was on the gridiron until the time I was born. I forget
nothing of these things.”
“And now,” said Finnian, “you will be born again, for I shall baptize
you into the family of the Living God.” ---- So far the story of Tuan,
the son of Cairill.
No man knows if he died in those distant ages when Finnian was Abbot of
Moville, or if he still keeps his fort in Ulster, watching all things,
and remembering them for the glory of God and the honour of Ireland.
THE BOYHOOD OF FIONN
He was a king, a seer and a poet. He was a lord with a manifold and
great train. He was our magician, our knowledgable one, our soothsayer.
All that he did was sweet with him. And, however ye deem my testimony
of Fionn excessive, and, although ye hold my praising overstrained,
nevertheless, and by the King that is above me, he was three times
better than all I say.--Saint PATRICK.
CHAPTER I
Fionn [pronounce Fewn to rhyme with “tune”] got his first training among
women. There is no wonder in that, for it is the pup’s mother teaches it
to fight, and women know that fighting is a necessary art although men
pretend there are others that are better. These were the women druids,
Bovmall and Lia Luachra. It will be wondered why his own mother did not
train him in the first natural savageries of existence, but she could
not do it. She could not keep him with her for dread of the clann-Morna.
The sons of Morna had been fighting and intriguing for a long time to
oust her husband, Uail, from the captaincy of the Fianna of Ireland,
and they had ousted him at last by killing him. It was the only way
they could get rid of such a man; but it was not an easy way, for what
Fionn’s father did not know in arms could not be taught to him even by
Morna. Still, the hound that can wait will catch a hare at last, and
even Manana’nn sleeps. Fionn’s mother was beautiful, long-haired Muirne:
so she is always referred to. She was the daughter of Teigue, the son of
Nuada from Faery, and her mother was Ethlinn. That is, her brother
was Lugh of the Long Hand himself, and with a god, and such a god, for
brother we may marvel that she could have been in dread of Morna or his
sons, or of any one. But women have strange loves, strange fears, and
these are so bound up with one another that the thing which is presented
to us is not often the thing that is to be seen.
However it may be, when Uall died Muirne got married again to the King
of Kerry. She gave the child to Bovmall and Lia Luachra to rear, and we
may be sure that she gave injunctions with him, and many of them. The
youngster was brought to the woods of Slieve Bloom and was nursed there
in secret.
It is likely the women were fond of him, for other than Fionn there
was no life about them. He would be their life; and their eyes may
have seemed as twin benedictions resting on the small fair head. He was
fair-haired, and it was for his fairness that he was afterwards called
Fionn; but at this period he was known as Deimne. They saw the food they
put into his little frame reproduce itself length-ways and sideways in
tough inches, and in springs and energies that crawled at first, and
then toddled, and then ran. He had birds for playmates, but all the
creatures that live in a wood must have been his comrades. There would
have been for little Fionn long hours of lonely sunshine, when the world
seemed just sunshine and a sky. There would have been hours as long,
when existence passed like a shade among shadows, in the multitudinous
tappings of rain that dripped from leaf to leaf in the wood, and slipped
so to the ground. He would have known little snaky paths, narrow enough
to be filled by his own small feet, or a goat’s; and he would have
wondered where they went, and have marvelled again to find that,
wherever they went, they came at last, through loops and twists of the
branchy wood, to his own door. He may have thought of his own door as
the beginning and end of the world, whence all things went, and whither
all things came.
Perhaps he did not see the lark for a long time, but he would have heard
him, far out of sight in the endless sky, thrilling and thrilling until
the world seemed to have no other sound but that clear sweetness; and
what a world it was to make that sound! Whistles and chirps, coos and
caws and croaks, would have grown familiar to him. And he could at last
have told which brother of the great brotherhood was making the noise
he heard at any moment. The wind too: he would have listened to its
thousand voices as it moved in all seasons and in all moods. Perhaps a
horse would stray into the thick screen about his home, and would look
as solemnly on Fionn as Fionn did on it. Or, coming suddenly on him,
the horse might stare, all a-cock with eyes and ears and nose, one
long-drawn facial extension, ere he turned and bounded away with
manes all over him and hoofs all under him and tails all round him. A
solemn-nosed, stern-eyed cow would amble and stamp in his wood to find a
flyless shadow; or a strayed sheep would poke its gentle muzzle through
leaves.
“A boy,” he might think, as he stared on a staring horse, “a boy cannot
wag his tail to keep the flies off,” and that lack may have saddened
him. He may have thought that a cow can snort and be dignified at
the one moment, and that timidity is comely in a sheep. He would have
scolded the jackdaw, and tried to out-whistle the throstle, and wondered
why his pipe got tired when the blackbird’s didn’t. There would be flies
to be watched, slender atoms in yellow gauze that flew, and filmy specks
that flittered, and sturdy, thick-ribbed brutes that pounced like cats
and bit like dogs and flew like lightning. He may have mourned for the
spider in bad luck who caught that fly. There would be much to see and
remember and compare, and there would be, always, his two guardians. The
flies change from second to second; one cannot tell if this bird is a
visitor or an inhabitant, and a sheep is just sister to a sheep; but the
women were as rooted as the house itself.
CHAPTER II
Were his nurses comely or harsh-looking? Fionn would not know. This was
the one who picked him up when he fell, and that was the one who patted
the bruise. This one said: “Mind you do not tumble in the well!”
And that one: “Mind the little knees among the nettles.”
But he did tumble and record that the only notable thing about a well
is that it is wet. And as for nettles, if they hit him he hit back. He
slashed into them with a stick and brought them low. There was nothing
in wells or nettles, only women dreaded them. One patronised women and
instructed them and comforted them, for they were afraid about one.
They thought that one should not climb a tree!
“Next week,” they said at last, “you may climb this one,” and “next
week” lived at the end of the world!
But the tree that was climbed was not worth while when it had been
climbed twice. There was a bigger one near by. There were trees that no
one could climb, with vast shadow on one side and vaster sunshine on
the other. It took a long time to walk round them, and you could not see
their tops.
It was pleasant to stand on a branch that swayed and sprung, and it was
good to stare at an impenetrable roof of leaves and then climb into it.
How wonderful the loneliness was up there! When he looked down there
was an undulating floor of leaves, green and green and greener to a very
blackness of greeniness; and when he looked up there were leaves
again, green and less green and not green at all, up to a very snow and
blindness of greeniness; and above and below and around there was sway
and motion, the whisper of leaf on leaf, and the eternal silence to
which one listened and at which one tried to look.
When he was six years of age his mother, beautiful, long-haired Muirne,
came to see him. She came secretly, for she feared the sons of Morna,
and she had paced through lonely places in many counties before she
reached the hut in the wood, and the cot where he lay with his fists
shut and sleep gripped in them.
He awakened to be sure. He would have one ear that would catch an
unusual voice, one eye that would open, however sleepy the other one
was. She took him in her arms and kissed him, and she sang a sleepy song
until the small boy slept again.
We may be sure that the eye that could stay open stayed open that night
as long as it could, and that the one ear listened to the sleepy song
until the song got too low to be heard, until it was too tender to be
felt vibrating along those soft arms, until Fionn was asleep again, with
a new picture in his little head and a new notion to ponder on.
The mother of himself! His own mother!
But when he awakened she was gone.
She was going back secretly, in dread of the sons of Morna, slipping
through gloomy woods, keeping away from habitations, getting by desolate
and lonely ways to her lord in Kerry.
Perhaps it was he that was afraid of the sons of Morna, and perhaps she
loved him.
CHAPTER III
THE women druids, his guardians, belonged to his father’s people.
Bovmall was Uail’s sister, and, consequently, Fionn’s aunt. Only such
a blood-tie could have bound them to the clann-Baiscne, for it is not
easy, having moved in the world of court and camp, to go hide with a
baby in a wood; and to live, as they must have lived, in terror.
What stories they would have told the child of the sons of Morna. Of
Morna himself, the huge-shouldered, stern-eyed, violent Connachtman; and
of his sons--young Goll Mor mac Morna in particular, as huge-shouldered
as his father, as fierce in the onset, but merry-eyed when the other
was grim, and bubbling with a laughter that made men forgive even his
butcheries. Of Cona’n Mael mac Morna his brother, gruff as a badger,
bearded like a boar, bald as a crow, and with a tongue that could manage
an insult where another man would not find even a stammer. His boast was
that when he saw an open door he went into it, and when he saw a closed
door he went into it. When he saw a peaceful man he insulted him, and
when he met a man who was not peaceful he insulted him. There was Garra
Duv mac Morna, and savage Art Og, who cared as little for their own
skins as they did for the next man’s, and Garra must have been rough
indeed to have earned in that clan the name of the Rough mac Morna.
There were others: wild Connachtmen all, as untameable, as unaccountable
as their own wonderful countryside.
Fionn would have heard much of them, and it is likely that he practised
on a nettle at taking the head off Goll, and that he hunted a sheep
from cover in the implacable manner he intended later on for Cona’n the
Swearer.
But it is of Uail mac Baiscne he would have heard most. With what a
dilation of spirit the ladies would have told tales of him, Fionn’s
father. How their voices would have become a chant as feat was added
to feat, glory piled on glory. The most famous of men and the most
beautiful; the hardest fighter; the easiest giver; the kingly champion;
the chief of the Fianna na h-Eirinn. Tales of how he had been way-laid
and got free; of how he had been generous and got free; of how he had
been angry and went marching with the speed of an eagle and the direct
onfall of a storm; while in front and at the sides, angled from the prow
of his terrific advance, were fleeing multitudes who did not dare to
wait and scarce had time to run. And of how at last, when the time
came to quell him, nothing less than the whole might of Ireland was
sufficient for that great downfall.
We may be sure that on these adventures Fionn was with his father, going
step for step with the long-striding hero, and heartening him mightily.
CHAPTER IV
He was given good training by the women in running and leaping and
swimming.
One of them would take a thorn switch in her hand, and Fionn would
take a thorn switch in his hand, and each would try to strike the other
running round a tree.
You had to go fast to keep away from the switch behind, and a small boy
feels a switch. Fionn would run his best to get away from that prickly
stinger, but how he would run when it was his turn to deal the strokes!
With reason too, for his nurses had suddenly grown implacable. They
pursued him with a savagery which he could not distinguish from hatred,
and they swished him well whenever they got the chance.
Fionn learned to run. After a while he could buzz around a tree like
a maddened fly, and oh, the joy, when he felt himself drawing from the
switch and gaining from behind on its bearer! How he strained and panted
to catch on that pursuing person and pursue her and get his own switch
into action.
He learned to jump by chasing hares in a bumpy field. Up went the hare
and up went Fionn, and away with the two of them, hopping and popping
across the field. If the hare turned while Fionn was after her it was
switch for Fionn; so that in a while it did not matter to Fionn which
way the hare jumped for he could jump that way too. Long-ways, sideways
or baw-ways, Fionn hopped where the hare hopped, and at last he was the
owner of a hop that any hare would give an ear for.
He was taught to swim, and it may be that his heart sank when he fronted
the lesson. The water was cold. It was deep. One could see the bottom,
leagues below, millions of miles below. A small boy might shiver as he
stared into that wink and blink and twink of brown pebbles and murder.
And these implacable women threw him in!
Perhaps he would not go in at first. He may have smiled at them, and
coaxed, and hung back. It was a leg and an arm gripped then; a swing for
Fionn, and out and away with him; plop and flop for him; down into chill
deep death for him, and up with a splutter; with a sob; with a grasp
at everything that caught nothing; with a wild flurry; with a raging
despair; with a bubble and snort as he was hauled again down, and down,
and down, and found as suddenly that he had been hauled out.
Fionn learned to swim until he could pop into the water like an otter
and slide through it like an eel.
He used to try to chase a fish the way he chased hares in the bumpy
field--but there are terrible spurts in a fish. It may be that a fish
cannot hop, but he gets there in a flash, and he isn’t there in another.
Up or down
|
the left hand
door-post, surrounding a brass model of an infant’s fist grasping a
fragment of a skewer, and displaying the word ‘Office,’ it was clear
that Mr. Ralph Nickleby did, or pretended to do, business of some kind;
and the fact, if it required any further circumstantial evidence, was
abundantly demonstrated by the diurnal attendance, between the hours of
half-past nine and five, of a sallow-faced man in rusty brown, who sat
upon an uncommonly hard stool in a species of butler’s pantry at the end
of the passage, and always had a pen behind his ear when he answered the
bell.
Although a few members of the graver professions live about Golden
Square, it is not exactly in anybody’s way to or from anywhere. It is
one of the squares that have been; a quarter of the town that has gone
down in the world, and taken to letting lodgings. Many of its first
and second floors are let, furnished, to single gentlemen; and it
takes boarders besides. It is a great resort of foreigners. The
dark-complexioned men who wear large rings, and heavy watch-guards, and
bushy whiskers, and who congregate under the Opera Colonnade, and about
the box-office in the season, between four and five in the afternoon,
when they give away the orders,--all live in Golden Square, or within a
street of it. Two or three violins and a wind instrument from the Opera
band reside within its precincts. Its boarding-houses are musical, and
the notes of pianos and harps float in the evening time round the head
of the mournful statue, the guardian genius of a little wilderness of
shrubs, in the centre of the square. On a summer’s night, windows
are thrown open, and groups of swarthy moustached men are seen by the
passer-by, lounging at the casements, and smoking fearfully. Sounds of
gruff voices practising vocal music invade the evening’s silence; and
the fumes of choice tobacco scent the air. There, snuff and cigars,
and German pipes and flutes, and violins and violoncellos, divide the
supremacy between them. It is the region of song and smoke. Street bands
are on their mettle in Golden Square; and itinerant glee-singers quaver
involuntarily as they raise their voices within its boundaries.
This would not seem a spot very well adapted to the transaction of
business; but Mr. Ralph Nickleby had lived there, notwithstanding, for
many years, and uttered no complaint on that score. He knew nobody round
about, and nobody knew him, although he enjoyed the reputation of being
immensely rich. The tradesmen held that he was a sort of lawyer, and
the other neighbours opined that he was a kind of general agent; both
of which guesses were as correct and definite as guesses about other
people’s affairs usually are, or need to be.
Mr. Ralph Nickleby sat in his private office one morning, ready dressed
to walk abroad. He wore a bottle-green spencer over a blue coat; a white
waistcoat, grey mixture pantaloons, and Wellington boots drawn over
them. The corner of a small-plaited shirt-frill struggled out, as if
insisting to show itself, from between his chin and the top button of
his spencer; and the latter garment was not made low enough to conceal
a long gold watch-chain, composed of a series of plain rings, which had
its beginning at the handle of a gold repeater in Mr. Nickleby’s pocket,
and its termination in two little keys: one belonging to the watch
itself, and the other to some patent padlock. He wore a sprinkling of
powder upon his head, as if to make himself look benevolent; but if
that were his purpose, he would perhaps have done better to powder his
countenance also, for there was something in its very wrinkles, and
in his cold restless eye, which seemed to tell of cunning that would
announce itself in spite of him. However this might be, there he was;
and as he was all alone, neither the powder, nor the wrinkles, nor the
eyes, had the smallest effect, good or bad, upon anybody just then, and
are consequently no business of ours just now.
Mr. Nickleby closed an account-book which lay on his desk, and, throwing
himself back in his chair, gazed with an air of abstraction through the
dirty window. Some London houses have a melancholy little plot of ground
behind them, usually fenced in by four high whitewashed walls, and
frowned upon by stacks of chimneys: in which there withers on, from
year to year, a crippled tree, that makes a show of putting forth a few
leaves late in autumn when other trees shed theirs, and, drooping in
the effort, lingers on, all crackled and smoke-dried, till the following
season, when it repeats the same process, and perhaps, if the weather
be particularly genial, even tempts some rheumatic sparrow to chirrup
in its branches. People sometimes call these dark yards ‘gardens’; it
is not supposed that they were ever planted, but rather that they are
pieces of unreclaimed land, with the withered vegetation of the original
brick-field. No man thinks of walking in this desolate place, or of
turning it to any account. A few hampers, half-a-dozen broken bottles,
and such-like rubbish, may be thrown there, when the tenant first moves
in, but nothing more; and there they remain until he goes away again:
the damp straw taking just as long to moulder as it thinks proper:
and mingling with the scanty box, and stunted everbrowns, and broken
flower-pots, that are scattered mournfully about--a prey to ‘blacks’ and
dirt.
It was into a place of this kind that Mr. Ralph Nickleby gazed, as he sat
with his hands in his pockets looking out of the window. He had fixed
his eyes upon a distorted fir tree, planted by some former tenant in a
tub that had once been green, and left there, years before, to rot
away piecemeal. There was nothing very inviting in the object, but Mr
Nickleby was wrapt in a brown study, and sat contemplating it with far
greater attention than, in a more conscious mood, he would have deigned
to bestow upon the rarest exotic. At length, his eyes wandered to a
little dirty window on the left, through which the face of the clerk
was dimly visible; that worthy chancing to look up, he beckoned him to
attend.
In obedience to this summons the clerk got off the high stool (to which
he had communicated a high polish by countless gettings off and on),
and presented himself in Mr. Nickleby’s room. He was a tall man of middle
age, with two goggle eyes whereof one was a fixture, a rubicund nose,
a cadaverous face, and a suit of clothes (if the term be allowable
when they suited him not at all) much the worse for wear, very much too
small, and placed upon such a short allowance of buttons that it was
marvellous how he contrived to keep them on.
‘Was that half-past twelve, Noggs?’ said Mr. Nickleby, in a sharp and
grating voice.
‘Not more than five-and-twenty minutes by the--’ Noggs was going to
add public-house clock, but recollecting himself, substituted ‘regular
time.’
‘My watch has stopped,’ said Mr. Nickleby; ‘I don’t know from what
cause.’
‘Not wound up,’ said Noggs.
‘Yes it is,’ said Mr. Nickleby.
‘Over-wound then,’ rejoined Noggs.
‘That can’t very well be,’ observed Mr. Nickleby.
‘Must be,’ said Noggs.
‘Well!’ said Mr. Nickleby, putting the repeater back in his pocket;
‘perhaps it is.’
Noggs gave a peculiar grunt, as was his custom at the end of all
disputes with his master, to imply that he (Noggs) triumphed; and (as he
rarely spoke to anybody unless somebody spoke to him) fell into a grim
silence, and rubbed his hands slowly over each other: cracking the
joints of his fingers, and squeezing them into all possible distortions.
The incessant performance of this routine on every occasion, and the
communication of a fixed and rigid look to his unaffected eye, so as to
make it uniform with the other, and to render it impossible for anybody
to determine where or at what he was looking, were two among the
numerous peculiarities of Mr. Noggs, which struck an inexperienced
observer at first sight.
‘I am going to the London Tavern this morning,’ said Mr. Nickleby.
‘Public meeting?’ inquired Noggs.
Mr. Nickleby nodded. ‘I expect a letter from the solicitor respecting
that mortgage of Ruddle’s. If it comes at all, it will be here by the
two o’clock delivery. I shall leave the city about that time and walk
to Charing Cross on the left-hand side of the way; if there are any
letters, come and meet me, and bring them with you.’
Noggs nodded; and as he nodded, there came a ring at the office bell.
The master looked up from his papers, and the clerk calmly remained in a
stationary position.
‘The bell,’ said Noggs, as though in explanation. ‘At home?’
‘Yes.’
‘To anybody?’
‘Yes.’
‘To the tax-gatherer?’
‘No! Let him call again.’
Noggs gave vent to his usual grunt, as much as to say ‘I thought so!’
and, the ring being repeated, went to the door, whence he presently
returned, ushering in, by the name of Mr. Bonney, a pale gentleman in a
violent hurry, who, with his hair standing up in great disorder all over
his head, and a very narrow white cravat tied loosely round his throat,
looked as if he had been knocked up in the night and had not dressed
himself since.
‘My dear Nickleby,’ said the gentleman, taking off a white hat which was
so full of papers that it would scarcely stick upon his head, ‘there’s
not a moment to lose; I have a cab at the door. Sir Matthew Pupker takes
the chair, and three members of Parliament are positively coming. I have
seen two of them safely out of bed. The third, who was at Crockford’s
all night, has just gone home to put a clean shirt on, and take a bottle
or two of soda water, and will certainly be with us, in time to address
the meeting. He is a little excited by last night, but never mind that;
he always speaks the stronger for it.’
‘It seems to promise pretty well,’ said Mr. Ralph Nickleby, whose
deliberate manner was strongly opposed to the vivacity of the other man
of business.
‘Pretty well!’ echoed Mr. Bonney. ‘It’s the finest idea that was ever
started. “United Metropolitan Improved Hot Muffin and Crumpet Baking
and Punctual Delivery Company. Capital, five millions, in five hundred
thousand shares of ten pounds each.” Why the very name will get the
shares up to a premium in ten days.’
‘And when they ARE at a premium,’ said Mr. Ralph Nickleby, smiling.
‘When they are, you know what to do with them as well as any man alive,
and how to back quietly out at the right time,’ said Mr. Bonney, slapping
the capitalist familiarly on the shoulder. ‘By-the-bye, what a VERY
remarkable man that clerk of yours is.’
‘Yes, poor devil!’ replied Ralph, drawing on his gloves. ‘Though Newman
Noggs kept his horses and hounds once.’
‘Ay, ay?’ said the other carelessly.
‘Yes,’ continued Ralph, ‘and not many years ago either; but he
squandered his money, invested it anyhow, borrowed at interest, and in
short made first a thorough fool of himself, and then a beggar. He took
to drinking, and had a touch of paralysis, and then came here to borrow
a pound, as in his better days I had--’
‘Done business with him,’ said Mr. Bonney with a meaning look.
‘Just so,’ replied Ralph; ‘I couldn’t lend it, you know.’
‘Oh, of course not.’
‘But as I wanted a clerk just then, to open the door and so forth, I
took him out of charity, and he has remained with me ever since. He is
a little mad, I think,’ said Mr. Nickleby, calling up a charitable look,
‘but he is useful enough, poor creature--useful enough.’
The kind-hearted gentleman omitted to add that Newman Noggs, being
utterly destitute, served him for rather less than the usual wages of a
boy of thirteen; and likewise failed to mention in his hasty chronicle,
that his eccentric taciturnity rendered him an especially valuable
person in a place where much business was done, of which it was
desirable no mention should be made out of doors. The other gentleman
was plainly impatient to be gone, however, and as they hurried into the
hackney cabriolet immediately afterwards, perhaps Mr. Nickleby forgot to
mention circumstances so unimportant.
There was a great bustle in Bishopsgate Street Within, as they drew up,
and (it being a windy day) half-a-dozen men were tacking across the road
under a press of paper, bearing gigantic announcements that a Public
Meeting would be holden at one o’clock precisely, to take into
consideration the propriety of petitioning Parliament in favour of the
United Metropolitan Improved Hot Muffin and Crumpet Baking and Punctual
Delivery Company, capital five millions, in five hundred thousand shares
of ten pounds each; which sums were duly set forth in fat black figures
of considerable size. Mr. Bonney elbowed his way briskly upstairs,
receiving in his progress many low bows from the waiters who stood on
the landings to show the way; and, followed by Mr. Nickleby, dived into a
suite of apartments behind the great public room: in the second of which
was a business-looking table, and several business-looking people.
‘Hear!’ cried a gentleman with a double chin, as Mr. Bonney presented
himself. ‘Chair, gentlemen, chair!’
The new-comers were received with universal approbation, and Mr. Bonney
bustled up to the top of the table, took off his hat, ran his fingers
through his hair, and knocked a hackney-coachman’s knock on the table
with a little hammer: whereat several gentlemen cried ‘Hear!’ and nodded
slightly to each other, as much as to say what spirited conduct that
was. Just at this moment, a waiter, feverish with agitation, tore into
the room, and throwing the door open with a crash, shouted ‘Sir Matthew
Pupker!’
The committee stood up and clapped their hands for joy, and while they
were clapping them, in came Sir Matthew Pupker, attended by two live
members of Parliament, one Irish and one Scotch, all smiling and bowing,
and looking so pleasant that it seemed a perfect marvel how any
man could have the heart to vote against them. Sir Matthew Pupker
especially, who had a little round head with a flaxen wig on the top
of it, fell into such a paroxysm of bows, that the wig threatened to
be jerked off, every instant. When these symptoms had in some degree
subsided, the gentlemen who were on speaking terms with Sir Matthew
Pupker, or the two other members, crowded round them in three little
groups, near one or other of which the gentlemen who were NOT on
speaking terms with Sir Matthew Pupker or the two other members, stood
lingering, and smiling, and rubbing their hands, in the desperate hope
of something turning up which might bring them into notice. All this
time, Sir Matthew Pupker and the two other members were relating to
their separate circles what the intentions of government were, about
taking up the bill; with a full account of what the government had said
in a whisper the last time they dined with it, and how the government
had been observed to wink when it said so; from which premises they were
at no loss to draw the conclusion, that if the government had one
object more at heart than another, that one object was the welfare and
advantage of the United Metropolitan Improved Hot Muffin and Crumpet
Baking and Punctual Delivery Company.
Meanwhile, and pending the arrangement of the proceedings, and a fair
division of the speechifying, the public in the large room were eyeing,
by turns, the empty platform, and the ladies in the Music Gallery. In
these amusements the greater portion of them had been occupied for a
couple of hours before, and as the most agreeable diversions pall upon
the taste on a too protracted enjoyment of them, the sterner spirits now
began to hammer the floor with their boot-heels, and to express their
dissatisfaction by various hoots and cries. These vocal exertions,
emanating from the people who had been there longest, naturally
proceeded from those who were nearest to the platform and furthest from
the policemen in attendance, who having no great mind to fight their way
through the crowd, but entertaining nevertheless a praiseworthy desire
to do something to quell the disturbance, immediately began to drag
forth, by the coat tails and collars, all the quiet people near the
door; at the same time dealing out various smart and tingling blows with
their truncheons, after the manner of that ingenious actor, Mr. Punch:
whose brilliant example, both in the fashion of his weapons and their
use, this branch of the executive occasionally follows.
Several very exciting skirmishes were in progress, when a loud shout
attracted the attention even of the belligerents, and then there poured
on to the platform, from a door at the side, a long line of gentlemen
with their hats off, all looking behind them, and uttering vociferous
cheers; the cause whereof was sufficiently explained when Sir Matthew
Pupker and the two other real members of Parliament came to the front,
amidst deafening shouts, and testified to each other in dumb motions
that they had never seen such a glorious sight as that, in the whole
course of their public career.
At length, and at last, the assembly left off shouting, but Sir Matthew
Pupker being voted into the chair, they underwent a relapse which lasted
five minutes. This over, Sir Matthew Pupker went on to say what must be
his feelings on that great occasion, and what must be that occasion
in the eyes of the world, and what must be the intelligence of
his fellow-countrymen before him, and what must be the wealth and
respectability of his honourable friends behind him, and lastly, what
must be the importance to the wealth, the happiness, the comfort, the
liberty, the very existence of a free and great people, of such an
Institution as the United Metropolitan Improved Hot Muffin and Crumpet
Baking and Punctual Delivery Company!
Mr. Bonney then presented himself to move the first resolution; and
having run his right hand through his hair, and planted his left, in
an easy manner, in his ribs, he consigned his hat to the care of the
gentleman with the double chin (who acted as a species of bottle-holder
to the orators generally), and said he would read to them the first
resolution--‘That this meeting views with alarm and apprehension,
the existing state of the Muffin Trade in this Metropolis and its
neighbourhood; that it considers the Muffin Boys, as at present
constituted, wholly underserving the confidence of the public; and that
it deems the whole Muffin system alike prejudicial to the health and
morals of the people, and subversive of the best interests of a great
commercial and mercantile community.’ The honourable gentleman made a
speech which drew tears from the eyes of the ladies, and awakened the
liveliest emotions in every individual present. He had visited the
houses of the poor in the various districts of London, and had found
them destitute of the slightest vestige of a muffin, which there
appeared too much reason to believe some of these indigent persons
did not taste from year’s end to year’s end. He had found that among
muffin-sellers there existed drunkenness, debauchery, and profligacy,
which he attributed to the debasing nature of their employment as at
present exercised; he had found the same vices among the poorer class of
people who ought to be muffin consumers; and this he attributed to
the despair engendered by their being placed beyond the reach of that
nutritious article, which drove them to seek a false stimulant in
intoxicating liquors. He would undertake to prove before a committee of
the House of Commons, that there existed a combination to keep up the
price of muffins, and to give the bellmen a monopoly; he would prove it
by bellmen at the bar of that House; and he would also prove, that these
men corresponded with each other by secret words and signs as ‘Snooks,’
‘Walker,’ ‘Ferguson,’ ‘Is Murphy right?’ and many others. It was
this melancholy state of things that the Company proposed to correct;
firstly, by prohibiting, under heavy penalties, all private muffin
trading of every description; secondly, by themselves supplying the
public generally, and the poor at their own homes, with muffins of first
quality at reduced prices. It was with this object that a bill had
been introduced into Parliament by their patriotic chairman Sir Matthew
Pupker; it was this bill that they had met to support; it was the
supporters of this bill who would confer undying brightness and
splendour upon England, under the name of the United Metropolitan
Improved Hot Muffin and Crumpet Baking and Punctual Delivery Company;
he would add, with a capital of Five Millions, in five hundred thousand
shares of ten pounds each.
Mr. Ralph Nickleby seconded the resolution, and another gentleman having
moved that it be amended by the insertion of the words ‘and crumpet’
after the word ‘muffin,’ whenever it occurred, it was carried
triumphantly. Only one man in the crowd cried ‘No!’ and he was promptly
taken into custody, and straightway borne off.
The second resolution, which recognised the expediency of immediately
abolishing ‘all muffin (or crumpet) sellers, all traders in muffins (or
crumpets) of whatsoever description, whether male or female, boys or
men, ringing hand-bells or otherwise,’ was moved by a grievous gentleman
of semi-clerical appearance, who went at once into such deep pathetics,
that he knocked the first speaker clean out of the course in no time.
You might have heard a pin fall--a pin! a feather--as he described
the cruelties inflicted on muffin boys by their masters, which he
very wisely urged were in themselves a sufficient reason for the
establishment of that inestimable company. It seemed that the unhappy
youths were nightly turned out into the wet streets at the most
inclement periods of the year, to wander about, in darkness and rain--or
it might be hail or snow--for hours together, without shelter, food,
or warmth; and let the public never forget upon the latter point, that
while the muffins were provided with warm clothing and blankets,
the boys were wholly unprovided for, and left to their own miserable
resources. (Shame!) The honourable gentleman related one case of a
muffin boy, who having been exposed to this inhuman and barbarous system
for no less than five years, at length fell a victim to a cold in the
head, beneath which he gradually sunk until he fell into a perspiration
and recovered; this he could vouch for, on his own authority, but he
had heard (and he had no reason to doubt the fact) of a still more
heart-rending and appalling circumstance. He had heard of the case of an
orphan muffin boy, who, having been run over by a hackney carriage, had
been removed to the hospital, had undergone the amputation of his
leg below the knee, and was now actually pursuing his occupation on
crutches. Fountain of justice, were these things to last!
This was the department of the subject that took the meeting, and this
was the style of speaking to enlist their sympathies. The men shouted;
the ladies wept into their pocket-handkerchiefs till they were moist,
and waved them till they were dry; the excitement was tremendous; and
Mr. Nickleby whispered his friend that the shares were thenceforth at a
premium of five-and-twenty per cent.
The resolution was, of course, carried with loud acclamations, every
man holding up both hands in favour of it, as he would in his enthusiasm
have held up both legs also, if he could have conveniently accomplished
it. This done, the draft of the proposed petition was read at length:
and the petition said, as all petitions DO say, that the petitioners
were very humble, and the petitioned very honourable, and the object
very virtuous; therefore (said the petition) the bill ought to be passed
into a law at once, to the everlasting honour and glory of that most
honourable and glorious Commons of England in Parliament assembled.
Then, the gentleman who had been at Crockford’s all night, and who
looked something the worse about the eyes in consequence, came forward
to tell his fellow-countrymen what a speech he meant to make in favour
of that petition whenever it should be presented, and how desperately he
meant to taunt the parliament if they rejected the bill; and to inform
them also, that he regretted his honourable friends had not inserted a
clause rendering the purchase of muffins and crumpets compulsory upon
all classes of the community, which he--opposing all half-measures,
and preferring to go the extreme animal--pledged himself to propose
and divide upon, in committee. After announcing this determination, the
honourable gentleman grew jocular; and as patent boots, lemon-coloured
kid gloves, and a fur coat collar, assist jokes materially, there
was immense laughter and much cheering, and moreover such a brilliant
display of ladies’ pocket-handkerchiefs, as threw the grievous gentleman
quite into the shade.
And when the petition had been read and was about to be adopted, there
came forward the Irish member (who was a young gentleman of ardent
temperament,) with such a speech as only an Irish member can make,
breathing the true soul and spirit of poetry, and poured forth with such
fervour, that it made one warm to look at him; in the course whereof,
he told them how he would demand the extension of that great boon to his
native country; how he would claim for her equal rights in the muffin
laws as in all other laws; and how he yet hoped to see the day when
crumpets should be toasted in her lowly cabins, and muffin bells should
ring in her rich green valleys. And, after him, came the Scotch member,
with various pleasant allusions to the probable amount of profits, which
increased the good humour that the poetry had awakened; and all the
speeches put together did exactly what they were intended to do, and
established in the hearers’ minds that there was no speculation
so promising, or at the same time so praiseworthy, as the United
Metropolitan Improved Hot Muffin and Crumpet Baking and Punctual
Delivery Company.
So, the petition in favour of the bill was agreed upon, and the meeting
adjourned with acclamations, and Mr. Nickleby and the other directors
went to the office to lunch, as they did every day at half-past one
o’clock; and to remunerate themselves for which trouble, (as the company
was yet in its infancy,) they only charged three guineas each man for
every such attendance.
CHAPTER 3
Mr. Ralph Nickleby receives Sad Tidings of his Brother, but bears up
nobly against the Intelligence communicated to him. The Reader is
informed how he liked Nicholas, who is herein introduced, and how kindly
he proposed to make his Fortune at once
Having rendered his zealous assistance towards dispatching the lunch,
with all that promptitude and energy which are among the most important
qualities that men of business can possess, Mr. Ralph Nickleby took a
cordial farewell of his fellow-speculators, and bent his steps westward
in unwonted good humour. As he passed St Paul’s he stepped aside into
a doorway to set his watch, and with his hand on the key and his eye
on the cathedral dial, was intent upon so doing, when a man suddenly
stopped before him. It was Newman Noggs.
‘Ah! Newman,’ said Mr. Nickleby, looking up as he pursued his occupation.
‘The letter about the mortgage has come, has it? I thought it would.’
‘Wrong,’ replied Newman.
‘What! and nobody called respecting it?’ inquired Mr. Nickleby, pausing.
Noggs shook his head.
‘What HAS come, then?’ inquired Mr. Nickleby.
‘I have,’ said Newman.
‘What else?’ demanded the master, sternly.
‘This,’ said Newman, drawing a sealed letter slowly from his pocket.
‘Post-mark, Strand, black wax, black border, woman’s hand, C. N. in the
corner.’
‘Black wax?’ said Mr. Nickleby, glancing at the letter. ‘I know something
of that hand, too. Newman, I shouldn’t be surprised if my brother were
dead.’
‘I don’t think you would,’ said Newman, quietly.
‘Why not, sir?’ demanded Mr. Nickleby.
‘You never are surprised,’ replied Newman, ‘that’s all.’
Mr. Nickleby snatched the letter from his assistant, and fixing a cold
look upon him, opened, read it, put it in his pocket, and having now hit
the time to a second, began winding up his watch.
‘It is as I expected, Newman,’ said Mr. Nickleby, while he was thus
engaged. ‘He IS dead. Dear me! Well, that’s sudden thing. I shouldn’t
have thought it, really.’ With these touching expressions of sorrow, Mr
Nickleby replaced his watch in his fob, and, fitting on his gloves to a
nicety, turned upon his way, and walked slowly westward with his hands
behind him.
‘Children alive?’ inquired Noggs, stepping up to him.
‘Why, that’s the very thing,’ replied Mr. Nickleby, as though his
thoughts were about them at that moment. ‘They are both alive.’
‘Both!’ repeated Newman Noggs, in a low voice.
‘And the widow, too,’ added Mr. Nickleby, ‘and all three in London,
confound them; all three here, Newman.’
Newman fell a little behind his master, and his face was curiously
twisted as by a spasm; but whether of paralysis, or grief, or inward
laughter, nobody but himself could possibly explain. The expression of
a man’s face is commonly a help to his thoughts, or glossary on his
speech; but the countenance of Newman Noggs, in his ordinary moods, was
a problem which no stretch of ingenuity could solve.
‘Go home!’ said Mr. Nickleby, after they had walked a few paces: looking
round at the clerk as if he were his dog. The words were scarcely
uttered when Newman darted across the road, slunk among the crowd, and
disappeared in an instant.
‘Reasonable, certainly!’ muttered Mr. Nickleby to himself, as he walked
on, ‘very reasonable! My brother never did anything for me, and I never
expected it; the breath is no sooner out of his body than I am to be
looked to, as the support of a great hearty woman, and a grown boy and
girl. What are they to me! I never saw them.’
Full of these, and many other reflections of a similar kind, Mr. Nickleby
made the best of his way to the Strand, and, referring to his letter as
if to ascertain the number of the house he wanted, stopped at a private
door about half-way down that crowded thoroughfare.
A miniature painter lived there, for there was a large gilt frame
screwed upon the street-door, in which were displayed, upon a black
velvet ground, two portraits of naval dress coats with faces looking
out of them, and telescopes attached; one of a young gentleman in a very
vermilion uniform, flourishing a sabre; and one of a literary character
with a high forehead, a pen and ink, six books, and a curtain. There
was, moreover, a touching representation of a young lady reading a
manuscript in an unfathomable forest, and a charming whole length of a
large-headed little boy, sitting on a stool with his legs fore-shortened
to the size of salt-spoons. Besides these works of art, there were a
great many heads of old ladies and gentlemen smirking at each other out
of blue and brown skies, and an elegantly written card of terms with an
embossed border.
Mr. Nickleby glanced at these frivolities with great contempt, and gave
a double knock, which, having been thrice repeated, was answered by a
servant girl with an uncommonly dirty face.
‘Is Mrs. Nickleby at home, girl?’ demanded Ralph sharply.
‘Her name ain’t Nickleby,’ said the girl, ‘La Creevy, you mean.’
Mr. Nickleby looked very indignant at the handmaid on being thus
corrected, and demanded with much asperity what she meant; which she
was about to state, when a female voice proceeding from a perpendicular
staircase at the end of the passage, inquired who was wanted.
‘Mrs. Nickleby,’ said Ralph.
‘It’s the second floor, Hannah,’ said the same voice; ‘what a stupid
thing you are! Is the second floor at home?’
‘Somebody went out just now, but I think it was the attic which had been
a cleaning of himself,’ replied the girl.
‘You had better see,’ said the invisible female. ‘Show the gentleman
where the bell is, and tell him he mustn’t knock double knocks for the
second floor; I can’t allow a knock except when the bell’s broke, and
then it must be two single ones.’
‘Here,’ said Ralph, walking in without more parley, ‘I beg your pardon;
is that Mrs. La what’s-her-name?’
‘Creevy--La Creevy,’ replied the voice, as a yellow headdress bobbed
over the banisters.
‘I’ll speak to you a moment, ma’am, with your leave,’ said Ralph.
The voice replied that the gentleman was to walk up; but he had walked
up before it spoke, and stepping into the first floor, was received by
the wearer of the yellow head-dress, who had a gown to correspond, and
was of much the same colour herself. Miss La Creevy was a mincing
young lady of fifty, and Miss La Creevy’s apartment was the gilt frame
downstairs on a larger scale and something dirtier.
‘Hem!’ said Miss La Creevy, coughing delicately behind her black silk
mitten. ‘A miniature, I presume. A very strongly-marked countenance for
the purpose, sir. Have you ever sat before?’
‘You mistake my purpose, I see, ma’am,’ replied Mr. Nickleby, in his
usual blunt fashion. ‘I have no money to throw away on miniatures,
ma’am, and nobody to give one to (thank God) if I had. Seeing you on the
stairs, I wanted to ask a question of you, about some lodgers here.’
Miss La Creevy coughed once more--this cough was to conceal her
disappointment--and said, ‘Oh, indeed!’
‘I infer from what you said to your servant, that the floor above
belongs to you, ma’am,’ said Mr. Nickleby.
Yes it did, Miss La Creevy replied. The upper part of the house belonged
to her, and as she had no necessity for the second-floor rooms just
then, she was in the habit of letting them. Indeed, there was a lady
from the country and her two children in them, at that present speaking.
‘A widow, ma’am?’ said Ralph.
‘Yes, she is a widow,’ replied the lady.
‘A POOR widow, ma’am,’ said Ralph, with a powerful emphasis on that
little adjective which conveys so much.
‘Well, I’m afraid she IS poor,’ rejoined Miss La Creevy.
|
day, when King Christian was to be crowned at
Copenhagen. It was, however, impossible to refuse such a request, and
on Trinity Sunday, the 11th of June, the marriage was solemnized with
due splendour. At ten o'clock a brilliant assembly met in the great
hall of the palace, which had been hung for the occasion with the
famous tapestries of the Golden Fleece, and Magnus Giœ, who represented
the King, appeared, supported by the Duke of Saxe-Lauenburg and the
Marquis of Brandenburg. Presently a flourish of trumpets announced the
bride's coming, and Charles led in his sister, a tall, slender maiden
of thirteen, robed in white, with a crown of pearls and rubies on her
fair locks. "Madame Isabeau," as Margaret wrote with motherly pride to
her father, "was certainly good to see."[13] They took their places
under a baldacchino near the altar, followed by the Regent, who led
her niece Eleanor by the hand. The Archbishop of Cambray, clad in rich
vestments of purple and gold, performed the nuptial rites, and the
Danish Ambassador placed a costly ring, bearing three gold crowns set
round with large sapphires and the motto _Ave Maria gratia plena_, on
the finger of the bride, who plighted her faith in the following words:
"Je, Isabelle d'Autriche et de Bourgogne, donne ma foi à très hautt et
très puissant Prince et Seigneur, Christierne roy de Danemarck, et à
toy Magnus Giœ, son vrai et léal procureur, et je le prens par toy en
époux et mari légitime."[14]
Then the Mass of the Holy Ghost was chanted, the Spanish Ambassador
being seated at the Archduke's side, and the others according to their
rank, all but the English Envoy, who refused to be present owing to
a dispute as to precedence. Afterwards the guests were entertained by
the Regent at a banquet, followed by a tournament and a state ball,
which was kept up far into the night. Finally all the chief personages
present escorted the bride with lighted torches to her chamber, and
Magnus Giœ, in full armour, lay down on the nuptial bed at her side
in the presence of this august company. Then, rising to his feet, he
made a deep obeisance to the young Queen and retired. During the next
three days a succession of jousts and banquets took place, and on the
Feast of Corpus Christi a public reception was held in the palace, at
which the bride appeared wearing the ring of the three kingdoms and
a jewelled necklace sent her by King Christian. Unfortunately, the
Archduke danced so vigorously on the night of the wedding that this
unwonted exertion brought on a sharp attack of fever.
"Monseigneur," wrote his aunt to the Emperor, "fulfilled all his
duties to perfection, and showed himself so good a brother that he
overtaxed his strength, and fell ill the day after the wedding. Not,"
she hastened to add, "that his sickness is in any way serious, but that
the slightest ailment in a Prince of his condition is apt to make one
anxious."[15]
[Sidenote: AUG., 1515] EVIL OMENS]
On the 4th of July the Danish Ambassadors took their leave, but
Isabella remained in her home for another year. She and Eleanor shared
in the fêtes which celebrated the Archduke's coming of age, and were
present at his _Joyeuse Entrêe_ into Brussels. But in the midst of
these festivities the Danish fleet, with the Archbishop of Drondtheim
on board, arrived at Veeren in Zeeland, and on the 16th of July, 1515,
the poor young Queen took leave of her family with bitter tears, and
sailed for Copenhagen. On the day of Isabella's christening, fourteen
years before, the ceremony had been marred by a terrific thunderstorm,
and now the same ill-luck attended her wedding journey. A violent
tempest scattered the Danish fleet off the shores of Jutland, and the
vessel which bore the Queen narrowly escaped shipwreck. When at length
she had landed safely at Helsingfors, she wrote a touching little
letter to the Regent:
"MADAME, MY AUNT AND GOOD MOTHER,
"I must tell you that we landed here last Saturday, after
having been in great peril and distress at sea for the last ten
days. But God kept me from harm, for which I am very thankful.
Next Thursday we start for Copenhagen, which is a day's journey
from here. I have been rather ill, and feel weak still, but
hope soon to be well. Madame, if I could choose for myself I
should be with you now; for to be parted from you is the most
grievous thing in the world to me, and the more so as I do not
know when there is any hope of seeing you again. So I can only
beg you, my dearest aunt and mother, to keep me in your heart,
and tell me if there is anything that you wish me to do, and
you shall always be obeyed, God helping me. That He may give
you a long and happy life is the prayer of your humble and
dutiful niece
"ISABEAU.[16]
"August 7, 1515."
Two days later Isabella continued her journey to Hvidore, the royal
country-house near Copenhagen. There she was received by King
Christian, who rode at her side, a splendid figure in gold brocade and
shining armour, when on the following day she made her state entry into
the capital in torrents of rain. On the 12th of August the wedding was
celebrated in the great hall of the ancient castle, which had been
rebuilt by King Christian's father, and was followed by the coronation
of the young Queen. But Isabella was so much exhausted by the fatigue
which she had undergone, that before the conclusion of the ceremony she
fell fainting into the arms of her ladies. Her illness threw a gloom
over the wedding festivities, and seemed a forecast of the misfortunes
that were to darken the course of her married life and turn her story
into a grim tragedy.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] L. Gachard, "Voyages des Souverains des Pays-Bas." i. 455.
[2] "Bulletins de la Commission Royale d'Histoire," 2^{ième} série, v.
113-119. Jehan Le Maire, "Les Funéraux de Feu Don Philippe."
[3] E. Le Glay, "Correspondance de l'Empereur Maximilien I. et de
Marguerite d'Autriche," i. 203.
[4] Le Glay, i. 393.
[5] Le Glay, i. 241.
[6] Calendar of State Papers, Henry VIII., i. 369.
[7] Le Glay, i. 165.
[8] Le Glay, i. 281, 399-441.
[9] Le Glay, ii. 205.
[10] H. Ulmann, "Kaiser Maximilian," ii. 484, 498.
[11] Le Glay, ii. 252; A. Henne, "Histoire du Règne de Charles V.," i.
96.
[12] Le Glay, ii. 383.
[13] Le Glay, ii. 256.
[14] J. Altmeyer, "Isabelle d'Autriche," 53.
[15] Le Glay, ii. 257.
[16] Altmeyer, "Isabelle d'Autriche," 43.
BOOK II
CHRISTIAN II., KING OF DENMARK, THE FATHER OF CHRISTINA
1513-1523
I.
Christian II., King of Denmark, Sweden, and Norway, as the proud title
ran, was in many respects a remarkable man. His life and character
have been the subject of much controversy. Some historians have held
him up to admiration as a patriot and martyr who suffered for his
love of freedom and justice. Others have condemned him as a cruel and
vindictive tyrant, whose crimes deserved the hard fate which befell
him. Both verdicts are justified in the main. On the one hand, he was
an able and enlightened ruler, who protected the liberties of his
poorer subjects, encouraged trade and learning, and introduced many
salutary reforms. On the other, he was a man of violent passions,
crafty and unscrupulous in his dealings, cruel and bloodthirsty in
avenging wrongs. His career naturally invites comparison with that
of Lodovico Sforza, whose son became the husband of his daughter
Christina. Both Princes were men of great ability and splendid dreams.
In their zeal for the promotion of commerce and agriculture, in their
love of art and letters, both were in advance of the age in which
they lived. Again, their vices and crimes, the cunning ways and
unscrupulous measures by which they sought to attain their ends, were
curiously the same. No doubt Christian II., born and bred as he was
among the rude Norsemen, belonged to a coarser strain than the cultured
Duke of Milan, and is hardly to be judged by the same standard. But
the two Princes resembled each other closely, and the fate which
eventually overtook them was practically the same. Both of these able
and distinguished men lost their States in the prime of life, and were
doomed to end their days in captivity. This cruel doom has atoned in
a great measure for their guilt in the eyes of posterity, and even in
their lifetime their hard fate aroused general compassion.
[Sidenote: JAN., 1516] THE KING'S DOVE]
Certainly no one could have foreseen the dismal fate which lay in store
for Christian II. when he ascended the throne. Seldom has a new reign
opened with fairer promise. His father, good King Hans, died in 1513,
lamented by all his subjects, and leaving his successor a prosperous
and united kingdom. Christian was thirty-two, and had already shown
his courage and ability in quelling a revolt in Norway. A man of noble
and commanding presence, with blue eyes and long fair hair, he seemed
a born leader of men, while his keen intelligence, genial manners,
and human interest in those about him, early won the affection of his
subjects. Unfortunately his own passions proved his worst enemies. In
Norway he had fallen in love with a beautiful girl named Dyveke--the
Dove--whose mother, a designing Dutchwoman named Sigebritt Willems,
kept a tavern at Bergen. On his accession he brought Dyveke and her
mother to Hvidore, and gave them a house in the neighbourhood. This
illicit connection excited great scandal at Court, and the Chancellor,
Archbishop Walkendorf of Drondtheim, exhorted the King earnestly to put
away his mistress on his marriage. Even before Isabella left Brussels,
the Archbishop wrote glowing accounts of her beauty and goodness to
his master, and told the King of the romantic attachment which she
cherished for her unknown lord. After her arrival at Copenhagen he did
his utmost to insure her comfort, and see that she was treated with
proper respect.
For a time Christian seems to have been genuinely in love with his
young wife, whose innocent charm won all hearts in her new home. In
his anxiety to please her, he furnished his ancestral castle anew,
and sent to Germany for musicians, fearing that the rude voices
of Danish singers might sound harsh in her ears. A young Fleming,
Cornelius Scepperus, was appointed to be his private secretary, and
the Fuggers of Antwerp were invited to found a bank at Copenhagen. At
the same time twenty-four Dutch families, from Waterland in Holland,
were brought over in Danish ships, and induced to settle on the
island of Amager, opposite the capital, in order that the royal table
might be supplied with butter and cheese made in the Dutch fashion.
This colony, imported by Christian II., grew and flourished, and to
this day their descendants occupy Amager, where peasant women clad
in the national costume of short woollen skirts, blue caps, and red
ribbons, are still to be seen. Unfortunately, the influence which
Sigebritt and her daughter had acquired over the King was too strong
to be resisted. Before long they returned to Court, and, to the
indignation of Isabella's servants, Sigebritt was appointed Mistress
of her household. Rumours of the slights to which the young Queen was
exposed soon reached the Netherlands, and when Maximilian informed
Margaret that he intended to marry her niece Eleanor to the King
of Poland, she replied with some asperity that she could only hope
the marriage would turn out better than that of her unhappy sister.
The Emperor expressed much surprise at these words, saying that he
considered his granddaughter to be very well married, since the King
of Denmark was a monarch of the proudest lineage, and endowed with
noble manners and rare gifts, if his people were still somewhat rude
and barbarous.[17] But, in spite of Maximilian's protests, the reports
of King Christian's misconduct soon became too persistent to be
ignored. When, in October, 1516, Charles, who had assumed the title
of King of Spain on his grandfather Ferdinand's death, held his first
Chapter of the Golden Fleece, the Knights with one accord refused to
admit the King of Denmark to their Order, because he was accused of
adultery and ill-treated his wife.[18] At length Maximilian was moved
to take action, and wrote to his grandson Charles in sufficiently plain
language, saying:
[Sidenote: 1513-23] ELEANOR'S ROMANCE]
"The shameful life which our brother and son-in-law, the King
of Denmark, is leading with a concubine, to the great sorrow
and vexation of his wife, our daughter and your sister, is
condemned by all his relatives; and in order to constrain him
to abandon this disorderly way of living, and be a better
husband to our said daughter, we are sending Messire Sigismund
Herbesteiner to remonstrate with him, and have begged Duke
Frederic of Saxony, his uncle, who arranged the marriage, to
send one of his servants on the same errand. And we desire
you to send one of your chief councillors to help carry out
our orders, and induce the King to put away his concubine and
behave in a more reasonable and honourable manner."[19]
But none of these remonstrances produced any effect on the misguided
King. When Herbesteiner reproached him with sacrificing the laws of
God and honour and the Emperor's friendship to a low-born woman, he
shook his fist in the imperial Envoy's face, and bade him begone from
his presence.[20] At the same time he showed his resentment in a more
dangerous way by making a treaty with France and closing the Sound to
Dutch ships. He even seized several trading vessels on pretence that
the Queen's dowry had not been paid, and when Archbishop Walkendorf
ventured to expostulate with him on his misconduct, banished the
prelate from Court.[21]
Meanwhile Isabella herself bore neglect and insults with the same
uncomplaining sweetness. But we see how much she suffered from a
private letter which she wrote to her sister Eleanor about this time.
This attractive Princess, who at the age of eighteen still remained
unmarried, had fallen in love with her brother's brilliant friend,
Frederic, Count Palatine, the most accomplished knight at Court, and
the idol of all the ladies. The mutual attachment between the Palatine
and the Archduchess was the talk of the whole Court, and met with
Margaret's private approval, although it was kept a secret from Charles
and his Ministers. Eleanor confided this romantic story to her absent
sister, and expressed a secret hope that the popular Count Palatine
might succeed her aunt as Regent when the young King left Brussels for
Spain. In reply Isabella sent Eleanor the warmest congratulations on
her intended marriage, rejoicing that her sister at least would not be
forced to leave home, and would be united to a husband whom she really
loved. The poor young Queen proceeded to lament her own sad fate in the
following strain:
"It is hard enough to marry a man whose face you have never
seen, whom you do not know or love, and worse still to be
required to leave home and kindred, and follow a stranger to
the ends of the earth, without even being able to speak his
language."[22]
[Sidenote: 1513-23] A LOVE-LETTER]
She goes on to describe the misery of her life, even though she bears
the title of Queen. What is she, in fact, but a prisoner in a foreign
land? She is never allowed to go out or appear in public, while her
lord the King spends his time in royal progresses and hunting-parties,
and amuses himself after his fashion, apart from her. Far better would
it be for Eleanor to follow her own inclination, and choose a husband
who belongs to her own country and speaks her language, even if he were
not of kingly rank. Unfortunately, the pretty romance which excited
Isabella's sympathy was doomed to an untimely end. The death of Mary
of Castille, Queen of Portugal, in May, 1517, left King Emanuel a
widower for the second time. He had married two of Charles's aunts in
turn, and was now over fifty, and a hunchback into the bargain. None
the less, the plan of a marriage between him and his niece Eleanor
was now revived, and in August these proposals reached the young King
at the seaport of Middelburg, where he and his sister were awaiting
a favourable wind to set sail for Spain. Filled with alarm, Frederic
implored Eleanor to take a bold step, confess her love to Charles,
and seek his consent to her marriage with his old friend. In a letter
signed with his name, and still preserved in the Archives of Simancas,
the Palatine begged his love to lose no time if she would escape from
the snare laid for them both by "the Uncle of Portugal."
"Ma mignonne," he wrote, "si vous voulez, vous pouvez être la
cause de mon bien ou de mon mal. C'est pourquoi je vous supplie
d'avoir bon courage pour vous et pour moi. Cela peut se faire
si vous voulez. Car je suis prêt, et ne demande autre chose,
sinon que je sois à vous, et vous à moi."[23]
Accordingly, on the Feast of the Assumption Eleanor approached her
brother after hearing Mass in the abbey chapel. But while she was
gathering all her courage to speak, Charles caught sight of the
Palatine's letter in her bosom, and, snatching it from his sister's
hands, broke into furious reproaches, swearing that he would avenge
this insult with the traitor's blood. As Spinelli, the English Envoy,
remarked, "The letter was but honest, concerning matters of love and
marriage,"[24] but the young King would listen to no excuses, and, in
spite of the Regent's intervention, Frederic was banished from Court
in disgrace. A fortnight later Charles and his sister sailed for
Castille, and in the following summer Madame Leonore became the bride
of "l'Oncle de Portugal," King Emanuel.
II.
The death of Christian II.'s mistress, Dyveke, in the summer of 1517
produced a change in the situation at Copenhagen. This unfortunate
girl, a victim of her ambitious mother's designs, died very suddenly
one afternoon after eating cherries in the royal gardens. The King's
suspicions fell on his steward, Torben Axe, who was brutally put to
death in spite of his protestations of innocence. But the Queen's
position was distinctly improved. Christian now treated his wife with
marked kindness, and appointed her Regent when, early in the following
year, he went to Sweden to put down a rising of the nobles. Sigebritt
Willems's influence, however, still remained paramount, and, in a
letter to the Queen from Sweden, Christian begged her to consult the
Dutchwoman in any difficulty, and ended by wishing her and "Mother
Sigebritt" a thousand good-nights. Stranger still to relate, when, on
the 21st of February, Isabella gave birth to a son, the infant Prince
was entrusted to Sigebritt's care.
[Sidenote: 1513-23] BIRTH OF PRINCES]
This happy event, combined with Isabella's unfailing affection for
her wayward lord, led to improved relations between Christian and his
wife's family. After the death of Maximilian, Charles became anxious
to secure his brother-in-law's support in the imperial election, and
in February, 1519, a treaty was concluded between the two monarchs at
Brussels.[25] The Danish Envoys, Anton de Metz and Hermann Willems,
Sigebritt's brother, received rich presents from Margaret, who was
once more acting as Regent of the Netherlands, and she even sent a
silver-gilt cup to the hated Dutchwoman herself.[26] A month later the
King of Denmark was elected Knight of the Golden Fleece at a Chapter of
the Order held at Barcelona, and in a letter which Charles addressed to
him he expressed his pleasure at hearing good accounts of his sister
and little nephew, and promised to pay the arrears of Isabella's dowry
as soon as possible.[27]
On the 28th of June, 1519, Charles was elected King of the Romans, and
the formal announcement of his election was brought to Barcelona by
Eleanor's rejected suitor, the Palatine Frederic, whom he received with
open arms. A few days after this auspicious event the Queen of Denmark,
on the 4th of July, 1519, gave birth to twin sons, who received the
names of Philip and Maximilian. Both, however, died within a week of
their baptism, upon which Sigebritt is said to have remarked that this
was a good thing, since Denmark was too small a realm to support so
many Princes.
With the help of Dutch ships and gold, Christian succeeded in subduing
the Swedish rebels, and was crowned with great solemnity in the
Cathedral of Upsala on the 4th of November, 1520. But the rejoicings
on this occasion were marred by the execution of ninety Swedish nobles
and two Bishops, who were treacherously put to death by the King's
orders. This act, which earned for Christian the title of the Nero
of the North, is said to have been instigated by Sigebritt and her
nephew Slagbök, a Westphalian barber, who had been raised from this low
estate to be Archbishop of Lunden. The insolent conduct of these evil
counsellors naturally increased the King's unpopularity in all parts of
the kingdom. Yet at the same time Christian II. showed himself to be an
excellent and enlightened ruler. He administered justice strictly, and
introduced many salutary reforms.
[Sidenote: 1513-23] BIRTH OF DOROTHEA]
The common practice of buying and selling serfs was prohibited,
Burgomasters and Town Councils were appointed to carry out the laws,
and a system of tolls and customs was established. Schools and
hospitals were founded, inns were opened in every town and village
for the convenience of travellers, piracy and brigandage were sternly
repressed. An Act was passed ordering that all cargoes recovered from
wrecks were to be placed in the nearest church, and, if not claimed by
the end of the year, divided between the Crown and the Church. When the
Bishops complained of the loss thus inflicted on them, the King told
them to go home and learn the Eighth Commandment. Still greater was
the opposition aroused when he attempted to reform clerical abuses.
Early in life Christian showed strong leanings towards the doctrines of
Luther, and on his return from Sweden he asked his uncle, the Elector
of Saxony, to send him a Lutheran preacher from Wittenberg. Although
these efforts at proselytizing met with little success, the King openly
professed his sympathy with the new Gospel. He had the Bible translated
into Danish, bade the Bishops dismiss their vast households, issued
edicts allowing priests to marry, and ordered the begging friars to
stay at home and earn their bread by honest labour.[28]
All these reforms could not be effected without vigorous opposition,
and the discontent among the nobles and clergy became every day more
active. In the spring of 1521 a young Swedish noble, Gustavus Wasa,
raised the standard of revolt in Dalecarlia, and led his peasant bands
against Stockholm. Upon this Christian decided to pay a visit to the
Low Countries to meet the new Emperor, who was coming to be crowned at
Aix-la-Chapelle, and seek his help against the citizens of Lübeck and
the Swedish rebels. The government was once more placed in the hands
of Isabella. A few months before this, on the 10th of November, 1520,
while Christian was absent in Sweden, the Queen had given birth to a
daughter, named Dorothea after the King's grandmother, the able and
ambitious Princess of Brandenburg, who married two Kings of Denmark
in succession. Now she followed her husband with wistful thoughts as
he started on his journey, attended only by his Chamberlain, Anton de
Metz, and three servants, and rode all the way to her old home in the
Netherlands.
On the 20th of June nine Danish ships sailed into the port of Antwerp,
and a few days afterwards Christian II. rode into the town. His fine
presence and the courage which he had shown in riding through Germany
with this small escort excited general admiration.
"I noted," wrote Albert Dürer in his Journal, "how much the
people of Antwerp marvelled at the sight of this manly and
handsome Prince, who had come hither through his enemies'
country, with these few attendants."[29]
[Sidenote: 1513-23] KING CHRISTIAN AT BRUSSELS]
The Nuremberg master had been spending the winter in the Low
Countries, paying his respects to the Regent at Malines, and conversing
with Erasmus of Rotterdam and Lucas van Leyden. He was starting on his
journey home, when, on the Feast of the Visitation, he was sent for
by the King of Denmark, who received him very graciously, and asked
him to dine at his table and to take his portrait. So great was the
interest which Christian showed in the painter's work, that Dürer gave
him a fine set of his prints, which are still preserved in the museum
at Copenhagen, and accepted an invitation to accompany him to Brussels
the next day. Thus Albert Dürer was a witness of the meeting between
Christian and his brother-in-law Charles V., who had just arrived
from his coronation at Aix-la-Chapelle, and had been received with
great rejoicing by his subjects. At five that summer evening Charles
rode out from Brussels at the head of a brilliant cavalcade, and met
his royal brother-in-law in a meadow, where they embraced each other
and conversed with the help of an interpreter, Christian speaking in
German, and Charles in French. They entered Brussels after sunset, and
found the streets hung with tapestries and lighted with innumerable
torches and bonfires. The Emperor escorted Christian to the Count of
Nassau's palace on the top of the hill, which Dürer describes as the
finest house that he had ever seen. The next morning Charles brought
his guest to the palace gates, where the Regent and Germaine de Foix,
King Ferdinand's widow, were awaiting them, and for the first time
Margaret came face to face with her niece's husband. Christian kissed
the two ladies in French fashion, and after dinner the two Princes
spent the evening dancing with the Court ladies.
"Now," wrote the Venetian Ambassador, Gaspare Contarini,
"at two hours after dark, they are still dancing, for young
monarchs such as these are not easily tired."[30]
The impression which the Danish King made on the learned Italian was
very favourable. He describes him as a fine-looking Prince, with an
earnest, animated expression, long locks, and a beard curled after
the Italian fashion. In his black satin doublet, Spanish cloak, and
jewelled cap, he looked every inch a King. On the Sunday after his
arrival Christian entertained the Emperor, the Lady Margaret, and
the Queen-Dowager of Spain, at dinner. Albert Dürer was present on
this occasion, and was afterwards employed to paint a portrait of the
King in oils, for which Christian gave him thirty florins, an act of
liberality which contrasted favourably with Margaret's parsimony. "The
Lady Margaret in particular," remarks the painter in his Journal, "gave
me nothing for what I made and presented to her." Another personage in
whose society the King took pleasure was Erasmus, who discussed the
reform of the Church with him, and was much struck by the monarch's
enlightened opinions. On the 12th of July Christian accompanied his
brother-in-law to Antwerp, to lay the foundations of the new choir of
Our Lady's Church, and went on to Ghent, where he paid formal homage
for the duchy of Holstein, and was confirmed in his rights over the
Hanse towns, but could not persuade Charles to join him in making war
on the friendly citizens of Lübeck. At Ghent the King sent for the
English Ambassador, Sir Robert Wingfield, with whom he had a long
and friendly conversation, expressing great anxiety to meet King
Henry VIII. In reply, Wingfield told him that he would soon have the
opportunity of seeing the English monarch's powerful Minister, Cardinal
Wolsey, to whom he could speak as frankly as to the King himself.[31]
Accordingly, on the 5th of August Christian accompanied Charles and
Margaret to the Prinzenhof at Bruges, where Wolsey joined them a week
later. The regal state of the English Cardinal formed a striking
contrast to the King's simplicity. He arrived with a train of over
a thousand followers, clad in red satin, and twenty English nobles,
wearing gold chains, walked at his horse's side. On Sunday he rode to
Mass with the Emperor, and dined with Charles and Margaret, "praising
the delicate and sumptuous manner" in which he was entertained. When
the King of Denmark sent to ask him to come to his lodgings, the
Cardinal demurred, saying that, as he represented His Majesty of
England, the King must be the first to visit him, but that if Christian
preferred he would meet him in the palace garden. Christian, however,
waived ceremony, and called on Wolsey the next morning. The interview
was a very friendly one. Christian expressed his anxiety to enter into
a close alliance with England, and begged King Henry to be a good uncle
to his young kinsman, James V. of Scotland. Wolsey on his part was much
impressed by the King's good sense and peaceable intentions.
[Sidenote: 1513-23] REVOLT IN DENMARK]
"Surely, Sir," he wrote to his royal master, "the King of
Denmark, though in appearance he should be judged to be a
rash man, yet he is right wise, sober, and discreet, minding
the establishing of good peace betwixt Christian Princes,
wherein he right substantially declared his mind to me at good
length."[32]
[Illustration: CHRISTIAN II., KING OF DENMARK
_To face p. 30_]
But the next day the King sent the Cardinal word that he had received
such bad news from his own country that he must return without delay.
He actually left Bruges that day, and was escorted to the city gates
by the Papal Nuncio Caracciolo and Contarini, who took leave of the
King, and returned to dine with Erasmus and his English friend, _Messer
Toma Moro_.[33] Unfortunately, Christian's visit to the Low Countries
produced no good result, and there was some justification for the
Imperial Chancellor's cynical remark: "It would have been better to
keep the King here, where he can do no harm, than to let him go home
to make fresh mischief."[34] He left Bruges dissatisfied with the
Emperor, and on reaching Copenhagen his first act was to dismiss the
Queen's confessor, Mansueri. When the Emperor begged him to leave his
sister free in matters of conscience, he broke into a passionate fit of
rage, tore the Golden Fleece from his neck, and trampled it underfoot,
cursing his meddlesome brother-in-law. What was worse, he seized
several Dutch ships in the Sound, and drew upon himself the serious
displeasure of the Regent and her Council.
Meanwhile Gustavus Wasa had laid siege to Stockholm, and there was a
rising in Jutland. A Papal Legate arrived at Copenhagen to inquire into
the judicial murder of the Swedish Bishops and demand the punishment
of Slagbök. The unfortunate Archbishop was made a scapegoat, and put
to death in January, 1522. Stones were thrown at Sigebritt when she
drove out in the royal carriage, and one day she was thrown into a pond
by some peasants, and only rescued with difficulty. Even Christian
began to realize the danger of the situation, and wrote to Isabella
from Jutland, begging her to "bid Mother Sigebritt hold her tongue,
and not set foot outside the castle, if she wished him to return home
alive." In another letter, written on the 4th of February, 1522, from
the Convent of Dalin, the King congratulates his wife on her safe
deliverance, and the birth of "a marvellously handsome child."[35]
This is the only intimation we have of the birth of Isabella's second
daughter, Christina. The exact date is not to be found in the Danish
archives, and has hitherto eluded all research. The child who saw the
light in these troubled times received the name of Christina from her
grandmother, the Queen-Dowager of Denmark, a Princess of Saxon birth,
who still resided at King Hans's favourite palace of Odensee. All we
know of Queen Christina is that, on the 2nd of April, 1515, two years
after her husband's death, she addressed an urgent prayer to King Henry
VIII., begging him to send her a relic of St. Thomas of Canterbury.[36]
We are not told if a phial containing a drop of the saint's blood was
sent to Denmark in response to this entreaty, but the request is of
interest as a proof of the English martyr's widespread renown.
A few weeks after the birth of her little daughter Isabella wrote a
touching appeal to her aunt, imploring the Regent's help against the
Danish rebels:
[Sidenote: 1513-23] CHRISTIAN II. DEPOSED]
"We have sad news from my lord in Jutland. The nobles there
have rebelled against him, and seek to deprive him and our
children of their crown and their lives. So we entreat you to
come to our help, that we may chastise these rebels."[37]
Anton de Metz was sent to Brussels on the same errand, but could obtain
small hopes of assistance. The Regent's Council complained that King
Christian had damaged the trade of the Low Countries and ill-treated
their sailors, and the temper of the Court was reflected in Sir Robert
Wingfield's despatches to England.
"The Easterlings," remarked the Ambassador, "handle the King
of Denmark roughly, and his own people are said to have killed
the Woman of Holland, who was mother to his Dove, as the King's
mistress was called, whereby it appeareth that ill life and
like governance often cometh to a bad end."[38]
King Christian's affairs, as Wingfield truly said, were in an evil
plight. In June Stockholm surrendered to Gustavus Wasa, and the
citizens of Lübeck sent a fleet to burn Helsingfors and threaten
Copenhagen.
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